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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Me-Smith', by Caroline Lockhart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'Me-Smith'
+
+Author: Caroline Lockhart
+
+Illustrator: Gayle Hoskins
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #27438]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'ME-SMITH' ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES--THAT LOOK AS IF YOU HADN'T
+NOTHIN' TO HIDE--IS IT TRUE?" Page 59]
+
+
+
+
+"ME-SMITH"
+
+BY
+
+CAROLINE LOCKHART
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+GAYLE HOSKINS
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1911
+By J. B. Lippincott Company
+
+Published February 15, 1911
+Second printing, February 25, 1911
+Third printing, March 5, 1911
+Fourth printing, March 20, 1911
+Fifth Printing, June 5, 1911
+Sixth Printing, July 1, 1911
+Seventh Printing, August 17, 1911
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+     I.  "Me--Smith"                                 11
+    II.  On the Alkali Hill                          18
+   III.  The Empty Chair                             29
+    IV.  A Swap in Saddle Blankets                   48
+     V.  Smith Makes Medicine with the Schoolmarm    58
+    VI.  The Great Secret                            79
+   VII.  Cupid "Wings" a Deputy Sheriff              95
+  VIII.  The Bug-hunter Elucidates                  110
+    IX.  Speaking Of Grasshoppers----               123
+     X.  Mother Love and Savage Passion Conflict    130
+    XI.  The Best Horse                             142
+   XII.  Smith Gets "Hunks"                         156
+  XIII.  Susie's Indian Blood                       162
+   XIV.  The Slayer of Mastodons                    169
+    XV.  Where a Man Gets a Thirst                  190
+   XVI.  Tinhorn Frank Smells Money                 205
+  XVII.  Susie Humbles Herself to Smith             213
+ XVIII.  A Bad "Hombre"                             228
+   XIX.  When The Clouds Played Wolf                240
+    XX.  The Love Medicine of the Sioux             248
+   XXI.  The Murderer of White Antelope             272
+  XXII.  A Mongolian Cupid                          293
+ XXIII.  In Their Own Way                           303
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                         PAGE
+
+"That Look in Your Eyes--That Look as if You
+Hadn't Nothin' to Hide--is it True?"             Frontispiece
+
+"She's a Game Kid, All Right," Said Smith
+to Himself at the Top of the Hill.                         22
+
+It Meant Death--but it was Wet!--it was Water!            196
+
+Smith Reached for the Trailing Rope and They
+Were Gone!                                                284
+
+They Quirted Their Horses at Breakneck Speed
+In the Direction of the Bad Lands.                        308
+
+
+
+
+"ME--SMITH"
+
+I
+
+"ME--SMITH"
+
+
+A man on a tired gray horse reined in where a dim cattle-trail dropped
+into a gulch, and looked behind him. Nothing was in sight. He half closed
+his eyes and searched the horizon. No, there was nothing--just the same
+old sand and sage-brush, hills, more sand and sage-brush, and then to the
+west and north the spur of the Rockies, whose jagged peaks were white with
+a fresh fall of snow. The wind was chill. He shivered, and looked to the
+eastward. For the last few hours he had felt snow in the air, and now he
+could see it in the dim, gray mist--still far off, but creeping toward
+him.
+
+For the thousandth time, he wondered where he was. He knew vaguely that he
+was "over the line"--that Montana was behind him--but he was riding an
+unfamiliar range, and the peaks and hills which are the guide-boards of
+the West meant nothing to him. So far as he knew, he was the only human
+being within a hundred miles. His lips drew back in a half-grin and
+exposed a row of upper teeth unusually white and slightly protruding. He
+was thinking of the meeting with the last person to whom he had spoken
+within twenty-four hours. He closed one eye and looked up at the sun. Yes,
+it was just about the same time yesterday that a dude from the English
+ranch, a dude in knee breeches and shiny-topped riding boots, had galloped
+confidently toward him. He had dismounted and pretended to be cinching his
+saddle. When the dude was close enough Smith had thrown down on him with
+his gun.
+
+"Feller," he had said, "I guess I'll have to trade horses with you. And
+fall off quick, for I'm in kind of a hurry."
+
+The grin widened as he thought of the dude's surprised eyes and the dude's
+face as he dropped out of the saddle without a word. Smith had stood his
+victim with his hands above his head while he pulled the saddle from his
+horse and threw it upon his own. The dude rode a saddle with a double
+cinch, and the fact had awakened in the Westerner a kind of interest. He
+had even felt a certain friendliness for the man he was robbing.
+
+"Feller," he had asked, "do you come from the Maņana country?"
+
+"From Chepstow, Monmouth County, Wales," the dude had replied, in a
+shaking voice.
+
+"Where did you get that double-rigged saddle, then?"
+
+"Texas."
+
+The answer had pleased Smith.
+
+"You ain't losin' none on this deal," he had then volunteered. "This horse
+that you just traded for is a looker when he is rested, and he can run
+like hell. You can go your pile on him. Just burn out that lazy S brand
+and run on your own. You can hold him easy, then. I like a feller that
+rides a double-rigged saddle in a single-rigged country. S'long, and keep
+your hands up till I'm out of range."
+
+"Thank you," the dude had replied feebly.
+
+When Smith had ridden for a half a mile he had turned to look behind him.
+The dude was still standing with his hands high above his head.
+
+"I wonder if he's there yet?" The man on horseback grinned.
+
+He reached in the pocket of his mackinaw coat and took out a handful of
+sugar.
+
+"You can travel longer on it nor anything," he muttered.
+
+He congratulated himself that he had filled his pocket from the
+booze-clerk's sugar-bowl before the mix came. The act was characteristic
+of him, as was the forethought which had sent him to the door to pick the
+best saddle-horse at the hitching-post, before the lead began to fly.
+
+The man suddenly realized that the mist in the east was denser, and
+spreading. He jabbed the spurs into his horse and sent the jaded animal
+sliding on its fetlocks down the steep and rocky trail that led into the
+dry bed of a creek which in the spring flowed bank high. In the bottom he
+pulled his horse to its haunches and leaned from his saddle to look at a
+foot-print in a little patch of smooth sand no larger than his two hands.
+The print had been made by a moccasined foot, and recently; otherwise the
+wind would have wiped it out.
+
+He threw his leg over the cantle of the saddle and stepped softly to the
+ground. Dropping the reins, he looked up and down the gulch. Then he drew
+his rifle from the scabbard and began to hunt for more tracks. As he
+searched, his movements were no longer those of a white man. His
+pantomime, stealthy, cautious, was the pantomime of the Indian. He crept
+up the gulch to a point where it turned sharply. His stealth became the
+stealth of the coyote. In spite of the leather soles and exaggerated high
+heels of the boots he wore his movements were absolutely noiseless.
+
+An Indian of middle age, in blue overalls, moccasins, a limp felt hat
+coming far down over his braided hair, a gaily striped blanket drawn about
+his shoulders, stood in an attitude of listening, carelessly holding a
+cheap, single-barrelled shotgun. He had heard the horse sliding down the
+trail and was waiting for it to appear on the bench above.
+
+The stranger took in the details of the Indian's costume, but his eye
+rested longest upon the gay blanket. He might need a blanket with that
+snow in the air. It looked like a good blanket. It seemed to be thick and
+was undoubtedly warm.
+
+The Indian saw him the instant he rose from his hiding-place behind a huge
+sage-brush. Startled, the red man instinctively half raised his gun. The
+stranger gave the sign of attention, then, touching his breast and lifting
+his hand slightly, told him in the sign language used by all tribes that
+"his heart was right"--he was a friend.
+
+The Indian hesitated and lowered his gun, but did not advance. The
+stranger then asked him where he would find the nearest house, and whether
+it was that of a white or a red man. In swift pantomime, the Indian told
+him that the nearest house was the home of a "full-blood," a woman, a fat
+woman, who lived five miles to the southeast, in a log cabin, on running
+water.
+
+Before he turned to go, the stranger again touched his breast and raised
+his hand above his heart to reiterate his friendship. He took a half-dozen
+steps, then whirled on his heel. As he did so, he brought his rifle on a
+line with the Indian's back, which was toward him. Simultaneously with the
+report, the Indian fell on his back on the side of the gulch. He drew up
+his leg, and the stranger, thinking he had raised it for a gun-rest,
+riddled him with bullets.
+
+The white man's bright blue eyes gleamed; the pupils were like pin-points.
+The grin which disclosed his protruding teeth was like the snarl of a dog
+before it snaps. The expression of the man's face was that of animal
+ferocity, pure and simple. He edged up cautiously, but there was no
+further movement from the Indian. He had been dead when he fell. The white
+man gave a short laugh when he realized that the raising of the leg had
+been only a muscular contraction. To save the blanket from the blood which
+was soiling it, he tore it from the limp, unresisting shoulders, and
+rubbed it in the dirt to obliterate the stain. He cursed when he saw that
+a bullet had torn in it two jagged, tell-tale holes.
+
+He glanced at the Indian's moccasins, then, stooping, ripped one off. He
+examined it with interest. It was a Cree moccasin. The Indian was far from
+home. He examined the centre seam: yes, it was sewed with deer-sinew.
+
+"The Crees can tan to beat the world," he muttered, "but I hates the shape
+of the Cree moccasin. The Piegans make better." He tossed it from him
+contemptuously and picked up the shotgun.
+
+"No good." He threw it down and straightened the Indian's head with the
+toe of his boot. "I despises to lie cramped up, myself."
+
+Returning to his horse, he removed his saddle, and folded the Indian's
+blanket inside of his own. Then he recinched his saddle, and turned his
+horse's head to the southeast, where "the full-blood--the woman, the fat
+woman--lived in a log cabin by running water."
+
+He glanced over his shoulder as he spurred his horse to a gallop.
+
+"I'm a killer, me--Smith," he said, and grinned.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ON THE ALKALI HILL
+
+
+There was at least an hour and a half of daylight left when Smith struck a
+wagon-road. He looked each way doubtfully. The woman's house was quite as
+likely to be to the right as to the left; there was no way of telling.
+While he hesitated, his horse lifted its ears. Smith also thought he heard
+voices. Swinging his horse to the right, he rode to the edge of the bench
+where the road made a steep and sudden drop.
+
+At the bottom of the hill he saw a driver on the spring-seat of a round-up
+wagon urging two lean-necked and narrow-chested horses up the hill. They
+were smooth-shod, and, the weight of the wagon being out of all proportion
+to their strength, they fell often in their futile struggles. At the side
+of the road near the top of the hill the water oozed from an alkali
+spring, which kept the road perpetually muddy. The horses were straining
+every nerve and muscle, their eyes bulging and nostrils distended, and
+still the driver, loudmouthed and vacuously profane, lashed them
+mercilessly with the stinging thongs of his leather whip. Smith, from the
+top of the hill, watched him with a sneer on his face.
+
+"He drives like a Missourian," he muttered.
+
+He could have helped the troubled driver, knowing perfectly well what to
+do, but it would have entailed an effort which he did not care to make. It
+was nothing to him whether the round-up wagon got up the hill that
+night--or never.
+
+Smith thought the driver was alone until he began to back the team to rush
+the hill once more. Then he heard angry exclamations coming from the rear
+of the wagon--exclamations which sounded not unlike the buzzing of an
+enraged bumble-bee. He stretched his neck and saw that which suggested an
+overgrown hoop-snake rolling down the hill. At the bottom a little
+mud-coated man stood up. The part of his face that was visible above his
+beard was pale with anger. His brown eyes gleamed behind mud-splashed
+spectacles.
+
+"Oscar Tubbs," he demanded, "why did you not tell me that you were about
+to back the wagon?"
+
+"I would have did it if I had knowed myself that the team were goin' to
+back," replied Tubbs, in the conciliatory tone of one who addresses the
+man who pays him his wages.
+
+The man in spectacles groaned. "Three inexcusable errors in one sentence.
+Oscar Tubbs, you are hopeless!"
+
+"Yep," replied that person resignedly; "nobody never could learn me
+nothin'. Onct I knowed----"
+
+"Stop! We have no time for a reminiscence. Have you any reason to believe
+that we can get up this hill to-night?"
+
+"No chanst of it. These buzzard-heads has drawed every poun' they kin
+pull. But I has some reason to believe that if you don't hist your hoofs
+out'n that mud-hole, you'll bog down. You're up to your pant-leg now. Onct
+I knowed----"
+
+The little man threw out his hand in a restraining gesture, and Tubbs,
+foiled again, closed his lips and watched his employer stand back on one
+leg while he pulled the other out of the mud with a long, sucking sound.
+
+"What for an outfit is that, anyhow?" mused Smith, watching the
+proceedings with some interest. "He looks like one of them bug-hunters.
+He's got a pair of shoulders on him like a drink of water, and his legs
+look like the runnin'-gears of a katydid."
+
+So intently were they all engaged in watching the man's struggles that no
+one observed a girl on a galloping horse until she was almost upon them.
+She sat her sturdy, spirited pony like a cowboy. She was about sixteen,
+with a suggestion of boyishness in her appearance. Her brown hair, worn in
+a single braid, was bleached to a lighter shade on top, as if she rode
+always with bared head. Her eyes were gray, in curious contrast to a tawny
+skin. She was slight to scrawniness, and, one might have thought,
+insufficiently clad for the time of year.
+
+"Bogged down, pardner?" she inquired in a friendly voice, as she rode up
+behind and drew rein. "I've been in that soap-hole myself. Here, ketch to
+my pommel, and I'll snake you out."
+
+Smiling dubiously he gripped the pommel. The pony had sunk to its knees,
+and as it leaped to free itself the little man's legs fairly snapped in
+the air.
+
+"I thank you, Miss," he said, removing his plaid travelling cap as he
+dropped on solid ground. "That was really quite an adventure."
+
+"This mud is like grease," said the girl.
+
+"Onct I knowed some mud----" began the driver, but the little man,
+ignoring him, said:
+
+"We are in a dilemma, Miss. Our horses seem unable to pull our wagon up
+the hill. Night is almost upon us, and our next camping spot is several
+miles beyond."
+
+"This is the worst grade in the country," replied the girl. "A team that
+can haul a load up here can go anywhere. What's the matter with that
+fellow up there? Why don't he help?"--pointing to Smith.
+
+"He has made no offer of assistance."
+
+"He must be some Scissor-Bill from Missouri. They all act like that when
+they first come out."
+
+"Onct some Missourians I knowed----"
+
+"Oscar Tubbs, if you attempt to relate another reminiscence while in my
+employ, I shall make a deduction from your wages. I warn you--I warn you
+in the presence of this witness. My overwrought nerves can endure no more.
+Between your inexpiable English and your inopportune reminiscences, I am a
+nervous wreck!" The little man's voice ended on high C.
+
+"All right, Doc, suit yourself," replied Tubbs, temporarily subdued.
+
+"And in Heaven's name, I entreat, I implore, do not call me 'Doc'!"
+
+"Sorry I spoke, Cap."
+
+The little man threw up both hands in exasperation.
+
+"Say, Mister," said the girl curtly to Tubbs, "if you'll take that hundred
+and seventy pounds of yourn off the wagon and get some rocks and block the
+wheels, I guess my cayuse can help some." As she spoke, she began
+uncoiling the rawhide riata which was tied to her saddle.
+
+"I appreciate the kindness of your intentions, Miss, but I cannot permit
+you to put yourself in peril." The little man was watching her
+preparations with troubled eyes.
+
+"No peril at all. It's easy. Croppy can pull like the devil. Wait till you
+see him lay down on the rope. That yap up there at the top of the hill
+could have done this for you long ago. Here, Windy"--addressing
+Tubbs--"tie this rope to the X, and make a knot that will hold."
+
+[Illustration: "SHE'S A GAME KID, ALL RIGHT," SAID SMITH TO HIMSELF AT
+THE TOP OF THE HILL.]
+
+The girl's words and manner inspired confidence. Interest and relief were
+in the face of the little man standing at the side of the road.
+
+"Now, Windy, hand me the rope. I'll take three turns around my
+saddle-horn, and when I say 'go' you see that your team get down in their
+collars."
+
+"She's a game kid, all right," said Smith to himself at the top of the
+hill.
+
+When the sorrel pony at the head of the team felt the rope grow taut on
+the saddle-horn, it lay down to its work. The grit and muscle of a dozen
+horses seemed concentrated in the little cayuse. It pulled until every
+vein and cord in its body appeared to stand out beneath its skin. It lay
+down on the rope until its chest almost touched the ground. There was a
+look of determination that was almost human in its bright, excited eyes as
+it strained and struggled on the slippery hillside with no word of urging
+from the girl. She was standing in one stirrup, one hand on the cantle,
+the other on the pommel, watching everything with keen eyes. She issued
+orders to Tubbs like a general, telling him when to block the wheels, when
+to urge the exhausted team to greater efforts, when to relax. Nothing
+escaped her. She and the little sorrel knew their work. As the man at the
+roadside watched the gallant little brute struggle, literally inch by
+inch, up the terrible grade he felt himself choking with excitement and
+making inarticulate sounds. At last the rear wheels of the wagon lurched
+over the hill and stood on level ground, while the horses, with spreading
+legs and heaving sides, gasped for breath.
+
+"Awful tired, ain't you, Mister?" the girl asked dryly, of the stranger on
+horseback, as she recoiled her rope with supple wrist and tied it again to
+the saddle by the buckskin thongs.
+
+"Plumb worn to a frazzle," Smith replied with cool impudence, as he looked
+her over in much the same manner as he would have eyed a heifer on the
+range. "I was whipped for working when I was a boy, and I've always
+remembered."
+
+"It must be quite a ride--from the brush back there in Missouri where you
+was drug up."
+
+"I ranges on the Sundown slope," he replied shortly.
+
+"They have sheep-camps over there, then?"
+
+Again the slurring insinuation pricked him.
+
+"Oh, I can twist a rope and ride a horse fast enough to keep warm."
+
+"So?"--the inflection was tantalizing. "Was that horse gentled for your
+grandmother?"
+
+He eyed her angrily, but checked the reply on his tongue.
+
+"Say, girl, can you tell me where I can find that fat Injun woman's tepee
+who lives around here?"
+
+"You mean my mother?"
+
+He looked at her with new interest.
+
+"Does she live in a log cabin on a crick?"
+
+"She did about an hour ago."
+
+"Is your mother a widder?"
+
+"Lookin' for widders?"
+
+"I likes widders. It happens frequent that widders are sociable
+inclined--especially if they are hard up," he added insolently.
+
+"Oh, you're ridin' the grub-line?" Her insolence equalled his own.
+
+"Not yet;" and he took from his pocket a thick roll of banknotes.
+
+"Blood money? Some sheep-herder's month's pay, I guess."
+
+"You're a good guesser."
+
+"Not very--you're easy."
+
+The girl's dislike for Smith was as unreasoning and violent as was her
+liking for the excitable little man whom she had helped up the hill, and
+whose wagon was now rumbling close at her horse's heels.
+
+They all travelled together in silence until, after a mile and a half on
+the flat, the road sloped gradually toward a creek shadowed by willows. On
+the opposite side of the creek were a ranch-house, stables, and corrals,
+the extent of which brought a glint of surprise to Smith's eyes.
+
+"That's where the widder lives who might be sociable inclined if she was
+hard up," said the girl, with a sneer which made Smith's fingers itch to
+choke her. "Couldn't coax you to stop, could I?"
+
+"I aims to stay," Smith replied coolly.
+
+"Sure--it won't cost you nothin'."
+
+The girl waited for the wagon, and, with a change of manner in marked
+contrast to her impudent attitude toward Smith, invited the little man to
+spend the night at the ranch.
+
+"We should not be intruders?" he asked doubtfully.
+
+"You won't feel lonesome," she answered with a laugh. "We keep a kind of
+free hotel."
+
+"Colonel, I cakalate we better lay over here," broke in Tubbs.
+
+His employer winced at this new title, but nodded assent; so they all
+forded the shallow stream and entered the dooryard together.
+
+"Mother!" called the girl.
+
+One of the heavy plank doors of the long log-house opened, and a short
+woman, large-hipped, full-busted--in appearance a typical blanket
+squaw--stood in the doorway. Her thick hair was braided Indian fashion,
+her fingers adorned with many rings. The wide girdle about her waist was
+studded with brass nail-heads, while gaily-beaded moccasins covered her
+short, broad feet. Her eyes were soft and luminous, like an animal's when
+it is content; but there was savage passion too in their dark depths.
+
+"This is my mother," said the girl briefly. "I am Susie MacDonald."
+
+"My name is Peter McArthur, madam."
+
+The little man concealed his surprise as best he could, and bowed.
+
+The girl, quick to note his puzzled expression, explained laconically:
+
+"I'm a breed. My father was a white man. You're on the reservation when
+you cross the crick."
+
+Recovering himself, the stranger said politely:
+
+"Ah, MacDonald--that good Scotch name is a very familiar one to me. I had
+an uncle----"
+
+"I go show dem where to turn de horses," interrupted the Indian woman, to
+whom the conversation was uninteresting. So, without ceremony, she padded
+away in her moccasins, drawing her blanket squaw-fashion across her face
+as she waddled down the path.
+
+At the mission the woman had obtained the rudiments of an education.
+There, too, she had learned to cut and make a dress, after a crude,
+laborious fashion, and had acquired the ways of the white people's
+housekeeping. She was noted for the acumen which she displayed in
+disposing of the crop from her extensive hay-ranch to the neighboring
+white cattlemen; and MacDonald, the big, silent Scotch MacDonald who had
+come down from the north country and married her before the reservation
+priest, was given the credit for having instilled into her some of his own
+shrewdness and thrift.
+
+In the corral the Indian woman came upon Smith. He turned his head slowly
+and looked at her. For a second, two, three seconds, or more, they looked
+into each other's eyes. His gaze was confident, masterful, compelling;
+hers was wondering, until finally she dropped her eyes in the submissive,
+modest, half-shy way of Indian women.
+
+Smith moistened his short upper lip with the tip of his tongue, while the
+shadow of a smile lurked at the corner of his mouth. He turned to his
+saddle, again, and without speaking, she watched him until he had gone
+into the barn. His saddle lay on the ground, half covering his blankets.
+Something in this heap caught the woman's eyes and held them. Swooping
+forward, she caught a protruding corner between her thumb and finger and
+pulled a gay, striped blanket from the rest. Lifting it to her nose, she
+smelled it. Smith saw the act as he came out of the door, but there was
+neither consternation nor fear in his face. Smith knew Indian women.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE EMPTY CHAIR
+
+
+Peter McArthur came into the big living-room of the ranch-house bearing
+tenderly in his arms a long brown sack. He set it upon a chair, and, as he
+patted it affectionately, he said to the Indian woman in explanation:
+
+"These are some specimens which I have been fortunate enough to find in a
+limestone formation in the country through which we have just passed. No
+doubt you will be amused, madam, but the wealth of Croesus could not buy
+from me the contents of this canvas sack."
+
+"I broke a horse for that son-of-a-gun onct. He owes me a dollar and six
+bits for the job yet," remarked Tubbs.
+
+The fire of enthusiasm died in McArthur's eyes as they rested upon his
+man.
+
+"What for a prospect do you aim to open up in a limestone formation?"
+
+Smith, tipped on the rear legs of his chair, with his head resting
+comfortably against the unbleached muslin sheeting which lined the walls,
+winked at Tubbs as he asked the question.
+
+"'What for a prospect'?" repeated McArthur.
+
+"Yes, 'prospect'--that's what I said. You say you've got your war-bag full
+of spec'mens."
+
+McArthur laughed heartily.
+
+"Ah, my dear sir, I understand. You are referring to mines--to mineral
+specimens. These are the specimens of which I am speaking."
+
+Opening the sack, McArthur held up for inspection what looked to be a lump
+of dried mud.
+
+"This is a magnificent specimen of the crustacean period," he declared.
+
+The Indian woman looked from the prized object to his animated face; then,
+with puzzled eyes, she looked at Smith, who touched his forehead with his
+finger, making a spiral, upward gesture which in the sign language says
+"crazy."
+
+The woman promptly gathered up the rag rug she was braiding and moved to a
+bench in the farthermost corner of the room.
+
+"I can get you a wagon-load of chunks like that."
+
+"Oh, my dear sir----"
+
+"Smith's my name."
+
+"But, Mr. Smith----"
+
+"I trusts no man that 'Misters' me," Smith scowled. "Every time I've ever
+been beat in a deal, it's been by some feller that's called me 'Mister.'
+Jest Smith suits me better."
+
+"Certainly, if you prefer," amicably replied McArthur, although
+unenlightened by the explanation.
+
+He replaced his specimen and tied the sack, convinced that it would be
+useless to explain to this person that fossils like this were not found
+by the wagon-load; that perhaps in the entire world there was not one in
+which the branchiocardiac grooves were so clearly defined, in which the
+emostigite and the ambulatory legs were so perfectly preserved.
+
+He seemed a singular person, this Smith. McArthur was not sure that he
+fancied him.
+
+"Say, Guv'ner, what business do you follow, anyhow?" Tubbs asked the
+question in the tone of one who really wanted to get at the bottom of a
+matter which had troubled him. "Air you a bug-hunter by trade, or what?
+I've hauled you around fer more'n a month now, and ain't figgered it out
+what you're after. We've dug up ant-hills and busted open most of the
+rocks between here and the North Fork of Powder River, but I've never seen
+you git anything yet that anybuddy'd want."
+
+In the beginning of their tour, Tubbs's questions and caustic comment
+would have given McArthur offense, but a longer acquaintance had taught
+him that none was intended; that his words were merely those of a man
+entirely without knowledge upon any subject save those which had come
+under his direct observation. While Tubbs frequently exasperated him
+beyond expression, he found at the same time a certain fascination in the
+man's incredible ignorance. In many respects his mind was like that of a
+child, and his horizon as narrow as McArthur's own, though his companion
+did not suspect it. The little scientist saw life from the viewpoint of a
+small college and a New England village; Tubbs knew only the sage-brush
+plains.
+
+McArthur now replied dryly, but without irritation:
+
+"My real trade--'job,' if you prefer--is anthropology. Strictly speaking,
+I might, I think, be called an anthropologist."
+
+"Gawd, feller!" ejaculated Smith in mock dismay. "Don't tip your hand like
+that. I'm a killer myself, but I plays a lone game. I opens up to no man
+or woman livin'."
+
+Tubbs looked slightly ashamed of his employer.
+
+"Pardon me?"
+
+"I say, never give nobody the cinch on you. Many a good man's tongue has
+hung him."
+
+McArthur studied Smith's unsmiling face in perplexity, not at all sure
+that he was not in earnest.
+
+They sat in silence after this, even Tubbs being too hungry to indulge in
+reminiscence.
+
+The odor of frying steak filled the room, and the warmth from the round
+sheet-iron stove gave Smith, in particular, a delicious sense of comfort.
+He felt as a cat on a comfortable cushion must feel after days and nights
+of prowling for food and shelter. The other two men, occupied with their
+own thoughts, closed their eyes; but not so Smith. Nothing, to the
+smallest detail, escaped him. He appraised everything with as perfect an
+appreciation of its value as an auctioneer.
+
+Through the dining-room door which opened into the kitchen, he could see
+the kitchen range--a big one--the largest made for private houses. Smith
+liked that. He liked things on a big scale. Besides, it denoted
+generosity, and he had come to regard a woman's kitchen as an index to her
+character. He distinctly approved of the big meat-platter upon which the
+Chinese cook was piling steak. He eyed the mongrel dog lying at the Indian
+woman's feet, and noted that its sides were distended with food. He was
+prejudiced against, suspicious of, a woman who kept lean dogs.
+
+In the same impersonal way in which he eyed her belongings, he looked at
+the woman who owned it all. She was far too stout to please his taste, but
+he liked her square shoulders and the thickness of them; also her hair,
+which was long for an Indian woman's. She was too short in the body. He
+wondered if she rode. He had a peculiar aversion for women short in the
+body who rode on horseback. This woman could love--all Indian women can do
+that, as Smith well knew--love to the end, faithfully, like dogs.
+
+In the general analysis of his surroundings, Smith looked at Tubbs, openly
+sneering as he eyed him. He was like a sheep-dog that never had been
+trained. And McArthur? Innocent as a yearling calf, and honest as some
+sky-pilots.
+
+"Glub's piled!" yelled the cook from the kitchen door. "Come an' git it."
+
+Tubbs all but fell off his chair.
+
+At the back door the cook hammered on a huge iron triangle with a poker,
+in response to which sound a motley half-dozen men filed from a nearby
+bunk-house at a gait very nearly resembling a trot.
+
+The long dining-table was covered with a red table-cloth, and at each end
+piles of bread and fried steak rose like monuments. At each place there
+was a platter, and beside it a steel knife, a fork, and a tin spoon.
+
+The bunk-house crowd wasted no time in ceremony. Poising their forks above
+the meat-platter in a candid search for the most desirable piece, they
+alternately stabbed chunks of steak and bread.
+
+Their platters once loaded with a generous sample of all the food in
+sight, they fell upon it with unconcealed relish. Eating, McArthur
+observed, was a business; there was no time for the amenities of social
+intercourse until the first pangs of hunger were appeased. The Chinese
+cook, too, interested him as he watched him shuffling over the hewn plank
+floor in his straw sandals. A very different type, this swaggering
+Celestial, from the furtive-eyed Chinamen of the east. His tightly coiled
+cue was as smooth and shining as a king-snake, his loose blouse was
+immaculate, and the flippant voice in which he demanded in each person's
+ear, "Coffee? Milk?" was like a challenge. Whatever the individual's
+choice might be, he got it in a torrent in his stone-china cup.
+
+There was no attempt at conversation, and only the clatter and rattle of
+knives, forks, and dishes was heard until a laugh from an adjoining room
+broke the silence--a laugh that was mirthless, shrill, and horrible.
+
+McArthur sent a startled glance of inquiry about the table. The laugh was
+repeated, and the sound was even more wild and maniacal. The little man
+was shocked at the grin which he noted upon each face.
+
+"She ought to take a feather and ile her voice," observed a guest known as
+"Meeteetse Ed."
+
+McArthur could not resist saying indignantly:
+
+"The unfortunate are to be pitied, my dear sir."
+
+"This is jest a mild spasm she's havin' now. You ought to hear her when
+she's warmed up."
+
+McArthur was about to administer a sharper rebuke when the door opened and
+Susie came out.
+
+"How's that for a screech?" she demanded triumphantly.
+
+"You'd sure make a bunch of coyotes take fer home," Meeteetse Ed replied
+flatteringly.
+
+"You have come in my way not once or twice, but thrice; and now you die!
+Ha! Ha!" Reaching for a spoon, Susie stabbed Meeteetse Ed on the second
+china button of his flannel shirt.
+
+"I'd rather die than have you laff in my ear like that," declared
+Meeteetse.
+
+"Next time I'm goin' to learn a comical piece."
+
+"Any of 'em's comical enough," replied a husky voice from the far end of
+the table. "I broke somethin' inside of me laffin' at that one about your
+dyin' child."
+
+"I don't care," Susie answered, unabashed by criticism. "Teacher says I've
+got quite a strain of pathos in me."
+
+"You ought to do somethin' for it," suggested a new voice. "Why don't you
+bile up some Oregon grape-root? That'll take most anything out of your
+blood."
+
+"Or go to Warm Springs and get your head examined." This voice was
+Smith's.
+
+"Could they help _you_ any?" The girl's eyes narrowed and there was
+nothing of the previous good-natured banter in her shrill tones.
+
+Smith flushed under the shout of mocking laughter which followed. He tried
+to join in it, but the glitter of his blue eyes betrayed his anger.
+
+The incident sobered the table-full, and silence fell once more, until
+McArthur, feeling that an effort toward conversation was a duty he owed
+his hostess, cleared his throat and inquired pleasantly:
+
+"Have any fragments ever been found in that red formation which I observed
+to the left of us, which would indicate that this vicinity was once the
+home of the mammoth dinosaur?"
+
+Too late he realized that the question was ill-advised. As might be
+expected, it was Tubbs who broke the awkward silence.
+
+"Didn't look to me, as I rid along, that it ever were the home of
+anybuddy. A homestid's no good if you can't git water on it."
+
+McArthur hesitated, then explained: "The dinosaur was a prehistoric
+reptile," adding modestly, "I once had the pleasure of helping to restore
+an armored dinosaur."
+
+"If ever I gits a rope on one of them things, I'll box him up and ship him
+on to you," said Tubbs generously. Then he inquired as an afterthought:
+"Would he snap or chaw me up a-tall?"
+
+"What's a prehysteric reptile?" interrupted Susie.
+
+"This particular reptile was a big snake, with feet, that lived here when
+this country was a marsh," McArthur explained simply, for Susie's
+benefit.
+
+The guests exchanged incredulous glances, but it was Meeteetse Ed who
+laughed explosively and said:
+
+"Why, Mister, they ain't been a sixteenth of an inch of standin' water on
+this hull reserve in twenty year."
+
+"Better haul in your horns, feller, when you're talkin' to a real prairie
+man." Smith's contemptuous tone nettled McArthur, but Susie retorted for
+him.
+
+"Feller," mocked Susie, "looks like you're mixed. You mean when he's
+talkin' to a Yellow-back. No real prairie man packs a chip on his shoulder
+all the time. That buttermilk you was raised on back there in Missoury has
+soured you some."
+
+Again an angry flush betrayed Smith's feeling.
+
+"A Yellow-back," Susie explained with gusto in response to McArthur's
+puzzled look, "is one of these ducks that reads books with
+buckskin-colored covers, until he gets to thinkin' that he's a Bad Man
+himself. This here country is all tunnelled over with the graves of
+Yellow-backs what couldn't make their bluffs stick; fellers that just knew
+enough to start rows and couldn't see 'em through."
+
+"Generally," said Smith evenly, as he stared unblinkingly into Susie's
+eyes, "when I starts rows, I sees 'em through."
+
+"And any time," Susie answered, staring back at him, "that you start a row
+on _this_ ranch, you've _got_ to see it through."
+
+The grub-liners raised their eyes in surprise, for there was unmistakable
+ill-feeling in her voice. It was unlike her, this antagonistic attitude
+toward a stranger, for, as they all knew, her hospitality was unlimited,
+and every passer-by whose horse fed at the big hayrack was regarded and
+treated as a welcome friend.
+
+There was rarely malice behind the sharp personalities which she flung at
+random about the table. Knowing no social distinctions, Susie was no
+respecter of persons. She chaffed and flouted the man who wintered a
+thousand head of cattle with the same impartiality with which she gibed
+his blushing cowpuncher. Her good-nature was a byword, as were her
+generosity and boyish daring. Susie MacDonald was a local celebrity in her
+way, and on the big hay-ranch her lightest word was law.
+
+But the mere presence of this new-comer seemed to fill her with
+resentment, making of her an irrepressible young shrew who gloated openly
+in his angry confusion.
+
+"Speakin' of Yellow-backs," said Meeteetse, with the candid intent of
+being tactful, "reminds me of a song a pardner of mine wrote up about 'em
+once. Comical? _T'--t'--t'--!_" He wagged his head as if he had no words
+in which to describe its incomparable humor. "He had another song that was
+a reg'lar tear-starter: 'Whar the Silver Colorady Wends Its Way.' Ever
+hear it? It's about a feller that buried his wife by the silver Colorady,
+and turned outlaw. This pardner of mine used to beller every time he sung
+it. He cried like he was a Mormon, and he hadn't no more wife than a jack
+rabbit."
+
+"Some songs is touchin'," agreed Arkansaw Red.
+
+"This was," declared Meeteetse. "How she faded day by day, till a pale,
+white corp' she lay! If I hadn't got this cold on me----"
+
+"I hate to see you sufferin', Meeteetse, but if it keeps you from
+warblin'----"
+
+He ignored Susie's implication, and went on serenely:
+
+"Looks like it's settled on me for life, and it all comes of tryin' not to
+be a hog."
+
+"I hope it'll be a lesson to you," said Susie soberly.
+
+"That there Bar C cowpuncher, Babe, comes over the other night, and, the
+bunk-house bein' full, I offers him half my blankets. I never put in such
+a night since I froze to death on South Pass. For fair, I'd ruther sleep
+with a two-year-ole steer--couldn't kick no worse than that Babe. Why them
+blankets was in the air more'n half the time, with him pullin' his way,
+and me snatchin' of 'em back. Finally I gits a corner of a soogan in my
+teeth, and that way I manages a little sleep. I vows I'd ruther be a hog
+and git a night's rest than take in such a turrible bed-feller as him."
+
+Apropos of the restless Babe, one James Padden observed: "They say he's
+licked more'n half the Bar C outfit."
+
+"Lick 'em!" exclaimed Meeteetse, with enthusiasm. "Why, he could eat 'em!
+He jest tapped me an easy one and nigh busted my jaw. If he ever reely
+hit you with that fist of his'n, it ud sink in up to the elbow. I ast him
+once: 'Babe,' I says, 'how big are you anyhow?' 'Big?' he says surprised.
+'I ain't big. I'm the runt of the family. Pa was thirty-two inches between
+the eyes, and they fed him with a shovel.'"
+
+Susie giggled at some thought, and then inquired:
+
+"Did anybody ever see that horse he's huntin'? He says it's a two-year-old
+filly that he thinks the world of. It's brown, with a star in its
+forehead, and one hip is knocked down. He never hunts anywhere except on
+that road past the school-house, and he stops at the pump each way--goin'
+and comin'. I never saw anybody with such a thirst. He looks in the window
+while he's drinkin', and swallows a gallon of water at a time, and don't
+know it."
+
+"Love is a turrible disease." Tubbs spoke with the emphasis of conviction.
+"It's worse'n lump-jaw er blackleg. It's dum nigh as bad as glanders. It's
+ketchin', too, and I holds that anybody that's got it bad ought to be
+dipped and quarantined. I knowed a feller over in Judith Basin what
+suffered agonies with it for two months, then shot hisself. There was
+seven of 'em tyin' their horses to the same Schoolmarm's hitchin'-post."
+
+"Take a long-geared Schoolmarm in a woolly Tam-o'-shanter, and she's a
+reg'lar storm-centre," vouchsafed the husky voice of "Banjo" Johnson.
+
+"They is! They is!" declared Meeteetse, with more feeling than the
+occasion seemed to warrant.
+
+The knob of a door adjoining the dining-room turned, and the grub-liners
+straightened in their chairs. Susie's eyes danced with mischief as she
+leaned toward Meeteetse and asked innocently:
+
+"They is _what_?"
+
+But with the opening of the door the voluble Meeteetse seemed to be
+stricken dumb.
+
+As a young woman came out, Smith stared, and instinctively McArthur half
+rose from his chair. Believing his employer contemplated flight, Tubbs
+laid a restraining hand upon his coat-tail, while inadvertently he turned
+his knife in his mouth with painful results.
+
+The young woman who seated herself in one of the two unoccupied chairs was
+not of the far West. Her complexion alone testified to this fact, for the
+fineness and whiteness of it were conspicuous in a country where the
+winter's wind and burning suns of summer tan the skins of men and women
+alike until they resemble leather in color and in texture. Had this young
+woman possessed no other good feature, her markedly fine complexion alone
+would have saved her from plainness. But her thick brown hair, glossy, and
+growing prettily about her temples, was equally attractive to the men who
+had been used to seeing only the straight, black hair of the Indian women,
+and Susie's sun-bleached pigtail, which, as Meeteetse took frequent
+occasion to remind her, looked like a hair-cinch. Her eyes, set rather too
+far apart for beauty, were round, with pupils which dilated until they all
+but covered the blue iris; the eyes of an emotional nature, an imaginative
+mind. Her other features, though delicate, were not exceptional, but the
+_tout ensemble_ was such that her looks would have been considered above
+the average even in a country where pretty girls were plentiful. In her
+present surroundings, and by contrast with the womenfolk about her, she
+was regarded as the most beautiful of her sex. Her manner, reserved to the
+point of stiffness, and paralyzing, as it did, the glibbest masculine
+tongue among them, was also looked upon as the acme of perfection and all
+that was desirable in young ladyhood; each individual humbly admitting
+that while he never before had met a real lady, he knew one when he saw
+her.
+
+The young woman returned McArthur's bow with a friendly smile, his action
+having at once placed him as being "different." Noting the fact, the
+grub-liners resolved not to be outdone in future in a mere matter of
+bows.
+
+While nearly every arm was outstretched with an offer of food, Susie
+leaned forward and whispered ostentatiously behind her hand to Smith:
+
+"Don't you make any cracks. That's the Schoolmarm."
+
+"I've been around the world some," Smith replied curtly.
+
+"The south side of Billings ain't the world."
+
+It was only a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town
+save by hearsay, but it made a bull's-eye. Susie knew it by the startled
+look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled her as
+she snickered.
+
+"Mister McArthur and Mister Tubbs, I'll make you acquainted with Miss
+Marshall."
+
+With elaborate formality of tone and manner, Susie pointed at each
+individual with her fork while mentioning them by name.
+
+"Miss Marshall," McArthur murmured, again half rising.
+
+"Much obliged to meet you," said Tubbs heartily as, bowing in imitation of
+his employer, he caught the edge of his plate on the band of his trousers
+and upset it.
+
+Everybody stopped eating during this important ceremony, and now all
+looked at Smith to see what form his acknowledgment of the coveted
+introduction to the Schoolmarm would take.
+
+Smith in turn looked expectantly at Susie, who met his eyes with a mocking
+grin.
+
+"Anything I can reach for you, Mister Smith?" she inquired. "Looks like
+you're waitin' for something."
+
+Smith's face and the red table-cloth were much the same shade as he
+looked annihilation at the little half-breed imp.
+
+Each time that Dora Marshall raised her eyes, they met those of Smith.
+There was nothing of impertinence in his stare; it was more of awe--a kind
+of fascinated wonder--and she found herself speculating as to who and what
+he was. He was not a regular "grub-liner," she was sure of that, for he
+was as different in his way as McArthur. He had a personality, not exactly
+pleasant, but unique. Though he was not uncommonly tall, his shoulders
+were thick and broad, giving the impression of great strength. His jaw was
+square, but it evidenced brutality rather than determination. His nose, in
+contrast to the intelligence denoted by his high, broad forehead, was
+mediocre, inconsequential, the kind of a nose seldom seen on the person
+who achieves. The two features were those of the man who conceives big
+things, yet lacks the force to execute them.
+
+His eyes were unpleasantly bloodshot, but whether from drink or the alkali
+dust of the desert, it was impossible to determine; and when Susie prodded
+him they had in them all the vicious meanness of an outlaw bronco. His
+expression then held nothing but sullen vindictiveness, while every trait
+of a surly nature was suggested by his voice and manner.
+
+During the Schoolmarm's covert study of him, he laughed unexpectedly at
+one of Meeteetse Ed's sallies. The effect was little short of marvellous;
+it completely transformed him. An unlooked-for dimple deepened in one
+cheek, his eyes sparkled, his entire countenance radiated for a moment a
+kind of boyish good-nature which was indescribably winning. In the brief
+space, whatever virtues he possessed were as vividly depicted upon his
+face as were his unpleasant characteristics when he was displeased. So
+marked, indeed, was his changed expression, that Susie burst out with her
+usual candor as she eyed him:
+
+"Mister, you ought to laugh all the time."
+
+Contributing but little toward the conversation, and that little chiefly
+in the nature of flings at Susie, Smith was yet the dominant figure at the
+table. While he antagonized, he interested, and although his insolence was
+no match for Susie's self-assured impudence, he still impressed his
+individuality upon every person present.
+
+He was studied by other eyes than Dora's and Susie's. Not one of the looks
+which he had given the former had escaped the Indian woman. With the
+Schoolmarm's coming, she had seen herself ignored, and her face had grown
+as sullen as Smith's own, while the smouldering glow in her dark eyes
+betrayed jealous resentment.
+
+"Have a cookie?" urged Susie hospitably, thrusting a plate toward Tubbs.
+"Ling makes these 'specially for White Antelope."
+
+"No, thanks, I've et hearty," declared Tubbs, while McArthur shuddered.
+"I've had thousands."
+
+"Why, where is White Antelope?" Susie looked in surprise at the vacant
+chair, and asked the question of her mother.
+
+Involuntarily Smith's eyes and those of the Indian woman met. He read
+correctly all that they contained, but he did not remove his own until her
+eyelids slowly dropped, and with a peculiar doggedness she drawled:
+
+"He go way for l'il visit; 'bout two, t'ree sleeps maybe."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A SWAP IN SADDLE BLANKETS
+
+
+"Madam," said McArthur, intercepting the Indian woman the next morning
+while she was on her way from the spring with a heavy pail, "I cannot
+permit you to carry water when I am here to do it for you."
+
+In spite of her surprised protest, he gently took the bucket from her
+hand.
+
+"Look at that dude," said Smith contemptuously, viewing the incident
+through the living-room window. "Queerin' hisself right along. No more
+_sabe_ than a cotton-tail rabbit. That's the worse thing he could do.
+Feller"--turning to Tubbs--"if you want to make a winnin' with a woman,
+you never want to fetch and carry for her."
+
+"I knows it," acquiesced Tubbs. "Onct I was a reg'lar doormat fer one, and
+I only got stomped on fer it."
+
+"I can wrangle Injuns to a fare-ye-well," Smith continued. "Over on the
+Blackfoot I was the most notorious Injun wrangler that ever jumped up;
+and, feller, on the square, I never run an errant for one in my life."
+
+"It's wrong," agreed Tubbs.
+
+"There's that dude tryin' to make a stand-in, and spilin' his own game
+all the time by talkin'. You can't say he talks, neither; he just opens
+his mouth and lets it say what it damn pleases. Is them real words he gets
+off, or does he make 'em up as he goes along?"
+
+"Search me."
+
+"I'll tip you off, feller: if ever you want to make a strong play at an
+Injun woman, you don't want to shoot off your mouth none. Keep still and
+move around just so, and pretty soon she'll throw you the sign. Did you
+ever notice a dog trottin' down the street, passin' everybody up till all
+to once it takes a sniff, turns around, and follers some feller off?
+That's an Injun woman."
+
+"I never had no luck with squaws, and the likes o' that," Tubbs confessed.
+"They're turrible hands to git off together and poke fun at you."
+
+As McArthur and the Indian woman came in from the kitchen, he was saying
+earnestly to her:
+
+"I feel sure that here, madam, I should entirely recover my health.
+Besides, this locality seems to me such a fertile field for research that
+if you could possibly accommodate my man and me with board, you may not be
+conferring a favor only upon me, but indirectly, perhaps, upon the world
+of science. I have with me my own bath-tub and pneumatic mattress."
+
+Tubbs, seeing the Indian woman's puzzled expression, explained:
+
+"He means we'll sleep ourselves if you will eat us."
+
+The woman nodded.
+
+"Oh, you can stay. I no care."
+
+Smith frowned; but McArthur, much pleased by her assent, told Tubbs to
+saddle a horse at once, that he might lose no time in beginning his
+investigations.
+
+"If it were my good fortune to unearth a cranium of the Homo primogenus, I
+should be the happiest man in the world," declared McArthur, clasping his
+fingers in ecstasy at the thought of such unparalleled bliss.
+
+"What did I tell you?" said Smith, accompanying Tubbs to the corral. "He's
+tryin' to win himself a home."
+
+"Looks that way," Tubbs agreed. "These here bug-hunters is deep."
+
+The saddle blanket which Tubbs pulled from their wagon and threw upon the
+ground, with McArthur's saddle, caught Smith's eye instantly, because of
+the similarity in color and markings to that which he had folded so
+carefully inside his own. This was newer, it had no disfiguring holes, or
+black stain in the corner.
+
+"What's the use of takin' chances?" he asked himself as he looked it
+over.
+
+While Tubbs was catching the horse in the corral, Smith deftly exchanged
+blankets, and Tubbs, to whom most saddle blankets looked alike, did not
+detect the difference.
+
+Upon returning to the house, Smith found the Indian woman wiping breakfast
+dishes for the cook. She came into the living-room when he beckoned to
+her, with the towel in her hand. Taking it from her, he wadded it up and
+threw it back into the kitchen.
+
+"Don't you know any better not to spoil a cook like that, woman?" he
+asked, smiling down upon her. "You never want to touch a dish for a cook.
+Row with 'em, work 'em over, keep 'em down--but don't humor 'em. You can't
+treat a cook like a real man. Ev'ry reg'lar cook has a screw loose or he
+wouldn't be a cook. Cookin' ain't no man's job. I never had no use for
+reg'lar cooks--me, Smith.
+
+"All you women need ribbing up once in awhile," he added, as, laying his
+hand lightly on her arm, he let it slide its length until it touched her
+fingers. He gave them a gentle pressure and resumed his seat against the
+wall.
+
+The woman's eyes glowed as she looked at him. His authoritative attitude
+appealed to her whose ancestors had dressed game, tanned hides, and
+dragged wood for their masters for countless generations. The growing
+passion in her eyes did not escape Smith.
+
+In the long silence which followed he looked at her steadily; finally he
+said:
+
+"Well, I guess I'll saddle up. You look 'just so' to me, woman--but I got
+to go."
+
+She laid down the rags of her mat and "threw him the sign" for which he
+had waited. It said:
+
+"My heart is high; it is good toward you. Talk to me--talk straight."
+
+He shook his head sadly.
+
+"No, no, Singing Bird; I am headed for the Mexican border--many, many
+sleeps from here."
+
+She arose and walked to his side.
+
+He felt a sudden and violent dislike for her flabby, swaying hips, her
+heavy step, as she moved toward him. He knew that the game was won, and
+won so easily it was a school-boy's play.
+
+"Why you go?" she demanded, and the disappointment in her eyes was so
+intense as to resemble fear. "What you do dere?"
+
+He looked at her through half-closed eyes.
+
+"Did you ever hear of wet horses?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I deals in wet horses--me, Smith."
+
+The woman stared at him uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Down there on the border," he explained, "you buy the horses on the
+Mexico side. You buy 'em when the Mexican boss is asleep in his 'dobe, so
+there's no kick about the price. You swim 'em across the Rio Grande and
+sell 'em to the Americano waitin' on the other side."
+
+"You buy de wet horse?"
+
+"No, by Gawd,--I wet 'em!"
+
+"Why you steal?"
+
+He looked at her contemptuously.
+
+"Why does anybody steal? I need the dinero--me, Smith."
+
+"You want money?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I always want money. I never had enough but once in my life, and then I
+had too much. Gold is hell to pack," he added reminiscently.
+
+"I have de fine hay-ranch, white man, de best on de reservation. Two, four
+t'ousand dollars I have when de hay is sold. De ranch is big"--her arms
+swept the horizon to show its extent. "You stay here and make de bargain
+with de cattlemen, and I give you so much"--she measured a third of her
+hand with her forefinger. "If dat is not enough, I give you so much"--she
+measured the half of her hand with her forefinger. "If dat not enough, I
+give you all." She swept the palm of one hand with the other.
+
+Smith dropped his eyelids, that she might not see the triumph shining
+beneath them.
+
+"I must think, Prairie Flower."
+
+"No, white man, you no think. You stay!"
+
+Smith, who had arisen, slipped his arm about her ample waist. She pulled
+aside his Mackinaw coat and laid her head upon his breast.
+
+"The white man's heart is strong," she said softly.
+
+"It beats for you, Little Fawn;" and he ran out his tongue in derision.
+
+All the morning she sat on the floor at his feet, braiding the rags for
+her mat, content to hear him speak occasionally, and to look often into
+his face with dog-like devotion. It was there Susie saw her when she
+returned from school earlier in the afternoon than usual, and was beckoned
+into the kitchen by Ling.
+
+"He's makin' a mash," said Ling laconically, as he jerked his thumb toward
+the open door of the living-room.
+
+All the girlish vivacity seemed to go out of Susie's face in her first
+swift glance. It hardened in mingled shame and anger.
+
+"Mother," she said sharply, "you promised me that you wouldn't sit on the
+floor like an Injun."
+
+"We're gettin' sociable," said Smith mockingly.
+
+The woman glanced at Smith, and hesitated, but finally got up and seated
+herself on the bench.
+
+"Why don't you try bein' 'sociable' with the Schoolmarm?" Susie sneered.
+
+"Maybe I will."
+
+"And _maybe_ you won't get passed up like a white chip!"
+
+"Oh, I dunno. I've made some winnings."
+
+"I can tell that by your eyes. You got 'em bloodshot, I reckon, hangin'
+over the fire in squaw camps. White men can't stand smoke like Injuns."
+
+This needle-tongued girl jabbed the truth into him in a way which
+maddened him, but he said conciliatingly:
+
+"We don't want to quarrel, kid."
+
+"You mean _you_ don't." Susie slammed the door behind her.
+
+The child's taunt reawakened his interest in the Schoolmarm. He thought of
+her riding home alone, and grew restless. Besides, the dulness began to
+bore him.
+
+"I'll saddle up, Prairie Flower, and look over the ranch. When I come back
+I'll let you know if it's worth my while to stay."
+
+Tubbs was sitting on the wagon-tongue, mending harness, when Smith went
+out,
+
+"Aimin' to quit the flat?" inquired Tubbs.
+
+"Feller, didn't that habit of askin' questions ever git you in trouble?"
+
+"Well I guess _so_," Tubbs replied candidly. "See that scar under my
+eye?"
+
+"I'd invite you along to tell me about it," said Smith sardonically,
+"only, the fact is, feller, I'm goin' down the road to make medicine with
+the Schoolmarm."
+
+Tubbs's eyes widened.
+
+"Gosh!" he ejaculated enviously. "I wisht I had your gall."
+
+Before Smith swung into the saddle he pulled out a heavy silver watch
+attached to a hair watch-chain.
+
+"Just the right time," he nodded.
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"I say, if it was only two o'clock, or three, I wouldn't go."
+
+"You wouldn't? I'll tell you about me: I'd go if it was twelve o'clock at
+night and twenty below zero to ride home with that lady."
+
+"Feller," said Smith, in a paternal tone, "you never want to make a break
+at a woman before four o'clock in the afternoon. You might just as well go
+and lay down under a bush in the shade from a little after daylight until
+about this time. You wouldn't hunt deer or elk in the middle of the day,
+would you? No, nor women--all same kind of huntin'. They'll turn you down
+sure; white or red--no difference."
+
+"Is that so?" said Tubbs, in the awed voice of one who sits at the feet of
+a master.
+
+"When the moon's out and the lamps are lit, they'll empty their sack and
+tell you the story of their lives. I don't want to toot my horn none, but
+I've wrangled around some. I've hunted big game and humans. Their habits,
+feller, is much the same."
+
+While Smith was galloping down the road toward the school-house, Susie was
+returning from a survey of the surrounding country, which was to be had
+from a knoll near the house.
+
+"Mother," she said abruptly, "I feel queer here." She laid both hands on
+her flat, childish breast and hunched her shoulders. "I feel like
+something is goin' to happen."
+
+"What happen, you think?" her mother asked listlessly.
+
+"It's something about White Antelope, I know."
+
+The woman looked up quickly.
+
+"He go visit Bear Chief, maybe." There was an odd note in her voice.
+
+"He wouldn't go away and stay like this without telling you or me. He
+never did before. He knows I would worry; besides, he didn't take a horse,
+and he never would walk ten miles when there are horses to ride. His gun
+isn't here, so he must have gone hunting, but he wouldn't stay all night
+hunting rabbits; and he couldn't be lost, when he knows the country as
+well as you or me."
+
+"He go to visit," the Indian woman insisted doggedly.
+
+"If he isn't home to-morrow, I'm goin' to hunt him, but I know something's
+wrong."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SMITH MAKES MEDICINE WITH THE SCHOOLMARM
+
+
+Once out of sight of the house, Smith let his horse take its own gait,
+while he viewed the surrounding country with the thoughtful consideration
+of a prospective purchaser. As he gazed, its possibilities grew upon him.
+If water was to be found somewhere in the Bad Lands the location of the
+ranch was ideal for--certain purposes.
+
+The Bar C cattle-range bounded the reservation on the west; the MacDonald
+ranch, as it was still called, after the astute Scotch squawman who had
+built it, was close to the reservation line; and beyond the sheltering Bad
+Lands to the northeast was a ranch where lived certain friendly persons
+with whom he had had most satisfactory business relations in the past.
+
+A plan began to take definite shape in his active brain, but the head of a
+sleepy white pony appearing above the next rise temporarily changed the
+course of his thoughts, and with his recognition of its rider life took on
+an added zest.
+
+Dora Marshall, engrossed in thought, did not see Smith until he pulled his
+hat-brim in salutation and said:
+
+"You're a thinker, I take it."
+
+"I find my work here absorbing," she replied, coloring under his steady
+look.
+
+He turned his horse and swung it into the road beside her.
+
+"I was just millin' around and thought I'd ride down the road and meet
+you." Further than this brief explanation, he did not seem to feel it
+incumbent upon him to make conversation. Apparently entirely at his ease
+in the silence which followed, he turned his head often and stared at her
+with a frank interest which he made no effort to conceal. Finally he
+shifted his weight to one stirrup and, turning in his saddle so that he
+faced her, he asked bluntly:
+
+"That look in your eyes--that look as if you hadn't nothin' to hide--is it
+true? Is it natural, as you might say, or do you just put it on?"
+
+Her astonished expression led him to explain.
+
+"It's like lookin' down deep into water that's so clear you can see the
+sand shinin' in the bottom; one of these places where there's no mud or
+black spots; nothin' you can't see or understand. _Sabe_ what I mean?"
+
+Since she did not answer, he continued:
+
+"I've met up with women before now that had that same look, but only at
+first. It didn't last; they could put it on and take it off like they did
+their hats."
+
+"I don't know that I am quite sure what you mean," the girl replied,
+embarrassed by the personal nature of his questions and comments; "but if
+you mean to imply that I affect this or that expression, for a purpose,
+you misjudge me."
+
+"I was just askin'," said Smith.
+
+"I think I am always honest of purpose," the girl went on slowly, "and
+when one is that, I think it shows in one's eyes. To be sure, I often fall
+short of my intentions. I mean to do right, and almost as frequently do
+wrong."
+
+"You do?" He eyed her with quick intentness.
+
+"Yes, don't you? Don't all of us?"
+
+"I does what I aims to do," he replied ambiguously.
+
+So she--this girl with eyes like two deep springs--did wrong--frequently.
+He pondered the admission for a long time. Smith's exact ideas of right
+and wrong would have been difficult to define; the dividing line, if there
+were any, was so vague that it had never served as the slightest
+restraint. "To do what you aim to do, and make a clean get-away"--that was
+the successful life.
+
+He had seen things, it is true; there had been incidents and situations
+which had repelled him, but why, he had never asked himself. There was one
+situation in particular to which his mind frequently reverted, as it did
+now. He had known worse women than the one who had figured in it, but for
+some reason this single scene was impressed upon his mind with a vividness
+which seemed never to grow less.
+
+He saw a woman seated at an old-fashioned organ in a country parlor. There
+was a rag-carpet on the floor--he remembered how springy it was with the
+freshly laid straw underneath it. Her husband held a lamp that she might
+see the notes, while his other hand was upon her shoulder, his adoring
+eyes upon her silly face. He, Smith, was rocking in the blue plush chair
+for which the fool with the calloused hands had done extra work that he
+might give it to the woman upon her birthday. Each time that she screeched
+the refrain, "Love, I will love you always," she lifted her chin to sing
+it to the man beaming down upon her, while upstairs her trunk was packed
+to desert him.
+
+Smith always remembered with satisfaction that he had left her in Red
+Lodge with only the price of a telegram to her husband, in her shabby
+purse.
+
+"I like your style, girl." His eyes swept Dora Marshall's figure as he
+spoke.
+
+There was a difference in his tone, a familiarity in his glance, which
+sent the color flying to the Schoolmarm's cheeks.
+
+"I think we could hit it off--you and me--if we got sociable."
+
+He leaned toward her and laid his gloved hand upon hers as it rested on
+the saddle-horn.
+
+The pupils of her eyes dilated until they all but covered the iris as she
+turned them, blazing, upon Smith.
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+
+There was no mistaking the genuineness nor the nature of the emotion which
+made her voice vibrate. But Smith considered. Was she deeper--"slicker,"
+as he phrased it to himself--than he had thought, or had he really
+misunderstood her? Surprising as was the feeling, he hoped some way, that
+it was the latter. He looked at her again before he answered gently:
+
+"I didn't mean to make you hot none, Miss. I'm ignorant in handlin' words.
+I only meant to say that I hoped you and me would be good friends."
+
+His explanation cleared her face instantly.
+
+"I am sorry if I misunderstood you; but one or two unpleasant experiences
+in this country have made me quick--too quick, perhaps--to take offense."
+
+"There's lots just lookin' for game like you. No better nor brutes," said
+Smith virtuously, entirely sincere in his sudden indignation against these
+licentious characters.
+
+Yes, the Schoolmarm had rebuffed him, as Susie had prophesied, but the
+effect of it upon him was such as neither he nor she had reckoned. As they
+rode along a swift, overpowering infatuation for Dora Marshall grew upon
+him. He felt something like a flame rising within him, burning him,
+bewildering him with its intensity. She seemed all at once to possess
+every attribute of the angels, from mere prettiness her face took on a
+radiant beauty which dazzled him, and when she spoke her lightest word
+held him breathless. As the mountain towers above the foothills, so, of a
+sudden, she towered above all other women. He had known sensations--all,
+he had believed, that it was possible to experience; but this one,
+strange, overwhelming, dazed him with its violence.
+
+Love frequently comes like this to people in the wilds, to those who have
+few interests and much time to think. The emotional side of their natures
+has been held in check until a trifle is sometimes sufficient to loose a
+torrent which nothing can then divert or check.
+
+She asked him to loop her latigo, which was trailing, and his hand shook
+as he fumbled with the leather strap.
+
+"Gawd!" he swore in bewilderment as he returned to his own horse, wiping
+his forehead with the back of his gauntlet, "what feelin' is this workin'
+on me? Am I gettin' locoed, me--Smith?"
+
+"I'm glad I've found a friend like you," said the Schoolmarm impulsively.
+"One needs friends in a country like this."
+
+"A friend!" It sounded like a jest to Smith. "A friend!" he repeated with
+an odd laugh. Then he raised his hand, as one takes an oath, and whatever
+of whiteness was left in Smith's soul illumined his face as he added:
+"Yes, to a killin' finish."
+
+If Smith had met Dora among many, the result might have been the same in
+the end, but here, in the isolation, she seemed from the first the centre
+of everything, the alpha and omega of the universe, and his passion for
+her was as great as though it were the growth of many months instead of
+less than twenty-four hours. The depth, the breadth, of it could not
+quickly be determined, nor the lengths to which it would take him. It was
+something new to be reckoned with. To what extent it would control him,
+neither Smith nor any one else could have told. He knew only that it now
+seemed the most real, the most sincere, the best thing which had ever come
+into his life.
+
+Dora Marshall knew nothing of men like Smith, or of natures like those of
+the men of the mountains and ranges, who paid her homage. Her knowledge of
+life and people was drawn from the limited experiences of a small, Middle
+West town, together with a year at a Middle West co-ed college, and as a
+result of the latter the Schoolmarm cherished a fine belief in her worldly
+wisdom, whereas, in a measure, her lack of it was one of her charms.
+Susie, in her way, was wiser.
+
+The Schoolmarm's attitude toward her daily life was the natural outcome of
+a romantic nature and an imaginative mind. She saw herself as the heroine
+of an absorbing story, the living of which story she enjoyed to the
+utmost, while every incident and every person contributed to its interest.
+Quite unconsciously, with unintentional egotism, the Schoolmarm had a way
+of standing off and viewing herself, as it were, through the rosy glow of
+romance. Yet she was not a complex character--this Schoolmarm. She had no
+soaring ambitions, though her ideals for herself and for others were of
+the best. To do her duty, to help those about her, to win and retain the
+liking of her half-savage little pupils, were her chief desires.
+
+She had her share of the vanity of her sex, and of its natural liking for
+admiration and attention, yet in the freedom of her unique environment she
+never overstepped the bounds of the proprieties as she knew them, or
+violated in the slightest degree the conventionalities to which she had
+been accustomed in her rather narrow home life. It was this reserve which
+inspired awe in the men with whom she came in contact, used as they were
+to the greater camaraderie of Western women.
+
+In her unsophistication, her provincial innocence, Dora Marshall was
+exactly the sort to misunderstand and to be misunderstood, a combination
+sometimes quite as dangerous in its results, and as provocative of
+trouble, as the intrigues of a designing woman.
+
+"I reckon you think I'm kind of a mounted bum, a grub-liner, or something
+like that," said Smith after a time.
+
+"To be frank, I _have_ wondered who you are."
+
+"Have you? Have you, honest?" asked Smith delightedly.
+
+"Well--you're different, you know. I can't explain just how, but you are
+not like the others who come and go at the ranch."
+
+"No," Smith replied with some irony; "I'm not like that there Tubbs." He
+added laconically, "I'm no angel, me--Smith."
+
+The Schoolmarm laughed. Smith's denial was so obviously superfluous.
+
+"There was a time when I'd do 'most any old thing," he went on, unmindful
+of her amusement. "It was only a few years ago that there was no law north
+of Cheyenne, and a feller got what he wanted with his gun. I got my share.
+I come from a country where they sleep between sheets, but I got a lickin'
+that wasn't comin' to me, and I quit the flat when I was thirteen. I've
+been out amongst 'em since."
+
+The desire to reform somebody, which lies dormant in every woman's bosom,
+began to stir in the Schoolmarm's.
+
+"But you--you wouldn't 'do any old thing' now, would you?"
+
+Smith hesitated, and a variety of expressions succeeded one another upon
+his face. It was an awkward moment, for, under the uplifting influence of
+the feeling which possessed him, he had an odd desire to tell this girl
+only the truth.
+
+"I wouldn't do some of the things I used to do," he replied evasively.
+
+The Schoolmarm beamed encouragement.
+
+"I'm glad of that."
+
+"I used to kill Injuns for fifty dollars a head, but I wouldn't do it
+now," he said virtuously, adding: "I'd get my neck stretched."
+
+"You've killed people--Indians--for money!" The Schoolmarm looked at him,
+wide-eyed with horror.
+
+"They was clutterin' up the range," Smith explained patiently, "and the
+cattlemen needed it for their stock. I'd 'a' killed 'em for nothin', but
+when 'twas offered, I might as well get the bounty."
+
+The Schoolmarm scarcely knew what to say; his explanation seemed so
+entirely satisfactory to himself.
+
+"I'm glad those dreadful days have gone."
+
+"They're gone all right," Smith answered sourly. "They make dum near as
+much fuss over an Injun as a white man now, and what with jumpin' up
+deputies at every turn in the road, 'tain't safe. Why, I heard a judge say
+a while back that killin' an Injun was pure murder."
+
+"I appreciate your confidence--your telling me of your life," said the
+Schoolmarm, in lieu of something better.
+
+She found him a difficult person with whom to converse. They seemed to
+have no common meeting-ground, yet, while he constantly startled and
+shocked, he also fascinated her. In one of those illuminating flashes to
+which the Schoolmarm was subject, she saw herself as Smith's guiding-star,
+leading him to the triumphant finish of the career which she believed his
+unique but strong personality made possible.
+
+It was Smith's turn to look at her. Did she think he had told her of his
+life? The unexpected dimple deepened in Smith's cheek, and as he laughed
+the Schoolmarm, again noting the effect of it, could not in her heart
+believe that he was as black as he had painted himself.
+
+"I wisht our trails had crossed sooner, but, anyhow, I'm on the square
+with you, girl. And if ever you ketch me 'talkin' crooked,' as the Injuns
+say, I'll give you my whole outfit--horse, saddle, blankets, guns, even my
+dog-gone shirt. Excuse me."
+
+The Schoolmarm glowed. Her woman's influence for good was having its
+effect! This was a step in the right direction--a long step. He would be
+"on the square" with her--she liked the way he phrased it. Already her
+mind was busy with air-castles for Smith, which would have made that
+person stare, had he known of them. An inkling of their nature may be had
+from her question:
+
+"Would you like to study, to learn from books, if you had the
+opportunity?"
+
+"I learned my letters spellin' out the brands on cattle," he said frankly,
+"and that, with bein' able to write my name on the business end of a
+check, and common, everyday words, has always been enough to see me
+through."
+
+"But when one has naturally a good mind, like yours, don't you think it is
+almost wicked not to use it?"
+
+"I got a mind all right," Smith replied complacently. "I'm kind of a
+head-worker in my way, but steady thinkin' makes me sicker nor a pup. I
+got a headache for two days spellin' out a description of myself that the
+sheriff of Choteau County spread around the country on handbills. It was
+plumb insultin', as I figgered it out, callin' attention to my eyes and
+ears and busted thumb. I sent word to him that I felt hos-tile over it.
+Sheriffs'll go too far if you don't tell 'em where to get off at once in
+awhile."
+
+The Schoolmarm ignored the handbill episode and went on:
+
+"Besides, a lack of education is such a handicap in business."
+
+"The worst handicap I has to complain of," said Smith grimly, "is the
+habit people has got into of sending money-orders through the mail,
+instead of the cash. It keeps money out of circulation, besides bein'
+discouragin' and puttin' many a hard-workin' hold-up on the bum."
+
+"But," she persisted, the real meaning of Smith's observations entirely
+escaping her, "even the rudiments of an education would be such a help to
+you, opening up many avenues that now are closed to you. What I want to
+say is this: that if you intend to stop for a time at the ranch, I will be
+glad to teach you. Susie and I have an extra session in the evening, and I
+will be delighted to have you join us."
+
+It had not dawned upon Smith that she had questioned him with this end in
+view. He looked at her fixedly, then, from the depths of his experience,
+he said:
+
+"Girl, you must like me some."
+
+Dora flushed hotly.
+
+"I am interested," she replied.
+
+"That'll do for now;" and Smith wondered if the lump in his throat was
+going to choke him. "Will I join that night-school of yours? _Will_ I?
+Watch me! Say," he burst out with a kind of boyish impulsiveness, "if ever
+you see me doin' anything I oughtn't, like settin' down when I ought to
+stand up, or standin' up when I ought to set down, will you just rope me
+and take a turn around a snubbin'-post and jerk me off my feet?"
+
+"We'll get along famously if you really want to improve yourself!"
+exclaimed the Schoolmarm, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. "If you really
+and truly want to learn."
+
+"Really and truly I do," Smith echoed, feeling at the moment that he
+would have done dressmaking or taken in washing, had she bid him.
+
+Once more the world looked big, alluring, and as full of untried
+possibilities as when he had "quit the flat" at thirteen.
+
+"Have you noticed me doin' anything that isn't manners?" he asked in
+humble anxiety. "Don't be afraid of hurtin' my feelin's," he urged, "for I
+ain't none."
+
+"If you honestly want me to tell you things, I will; but it seems so--so
+queer upon such a very short acquaintance."
+
+"Shucks! What's the use of wastin' time pretendin' to get acquainted, when
+you're acquainted as soon as you look at each other? What's the use of
+sashayin' around the bush when you meet up with somebody you like? You
+just cut loose on me, girl."
+
+"It's only a little thing, in a way, and not in itself important perhaps;
+yet it would be, too, if circumstances should take you into the world. It
+might make a bad impression upon strangers."
+
+Smith looked slightly alarmed. He wondered if she suspected anything about
+White Antelope. At the moment, he could think of nothing else he had done
+within the last twenty-four hours, which might prejudice strangers.
+
+"I noticed at the table," the Schoolmarm went on in some embarrassment,
+"that you held your fork as though you were afraid it would get away from
+you. Like this"--she illustrated with her fist.
+
+"Like a ranch-hand holdin' onto a pitch-fork," Smith suggested, relieved.
+
+"Something," she laughed. "It should be like this. Anyway," she declared
+encouragingly, "you don't eat with your knife."
+
+Smith beamed.
+
+"Did you notice that?"
+
+"Naturally, in a land of sword-swallowers, I would;" the Schoolmarm made a
+wry face.
+
+"Once I run with a high-stepper from Bowlin' Green, Kentucky, and she told
+me better nor that," he explained. "She said nothin' give a feller away
+like his habit of handlin' tools at the table. She was a lady all right,
+but she got the dope habit and threw the lamp at me. The way I quit her
+didn't trouble _me_. None of 'em ever had any holt on me when it come to a
+show-down; but you, girl, _you_----"
+
+"Look!"
+
+Her sharp exclamation interrupted him, and, following her gesture, he saw
+a flying horseman in the distance, riding as for his life, while behind
+him two other riders quirted their horses in hot pursuit.
+
+"Is it a race--for fun?"
+
+"I don't think it," Smith replied dryly, noting the direction from which
+they came. "It looks like business."
+
+He knew that the two behind were Indians. He could tell by the way they
+used their quirts and sat their horses. Neither was there any mistaking
+the bug-hunter on his ewe-necked sorrel, which, displaying unexpected
+bursts of speed, was keeping in the lead and heading straight for the
+ranch-house. With one hand McArthur was clinging to the saddle-horn, and
+with the other was clinging quite as tightly to what at a distance
+appeared to be a carbine.
+
+"He's pulled his gun--why don't he use it?" Smith quickened his horse's
+gait.
+
+He knew that the Indians had learned White Antelope's fate. That was a
+lucky swap Smith had made that morning. He congratulated himself that he
+had not "taken chances." He wondered how effective McArthur's denial would
+prove in the face of the evidence furnished by the saddle-blanket.
+Personally, Smith regarded the bug-hunter's chances as slim.
+
+"They'll get him in the corral," he observed.
+
+"Oh, it's Mr. McArthur!" Dora cried in distress.
+
+Smith looked at her in quick jealousy.
+
+"Well, what of it?" In her excitement, the gruffness of his tone passed
+unobserved.
+
+"Come," she urged. "The Indians are angry, and he may need us."
+
+Hatless, breathless, pale, McArthur rolled out of his saddle and thrust a
+long, bleached bone into Tubbs's hand.
+
+"Keep it!" he gasped. "Protect it! It may be--I don't say it is, but it
+_may_ be--a portion of the paroccipital bone of an Ichthyopterygian!" Then
+he turned and faced his pursuers.
+
+Infuriated, they rode straight at him, but he did not flinch, and the
+horses swerved of their own accord.
+
+Susie had run from the house, and her mother had followed, expectancy upon
+her stolid face, for, like Smith, she had guessed the situation.
+
+The Indians circled, and, returning, pointed accusing fingers at
+McArthur.
+
+"He kill White Antelope!"
+
+By this time, the grub-liners had reached the corral, among them four
+Indians, all friends of the dead man. Their faces darkened.
+
+"White Antelope is dead in a gulch!" cried his accusers. "He is shot to
+pieces--here, there, everywhere!"
+
+A murmur of angry amazement arose. White Antelope, the kindly, peaceable
+Cree, who had not an enemy on the reservation!
+
+"This is dreadful!" declared McArthur. "Believe me"--he turned to them
+all--"I had but found the corpse myself when these men rode up. The Indian
+was cold; he certainly had been dead for hours. Besides," he demanded,
+"what possible motive could I have?"
+
+"Them as likes lettin' blood don't need a motive." The sneering voice was
+Smith's.
+
+"But you, sir, met us on the hill. You know the direction from which we
+came."
+
+"It's easy enough to circle."
+
+"But why should I go back?" cried McArthur.
+
+"They say there's that that draws folks back for another look."
+
+Smith's insinuations, the stand he took, had its effect upon the Indians,
+who, hot for revenge, needed only this to confirm their suspicions. One of
+the Indians on horseback began to uncoil his rawhide saddle-rope. All save
+McArthur understood the significance of the action. They meant to tie him
+hand and foot and take him to the Agency, with blows and insults plentiful
+en route.
+
+They edged closer to him, every savage instinct uppermost, their faces
+dark and menacing. McArthur, his eyes sweeping the circle, felt that he
+had not one friend, not one, in the motley, threatening crowd fast closing
+in upon him; for Tubbs, hearing himself indirectly included in the
+accusation, had discreetly, and with perceptible haste, withdrawn.
+
+The Indian swung from his saddle, rope in hand, and advanced upon McArthur
+with unmistakable purpose; but he did not reach the little scientist, for
+Susie darted from the circle, her flashing gray eyes looking more
+curiously at variance than ever with her tawny skin.
+
+"No, no, Running Rabbit!" She pushed him gently backward with her
+finger-tips upon his chest.
+
+There was a murmur of protest from the crowd, and it seemed to sting her
+like a spur. Susie was not accustomed to disapproval. She turned to where
+the murmurs came loudest--from the white grub-liners, who were eager for
+excitement.
+
+"Who are you," she cried, "that you should be so quick to accuse this
+stranger? You, Arkansaw Red, that skipped from Kansas for killin' a
+nigger! You, Jim Padden, that shot a sheep-herder in cold blood! You,
+Banjo Johnson, that's hidin' out this minute! Don't you all be so darned
+anxious to hang another man, when there's a rope waitin' somewhere for
+your own necks!
+
+"And lemme tell you"--she took a step toward them. "The man that lifts a
+finger to take this bug-hunter to the Agency can take his blankets along
+at the same time, for there'll never be a bunk or a seat at the table for
+him on this ranch as long as he lives. Where's your proof against this
+bug-hunter? You can't drag a man off without something against him--just
+because you want to _hang_ somebody!"
+
+Some sound from Smith attracted her attention; she wheeled upon him, and,
+with her thin arm outstretched as she pointed at him in scorn, she cried
+shrilly:
+
+"Why, I'd sooner think _you_ did it, than him!"
+
+There was not so much as the flicker of an eyelid from Smith.
+
+"I know you'd _sooner_ think I did it than him," he said, playing upon the
+word. "You'd like to see _me_ get my neck stretched."
+
+His bravado, his very insolence, was his protection.
+
+"And maybe I'll have the chanst!" she retorted furiously.
+
+Turning from him to the Indians, her voice dropped, the harsh language
+taking on the soft accent of the squaws as she spoke to them in their own
+tongue. Like many half-breeds, Susie seldom admitted that she either
+understood or could speak the Indian language. She had an amusing fashion
+of referring even to her relatives as "those Injuns"; but now, with hands
+outstretched, she pleaded:
+
+"We are all Indians together in this--friends of White Antelope! Our
+hearts are down; they are heavy--so. You all know that he came from the
+great Cree country with my father, and he has told us many times stories
+of the big north woods, where they hunted and trapped. You know how he
+watched me when I was little, and sat with his hand upon my head when I
+had the big fever. He was like no one else to me except my father. He was
+wise and good.
+
+"I could kill with my own hand the man who killed White Antelope. I want
+his blood as much as you. I'd like to see a stake driven through his
+black heart on White Antelope's grave. But let us not be too quick because
+the hate is hot in us. My heart tells me that the white man talks
+straight. Let us wait--wait until we find the right one, and when we do we
+will punish in our own way. You hear? _In our own way!_"
+
+Smith understood something of her plea, and for the second time he paid
+her courage tribute.
+
+"She's a game kid all right," he said to himself, and a half-formed plan
+for utilizing her gameness began to take definite shape.
+
+That she had won, he knew before Running Rabbit recoiled his rope. After a
+moment's talk among themselves, the Indians went to hitch the horses to
+the wagon, to bring White Antelope's body home.
+
+Smith was well aware that he had only to point to the saddle blanket, the
+barest edge of which showed beneath the leather skirts of McArthur's
+saddle, to make Susie's impassioned defense in vain. Why he did not, he
+was not himself sure. Perhaps it was because he liked the feeling of
+power, of knowing that he held the life of the despised bug-hunter in the
+hollow of his hand; or perhaps it was because it would serve his purpose
+better to make the accusation later. One thing was certain, however, and
+that was that he had not held his tongue through any consideration for
+McArthur.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE GREAT SECRET
+
+
+It was the day they buried White Antelope that Smith approached Yellow
+Bird, a Piegan, who was among the Indians paying visits of indefinite
+length to the MacDonald ranch. "Eddie" Yellow Bird, he was called at the
+Blackfoot mission where he had learned to read and write--though he would
+never have been suspected of these accomplishments, since to all
+appearances he was a "blanket Indian."
+
+Smith spoke the Piegan tongue almost as fluently as his own, so he and
+Yellow Bird quickly became _compadres_, relating to each other stories of
+their prowess, of horses they had run off, of cattle they had stolen, and
+hinting, Indian fashion, with significant intonations and pauses, at
+crimes of greater magnitude.
+
+"How is your heart to-day, friend? Is it strong?"
+
+"Weak," replied Yellow Bird jestingly, touching his breast with a
+fluttering hand.
+
+"It would be stronger if you had red meat in your stomach," Smith
+suggested significantly.
+
+"The bacon is not for Indians," agreed Yellow Bird.
+
+"But the woman would have no cattle left if she killed only her own
+beef."
+
+"Many people stop here--strangers and friends," Yellow Bird admitted.
+
+"There is plenty on the range." Smith looked toward the Bar C ranch.
+
+"He is a dog on the trail, that white man, when his cattle are stolen,"
+Yellow Bird replied doubtfully.
+
+"I've killed dogs--me, Smith--when they got in my way. Yellow Bird, are
+you a woman, that you are afraid?"
+
+"Wolf Robe, who stole only a calf, sits like this"--Yellow Bird looked at
+Smith sullenly through his spread fingers.
+
+"You have talked with the forked tongue, Yellow Bird. You are not a Piegan
+buck of the great Blackfoot nation; you are a woman. Your fathers killed
+men; _you_ are afraid to kill cattle." Smith turned from him
+contemptuously.
+
+"My heart is as strong as yours. I am ready."
+
+It was dusk when Smith returned and held out a blood-stained flour sack to
+the squaw.
+
+"Liver. A two-year ole."
+
+The squaw's eyes sparkled. Ah, this was as it should be! Her man provided
+for her; he brought her meat to eat. He was clever and brave, for it was
+other men's meat he brought her to eat. MacDonald had killed only his own
+cattle, and secretly it had shamed her, for she mistook his honesty for
+lack of courage. To steal was legitimate; it was brave; something to be
+told among friends at night, and laughed over. Susie, she had observed
+with regret, was honest, like her father. She patted the back of Smith's
+hand, and looked at him with dog-like, adoring eyes as they stood in the
+log meat-house, where fresh quarters hung.
+
+"I'd do more nor this for you, Prairie Flower;" and, laying his hand upon
+her shoulder, he pressed it with his finger-tips.
+
+"Say, but that's great liver!" Tubbs reached half the length of the table
+and helped himself a third time. "That'd make a man fight his grandmother.
+Who butchered it?"
+
+"Me," Smith answered.
+
+"It tastes like slow elk," said Susie.
+
+"Maybe you oughtn't to eat it till you're showed the hide," Smith
+suggested.
+
+"Maybe I oughtn't," Susie retorted. "I didn't see any fresh hide a-hangin'
+on the fence. We _always_ hangs _our_ hides."
+
+"I _never_ hangs _my_ hides. I cuts 'em up in strips and braids 'em into
+throw-ropes. It's safer."
+
+The grub-liners laughed at the inference which Smith so coolly implied.
+
+The finding of White Antelope's body, and its subsequent burial, had
+delayed the opening of Dora's night-school, so Smith, for reasons of his
+own, had spent much of his time in the bunk-house, covertly studying the
+grub-liners, who passed the hours exchanging harrowing experiences of
+their varied careers.
+
+A strong friendship had sprung up between Susie and McArthur. While Susie
+liked and greatly admired the Schoolmarm, she never yet had opened her
+heart to her. Beyond their actual school-work, they seemed to have little
+in common; and it was a real disappointment and regret to the Schoolmarm
+that, for some reason which she could not reach, she had never been able
+to break through the curious reserve of the little half-breed, who,
+superficially, seemed so transparently frank. Each time that she made the
+attempt, she found herself repulsed--gently, even tactfully, but
+repulsed.
+
+Dora Marshall did not suspect that these rebuffs were due to an error of
+her own. In the beginning, when Susie had questioned her naïvely of the
+outside world, she had permitted amusement to show in her face and manner.
+She never fully recognized the fact that while Susie to all appearances,
+intents, and purposes was Anglo-Saxon, an equal quantity of Indian blood
+flowed in her veins, and that this blood, with its accompanying traits and
+characteristics, must be reckoned with.
+
+As a matter of fact, Susie was suspicious, unforgiving, with all the
+Indians' sensitiveness to and fear of ridicule. She meant never again to
+entertain the Schoolmarm by her ignorant questions, although she yearned
+with all a young girl's yearning for some one in whom to confide--some one
+with whom she could discuss the future which she often questioned and
+secretly dreaded.
+
+With real adroitness Susie had tested McArthur, searching his face for the
+glimmer of amusement which would have destroyed irredeemably any chance of
+real comradeship between them. But invariably McArthur had answered her
+questions gravely; and when her tears had fallen fast and hot at White
+Antelope's grave, she had known, with an intuition both savage and
+childish, that his sympathy was sincere. She had felt, too, the
+genuineness of his interest when, later, she had repeated to him many of
+the stories White Antelope had told her of the days when he and her father
+had trapped and hunted together in the big woods to the north.
+
+So to-night, when the living-room was deserted by all save her mother, at
+work on her rugs in the corner, Susie confided to him her Great Secret,
+and McArthur, some way, felt strangely flattered by the confidence. He had
+no desire to laugh; indeed, there were times when the tears were
+perilously close to the surface. He had been a shy, lonely student, and
+quite as lonely as a man, yet through the promptings of a heart
+sympathetic and kind and with the fine instinct of gentle birth, he
+understood the bizarre little half-breed in a way which surprised himself.
+
+There was a settee on one side of the room, made of elk-horns and
+interwoven buckskin thongs, and it was there, in the whisper which makes a
+secret doubly alluring, that Susie told him of her plans; but first she
+brought from some hiding-place outside a long pasteboard box, carefully
+wrapped and tied.
+
+McArthur, puffing on the briar-wood pipe which he was seldom without,
+waited with interest, but without showing curiosity, for he felt that, in
+a way, this was a critical moment in their friendship.
+
+"If you didn't see me here on the reservation, would you know I was
+Injun?" Susie demanded, facing him.
+
+McArthur regarded her critically.
+
+"You have certain characteristics--your rather high cheek-bones, for
+instance--and your skin has a peculiar tint."
+
+"I got an awful complexion on me," Susie agreed, "but I'm goin' to fix
+that."
+
+"Then, your movements and gestures----"
+
+"That's from talkin' signs, maybe. I can talk signs so fast that the
+full-bloods themselves have to ask me to slow up. But, now, if you saw me
+with my hair frizzled--all curled up, like, and pegged down on top of my
+head--and a red silk dress on me with a long skirt, and shiny shoes coming
+to a point, and a white hat with birds and flowers staked out on it, and
+maybe kid gloves on my hands--would you know right off it was me? Would
+you say, 'Why, there's that Susie MacDonald--that breed young un from the
+reservation'?"
+
+"No," declared McArthur firmly; "I certainly never should say, 'Why,
+there's that Susie MacDonald--that breed young un from the reservation.'
+As a matter of fact," he went on gravely, "I should probably say, 'What a
+pity that a young lady so intelligent and high-spirited should frizz her
+hair'!"
+
+"Would you?" insisted Susie delightedly.
+
+"Undoubtedly," McArthur replied, with satisfying emphasis.
+
+"And how long do you think it would take me to stop slingin' the buckskin
+and learn to talk like you?--to say big words without bitin' my tongue and
+gettin' red in the face?"
+
+"Do I use large words frequently?" McArthur asked in real surprise.
+
+"Whoppers!" said Susie.
+
+"I do it unconsciously." McArthur's tone was apologetic.
+
+"Sure, I know it."
+
+"I shrink from appearing pedantic," said McArthur, half to himself.
+
+"So do I," Susie declared mischievously. "I don't know what it is, but I
+shrink from it. Do you think I could learn big words?"
+
+"Of course." McArthur wondered where all these questions led.
+
+"Did you ever notice that I'm kind of polite sometimes?"
+
+"Frequently."
+
+"That I say 'If you please' and 'Thank you,' and did you notice the other
+morning when I asked Old Man Rulison how his ribs was getting along that
+Arkansaw Red kicked in, and said I was sorry the accident happened?"
+
+McArthur nodded.
+
+"Well, I didn't mean it." She giggled. "That was just my manners that I
+was practisin' on him. He was onery, and only got what was comin' to him;
+but if you're goin' to be polite, seems like you dassn't tell the truth.
+But Miss Marshall says that 'Thank you,' 'If you please,' and 'Good
+morning, how's your ribs?' are kind of pass-words out in the world that
+help you along."
+
+"Yes, Susie; that's true."
+
+"So I'm tryin' to catch onto all I can, because"--her eyes dilated, and
+she lowered her voice--"I'm goin' out in the world pretty soon."
+
+"To school?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I'm goin' to hunt up Dad's relations; and when I find 'em, I don't want
+'em to be ashamed of me, and of him for marryin' into the Injuns."
+
+"They need never be ashamed of you, Susie."
+
+"Honest? Honest, don't you think so?" She looked at him wistfully. "I'd
+try awful hard not to make breaks," she went on, "and make 'em feel like
+cachin' me in the cellar when they saw company comin'. It's just plumb
+awful to be lonesome here, like I am sometimes; to be homesick for
+something or somebody--for other kind of folks besides Injuns and
+grub-liners, and Schoolmarms that look at you as if you was a new, queer
+kind of bug, and laugh at you with their eyes.
+
+"Dad's got kin, I know; for lots of times when I would go with him to hunt
+horses, he would say, 'I'll take you back to see them some time, Susie,
+girl.' But he never said where 'back' was, so I've got to find out myself.
+Wouldn't it be awful, though"--and her chin quivered--"if after I'd been
+on the trail for days and days, and my ponies were foot-sore, they wasn't
+glad to see me when I rode up to the house, but hinted around that
+horse-feed was short and grub was scarce, and they couldn't well winter
+me?"
+
+"They wouldn't do that," said McArthur reassuringly. "Nobody named
+MacDonald would do that."
+
+Susie began to untie the pasteboard box which contained her treasures.
+
+"Nearly ever since Dad died, I've been getting ready to go. I don't mean
+that I would leave Mother for keeps--of course not; but after I've found
+'em, maybe I can coax 'em to come and live with us. I used to ask White
+Antelope every question I could think of, but all he knew was that after
+they'd sold their furs to the Hudson Bay Company, they sometimes went to a
+lodge in Canada called Selkirk, where almost everybody there was named
+MacDonald or MacDougal or Mackenzie or Mac something. Lots of his friends
+there married Sioux and went to the Walla Walla valley, and maybe I'll
+have to go there to find somebody who knew him; but first I'll go to
+Selkirk.
+
+"I'll take a good pack-outfit, and Running Rabbit to find trails and
+wrangle horses. See--I've got my trail all marked out on the map."
+
+She unfolded a worn leaf from a school geography.
+
+"It looks as if it was only a sleep or two away, but White Antelope said
+it was the big ride--maybe a hundred sleeps. And lookee"--she unfolded
+fashion plates of several periods. "I've even picked out the clothes I'll
+buy to put on when I get nearly to the ranch where they live. I can make
+camp, you know, and change my clothes, and then go walkin' down the road
+carryin' this here parasol and wearin' this here white hat and holdin' up
+this here long skirt like Teacher on Sunday.
+
+"Won't they be surprised when they open the door and see me standin' on
+the door-step? I'll say, 'How do you do? I'm Susie MacDonald, your
+relation what's come to visit you.' I think this would be better than
+showin' up with Running Rabbit and the pack-outfit, until I'd kind of
+broke the news to 'em. I'd keep Running Rabbit cached in the brush till I
+sent for him.
+
+"You see, I've thought about it so much that it seems like it was as good
+as done; but maybe when I start I won't find it so easy. I might have to
+ride clear to this Minnesota country, or beyond the big waters to the New
+York or Connecticut country, mightn't I?"
+
+"You might," McArthur replied soberly.
+
+"But I'd take a lot of jerked elk, and everybody says grub's easy to get
+if you have money, I'd start with about nine ponies in my string, so it
+looks like I ought to get through?"
+
+She waited anxiously for McArthur to express his opinion.
+
+He wondered how he could disillusionize her, shatter the dream which he
+could see had become a part of her life. Should he explain to her that
+when she had crossed the mountains and left behind her the deserts which
+constituted the only world she knew, and by which, with its people, she
+judged the country she meant to penetrate, she would find herself a
+bewildered little savage in a callous, complex civilization where she had
+no place--wondered at, gibed at, defeated of her purpose?
+
+"Are you sure you have no other clues--no old letters, no photographs?"
+
+She was about to answer when a tapping like the pecking of a snowbird on
+a window-sill was heard on the door.
+
+Susie opened it.
+
+In ludicrous contrast to the timid rap, a huge figure that all but filled
+it was framed in the doorway.
+
+It was "Babe" from the Bar C ranch; "Baby" Britt, curly-haired,
+pink-cheeked, with one innocent blue eye dark from recent impact with a
+fist, which gave its owner the appearance of a dissipated cherub.
+
+"Evenin'," he said tremulously, his eyes roving as though in search of
+some one.
+
+"I lost a horse----" he began.
+
+"Brown?" interrupted Susie, with suspicious interest. "With a star in the
+forehead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"One white stockin'?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"Roached mane?"
+
+"Ye-ah."
+
+"Kind of a rat-tail?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Left hip knocked down?"
+
+"Babe" nodded.
+
+"Saddle-sore?"
+
+"That's it. Where did you see him?"
+
+"I didn't see him."
+
+"Aw-w-w," rumbled "Babe" in disgust.
+
+"Teacher!"
+
+Dora Marshall's door opened in response to Susie's lusty call.
+
+"Have you seen a brown horse with a star in its forehead, roached
+mane----"
+
+"Aw, g'wan, Susie!" In confusion, "Babe" began to remove his spurs,
+thereby serving notice upon the Schoolmarm that he had "come to set a
+spell."
+
+So the Schoolmarm brought her needlework, and while she explained to Mr.
+Britt the exact shadings which she intended to give to each leaf and
+flower, that person sat with his entranced eyes upon her white hands, with
+their slender, tapering fingers--the smallest, the most beautiful hands,
+he firmly believed, in the whole world.
+
+It was not easy to carry on a spirited conversation with Mr. Britt. At
+best, his range of topics was limited, and in his present frame of mind he
+was about as vivacious as a deaf mute. He was quite content to sit with
+the high heels of his cowboy boots--from which a faint odor of the stable
+emanated--hung over the rung of his chair, and to watch the Schoolmarm's
+hand plying the needle on that almost sacred sofa-pillow.
+
+"Your work must be very interesting, Mr. Britt," suggested Dora.
+
+"I dunno as 'tis," replied Mr. Britt.
+
+"It's so--so picturesque."
+
+Mr. Britt considered.
+
+"I shouldn't say it was."
+
+"But you like it?"
+
+"Not by a high-kick!"
+
+If there was one thing upon which Mr. Britt prided himself more than
+another, it was upon knowing how to temper his language to his company.
+
+"Why do you stick to it, then?"
+
+"Don't know how to do anything else."
+
+"You don't get much time to read, do you?"
+
+"Oh, yes; _P'lice Gazette_ comes reg'lar."
+
+"But you have no church or social privileges?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I say, you have no entertainment, no time or opportunity for amusement,
+have you?"
+
+"Oh, my, yes," Mr. Britt declared heartily. "We has a game of stud poker
+nearly every Sunday mornin', and races in the afternoon."
+
+"Ain't he sparklin'?" whispered Susie across the room to Dora, who
+pretended not to hear.
+
+"You are fond of horses?" inquired the Schoolmarm, desperately.
+
+"Oh, I has nothin' agin 'em." He qualified his statement by adding:
+"Leastways, unless they come from the Buffalo Basin country. Then I shore
+hates 'em." At last Mr. Britt was upon a subject upon which he could talk
+fluently and for an indefinite length of time. "You take that there
+Buffalo Basin stock," he went on earnestly, "and they're nothin' but
+inbred cayuse outlaws. They're treach'rous. Oneriest horses that ever
+wore hair. Can't gentle 'em--simply can't be done. They've piled me up
+more times than any horses that run. Sunfishers--the hull of 'em; rare up
+and fall over backwards. 'Tain't pleasant ridin' a horse like that. Wheel
+on you quicker'n a weasel; shy clean acrost the road at nothin';
+kick--stand up and strike at you in the corral. It's irritatin'. Hard
+keepers, too. Maybe you've noticed that blue roan I'm ridin'. Well, sir,
+the way I've throwed feed into that horse is a scandal, and the more he
+eats the worse he looks. Besides, it spoils them Buffalo Basin
+buzzard-heads to eat. Give 'em three square meals, and you can't hardly
+ride 'em. They ain't stayers, neither; no bottom, seems-like. Forty miles,
+and that horse of mine is played out. What for a horse is that? Is that a
+horse? Not by a high-kick! Gimme a buckskin with a black line down his
+back, and zebra stripes on his legs--high back, square chest--say, then
+you got a _horse!_"
+
+It was apparent enough that Mr. Britt had not commenced to exhaust the
+subject of the Buffalo Basin stock. As a matter of fact, he had barely
+started; but the sound of horses coming up the path, and a whoop outside,
+caused a suspension of his conversation.
+
+Something heavy was thrown against the door, and when Susie opened it a
+roll of roped canvas rolled inside, while the lamplight fell upon the
+grinning faces of two Bar C cowpunchers.
+
+"What's that?" The Schoolmarm looked wonderingly at the bundle.
+
+"Aw-w-w!" Mr. Britt replied, in angry confusion. "It's my bed. I'll put a
+crimp in them two for this." He shouldered his blankets sheepishly and
+went out.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CUPID "WINGS" A DEPUTY SHERIFF
+
+
+Riding home next morning with his bed on a borrowed pack-horse, morose,
+his mind occupied with divers plans for punishing the cowpunchers who had
+spoiled his evening and made him ridiculous before the Schoolmarm, "Babe"
+came upon something in a gulch which caused him to rein his horse sharply
+and swing from the saddle.
+
+With an ejaculation of surprise, he pulled a fresh hide from under a pile
+of rock, it having been partially uncovered by coyotes. The brand had been
+cut out, and with the sight of this significant find, the two cowpunchers,
+their obnoxious joke, even the Schoolmarm, were forgotten; for there was a
+new thief on the range, and a new thief meant excitement and adventure.
+
+Colonel Tolman's deep-set eyes glittered when he heard the news. As
+Running Rabbit had said, on the trail of a cattle-thief he was as
+relentless as a bloodhound. He could not eat or sleep in peace until the
+man who had robbed him was behind the bars. The Colonel was an old-time
+Texas cattleman, and his herds had ranged from the Mexican border to the
+Alberta line. He had made and lost fortunes. Disease, droughts, and
+blizzards had cleaned him out at various times, and always he had taken
+his medicine without a whimper; but the loss of so much as a yearling calf
+by theft threw him into a rage that was like hysteria.
+
+His hand shook as he sat down at his desk and wrote a note to the
+Stockmen's Association, asking for the services of their best detective.
+It meant four days of hard riding to deliver the note, but the Colonel put
+it into "Babe's" hand as if he were asking him to drop it in the mail-box
+around the corner.
+
+"Go, and git back," were his laconic instructions, and he turned to pace
+the floor.
+
+When "Babe" returned some eight days later, with the deputy sheriff, he
+found the Colonel striding to and fro, his wrath having in no wise abated.
+The cowboy wondered if his employer had been walking the floor all that
+time.
+
+"My name is Ralston," said the tall young deputy, as he stood before the
+old cattleman.
+
+"Ralston?" The Colonel rose on his toes a trifle to peer into his face.
+
+"Not Dick Ralston's boy?"
+
+The six-foot deputy smiled.
+
+"The same, sir."
+
+The Colonel's hand shot out in greeting.
+
+"Anybody of that name is pretty near like kin to me. Many's the time your
+dad and I have eaten out of the same frying-pan."
+
+"So I've heard him say."
+
+"Does he know you're down here on this job?"
+
+The young man shook his head soberly.
+
+"No."
+
+The Colonel looked at him keenly.
+
+"Had a falling out?"
+
+"No; scarcely that; but we couldn't agree exactly upon some things, so I
+struck out for myself when I came home from college."
+
+"No future for you in this sleuthing business," commented the old man
+tersely. "Why didn't you go into cattle with your dad?"
+
+"That's where we disagreed, sir. I wanted to buy sheep, and he goes
+straight into the air at the very word."
+
+The Colonel laughed.
+
+"I can believe that."
+
+"Over there the range is going fast, and it's fight and scrap and quarrel
+all the time to keep the sheep off what little there is left; and then you
+ship and bottom drops out of the market as soon as your cattle are loaded.
+There's nothing in it; and while I don't like sheep any better than the
+Governor, there's no use in hanging on and going broke in cattle because
+of a prejudice."
+
+"Dick's stubborn,"--the Colonel nodded knowingly--"and I don't believe
+he'll ever give in."
+
+"No; I don't think he will, and I'm sorry for his sake, because he's
+getting too old to worry."
+
+"Worry? Cattle's nothing but worry!--which reminds me of what you are here
+for."
+
+"Have you any suspicions?"
+
+"No. I don't believe I can help you any. The Injuns been good as pie since
+we sent Wolf Robe over the road. Don't hardly think it's Injuns. Don't
+know what to think. Might be some of these Mormon outfits going north.
+Might be some of these nesters off in the hills. Might be anybody!"
+
+"Is he an old hand?"
+
+"Looks like it. Cuts the brand out and buries the hide." The Colonel began
+pacing the floor. "Cattle-thieves are people that's got to be nipped in
+the bud _muy pronto_. There ought to be a lynching on every cattle-range
+once in seven years. It's the only way to hold 'em level. Down there on
+the Rio Grande we rode away and left fourteen of 'em swinging over the
+bluff. It's got to be done in all cattle countries, and since they've
+started in here--well, a hanging is overdue by two years." The Colonel
+ejected his words with the decisive click of a riot-gun.
+
+So Dick Ralston, Jr., rode the range for the purpose of getting the lay of
+the country, and, on one pretext or another, visited the squalid homes of
+the nesters, but nowhere found anybody or anything in the least
+suspicious. He learned of the murder of White Antelope, and of the
+"queer-actin'" bug-hunter and his pal, who had been accused of it. It was
+rather generally believed that McArthur was a desperado of a new and
+original kind. While it was conceded that he seemed to have no way of
+disposing of the meat, and certainly could not kill a cow and eat it
+himself, it was nevertheless declared that he was "worth watching."
+
+While the hangers-on at the MacDonald ranch were all known to have
+records, no particular suspicion had attached to them in this instance,
+because the squaw was known to kill her own beef, and no shadow of doubt
+had ever fallen upon the good name of the ranch.
+
+The trapping of cattle-thieves is not the work of a day or a week, but
+sometimes of months; and when evidence of another stolen beef was found
+upon the range, Ralston realized that his efforts lay in that vicinity for
+some time to come. He decided to ride over to the MacDonald ranch that
+evening and have a look at the bad _hombre_ who masqueraded as a
+bug-hunter--bug-hunter, it should be explained, being a Western term for
+any stranger engaged in scientific pursuits.
+
+While Ralston was riding over the lonely road in the moonlight, Dora was
+arranging the dining-room table for her night-school, which had been in
+session several evenings. Smith was studying grammar, of which branch of
+learning Dora had decided he stood most in need, while Susie groaned over
+compound fractions.
+
+Tubbs, with his chair tilted against the wall, looked on with a tolerant
+smile. In the kitchen, paring a huge pan of potatoes for breakfast, Ling
+listened with such an intensity of interest to what was being said that
+his ears seemed fairly to quiver. From her bench in the living-room, the
+Indian woman braided rags and darted jealous glances at teacher and pupil.
+Smith, his hair looking like a bunch of tumble-weed in a high wind, hung
+over a book with a look of genuine misery upon his face.
+
+"I didn't have any notion there was so much in the world I didn't know,"
+he burst out. "I thought when I'd learnt that if you sprinkle your
+saddle-blanket you can hold the biggest steer that runs, without your
+saddle slippin', I'd learnt about all they was worth knowin'."
+
+"It's tedious," Dora admitted.
+
+"Tedious?" echoed Smith in loud pathos. "It's hell! Say, I can tie a fancy
+knot in a bridle-rein that can't be beat by any puncher in the country,
+but _darn_ me if I can see the difference between a adjective and one of
+these here adverbs! Once I thought I knowed something--me, Smith--but say,
+I don't know enough to make a mark in the road!"
+
+Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he repeated:
+
+"'I have had, you have had, he has had.'"
+
+"If you would have had about six drinks, I think you could git that,"
+observed Tubbs judicially, watching Smith's mental suffering with keen
+interest.
+
+"Don't be discouraged," said Dora cheerfully, seating herself beside him.
+"Let's take a little review. Do you remember what I told you about this?"
+
+She pointed to the letter _a_ marked with the long sound.
+
+Smith ran both hands through his hair, while a wild, panic-stricken look
+came upon his face.
+
+"Dog-gone me! I know it's a _a_, but I plumb forget how you called it."
+
+Tubbs unhooked his toes from the chair-legs and walked around to look over
+Smith's shoulder.
+
+"Smith, you got a great forgitter," he said sarcastically. "Why don't you
+use your head a little? That there is a Bar A. You ought to have knowed
+that. The Bar A stock run all over the Judith Basin."
+
+"Don't you remember I told you that whenever you saw that mark over a
+letter you should give it the long sound?" explained Dora patiently.
+
+"Like the _a_ in 'aig,'" elucidated Tubbs.
+
+"Like the _a_ in 'snake,'" corrected the Schoolmarm.
+
+"Or 'wake,' or 'skate,' or 'break,'" said Smith hopefully.
+
+"Fine!" declared the Schoolmarm.
+
+"I knowed that much myself," said Tubbs enviously.
+
+"If you'll pardon me, Mr. Tubbs," said Dora, in some irritation, "there
+is no such word as 'knowed.'"
+
+"Why don't you talk grammatical, Tubbs?" Smith demanded, with alacrity.
+
+"I talks what I knows," said Tubbs, going back to his chair.
+
+"Have you forgotten all I told you about adjectives?"
+
+"Adjectives is words describin' things. They's two kinds, comparative and
+superlative," Smith replied promptly. He added. "Adjectives kind of stuck
+in my craw."
+
+"Can you give me examples?" Dora felt encouraged.
+
+"You got a horrible pretty hand," Smith replied, without hesitation.
+"'Horrible pretty' is a adjective describin' your hand."
+
+Dora burst out laughing, and Tubbs, without knowing why, joined in
+heartily.
+
+"Tubbs," continued Smith, glaring at that person, "has got the horriblest
+mug I ever seen, and if he opens it and laffs like that at me again, I
+aims to break his head. 'Horriblest' is a superlative adjective describin'
+Tubbs's mug."
+
+To Smith's chagrin and Tubbs's delight, Dora explained that "horrible" was
+a word which could not be used in conjunction with "pretty," and that its
+superlative was not "horriblest."
+
+Smith buried his head in his hands despondently.
+
+"If I was where I could, I'd get drunk!"
+
+"It's nothing to feel so badly about," said Dora comfortingly. "Let's go
+back to prepositions. Can you define a preposition?"
+
+Smith screwed up his face and groped for words, but before he found them
+Tubbs broke in:
+
+"A preposition is what a feller has to sell that nobody wants," he
+explained glibly. "They's copper prepositions, silver-lead prepositions,
+and onct I had a oil preposition up in the Swift Current country."
+
+Smith reached inside his coat and pulled out the carved, ivory-handled
+six-shooter which he wore in a holster under his arm. He laid it on the
+table beside his grammar, and looked at Tubbs.
+
+"Feller," he said, "I hates to make a gun-play before the Schoolmarm, but
+if you jump into this here game again, I aims to try a chunk of lead on
+you."
+
+"If book-learnin' ud ever make me as peevish as it does you," declared
+Tubbs, rising hastily, "I hopes I never knows nothin'."
+
+Tubbs slammed the door behind him as he went to seek more amiable company
+in the bunk-house.
+
+Save for the Indian woman, Smith and Dora were now practically alone; for
+Ling had gone to bed, and Susie was oblivious to everything except
+fractions. Smith continued to struggle with prepositions, adjectives, and
+adverbs, but he found it difficult to concentrate his thoughts on them
+with Dora so close beside him. He knew that his slightest glance, every
+expression which crossed his face, was observed by the Indian woman; and
+although he did his utmost not to betray his feelings, he saw the sullen,
+jealous resentment rising within her.
+
+She read aright the light in his eyes; besides, her intuitions were
+greater than his powers of concealment. When she could no longer endure
+the sight of Smith and the Schoolmarm sitting side by side, she laid down
+her work and slipped out into the star-lit night, closing the door softly
+behind her.
+
+Smith's judgment told him that he should end the lesson and go after her,
+but the spell of love was upon him, overwhelming him, holding him fast in
+delicious thraldom. He had not the strength of will just then to break
+it.
+
+Dora had been reading "Hiawatha" aloud each evening to Susie, Tubbs, and
+Smith, so when she finally closed the grammar, she asked if he would like
+to hear more of the Indian story, as he called it, to which he nodded
+assent.
+
+Dora read well, with intelligence and sympathy; her trained voice was
+flexible. Then, too, she loved this greatest of American legends. It
+appealed to her audience as perhaps no other poem would have done. It was
+real to them, it was "life," their life in a little different environment
+and told in a musical rhythm which held them breathless, enchanted.
+
+Dora had reached the story of "The Famine." She knew the refrain by heart,
+and the wail of old Nokomis was in her voice as she repeated from memory:
+
+                  "Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
+                  Would that I had perished for you!
+                  Would that I were dead as you are!
+                  Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
+
+                  "Then they buried Minnehaha;
+                  In the snow a grave they made her,
+                  In the forest deep and darksome,
+                  Underneath the moaning hemlocks;
+                  Clothed her in her richest garments,
+                  Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
+                  Covered her with snow, like ermine;
+                  So they buried Minnehaha."
+
+The pathos of the lines never failed to touch Dora anew. Her voice broke,
+and, pausing to recover herself, she glanced at Smith. There were tears in
+his eyes. The brutal chin was quivering like that of a tender-hearted
+child.
+
+"The man that wrote that was a _chief_," he said huskily. "It hurts me
+here--in my neck." He rubbed the contracted muscles of his throat. "I'd
+feel like that, girl, if you should die."
+
+He repeated softly, and choked:
+
+                  "All my heart is buried with you,
+                  All my thoughts go onward with you!"
+
+The impression which the poem made upon Smith was deep. It was a constant
+surprise to him also. The thoughts it expressed, the sensations it
+described, he had believed were entirely original with himself. He had not
+conceived it possible that any one else could feel toward a woman as he
+felt toward Dora. Therefore, when the poet put many of his heart-throbs
+into words, they startled him, as though, somehow, his own heart were
+photographed and held up to view.
+
+Susie had finished her lesson, and, cramped from sitting, was walking
+about the living-room to rest herself, while this conversation was taking
+place. Her glance fell upon a gaudy vase on a shelf, and some thought came
+to her which made her laugh mischievously. She emptied the contents of the
+vase into the palm of her hand and, closing the other over it, tiptoed
+into the dining-room and stood behind Smith.
+
+Dora and he, engrossed in conversation, paid no attention to her. She put
+her cupped palms close to Smith's ear and, shaking them vigorously,
+shouted:
+
+"Snakes!"
+
+The result was such as Susie had not anticipated.
+
+With a shriek which was womanish in its shrillness, Smith sprang to his
+feet, all but upsetting the lamp in his violence. Unmixed horror was
+written upon his face.
+
+The girl herself shrank back at what she had done; then, holding out
+several rattles for inspection, she said:
+
+"Looks like you don't care for snakes."
+
+"You--you little----"
+
+Only Susie guessed the unspeakable epithet he meant to use. Her eyes
+warned him, and, too, he remembered Dora in time. He said instead, with a
+slight laugh of confusion:
+
+"Snakes scares me, and rat-traps goin' off."
+
+The color had not yet returned to his face when a knock came upon the
+door.
+
+In response to Susie's call, a tall stranger stepped inside--a stranger
+wide of shoulder, and with a kind of grim strength in his young face.
+
+From the unnatural brightness of the eyes of Susie and of Smith, and their
+still tense attitudes, Ralston sensed the fact that something had
+happened. He returned Smith's unpleasant look with a gaze as steady as his
+own. Then his eyes fell upon Dora and lingered there.
+
+She had sprung to her feet and was still standing. Her cheeks were
+flushed, her eyes luminous, and the soft lamplight burnishing her brown
+hair made the moment one of her best. Smith saw the frank admiration in
+the stranger's look.
+
+"May I stop here to-night?" He addressed Dora.
+
+He had the characteristic Western gravity of manner and expression, the
+distinguishing definiteness of purpose. Though the quality of his voice,
+its modulation, bespoke the man of poise and education, the accent was
+unmistakably of the West.
+
+"There's a bunk-house." It was Smith who answered.
+
+His unuttered epithet still rankled; Susie turned upon him with insulting
+emphasis:
+
+"And you'd better get out to it!"
+
+"Are you the boss here?" The stranger put the question to Smith with cool
+politeness.
+
+"What I say _goes!_"
+
+Smith looked marvellously ugly.
+
+Susie leaned toward him, and her childish face was distorted with anger as
+she shrieked:
+
+"_Not yet, Mister Smith!_"
+
+Involuntarily, Dora and the stranger exchanged glances in the awkward
+silence which followed. Then, more to relieve her embarrassment than for
+any other reason, Ralston said quietly, "Very well, I will do as
+this--gentleman suggests," and withdrew.
+
+"Good-night," said Dora, gathering up her books; but neither Smith nor
+Susie answered.
+
+With both hands deep in his trousers' pockets, Smith was smiling at Susie,
+with a smile which was little short of devilish; and the girl, throwing a
+last look of defiance at him, also left the room, violently slamming
+behind her the door of the bed-chamber occupied by her mother and
+herself.
+
+For a full minute Smith stood as they had left him--motionless, his
+eyelids drooping. Rousing himself, he went to the window and looked into
+the moonlight-flooded world outside. Huddled in a blanket, a squat figure
+sat on a fallen cottonwood tree.
+
+Smith eyed it, then asked himself contemptuously:
+
+"Ain't that pure Injun?"
+
+Taking his hat, he too stepped into the moonlight.
+
+The woman did not look up at his approach, so he stooped until his cheek
+touched hers.
+
+"What's the matter, Prairie Flower?"
+
+"My heart is under my feet." Her voice was harsh.
+
+In the tone one uses to a sulky child, he said:
+
+"Come into the house."
+
+"You no like me, white man. You like de white woman."
+
+Smith reached under the blanket and took her hand.
+
+"Why don't you marry de white woman?"
+
+He pressed her hand tightly against his heart.
+
+"Come into the house, Prairie Flower."
+
+Her face relaxed like that of a child when it smiles through its tears.
+And Smith, in the hour when the first real love of his life was at its
+zenith, when his heart was so full of it that it seemed well nigh
+bursting, walked back to the house with the squaw clinging tightly to his
+fingers.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE BUG-HUNTER ELUCIDATES
+
+
+The same instinct which made Ralston recognize Susie as his friend told
+him that Smith was his enemy; though, verily, that person who would have
+construed as evidences of esteem and budding friendship Smith's black
+looks when Ralston presumed to talk with Dora, even upon the most ordinary
+topics, would have been dull of comprehension indeed.
+
+While no reason for remaining appeared to be necessary at the MacDonald
+ranch, Ralston hinted at hunting stray horses; and casually expressed a
+hope that he might be able to pick up a bunch of good ponies at a
+reasonable figure--which explanation was entirely satisfactory to all save
+Smith. The latter frequently voiced the opinion that Ralston lingered
+solely for the purpose of courting the Schoolmarm, an opinion which the
+grub-liners agreed was logical, since they too, along with the majority of
+unmarried males for fifty miles around, cherished a similar ambition.
+
+Dora had long since ceased to consider as extraordinary the extended
+visits which strangers paid to the ranch; therefore, she saw nothing
+unusual in the fact that Ralston stayed on.
+
+If furtive-eyed and restless passers-by arrived after dark, slept in the
+hay near their unsaddled horses, and departed at dawn, assuredly no person
+at the MacDonald ranch was rude enough to ask reasons for their haste. Its
+hospitality was as boundless, as free, as the range itself; and if upon
+leaving any guest had happened to express gratitude for food and shelter,
+it is doubtful if any incident could more have surprised Susie and her
+mother, unless, mayhap, it might have been an offer of payment for the
+same.
+
+Ralston told himself that, since he could remain without comment, the
+ranch was much better situated for his purpose than Colonel Tolman's home;
+but the really convincing point in its favor, though one which he refused
+to recognize as influencing him in the least, was that he was nearer Dora
+by something like eight miles than he would have been at the Bar C. Then,
+too, though there was nothing tangible to justify his suspicions, Ralston
+believed that his work lay close at hand.
+
+Like Colonel Tolman, he had come to think that it was not the Indians who
+were killing; and the nesters, though a spiritless, shiftless lot, had
+always been honest enough. But the bunk-house on the MacDonald ranch was
+often filled with the material of which horse and cattle thieves are made,
+and Ralston hoped that he might get a clue from some word inadvertently
+dropped there.
+
+He often thought that he never had seen a more heterogeneous gathering
+than that which assembled at times around the table. And with Longfellow
+in the dining-room, ethnological dissertations in one end of the
+bunk-house, and personal reminiscences and experiences in gun-fights and
+affairs of the heart in the other end, there was afforded a sufficient
+variety of mental diversion to suit nearly any taste.
+
+McArthur in the rôle of desperado seemed preposterous to Ralston; yet he
+remembered that Ben Reed, a graduate of a theological seminary, who could
+talk tears into the eyes of an Apache, was the slickest stock thief west
+of the Mississippi. He was well aware that a pair of mild eyes and gentle,
+ingenuous manners are many a rogue's most valuable asset, and though the
+bug-hunter talked frankly of his pilgrimages into the hills, there was
+always a chance that his pursuit was a pose, his zeal counterfeit.
+
+One evening which was typical of others, Ralston sat on the edge of his
+bunk, rolling an occasional cigarette and listening with huge enjoyment to
+the conversation of a group around the sheet-iron stove, of which McArthur
+was the central figure.
+
+McArthur, riding his hobby enthusiastically, quite forgot the character of
+his listeners, and laid his theories regarding the interchange of
+mammalian life between America and Asia during the early Pleistocene
+period, before Meeteetse Ed, Old Man Rulison, Tubbs, and others, in the
+same language in which he would have argued moot questions with
+colleagues engaged in similar research. The language of learning was as
+natural to McArthur as the vernacular of the West was to Tubbs, and in
+moments of excitement he lapsed into it as a foreigner does into his
+native tongue under stress of feeling.
+
+"I maintain," asserted McArthur, with a gesture of emphasis, "that the
+Paleolithic man of Europe followed the mastodon to North America and here
+remained."
+
+Meeteetse Ed, whose cheeks were flushed, laid his hot hand upon his
+forehead and declared plaintively as he blinked at McArthur:
+
+"Pardner, I'm gittin' a headache from tryin' to see what you're talkin'
+about."
+
+"Air you sayin' anything a-tall," demanded Old Man Rulison, suspiciously,
+"or air you joshin'?"
+
+"Them's words all right," said Tubbs. "Onct I worked under a section boss
+over on the Great Northern what talked words like them. He believed we
+sprung up from tuds and lizards--and the likes o' that. Yes, he did--on
+the square."
+
+"There are many believers in the theory of evolution," observed McArthur.
+
+"That's it--that's the word. That's what he was." Then, in the tone of one
+who hands out a clincher, Tubbs demanded: "Look here, Doc, if that's so
+why ain't all these ponds and cricks around here a-hatchin' out children?"
+
+"Guess that'll hold him for a minute," Meeteetse Ed whispered to his
+neighbor.
+
+But instead of being covered with confusion by this seemingly unanswerable
+argument, McArthur gazed at Tubbs in genuine pity.
+
+"Let me consider how I can make it quite clear to you. Perhaps," he said
+thoughtfully, "I cannot do better than to give you Herbert Spencer's
+definition. Spencer defines evolution, as nearly as I can remember his
+exact words, as an integration of matter and concomita, dissipation of
+motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite heterogeneity to
+a definite, incoherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion
+undergoes a parallel transformation. Materialistic, agnostic, and theistic
+evolution----"
+
+Meeteetse Ed fell off his chair in a mock faint and crashed to the floor.
+
+Susie, who had entered, saw McArthur's embarrassment, and refused to join
+in the shout of laughter, though her eyes danced.
+
+"Don't mind him," she said comfortingly, as she eyed Meeteetse, sprawled
+on his back with his eyes closed. "He's afraid he'll learn something. He
+used to be a sheep-herder, and I don't reckon he's got more'n two hundred
+and fifty words in his whole vocabulary. Why, I'll bet he never _heard_ a
+word of more'n three syllables before. Get up, Meeteetse. Go out in the
+fresh air and build yourself a couple of them sheep-herder's monuments.
+It'll make you feel better."
+
+The prostrate humorist revived. Susie's jeers had the effect of a bucket
+of ice-water, for he had not been aware that this blot upon his
+escutcheon--the disgraceful epoch in his life when he had earned honest
+money herding sheep--was known.
+
+"My enthusiasm runs away with me when I get upon this subject," said
+McArthur, in blushing apology to the group. "I am sorry that I have bored
+you."
+
+"No bore a-tall," declared Old Man Rulison magnanimously. "You cut loose
+whenever you feel like it: we kin stand it as long as you kin."
+
+After McArthur had gone to his pneumatic mattress in the patent tent
+pitched near the bunk-house, Ralston said to Susie:
+
+"You and the bug-hunter are great friends, aren't you?"
+
+"You bet! We're pardners. Anybody that gets funny with him has got me to
+fight."
+
+"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Ralston laughed.
+
+"We've got secrets--the bug-hunter and me."
+
+"You're rather young for secrets, Susie."
+
+"Nobody's too young for secrets," she declared. "Haven't you any?"
+
+"Sure," Ralston nodded.
+
+"I like you," Susie whispered impulsively. "Let's swap secrets."
+
+He looked at her and wished he dared. He would have liked to tell her of
+his mission, to ask her help; for he realized that, if she chose, no one
+could help him more. Like Smith, he recognized that quality in her they
+each called "gameness," and even more than Smith he appreciated the
+commingling of Scotch shrewdness and Indian craft. He believed Susie to be
+honest; but he had believed many things in the past which time had not
+demonstrated to be facts. No, the chance was too great to take; for should
+she prove untrustworthy or indiscreet, his mission would be a failure. So
+he answered jestingly:
+
+"My secrets are not for little girls to know."
+
+Susie gave him a quick glance.
+
+"Oh, you don't look as though you had that kind," and turned away.
+
+Ralston felt somehow that he had lost an opportunity. He could not rid
+himself of the feeling the entire evening; and he made up his mind to
+cultivate Susie's friendship. But it was too late; he had made a mistake
+not unlike Dora's. Susie had felt herself rebuffed, and, like the
+Schoolmarm, Ralston had laughed at her with his eyes. It was a great
+thing--a really sacred thing to Susie--this secret that she had offered
+him. The telling of it to McArthur had been so delightful an experience
+that she yearned to repeat it, but now she meant never to tell any one
+else. Any way, McArthur was her "pardner," and it was enough that he
+should know. So it came about that afterwards, when Ralston sought her
+company and endeavored to learn something of the workings of her mind, he
+found the same barrier of childish reserve which had balked Dora, and no
+amount of tact or patience seemed able to break it down.
+
+The young deputy sheriff's interest in Dora increased in leaps and bounds.
+He experienced an odd but delightful agitation when he saw the sleepy
+white pony plodding down the hill, and the sensation became one easily
+defined each time that he observed Smith's horse ambling in the road
+beside hers. The feeling which inspired Tubbs's disgruntled comment,
+"Smith rides herd on the Schoolmarm like a cow outfit in a bad wolf
+country," found an echo in Ralston's own breast. Truly, Smith guarded the
+Schoolmarm with the vigilance of a sheep-dog.
+
+He saw a possible rival in every new-comer, but most of all he feared
+Ralston; for Smith was not too blinded by prejudice to appreciate the fact
+that Ralston was handsome in a strong, man's way, younger than himself,
+and possessed of the advantages of education which enabled him to talk
+with Dora upon subjects that left him, Smith, dumb. Such times were
+wormwood and gall to Smith; yet in his heart he never doubted but that he
+would have Dora and her love in the end. Smith's faith in himself and his
+ability to get what he really desired was sublime. The chasm between
+himself and Dora--the difference of birth and education--meant nothing to
+him. It is doubtful if he recognized it. He would have considered himself
+a king's equal; indeed, it would have gone hard with royalty, had royalty
+by any chance ordered Smith to saddle his horse. He judged by the
+standards of the plains: namely, gameness, skill, resourcefulness; to him,
+there _were_ no other standards. After all, Dora Marshall was only a
+woman--the superior of other women, to be sure, but a woman; and if he
+wanted her--why not?
+
+He would have been amazed, enraged through wounded vanity, if it had been
+possible for him to see himself from Dora's point of view: a subject for
+reformation; a test for many trite theories; an erring human to be
+reclaimed by a woman's benign influence. Naturally, these thoughts had not
+suggested themselves to Smith.
+
+Ralston looked forward eagerly to the evening meal, since it was almost
+the only time at which he could exchange a word with Dora. Breakfast was a
+hurried affair, while both she and Susie were absent from the midday
+dinner. The shy, fluttering glances which he occasionally surprised from
+her, the look of mutual appreciation which sometimes passed between them
+at a quaint bit of philosophy or naïve remark, started his pulses dancing
+and set the whole world singing a wordless song of joy.
+
+Somehow, eating seemed a vulgar function in the Schoolmarm's presence,
+and he wished with all his heart that the abominable grammar lessons which
+filled her evenings might some time end; in which case he would be able to
+converse with her when not engaged in rushing bread and meat to and fro.
+
+His most carefully laid plans to obtain a few minutes alone with her were
+invariably thwarted by Smith. And from the heights to which he had been
+transported by some more than passing friendly glance at the table, he was
+dragged each evening to the depths by the sight of Dora and Smith with
+their heads together over that accursed grammar.
+
+He commenced to feel a distaste for his bunk-house associates, and took
+to wandering out of doors, pausing most frequently in his meanderings
+just outside the circle of light thrown through the window by the
+dining-room lamp. Dora's guilelessness in believing that Smith's interest
+in his lessons was due to a desire for knowledge did not make the
+tableau less tantalizing to Ralston, but it would have been against every
+tenet in his code to suggest to Dora that Smith was not the misguided
+diamond-in-the-rough which she believed him.
+
+Smith, on the contrary, had no such scruples. He lost no opportunity to
+sneer at Ralston. When he discovered Dora wearing one of the first flowers
+of spring, which Ralston had brought her, Smith said darkly:
+
+"That fresh guy is a dead ringer for a feller that quit his wife and five
+kids in Livingston and run off with a biscuit-shooter."
+
+Dora laughed aloud. The clean-cut and youthful Ralston deserting a wife
+and five children for a "biscuit-shooter" was not a convincing picture.
+That she did not receive his insinuation seriously but added fuel to the
+unreasoning jealousy beginning to flame in Smith's breast.
+
+Yet Smith treated Ralston with a consideration which was surprising in
+view of the wanton insults he frequently inflicted upon those whom he
+disliked. Susie guessed the reason for his superficial courtesy, and
+Ralston, perhaps, suspected it also. In his heart, Smith was afraid. First
+and always, he was a judge of men--rather, of certain qualities in men. He
+knew that should he give intentional offense to Ralston, he would be
+obliged either to retract or to back up his insult with a gun. Ralston
+would be the last man to accept an affront with meekness.
+
+Smith did not wish affairs to reach this crisis. He did not want to force
+an issue until he had demonstrated to his own satisfaction that he was the
+better man of the two with words or fists or weapons. But once he found
+the flaw in Ralston's armor, he would speedily become the aggressor. Such
+were Smith's tactics. He was reckless with caution; daring when it was
+safe.
+
+The rôle he was playing gave him no concern. Though the Indian woman's
+spells of sullenness irritated him, he conciliated her with endearing
+words, caresses, and the promise of a speedy marriage. He appeased her
+jealousy of Dora by telling her that he studied the foolish book-words
+only that he might the better work for her interests; that he was fitting
+himself to cope with the shrewd cattlemen with whom there were constant
+dealings, and that when they were married, the Schoolmarm should live
+elsewhere. Like others of her sex, regardless of race or color, the Indian
+woman believed because she wanted to believe.
+
+Just where his actions were leading him, Smith did not stop to consider.
+He had no fear of results. With an overweening confidence arising from
+past successes, he believed that matters would adjust themselves as they
+always had. Smith wanted a home, and the MacDonald cattle, horses, and
+hay; but more than any of them he wanted Dora Marshall. How he was going
+to obtain them all was not then clear to him, but that when the time came
+he could make a way, he never for a moment doubted.
+
+Smith's confidence in himself was supreme. If he could have expressed his
+belief in words, he might have said that he could control Destiny, shape
+events and his own life as he liked. He had been shot at, pursued by
+posses, all but lynched upon an occasion, and always he had escaped in
+some unlooked-for manner little short of miraculous. As a result, he had
+come to cherish a superstitious belief that he bore a charmed life, that
+no real harm could come to him. So he courted each woman according to her
+nature as he read it, and waited blindly for success.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SPEAKING OF GRASSHOPPERS----
+
+
+It was Saturday, and, there being no school, both Susie and Dora were at
+home. Ralston was considering in which direction he should ride that day
+when Susie came to him and after saying to Smith with elaborate
+politeness, "Excuse me, Mr. Smith, for whispering, but I have something
+very private and confidential to say to Mr. Ralston," she shielded her
+mouth with her hand and said:
+
+"Teacher and I are going fishing. We are going up on the side-hill now to
+catch grasshoppers for bait, and I thought maybe you'd like to help, and
+to fish with us this afternoon." She tittered in his ear.
+
+Susie's action conveyed two things to Ralston's mind: first, that he had
+not been so clever as he had supposed in dissembling his feelings; and
+second, that Susie, recognizing them, was disposed to render him friendly
+aid.
+
+Smith noted Ralston's brightening eye with suspicion, jumping to the very
+natural conclusion that only some pleasing information concerning the
+Schoolmarm would account for it. When, a few minutes later, he saw the
+three starting away together, each with a tin or pasteboard box, he
+realized that his surmise was correct.
+
+Glowering, Smith walked restlessly about the house, ignoring the Indian
+woman's inquiring, wistful eyes, cursing to himself as he wandered through
+the corrals and stables, hating with a personal hatred everything which
+belonged to Ralston: his gentle-eyed brown mare; his expensive Navajo
+saddle-blanket; his single-rigged saddle; his bridle with the wide cheek
+pieces and the hand-forged bit. It would have been a satisfaction to
+destroy them all. He hated particularly the little brown mare which
+Ralston brushed with such care each morning. Smith's mood was black
+indeed.
+
+But Ralston, as he walked between Dora and Susie to the side-hill where
+the first grasshoppers of spring were always found, felt at peace with all
+the world--even Smith--and it was in his heart to hug the elfish
+half-breed child as she skipped beside him. Dora's frequent, bubbling
+laughter made him thrill; he longed to shout aloud like a schoolboy given
+an unexpected holiday.
+
+Each time that his eyes sought Dora's, shadowed by the wide brim of her
+hat, her eyelids drooped, slowly, reluctantly, as though they fell against
+her will, while the color came and went under her clear skin in a fashion
+which filled him with delighted wonder.
+
+It may be said that there are few things in life so absorbing as catching
+grasshoppers. While Ralston previously had recognized this fact, he never
+had supposed that it contained any element of pleasure akin to the
+delights of Paradise. To chase grasshoppers by oneself is one thing; to
+pursue them in the company of a fascinating schoolmarm is another; and
+when one has in his mind the thought that ultimately he and the schoolmarm
+may chance to fall upon the same grasshopper, the chase becomes a sport
+for the gods to envy.
+
+Anent grasshoppers. While the first grasshopper of early spring has not
+the devilish agility of his August descendant, he is sufficiently alert to
+make his capture no mean feat. It must be borne in mind that the
+grasshopper is not a fool, and that he appears to see best from the rear.
+Though he remains motionless while the enemy is slipping stealthily upon
+him, it by no means follows that he is not aware of said enemy's approach.
+The grasshopper has a more highly developed sense of humor than any other
+known insect. It is an established fact that after a person has fallen
+upon his face and clawed at the earth where the grasshopper was but is
+not, the grasshopper will be seen distinctly to laugh from his coign of
+vantage beyond reach.
+
+Furthermore, it is quite impossible to fathom the mind of the grasshopper,
+his intentions or habits; particularly those of the small, gray-pink
+variety. He is as erratic in his flight as a clay pigeon, though it is
+tolerably safe to assume that he will not jump backward. He may not jump
+at all, but, with a deceptive movement, merely sidle under a sage-leaf.
+Where questions concerning his personal safety are concerned, he shows
+rare judgment, appearing to recognize exactly the psychological moment in
+which to fly, jump, or sit still.
+
+No sluggard, be it known, can hope to catch grasshoppers with any degree
+of success. It requires an individual nimble of mind and body, whose
+nerves are keyed to a tension, who is dominated by a mood which refuses to
+recognize the perils of snakes, cactus, and prairie-dog holes; forgetful
+of self and dignity, inured to ridicule. Such a one is justified in making
+the attempt.
+
+The large, brownish-black, grandfatherly-looking grasshopper is the most
+easily captured, though not so satisfactory for bait as the pea-green or
+the gray-pink. It was to the first variety that Dora and Ralston devoted
+themselves, while Susie followed the smaller and more sprightly around the
+hill till she was out of sight.
+
+Ralston became aware that no matter in which direction the grasshopper he
+had marked for his own took him, singularly enough he always ended in
+pursuit of Dora's. As a matter of fact, her grasshopper looked so much
+more desirable than his, that he could not well do otherwise than abandon
+the pursuit of his own for hers.
+
+Her low "Oh, thank you so much!" was so heartfelt and sincere when he
+pushed the insect through the slit in her pasteboard box that he truly
+believed he would have run one all the way to the Middle Fork of Powder
+River only to hear her say it again. And then her womanly aversion to
+inflicting pain, her appealing femininity when she brought a bulky-bodied,
+tobacco-chewing grasshopper for him to pinch its head into insensibility!
+He liked this best of all, for, of necessity, their fingers touched in the
+exchange, and he wondered a little at his strength of will in refraining
+from catching her hand in his and refusing to let go.
+
+Finally a grasshopper of abnormal size went up with a whir. Big he was, in
+comparison with his kind, as the monster steer in the side-show, the
+Cardiff giant, or Jumbo the mammoth.
+
+"Oh!" cried Dora; "we must have him!" and they ran side by side in wild,
+determined pursuit.
+
+The insect sailed far and fast, but they could not lose sight of him, for
+he was like an aeroplane in flight, and when in an ill-advised moment he
+lit to gather himself, they fell upon him tooth and nail--to use a phrase.
+Dora's hand closed over the grasshopper, and Ralston's closed over Dora's,
+holding it tight in one confused moment of delicious, tongue-tied
+silence.
+
+Her shoulder touched his, her hair brushed his cheek. He wished that they
+might go on holding down that grasshopper until the end of time. She was
+panting with the exertion, her nose was moist like a baby's when it
+sleeps, and he noticed in a swift, sidelong glance that the pupils of her
+eyes all but covered the iris.
+
+"He--he's wiggling!" she said tremulously.
+
+"Is he?" Ralston asked fatuously, at a loss for words, but making no move
+to lift his hand.
+
+"And there's a cactus in my finger."
+
+"Let me see it." Immediately his face was full of deep concern.
+
+He held her fingers, turning the small pink palm upward.
+
+"We must get it out," he declared firmly. "They poison some people."
+
+He wondered if it was imagination, or did her hand tremble a little in
+his? His relief was not unmixed with disappointment when the cactus spine
+came out easily.
+
+"They hurt--those needles." He continued to regard the tiny puncture with
+unabated interest.
+
+"Tra! la! la!" sang Susie from the brow of the hill. "Old Smith is
+comin'."
+
+Ralston dropped Dora's hand, and they both reddened, each wondering how
+long Susie had been doing picket duty.
+
+"Out for your failin' health, Mister Smith?" inquired Susie, with
+solicitude.
+
+"I'm huntin' horses, and hopin' to pick up a bunch of ponies cheap," he
+replied with ugly significance as he rode by.
+
+And while the soft light faded from Ralston's eyes, the color leaped to
+his face; unconsciously his fists clenched as he looked after Smith's
+vanishing back. It was the latter's first overt act of hostility; Ralston
+knew, and perhaps Smith intended it so, that the clash between them must
+now come soon.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+MOTHER LOVE AND SAVAGE PASSION CONFLICT
+
+
+It was Sunday, a day later, when Susie came into the living-room and
+noticed her mother sewing muskrat around the top of a moccasin. It was a
+man's moccasin. The woman had made no men's moccasins since her husband's
+death. The sight chilled the girl.
+
+"Mother," she asked abruptly, "what do you let that hold-up hang around
+here for?"
+
+"Who you mean?" the woman asked quickly.
+
+"That Smith!" Susie spat out the word like something offensive.
+
+The Indian woman avoided the girl's eyes.
+
+"I like him," she answered.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"Maybe he stay all time." Her tone was stubborn, as though she expected
+and was prepared to resist an attack.
+
+"You don't--you _can't_--mean it!". Susie's thin face flushed scarlet with
+shame.
+
+"Sa-ah," the woman nodded, "I mean it;" and Susie, staring at her in a
+kind of terror, saw that she did.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother!" she cried passionately, dropping on the floor at the
+woman's feet and clasping her arms convulsively about the Indian woman's
+knees. "Don't--don't say that! We've always been a little different from
+the rest. We've always held our heads up. People like us and respect
+us--both Injuns and white. We've never been talked about--you and me--and
+now you are going to spoil it all!"
+
+"I get tied up to him right," defended the woman sullenly.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" wailed the child.
+
+"We need good white man to run de ranch."
+
+"But _Smith_--do you think _he's_ good? Good! Is a rattlesnake good? Can't
+you see what he is, Mother?--you who are smarter than me in seeing through
+people? He's mean--onery to the marrow--and some day sure--_sure_--he'll
+turn, and strike his fangs into you."
+
+"He no onery," the woman replied, in something like anger.
+
+"It's his nature," Susie went on, without heeding her. "He can't help it.
+All his thoughts and talk and schemes are about something crooked. Can't
+you tell by the things he lets drop that he ought to be in the 'pen'? He's
+treacherous, ungrateful, a born thief. I saw him take Tubbs's halter, and
+there was the regular thief look in his eyes when he cut his own name on
+it. I saw him kick a dog, and he kicked it like a brute. He kicked it in
+the ribs with his toe. Men--decent men--kick a dog with the side of their
+foot. I saw his horse fall with him, and he held it down and beat it on
+the neck with a chain, where it wouldn't show. He'd hold up a bank or rob
+a woman; he'd kill a man or a prairie-dog, and think no more of the one
+than the other.
+
+"I tell you, Mother, as sure as I sit here on the floor at your feet,
+begging you, he's going to bring us trouble; he's going to deal us misery!
+I feel it! I _know_ it!"
+
+"You no like de white man."
+
+"That's right; I don't like the white man. He wants a good place to stay;
+he wants your horses and cattle and hay; and--he wants the Schoolmarm.
+He's making a fool of you, Mother."
+
+"He no make fool of me," she answered complacently. "He make fool of de
+white woman, maybe."
+
+"Look out of the window and see for yourself."
+
+They arose together, and the girl pointed to Smith and Dora, seated side
+by side on the cottonwood log.
+
+"Did he ever look at you like that, Mother?"
+
+"He make fool of de white woman," she reiterated stubbornly, but her face
+clouded.
+
+"He makes a fool of himself, but not of her," declared Susie. "He's crazy
+about her--locoed. Everybody sees it except her. Believe me, Mother,
+listen to Susie just this once."
+
+"He like me. I stick to him;" but she went back to her bench. The
+unfamiliar softness of Smith's face hurt her.
+
+The tears filled Susie's eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mother's
+passion for this hateful stranger was stronger than her mother-love, that
+silent, undemonstrative love in which Susie had believed as she believed
+that the sun would rise each morning over there in the Bad Lands, to warm
+her when she was cold. She buried her face in her mother's lap and sobbed
+aloud.
+
+The woman had not seen Susie cry since she was a tiny child, save when her
+father and White Antelope died, and the numbed maternal instinct stirred
+in her breast. She laid her dark, ringed fingers upon Susie's hair and
+stroked it gently.
+
+"Don't cry," she said slowly. "If he make fool of me, if he lie when he
+say he tie up to me right, if he like de white woman better den me, I kill
+him. I kill him, Susie." She pointed to a bunch of roots and short dried
+stalks which hung from the rafters in one corner of the room. "See--that
+is the love-charm of the Sioux. It was gifted to me by Little Coyote's
+woman--a Mandan. It bring de love, and too much--it kill. If he make fool
+of me, if he not like me better den de white woman, I give him de
+love-charm of de Sioux. I fix him! _I fix him right!_"
+
+Out on the cottonwood log Smith and the Schoolmarm had been speaking of
+many things; for the man could talk fluently in his peculiar vernacular,
+upon any subject which interested him or with which he was familiar.
+
+The best of his nature, whatever of good there was in him, was uppermost
+when with Dora. He really believed at such times that he was what she
+thought him, and he condemned the shortcomings of others like one speaking
+from the lofty pinnacle of unimpeachable virtue.
+
+In her presence, new ambitions, new desires, awakened, and sentiments
+which he never had suspected he possessed revealed themselves. He was
+happy in being near her; content when he felt the touch of her loose cape
+on his arm.
+
+It never before had occurred to Smith that the world through which he had
+gone his tumultuous way was a beautiful place, or that there was joy in
+the simple fact of being strongly alive. When the sage-brush commenced to
+turn green and the many brilliant flowers of the desert bloomed, when the
+air was stimulating like wine and fragrant with the scents of spring, it
+had meant little to Smith beyond the facts that horse-feed would soon be
+plentiful and that he could lay aside his Mackinaw coat. The mountains
+suggested nothing but that they held big game and were awkward places to
+get through on horseback, while the deserts brought no thoughts save of
+thirst and loneliness and choking alkali dust. Upon a time a stranger had
+mentioned the scenery, and Smith had replied ironically that there was
+plenty of it and for him to help himself!
+
+But this spring was different--so different that he asked himself
+wonderingly if other springs had been like it; and to-day, as he sat in
+the sunshine and looked about him, he saw for the first time grandeur in
+the saw-toothed, snow-covered peaks outlined against the dazzling blue of
+the western sky. For the first time he saw the awing vastness of the
+desert, and the soft pastel shades which made their desolation beautiful.
+He breathed deep of the odorous air and stared about him like a blind man
+who suddenly sees.
+
+During a silence, Smith looked at Dora with his curiously intent gaze; his
+characteristic stare which held nothing of impertinence--only interest,
+intense, absorbing interest--and as he looked a thought came to him, a
+thought so unexpected, so startling, that he blinked as if some one had
+struck him in the face. It sent a bright red rushing over him, coloring
+his neck, his ears, his white, broad forehead.
+
+He thought of her as the mother of children--his children--bearing his
+name, miniatures of himself and of her. He never had thought of this
+before. He never had met a woman who inspired in him any such desire. He
+followed the thought further. What if he should have a permanent home--a
+ranch that belonged to him exclusively--"Smith's Ranch"--where there were
+white curtains at the windows, and little ones who came tumbling through
+the door to greet him when he rode into the yard? A place where people
+came to visit, people who reckoned him a person of consequence because he
+stood for something. He must have seen a place like it somewhere, the
+picture was so vivid in his mind.
+
+The thought of living like others never before had entered into the scheme
+of his calculations. Since the time when he had "quit the flat" back in
+the country where they slept between sheets, the world had been lined up
+against him in its own defense. Life had been a constant game of hare and
+hounds, with the pack frequently close at his heels. He had been ever on
+the move, both for reasons of safety and as a matter of taste. His point
+of view was the abnormal one of the professional law-breaker: the world
+was his legitimate prey; the business of his life was to do as he pleased
+and keep his liberty; to outwit sheriffs and make a clean get-away. To be
+known among his kind as "game" and "slick," was the only distinction he
+craved. His chiefest ambition had been to live up to his title of "Bad
+Man." In this he had found glory which satisfied him.
+
+"Well," Dora asked at last, smiling up at him, "what is it?"
+
+Smith hesitated; then he burst out:
+
+"Girl, do I stack up different to you nor anybody else? Have you any
+feelin' for me at all?"
+
+"Why, I think I've shown my interest in trying to teach you," she replied,
+a little abashed by his vehemence.
+
+"What do you want to teach me for?" he demanded.
+
+"Because," Dora declared, "you have possibilities."
+
+"Why don't you teach Meeteetse Ed and Tubbs?"
+
+Dora laughed aloud.
+
+"Candidly, I think it would be a waste of time. They could never hope to
+be much more than we see them here. And they are content as they are."
+
+"So was I, girl, until our trails crossed. I could ride without grub all
+day, and sing. I could sleep on a saddle-blanket like a tired pup, with
+only a rock for a wind-break and my saddle for a pillow. Now I can't sleep
+in a bed. It's horrible--this mixed up feelin'--half the time wantin' to
+holler and laugh and the other half wantin' to cry."
+
+"I don't see why you should feel like that," said Dora gravely. "You are
+getting along. It's slow, but you're learning."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm learnin'," Smith answered grimly--"fast."
+
+He saw her wondering look and went on fiercely.
+
+"Girl, don't you see what I mean? Don't you _sabe_? My feelin' for you is
+more nor friendship. I can't tell you how I feel. It's nothin' I ever had
+before, but I've heard of it a-plenty. It's love--that's what it is! I've
+seen it, too, a-plenty.
+
+"There's two things in the world a feller'll go through hell for--just
+two: love and gold. I don't mean money, but gold--the pure stuff. They'll
+waller through snow-drifts, they'll swim rivers with the ice runnin',
+they'll crawl through canyons and over trails on their hands and knees,
+they'll starve and they'll freeze, they'll work till the blood runs from
+their blistered hands, they'll kill their horses and their pardners, for
+gold! And they'll do it for love. Yes, I've seen it a-plenty, me--Smith.
+
+"Things I've done, I've done, and they don't worry me none," he went on,
+"but lately I've thought of Dutch Joe. I worked him over for singin' a
+love-song, and I wisht I hadn't. He'd held up a stage, and was cached in
+my camp till things simmered down. It was lonesome, and I'd want to talk;
+but he'd sit back in the dark, away from the camp-fire, and sing to
+himself about 'ridin' to Annie.' How the miles wasn't long or the trail
+rough if only he was 'ridin' to Annie.' Sittin' back there in the brush,
+he sounded like a sick coyote a-hollerin'. It hadn't no tune, and I
+thought it was the damnedest fool song I ever heard. After he'd sung it
+more'n five hundred times, I hit him on the head with a six-shooter, and
+we mixed. He quit singin', but he held that gretch against me as long as
+he lived.
+
+"I thought it was because he was Dutch, but it wasn't. 'Twas love. Why,
+girl, I'd ride as long as my horse could stand up under me, and then I'd
+hoof it, just to hear you say, 'Smith, do you think it will rain?'"
+
+"Oh, I never thought of this!" cried Dora, as Smith paused.
+
+Her face was full of distress, and her hands lay tightly clenched in her
+lap.
+
+"Do you mean I haven't any show--no show at all?" The color fading from
+Smith's face left it a peculiar yellow.
+
+"It never occurred to me that you would misunderstand, or think anything
+but that I wanted to help you. I thought that you wanted to learn so that
+you would have a better chance in life."
+
+"Did you--honest? Are you as innocent as that, girl?" he asked in savage
+scepticism. "Did you believe that I'd set and study them damned verbs just
+so I'd have a better chanct in life?"
+
+"You said so."
+
+"Oh, yes, maybe I _said_ so."
+
+"Surely, _surely_, you don't think I would intentionally mislead you?"
+
+"When a woman wants a man to dress or act or talk different, she generally
+cares some."
+
+"And I do 'care some'!" Dora cried impulsively. "I believe that you are
+not making the best of yourself, of your life; that you are better than
+your surroundings; and because I do believe in you, I want to help you.
+Don't you understand?"
+
+Her explanation was not convincing to Smith.
+
+"Is it because I don't talk grammar, and you think you'd have to live in a
+log-house and hang out your own wash?"
+
+Dora considered.
+
+"Even if I cared for you, those things would have weight," she answered
+truthfully. "I am content out here now, and like it because it is novel
+and I know it is temporary; but if I were asked to live here always, as
+you suggest, in a log-house and hang out my own wash, I should have to
+care a great deal."
+
+"It's because I haven't a stake, then," he said bitterly.
+
+"No, not because you haven't a stake. I merely say that extreme poverty
+would be an objection."
+
+"But if I should get the _dinero_--me, Smith--plenty of it? Tell me," he
+demanded fiercely--"it's the time to talk now--is there any one else? It's
+me for the devil straight if you throw me! You'd better take this gun
+here, plant it on my heart, and pull the trigger. Because if I live--I'm
+talkin' straight--what I have done will be just a kid's play to what I'll
+do, if I ever cut loose for fair. Don't throw me, girl! Give me a show--if
+there ain't any one else! If there is, I'm quittin' the flat to-day."
+
+Dora was silent, panic-stricken with the responsibility which he seemed
+to have thrust upon her, almost terrified by the thought that he was
+leaving his future in her hands--a malleable object, to be shaped
+according to her will for good or evil.
+
+A certain self-contained, spectacled youth, whose weekly letters arrived
+with regularity, rose before her mental vision, and as quickly vanished,
+leaving in his stead a man of a different type, a man at once unyielding
+and gentle, both shy and bold; a man who seemed to typify in himself the
+faults and virtues of the raw but vigorous West. Though she hesitated, she
+replied:
+
+"No, there is no one."
+
+And Ralston, fording the stream, lifted his eyes midway and saw Smith
+raise Dora's hand to his lips.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE BEST HORSE
+
+
+There was a subtle change in Ralston, which Dora was quick to feel. He was
+deferential, as always, and as eager to please; but he no longer sought
+her company, and she missed the quick exchange of sympathetic glances at
+the table. It seemed to her, also, that the grimness in his face was
+accentuated of late. She found herself crying one night, and called it
+homesickness, yet the small items of news contained in the latest letter
+from the spectacled youth had irritated her, and she had realized that she
+no longer regarded church fairs, choir practice, and oyster suppers as
+"events."
+
+She wondered how she had offended Ralston, if at all; or was it that he
+thought her bold, a brazen creature, because she had let him keep her hand
+so long upon the memorable occasion of the grasshopper hunt? She blushed
+in the darkness at the thought, and the tears slipped down her cheeks
+again as she decided that this must be so, since there could be no other
+explanation. Before she finally slept, she had fully made up her mind that
+she would show him by added reserve and dignity of manner that she was not
+the forward hoyden he undoubtedly believed her. And as a result of this
+midnight decision, the Schoolmarm's "Good-morning, Mr. Ralston," chilled
+that person like a draught from cold storage.
+
+Susie noticed the absence of their former cordiality toward each other;
+and the obvious lack of warmth filled Smith with keen satisfaction. He had
+no notion of its cause; it was sufficient that it was so.
+
+As their conversation daily became more forced, the estrangement more
+marked, Ralston's wretchedness increased in proportion. He brooded
+miserably over the scene he had witnessed; troubled, aside from his own
+interest in Dora, that she should be misled by a man of Smith's moral
+calibre. While he had delighted in her unworldly, childlike belief in
+people and things, in this instance he deeply regretted it.
+
+Ralston understood perfectly the part which Smith desired to play in her
+eyes. He had heard through Dora the stories Smith had told her of wild
+adventures in which he figured to advantage, of reckless deeds which he
+hinted would be impossible since falling under her influence. He posed as
+a brand snatched from the burning, and conveyed the impression that his
+salvation was a duty which had fallen in her path for her to perform. That
+she applied herself to the task of elevating Smith with such combined
+patience and ardor, was the grievance of which Ralston had most to
+complain.
+
+In his darker moments he told himself that she must have a liking for the
+man far stronger than he had believed, to have permitted the liberty which
+he had witnessed, one which, coming from Smith, seemed little short of
+sacrilege. His unhappiness was not lessened by the instances he recalled
+where women had married beneath them through this mistaken sense of duty,
+pity, or less commendable emotions.
+
+Upon one thing he was determined, and that was never again to force his
+attentions upon her, to take advantage of her helplessness as he had when
+he had held her hand so tightly and, as he now believed, against her
+wishes. Although she did not show it, she must have thought him a bumpkin,
+an oaf, an underbred cur. He groaned as he ransacked his vocabulary for
+fitting words.
+
+If only something would arise to reveal Smith's character to her in its
+true light! But this was too much to hope. In his depression, it seemed to
+Ralston that the sun would never shine for him again, that failure was
+written on him like an I. D. brand, that sorrow everlasting would eat and
+sleep with him. In this mood, after a brief exchange of breakfast
+civilities, far worse than none, he walked slowly to the corral to saddle,
+cursing Smith for the braggart he knew he was and for the scoundrel he
+believed him to be.
+
+Smith, it seemed, was riding that morning also, for when Ralston led his
+brown mare saddled and bridled from the stable, Smith was tightening the
+cinch on his long-legged gray--the horse he had taken from the Englishman.
+The Schoolmarm, in her riding clothes, ran down the trail, calling
+impartially:
+
+"Will one of you please get my horse for me? He broke loose last night and
+is over there in the pasture."
+
+For reply, both Ralston and Smith swung into their saddles.
+
+"I aims to get that horse. There's no call for you to go, feller."
+
+Above all else, it was odious to Ralston to be addressed by Smith
+"feller."
+
+"If you happen to get to him first," he answered curtly. "And I'd like to
+suggest that my name is Ralston."
+
+By way of answer, Smith dug the spurs cruelly into the thin-skinned
+blooded gray. Ralston loosened the reins on his brown mare, and it was a
+run from the jump.
+
+Each realized that the inevitable clash had come, that no pretense of
+friendliness would longer be possible between them, that from now on they
+would be avowed enemies. As for Ralston, he was glad that the crisis had
+arrived; glad of anything which would divert him for ever so short a time
+from his own bitter thoughts; glad of the test which he could meet in the
+open, like a man.
+
+The corral gate was open, and this led into a lane something like
+three-quarters of a mile in length, at the end of which was another gate,
+opening into the pasture where the runaway pony had crawled through the
+loose wire fence.
+
+The brown mare had responded to Ralston's signal like the loyal, honest
+little brute she was. The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat
+of the horses' hoofs on the hard road was like the roll of a drum. They
+were running neck and neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result,
+unless the gray had phenomenal speed.
+
+Ralston knew that whoever reached the gate first must open it. If he could
+get far enough in the lead, he could afford to do so; if not, he meant to
+"pull" his horse and leave it to Smith. The real race would be from the
+gate to the pony.
+
+The gray horse could run--his build showed that, and his stride bore out
+his appearance. Yet Ralston felt no uneasiness, for the mare had still
+several links of speed to let out--"and then some," as he phrased it. The
+pace was furious even to the gate; they ran neck and neck, like a team,
+and the face of each rider was set in lines of determination. Ralston
+quickly saw that in the short stretch he would be unable to get
+sufficiently in the lead to open the gate in safety. So he pulled his
+horse a little, wondering if Smith would do the same. But he did not.
+Instead, he spurred viciously, and, to Ralston's amazement, he went at the
+gate hard. Lifting the gray horse's head, he went over and on without a
+break!
+
+It was a chance, but Smith had taken it! He never had tried the horse, but
+it was from the English ranch, where he knew they were bred and trained to
+jump. His mocking laugh floated back to Ralston while he tore at the
+fastenings of the gate and hurled it from him.
+
+Ralston measured the gap between them and his heart sank. It looked
+hopeless. The only thing in his favor was that it was a long run, and the
+gray might not have the wind or the endurance. The little mare stood
+still, her nose out, her soft eyes shining. As he lifted the reins, he
+patted her neck and cried, breathing hard:
+
+"Molly, old girl, if you win, it's oats and a rest all your life!"
+
+He could have sworn the mare shared his humiliation.
+
+The saddle-leathers creaked beneath him at the leap she gave. She lay down
+to her work like a hound, running low, her neck outstretched, her tail
+lying out on the breeze. Game, graceful, reaching out with her slim legs
+and tiny hoofs, she ate up the distance between herself and the gray in a
+way that made even Ralston gasp. And still she gained--and gained! Her
+muscles seemed like steel springs, and the unfaltering courage in her
+brave heart made Ralston choke with pride and tenderness and gratitude.
+Even if she lost, the race she was making was something to remember
+always. But she was gaining inch by inch. The sage-brush and cactus swam
+under her feet. When Ralston thought she had done her best, given all
+that was in her, she did a little more.
+
+Smith knew, too, that she was gaining, though he would not turn his head
+to look. When her nose was at his horse's rump, he had it in his heart to
+turn and shoot her as she ran. She crept up and up, and both Smith and
+Ralston knew that the straining, pounding gray had done its best. The work
+was too rough for its feet. There was too much thoroughbred in it for
+lava-rock and sage-brush hummocks. Blind rage consumed Smith as he felt
+the increasing effort of each stride and knew that it was going "dead"
+under him. He used his spurs with savage brutality, but the brown mare's
+breath was coming hot on his leg. The gray horse stumbled; its breath came
+and went in sobs. Now they were neck and neck again. Then it was over, the
+little brown mare swept by, and Ralston's rope, cutting the air, dropped
+about the neck of the insignificant, white "digger" that had caused it
+all.
+
+"I guess you're ridin' the best horse to-day," said Smith, as he dropped
+from the saddle to retie his latigo.
+
+He gave the words a peculiar emphasis and inflection which made the other
+man look at him.
+
+"Molly and I have a prejudice against taking dust," Ralston answered
+quietly.
+
+"It happens frequent that a feller has to get over his prejudices out in
+this country."
+
+"That depends a little upon the fellow;" and he turned Molly's head toward
+the ranch, with the pony in tow.
+
+Smith said nothing more, but rode off across the hills with all the evil
+in his nature showing in his lowering countenance.
+
+Dora's eyes were brilliant as they always were under excitement; and when
+Ralston dismounted she stroked Molly's nose, saying in a voice which was
+more natural than it had been for days when addressing him, "It was
+splendid! _She_ is splendid!" and he glowed, feeling that perhaps he was
+included a little in her praise.
+
+"You want to watch out now," said Susie soberly. "Smith'll never rest till
+he's 'hunks.'"
+
+Ralston thought the Schoolmarm hesitated, as if she were waiting for him
+to join them, or were going to ask him to do so; but she did not, and,
+although it was some satisfaction to feel that he had drawn first blood,
+he felt his despondency returning as soon as Dora and Susie had ridden
+away.
+
+He walked aimlessly about, waiting for Molly to cool a bit before he let
+her drink preparatory to starting on his tiresome ride over the range.
+Both he and the Colonel believed that the thieves would soon grow bolder,
+and his strongest hope lay in coming upon them at work. He had noted that
+there were no fresh hides among those which hung on the fence, and he
+sauntered down to have another look at the old ones. With his foot he
+turned over something which lay close against a fence-post, half concealed
+in a sage-brush. Stooping, he unrolled it and shook it out; then he
+whistled softly. It was a fresh hide with the brand cut out!
+
+Ralston nodded his head in mingled satisfaction and regret. So the thief
+was working from the MacDonald ranch! Did the Indian woman know, he
+wondered. Was it possible that Susie was in ignorance? With all his heart,
+he hoped she was. He walked leisurely to the house and leaned against the
+jamb of the kitchen door.
+
+"Have the makings, Ling?" He passed his tobacco-sack and paper to the
+cook.
+
+"Sure!" said Ling jauntily. "I like 'em cigilette."
+
+And as they smoked fraternally together, they talked of food and its
+preparation--subjects from which Ling's thoughts seldom wandered far. When
+the advantages of soda and sour milk over baking powder were thoroughly
+exhausted as a topic, Ralston asked casually:
+
+"Who killed your last beef, Ling? It's hard to beat."
+
+"Yellow Bird," he replied. "Him good butcher."
+
+"Yes," Ralston agreed; "I should say that Yellow Bird was an uncommonly
+good butcher."
+
+So, after all, it was the Indians who were killing. Ralston sauntered on
+to the bunk-house to think it over.
+
+"Tubbs," McArthur was saying, as he eyed that person with an interest
+which he seldom bestowed upon his hireling, "you really have a most
+remarkable skull."
+
+Tubbs, visibly flattered, smirked.
+
+"It's claimed that it's double by people what have tried to work me over.
+Onct I crawled in a winder and et up a batch of 'son-of-a-gun-in-a-sack'
+that the feller who lived there had jest made. He come in upon me suddent,
+and the way he hammered me over the head with the stove-lifter didn't
+trouble _him_, but," declared Tubbs proudly, "he never even knocked me to
+my knees."
+
+"It is of the type of dolichocephalic," mused McArthur.
+
+"A barber told me that same thing the last time I had a hair-cut,"
+observed Tubbs blandly. "'Tubbs,' says he, 'you ought to have a massaj
+every week, and lay the b'ar-ile on a-plenty.'"
+
+"It is remarkably suggestive of the skulls found in the ancient paraderos
+of Patagonia. Very similar in contour--very similar."
+
+"There's no Irish in me," Tubbs declared with a touch of resentment. "I'm
+pure mungrel--English and Dutch."
+
+"It is an extremely curious skull--most peculiar." He felt of Tubbs's head
+with growing interest. "This bump behind the ear, if the system of
+phrenology has any value, would indicate unusual pugnacity."
+
+"That's where a mule kicked me and put his laig out of joint," said Tubbs
+humorously.
+
+"Ah, that renders the skull pathological; but, even so, it is an
+interesting skull to an anthropologist--a really valuable skull, it would
+be to me, illustrating as it does certain features in dispute, for which I
+have stubbornly contended in controversies with the Preparator of
+Anthropology at the École des Haute Études in Paris."
+
+"Why don't you sell it to him, Tubbs?" suggested Ralston, who had listened
+in unfeigned amusement.
+
+Tubbs, startled, clasped both hands over the top of his head and backed
+off.
+
+"Why, I need it myself."
+
+"Certainly--we understand that; but supposing you were to die--supposing
+something happened to you, as is liable to happen out here--you wouldn't
+care what became of your skull, once you were good and dead. If it were
+sold, you'd be just that much in, besides making an invaluable
+contribution to science," Ralston urged persuasively.
+
+"It not infrequently happens that paupers, and prisoners sentenced to
+suffer capital punishment, dispose of their bodies for anatomical
+purposes, for which they are paid in advance. As a matter of fact,
+Tubbs," declared McArthur earnestly, "my superficial examination of your
+head has so impressed me that upon the chance of some day adding it to my
+collection I am willing to offer you a reasonable sum for it."
+
+"It's on bi-products that the money is made," declared Ralston soberly,
+"and I advise you not to let this chance pass. You can raise money on the
+rest of your anatomy any time; but selling your head separately like
+this--don't miss it, Tubbs!"
+
+"Don't I git the money till you git my head?" Tubbs demanded
+suspiciously.
+
+"I could make a first payment to you, and the remainder could be paid to
+your heirs."
+
+"My heirs! Say, all that I'll ever git for my head wouldn't be a smell
+amongst my heirs. A round-up of my heirs would take in the hull of North
+Dakoty. Not aimin' to brag, I got mavericks runnin' on that range what
+must be twelve-year-old."
+
+McArthur looked the disgust he felt at Tubbs's ribald humor.
+
+"Your jests are exceedingly distasteful to me, Tubbs."
+
+"That ain't no jest. Onct I----"
+
+"Let's get down to business," interrupted Ralston. "What do you consider
+your skull worth?"
+
+"It's wuth considerable to me. I don't know as I'm so turrible anxious to
+sell. I can eat with it, and it gits me around." Tubbs's tone took on the
+assumed indifference of an astute horse trader. "I've always held my head
+high, as you might say, and it looks to me like it ought to bring a
+hunderd dollars in the open market. No, I couldn't think of lettin' it go
+for less than a hundred--cash."
+
+McArthur considered.
+
+"If you will agree to my conditions, I will give you my check for one
+hundred dollars," he said at last.
+
+"That sounds reasonable," Tubbs assented.
+
+"I should want you to carry constantly upon your person my name, address,
+and written instructions as to the care of and disposal of your skull, in
+the event of your demise. I shall also insist that you do not voluntarily
+place your head where your skull may be injured; because, as you can
+readily see, if it were badly crushed, it would be worthless for my
+purpose, or that of the scientific body to whom I intend to bequeath my
+interest in it, should I die before yourself."
+
+"I wasn't aimin' to lay it in a vise," remarked Tubbs.
+
+While McArthur was drawing up the agreement between them, Tubbs's face
+brightened with a unique thought.
+
+"Say," he suggested, "why don't you leave word in them instructions for me
+to be mounted? I know a taxidermist over there near the Yellowstone Park
+what can put up a b'ar or a timber wolf so natural you wouldn't know 'twas
+dead. Wouldn't it be kinda nice to see me settin' around the house with my
+teeth showin' and an ear of corn in my mouth? I'll tell you what I'll do:
+I'll sell you my hull hide for a hundred more. It might cost two dollars
+to have me tanned, and with a nice felt linin' you could have a good rug
+out of me for a very little money."
+
+McArthur replied ironically:
+
+"I never have regarded you as an ornament, Tubbs."
+
+Tubbs looked at the check McArthur handed him, with satisfaction.
+
+"That's what I call clear velvet!" he declared, and went off chuckling to
+show it to his friends.
+
+"When you think of it, this is a very singular transaction," observed
+McArthur, wiping his fountain-pen carefully.
+
+"Yes," and Ralston, no longer able to contain himself, shouted with
+laughter; "it is."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+SMITH GETS "HUNKS"
+
+
+Smith's ugly mood was still upon him when he picked up his grammar that
+evening. Jealous, humiliated by the loss of the morning's race, full
+of revengeful thoughts and evil feelings, he wanted to hurt
+somebody--something--even Dora. He had a vague, sullen notion that she
+was to blame because Ralston was in love with her. She could have
+discouraged him in the beginning, he told himself; she could have
+stopped it.
+
+Unaccustomed as Smith was to self-restraint, he quickly showed his frame
+of mind to Dora. He had no _savoir faire_ with which to conceal his mood;
+besides, he entertained a feeling of proprietorship over her which
+justified his resentment to himself. Was she not to be his? Would he not
+eventually control her, her actions, choose her friends?
+
+Dora found him a dense and disagreeable pupil, and one who seemingly had
+forgotten everything he had learned during previous lessons. His replies
+at times were so curt as to be uncivil, and a feeling of indignation
+gradually rose within her. She was at a loss to understand his mood,
+unless it was due to the result of the morning's race; yet she could
+scarcely believe that his disappointment, perhaps chagrin, could account
+for his rudeness to her.
+
+When the useless lesson was finished, she closed the book and asked:
+
+"You are not yourself to-night. What is wrong?"
+
+With an expression upon his face which both startled and shocked her he
+snarled:
+
+"I'm sick of seein' that lady-killer hangin' around here!"
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"Ralston!"
+
+Dora had never looked at Smith as she looked at him now.
+
+"I beg to be excused from your criticisms of Mr. Ralston."
+
+Smith had not dreamed that the gentle, girlish voice could take on such a
+quality. It cut him, stung him, until he felt hot and cold by turns.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know he was such a friend," he sneered.
+
+"Yes"--her eyes did not quail before the look that flamed in his--"he is
+_just_ such a friend!"
+
+They had risen; and Smith, looking at her as she stood erect, her head
+high in defiance, could have choked her in his jealous rage.
+
+He stumbled rather than walked toward the door.
+
+"Good-night," he said in a strained, throaty voice.
+
+"Good-night."
+
+She stared at the door as it closed behind him. She had something of the
+feeling of one who, making a pet of a tiger, feels its claws for the first
+time, sees the first indication of its ferocious nature. This new phase of
+Smith's character, while it angered, also filled her with uneasiness.
+
+It was later than usual when Smith came in to say a word to the Indian
+woman, after Dora and Susie had retired. He did not bring with him the
+fumes of tobacco, the smoke of which rose in clouds in the bunk-house,
+making it all but impossible to see the length of the building; he
+brought, rather, an odor of freshness, a feeling of coolness, as though he
+had been long in the night air.
+
+The Indian woman sniffed imperceptibly.
+
+"Where you been?"
+
+His look was evil as he answered:
+
+"Me? I've been payin' my debts, me--Smith."
+
+He took her impassive hand in both of his and pressed it against his
+heart.
+
+"Prairie Flower," he said, "I want you to tell Ralston to go. _I hate
+him_."
+
+The woman looked at him, but did not answer.
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Yes, I tell him."
+
+"When?"
+
+She raised her narrowing eyes to his.
+
+"_When you tell de white woman to go_."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralston had felt that the old Colonel was growing impatient with his
+seeming inactivity, so he decided, the next morning, to ride to the Bar C
+and tell him that he believed he had a clue. It would not be necessary to
+keep Running Rabbit under close surveillance until the beef in the
+meat-house was getting low. Then the deputy sheriff meant not to let him
+out of his sight.
+
+Smith had not spoken to the man whom he had come to regard as his rival
+since he had ridden away from him the morning before. He had ignored
+Ralston's conversation at the table and avoided him in the bunk-house.
+Now, engaged in trimming his horse's fetlocks, Smith did not look up as
+the other man passed, but his eyes followed him with a triumphant gleam as
+he went into the stable to saddle Molly.
+
+Ralston backed the mare to turn her in the stall, and she all but fell
+down. He felt a little surprise at her clumsiness, but did not grasp its
+meaning until he led her to the door, where she stepped painfully over the
+low door-sill and all but fell again. He led her a step or two further,
+and she went almost to her knees. The mare was lame in every leg--she
+could barely stand; yet there was not a mark on her--not ever so slight a
+bruise! Her slender legs were as free from swellings as when they had
+carried her past Smith's gray; her feet looked to be in perfect condition;
+yet, save for the fact that she could stand up, she was as crippled as if
+the bones of every leg were shattered.
+
+It is doubtful if any but steel-colored eyes can take on the look which
+Ralston's contained as they met Smith's. His skin was gray as he
+straightened himself and drew a hand which shook noticeably the length of
+his cheek and across his mouth.
+
+In great anger, anger which precedes some quick and desperate act, almost
+every person has some gesture peculiar to himself, and this was
+Ralston's.
+
+A less guilty man than Smith might have flinched at that moment. The
+half-grin on his face faded, and he waited for a torrent of accusations
+and oaths. But Ralston, in a voice so low that it barely reached him, a
+voice so ominous, so fraught with meaning, that the dullest could not have
+misunderstood, said:
+
+"I'll borrow your horse, Smith."
+
+Smith, like one hypnotized, heard himself saying:
+
+"Sure! Take him."
+
+Ralston knew as well as though he had witnessed the act that Smith had
+hammered the frogs of Molly's feet until they were bruised and sore as
+boils. Her lameness would not be permanent--she would recover in a week or
+two; but the abuse of, the cruelty to, the little mare he loved filled
+Ralston with a hatred for Smith as relentless and deep as Smith's own.
+
+"A man who could do a thing like that," said Ralston through his set
+teeth, "is no common cur! He's wolf--all wolf! He isn't staying here for
+love, alone. There's something else. And I swear before the God that made
+me, I'll find out what it is, and land him, before I quit!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+SUSIE'S INDIAN BLOOD
+
+
+Coming leisurely up the path from the corrals, Smith saw Susie sitting on
+the cottonwood log, wrapped in her mother's blanket. She was huddled in a
+squaw's attitude. He eyed her; he never had seen her like that before.
+But, knowing Indians better, possibly, than he knew his own race, Smith
+understood. He recognized the mood. Her Indian blood was uppermost. It
+rose in most half-breeds upon occasion. Sometimes under the influence of
+liquor it cropped out, sometimes anger brought it to the surface. He had
+seen it often--this heavy, smouldering sullenness.
+
+Smith stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at her. He felt more at
+ease with her than ever before.
+
+"What are you sullin' about, Susie?"
+
+She did not answer. Her pertness, her Anglo-Saxon vivacity, were gone; her
+face was wooden, expressionless; her restless eyes slow-moving and dull;
+her cheek-bones, always noticeably high, looked higher, and her skin was
+murky and dark.
+
+"You look like a squaw with that sull on," he ventured again, and there
+was satisfaction in his face.
+
+It was something to know that, after all, Susie was "Injun"--"pure
+Injun." The scheme which had lain dormant in his brain now took active
+shape. He had wanted Susie's help, but each time that he had tried to
+conciliate her, his overtures had ended in a fresh rupture. Now her
+stinging tongue was dumb, and there was no aggressiveness in her manner.
+
+Smith, laying his hand heavily upon her shoulder, sat down beside her, and
+a flash, a transitory gleam, shone for an instant in her dull eyes; but
+she did not move or change expression.
+
+He said in a low voice:
+
+"What you need is stirrin' up, Susie."
+
+He watched her narrowly, and continued:
+
+"You ought to get into a game that has some ginger in it. This here life
+is too tame for a girl like you."
+
+Without looking at him she asked:
+
+"What kind of a game?" Her voice was lifeless, guttural.
+
+"It's agin my principles to empty my sack to a woman; but you're
+diff'rent--you're game--you are, Susie." His voice dropped to a whisper,
+and the weight of his hand made her shoulder sag. "Let's you and me rustle
+a bunch of horses."
+
+Susie did not betray surprise at the startling proposition by so much as
+the twitching of an eyelid.
+
+"What for?"
+
+Smith replied:
+
+"Just for the hell of it!"
+
+She grunted, but neither in assent nor dissent; so Smith went on in an
+eager, persuasive whisper:
+
+"There's Injun enough in you, girl, to make horse-stealin' all the same as
+breathin'. You jump in with me on this deal and see how easy you lose that
+sull. Don't you ever have a feelin' take holt of you that you want to do
+something onery--steal something, mix with somebody? I do. I've had that
+notorious feelin' workin' on me strong for days now, and I've got to get
+rid of it. If you'll come in on this, we'll have the excitement and make a
+stake, too. Talk up, girl--show your sand! Be game!"
+
+"What horses do you aim to steal?"
+
+"Reservation horses. Say, the way I can burn their brands and fan 'em over
+the line won't trouble _me_. I'll come back with a wad--me, Smith--and
+I'll whack up even. What do you say?"
+
+"What for a hand do I take in it?"
+
+A smile of triumph lifted the corners of Smith's mouth.
+
+"You gather 'em up and run 'em into a coulee, that's all. I'll do the
+rest."
+
+"What do you want _me_ to do it for?"
+
+"Nobody'd think anything of it if they saw you runnin' horses, because
+you're always doin' it; but they'd notice me."
+
+"Where's the coulee?"
+
+"I've picked it. I located my plant long ago. I've found the best spot in
+the State to make a plant."
+
+"Where are you goin' to sell?"
+
+Smith eyed her inscrutable face suspiciously.
+
+"You're askin' lots of questions, girl. I tips my hand too far to no
+petticoat. You trusts me or you don't. Will you come in?"
+
+"All right," said Susie after a silence; "I'll come in--'just for the hell
+of it.'"
+
+"Shake!"
+
+She looked at his extended hand and wrapped her own in her blanket.
+
+"There's no call to shake."
+
+"Is your heart mixed, Susie?" he demanded. "Ain't it right toward me?"
+
+"It'll be right enough when the time comes," she answered.
+
+The reply did not satisfy Smith, but he told himself that, once she was
+committed, he could manage her, for, after all, Susie was little more than
+a child. Smith felt uncommonly pleased with himself for his bold stroke.
+
+The new intimacy between Smith and Susie, the sudden cessation of
+hostilities, caused surprise on the ranch, but the Indian woman was the
+only one to whom it gave pleasure. She viewed the altered relations with
+satisfaction, since it removed the only obstacle, as she believed, to a
+speedy marriage with Smith.
+
+"Didn't I tell you he smart white man?" she asked complacently of Susie.
+
+"Oh, yes, he's awful smart," Susie answered with sarcasm.
+
+Ralston, more than any one else, was puzzled by their apparent friendship.
+He had believed that Susie's antipathy for Smith was as deep as his own,
+and he wondered what could have happened to bring about such a sudden and
+complete revulsion of feeling. He was disappointed in her. He felt that
+she had weakly gone over to the enemy; and it shook his confidence in her
+sturdy honesty more than anything she could have done. He believed that no
+person who understood Smith, as Susie undoubtedly did, could make a friend
+and confidant of him and be "right." But sometimes he caught Susie's eyes
+fixed upon him in a kind of wistful, inquiring scrutiny, which left the
+impression that something was troubling her, something that she longed to
+confide in some one upon whom she could rely; but his past experience had
+taught him the futility of attempting to force her confidence, of trying
+to learn more than she volunteered.
+
+Smith and Susie rode the surrounding country and selected horses from the
+various bands. Three or four bore Bear Chief's brand, there were a pinto
+and a black buckskin in Running Rabbit's herd, and a sorrel or two that
+belonged to Yellow Bird. A couple of bays here were singled out, a brown
+and black there, until they had the pick of the range.
+
+"We don't want to get more nor you can cut out alone and handle," warned
+Smith. "We don't want no slip-up on the start."
+
+"I don't aim to make no slip-up."
+
+"We've got lookers, we have," declared Smith. "And them chunky ones go off
+quickest at a forced sale. I know a horse when I meet up with it,
+me--Smith."
+
+"But where you goin' to cache 'em?" insisted Susie.
+
+"Girl, I ain't been ridin' this range for my health. I'll show you a blind
+canyon where a regiment of soldiers couldn't find a hundred head of horses
+in a year; and over there in the Bad Lands there's a spring breakin' out
+where a man dyin' of thirst would never think of lookin' for it. We're all
+right. You're a head-worker, and so am I." Smith chuckled. "We'll set some
+of these Injuns afoot, and make a clean-get-away."
+
+Smith was more than satisfied with the zest with which Susie now entered
+into the plot, and the shrewdness which she showed in planning details
+that he himself had overlooked.
+
+"You work along with me, kid, and I'll make a dead-game one out of you!"
+he declared with enthusiasm. "When we make a stake, we'll go to Billings
+and rip up the sod!"
+
+"I'll like that," said Susie dryly.
+
+"When the right time comes, I'll know it," Smith went on. "When I wakes up
+some mornin' with a feelin' that it's the day to get action on, I always
+follows that feelin'--if it takes holt of me anyways strong. I has to do
+certain things on certain days. I hates a chilly day worse nor anything. I
+wants to hole up, and I feels mean enough to bite myself. But when the sun
+shines, it thaws me; it draws the frost out of my heart, like. I hates to
+let anybody's blood when the sun shines. I likes to lie out on a rock like
+a lizard, and I feels kind. I'm cur'ous that way, about sun, me--Smith."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE SLAYER OF MASTODONS
+
+
+Dora and Susie had planned to botanize one fine Saturday morning, and
+Susie, dressed for a tramp in the hills, was playing with a pup in the
+dooryard, waiting for Dora, when she saw Smith coming toward her with the
+short, quick step which, she had learned, with him denoted mental
+activity.
+
+"This is the day for it," he said decisively. "I had that notorious
+feelin' take holt of me when I got awake. How's your heart, girl?"
+
+It had given a thump at Smith's approach, and Susie's tawny skin had paled
+under its tan, but by way of reply she gave the suggestive Indian sign of
+strength.
+
+"Good!" he nodded. "You'll need a strong heart for the ridin' you've got
+to do to-day; but I'm not a worryin' that you can't do it, kid, for I've
+watched you close."
+
+"Guess I could ride a flyin' squirrel if I had to," Susie replied shortly,
+"but Teacher wanted me to go with her to get flowers. She doesn't like to
+go alone."
+
+"There's no call for her to go alone. I'll go with her. It's no use for me
+to get to the plant before afternoon. I'll go on this flower-pickin'
+spree, and be at the mouth of the canyon in time to hold the first bunch
+of horses you bring in. They're pretty much scattered, you know. What for
+an outfit you goin' to wear? You don't want no flappin' skirts to
+advertise you."
+
+Susie answered curtly:
+
+"I got some sense."
+
+"You're a sassy side-kicker," he observed good-humoredly.
+
+She pouted.
+
+"I don't care, I wanted to pick flowers."
+
+Smith said mockingly, "So do I, angel child. I jest worships flowers!"
+
+"From pickin' flowers to stealin' horses is some of a jump."
+
+"I holds a record for long jumps." As a final warning Smith said: "Now,
+don't make no mistake in cuttin' out, for we've picked the top horses of
+the range. And remember, once you get 'em strung out, haze 'em along--for
+there'll be hell a-poppin' on the reservation when they're missed."
+
+Susie had disappeared when the Schoolmarm came out with her basket and
+knife, prepared to start, and Smith gave some plausible excuse for her
+change of plan.
+
+"She told me to go in her place," said Smith eagerly, "and I know a gulch
+where there's a barrel of them Mormon lilies, and rock-roses, and a
+reg'lar carpet of these here durn little blue flowers that look so nice
+and smell like a Chinese laundry. I can dig like a badger, too."
+
+Dora laughed, and, looking at him, noticed, as she often had before, the
+wonderful vividness with which his varying moods were reflected in his
+face, completely altering his expression.
+
+He looked boyish, brimming with the buoyant spirits of youth. His skin had
+unwonted clearness, his eyes were bright, his face was animated; he seemed
+to radiate exuberant good-humor. Even his voice was different and his
+laugh was less hard. As he walked away with the Schoolmarm's basket
+swinging on his arm, he was for the time what he should have been always.
+He had long since made ample apology to Dora for his offense and there had
+been no further outbreak from him of which to complain.
+
+The day's work was cut out for Ralston also, when he saw Yellow Bird and
+another Indian ride away, each leading a pack-horse, and learned from Ling
+that they had gone to butcher. They started off over the reservation, in
+the direction in which the MacDonald cattle ranged; with the intention,
+Ralston supposed, of circling and coming out on the Bar C range. He
+thought that by keeping well to the draws and gulches he could remain
+fairly well hidden and yet keep them in sight.
+
+He heard voices, and turned a hill just in time to see Smith take a flower
+gently from Dora's hand and, with some significant word, lay it with care
+between the leaves of a pocket note-book.
+
+Though it looked more to Ralston, all that Smith had said was, "It might
+bring me luck." And Dora had smiled at his superstition.
+
+Ralston would have turned back had it not been too late: his horse's feet
+among the rocks had caused them to look up. As he passed Dora replied to
+some commonplace, with heightened color, and Smith stared in silent
+triumph.
+
+Ralston cursed himself and the mischance which had taken him to that
+spot.
+
+"She'll think I was spying upon her, like some ignorant, jealous fool!" he
+told himself savagely. "Why, why, is it that I must always blunder upon
+such scenes, to make me miserable for days! Can it be--can it possibly
+be," he asked himself--"that she cares for the man; that she encourages
+him; that she has a foolish, Quixotic notion that she can raise him to her
+own level?"
+
+Was there really good in the man which he, Ralston, was unable to see? Was
+he too much in love with Dora himself to be just to Smith, he wondered.
+
+"No, no!" he reiterated vehemently. "No man who would abuse a horse is fit
+for a good woman to marry. I'm right about him--I know I am. But can I
+prove it in time to save her?--not for myself, for I guess I've no show;
+but from him?"
+
+With a heartache which seemed to have become chronic of late, Ralston
+followed the Indians' lead up hill and down, through sand coulees and
+between cut-banks, at a leisurely pace. They seemed in no hurry, nor did
+they make any apparent effort to conceal themselves. They rode through
+several herds of cattle, and passed on, drifting gradually toward the
+creek bottom close to the reservation line, where both Bar C and I. D.
+cattle came to drink.
+
+Ralston wondered if they would attempt to stand him off; but his heart was
+too heavy for the possibility of a coming fight to quicken his pulse to
+any great extent. He believed that he would be rather glad than otherwise
+if they should make a stand. The thought that the tedious waiting game
+which he had played so long might be ended did not elate him. The ambition
+seemed to have gone out of him. He had little heart in his work, and small
+interest in the glory resulting from success.
+
+He thought only of Dora as he lay full length on the ground, plucking
+disconsolately at spears of bunch-grass within reach, while he waited for
+the sound of a shot in the creek bottom, or the reappearance of the
+Indians.
+
+He had not long to wait before a shot, a bellow, and another shot told him
+that the time for action had come. He pulled his rifle from its scabbard,
+and laid it in front of him on his saddle. It was curious, he thought, as
+he rode closer, that one Indian was not on guard. Still, it was probable
+that they had grown careless through past successes. He was within a
+hundred yards of the butchers before they saw him.
+
+"Hello!" Yellow Bird's voice was friendly.
+
+"Hello!" Ralston answered.
+
+"Fat cow. Fine beef," vouchsafed the Indian.
+
+"Fine beef," agreed Ralston. "Can I help you?"
+
+The MacDonald brand stood out boldly on the cow's flank!
+
+Ralston watched them until they had loaded their meat upon the pack-horses
+and started homeward. One thing was certain: if Running Rabbit had
+butchered the Bar C cattle, he had done so under a white man's
+supervision. In this instance, with an Indian's usual economy in the
+matter of meat, he had left little but the horns and hoofs. The Bar C
+cattle had been butchered with the white man's indifference to waste.
+
+Any one of the bunk-house crowd, except McArthur, Ralston believed to be
+quite capable of stealing cattle for beef purposes. But if they had been
+stealing systematically, as it would appear, why had they killed MacDonald
+cattle to-day? Ralston still regarded the affair of the fresh hide as too
+suspicious a circumstance to be overlooked, and he meant to learn which of
+the white grub-liners had been absent. He reasoned that the Indians had a
+wholesome fear of Colonel Tolman, and that it was unlikely they would
+venture upon his range for such a purpose without a white man's moral
+support.
+
+Smith had been missing frequently of late and for so long as two days at
+a time, but this could not be regarded as peculiar, since the habits of
+all the grub-liners were more or less erratic. They disappeared and
+reappeared, with no explanation of their absence.
+
+In his present frame of mind, Ralston had no desire to return immediately
+to the ranch. He wanted to be alone; to harden his heart against Dora; to
+prepare his mind for more shocks such as he had had of late. It was not an
+easy task he had set himself.
+
+After a time he dismounted, and, throwing down his bridle-reins, dropped
+to the ground to rest, while his horse nibbled contentedly at the sparse
+bunch-grass. As he lay in the sunshine, his hands clasped behind his head,
+the stillness acted like a sedative, and something of the tranquillity
+about him crept into his soul.
+
+Upon one thing he was determined, and that was, come what might, to be a
+_man_--a gentleman. If in his conceit and eagerness he had misunderstood
+the softness of Dora's eyes, her shy tremulousness, as he now believed he
+had, he could take his medicine like a man, and go when the time came,
+without whimpering, without protest or reproach. He wanted to go away
+feeling that he had her respect, at least; go knowing that there was not a
+single word or action of his upon which she could look back with contempt.
+Yes, he wanted greatly her respect. She inspired in him this desire.
+
+Ralston felt very humble, very conscious of his own shortcomings, as he
+lay there while the afternoon waned; but, humble as he was, resigned as he
+believed himself to be, he could not think of Smith with anything but
+resentment and contempt. It hurt his pride, his self-respect, to regard
+Smith in the light of a rival--a successful rival.
+
+"By Gad!" he cried aloud, and with a heat which belied his
+self-abnegation. "If he were only a _decent_ white man! But to be let down
+and out by the only woman I ever gave a whoop for in all my life, for a
+fellow like that! Say, it's tough!"
+
+Ralston's newly acquired serenity, the depth of which he had reason to
+doubt, was further disturbed by a distant clatter of hoofs. He sat up and
+watched the oncoming of the angriest-looking Indian that ever quirted a
+cayuse over a reservation. It was Bear Chief, whom he knew slightly.
+Seeing Ralston's saddled horse, the Indian pulled up a little, which was
+as well, since the white man was immediately in his path.
+
+As the Indian came back, Ralston, who had rolled over to let him pass,
+remarked dryly:
+
+"The country is getting so crowded, it's hardly safe for a man to sit
+around like this. What's the excitement, Bear Chief?"
+
+"Horse-thief steal Indian horses!" he cried, pointing toward the Bad
+Lands.
+
+Ralston was instantly alert.
+
+"Him ridin' my race-pony--fastest pony on de reservation. Got big bunch.
+Runnin' 'em off!"
+
+Fast moving specks that rose and fell among the hills of the Bad Lands
+bore out the Indian's words.
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+Ralston was slipping the bit back in his horse's mouth and tightening the
+cinch.
+
+"Yas, I see him. Long way off, but I see him."
+
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Yas, I know him."
+
+"Who was it?" Ralston was in the saddle now.
+
+"Little white man--what you call him 'bug-hunter'--at de MacDonald
+ranch."
+
+"McArthur!" Their horses were gathering speed as they turned them toward
+the Bad Lands.
+
+"Yas. Little; hair on face--so; wear what you call dem sawed-off pants."
+
+From the description, Ralston recognized McArthur's English
+riding-breeches, which had added zest to life for the bunk-house crowd
+when he had appeared in them. The deputy-sheriff was bewildered. It seemed
+incredible, yet there, still in sight, was the flying band of horses, and
+Bear Chief's positiveness seemed to leave no room for doubt.
+
+"Oh, him one heap good thief," panted Bear Chief, in unwilling admiration,
+as their horses ran side by side. "He work fast. No 'fraid. Cut 'em
+out--head 'em off--turn 'em--ride through big brush--jump de gulch--yell
+and swing de quirt, and do him all 'lone! Dat no easy work--cut out horses
+all 'lone. Him heap good horse-thief!"
+
+What did it mean, anyhow? Ralston asked himself the question again and
+again. Was it possible that he had been deceived in McArthur? That, after
+all, he was a criminal of an extraordinary type? He found no answer to his
+questions, but both he and Bear Chief soon realized that they were
+exhausting their horses in a useless pursuit. It was growing dark; the
+thief had too much start, and, with the experience of an old hand, he
+drove the horses over rocks, where they left no blabbing tracks behind.
+Once well into the Bad Lands, he was as effectually lost as if the earth
+had opened and swallowed him.
+
+So they turned their tired horses back, reaching the ranch long after
+sundown. Ralston was still unconvinced that it was not a case of mistaken
+identity, and, hoping against hope, he asked some one loafing about while
+he and Bear Chief unsaddled if McArthur had returned.
+
+"He's been off prowlin' all day, and ain't in yet," was the answer; and
+Bear Chief grunted at this confirmation of his accusation.
+
+The Indian woman was waiting in the doorway when they came up the path.
+
+"You see Susie?" There was uneasiness in her voice.
+
+It was an unheard-of thing for Susie not to return from her rides and
+visits before dark.
+
+"Not since morning," Ralston replied. "Has any one gone to look for her?
+Is Smith here?"
+
+"Smith no come home for supper."
+
+"There seems to have been a general exodus to-day," Ralston observed. "Are
+you feeling worried about Susie?"
+
+"I no like. Yas, I feel worry for Susie."
+
+It was the first evidence of maternal interest that Ralston ever had seen
+the stoical woman show.
+
+"If Ling will give me a bite to eat, I'll saddle another horse and ride
+down below. She may be spending the night with some of her friends."
+
+"She no do that without tell me," declared the woman positively. "Susie no
+do that."
+
+She brought the food from the kitchen herself, and padded uneasily from
+window to window while they ate.
+
+What was in the wind, Ralston asked himself, that Susie, McArthur, and
+Smith should disappear in this fashion on the same day? It was a singular
+coincidence. Like her mother, Ralston had no notion that Susie was
+stopping the night at any ranch or lodge below. He, too, shared the Indian
+woman's misgivings.
+
+He had finished and was reaching for his hat when footsteps were heard on
+the hard-beaten dooryard. They were slow, lagging, unfamiliar to the
+listeners, who looked at each other inquiringly. Then the Indian woman
+threw open the door, and Susie, like the ghost of herself, staggered from
+the darkness outside into the light.
+
+No ordinary fatigue could make her look as she looked now. Every step
+showed complete and utter exhaustion. Her dishevelled hair was hanging in
+strands over her face, her eyes were dark-circled, she was streaked with
+dust and grime, and her thin shoulders drooped wearily.
+
+"Where you been, Susie?" her mother asked sharply.
+
+"Teacher said," she made a pitiful attempt to laugh, to speak
+lightly--"Teacher said ridin' horseback would keep you from gettin' fat.
+I--I've been reducin' my hips."
+
+"Don't you do dis no more!"
+
+"Don't worry--I shan't!" And as if her mother's reproach was the last
+straw, Susie covered her face with the crook of her elbow and cried
+hysterically.
+
+Ralston was convinced that the day had held something out of the ordinary
+for Susie. He knew that it would take an extraordinary ride so completely
+to exhaust a girl who was all but born in the saddle. But it was evident
+from her reply that she did not mean to tell where she had been or what
+she had been doing.
+
+Although Ralston soon retired, he was awake long after his numerous
+room-mates were snoring in their bunks. There was much to be done on the
+morrow, yet he could not sleep. He was not able to rid himself of the
+thought that there was something peculiar in the absence of Smith just at
+this time, nor could he entirely abandon the belief that McArthur would
+yet come straggling in, with an explanation of the whole affair. He could
+not think of any that would be satisfactory, but an underlying faith in
+the little scientist's honesty persisted.
+
+Toward morning he slept, and day was breaking when a step on the door-sill
+of the bunk-house awakened him. He raised himself slightly on his elbow
+and stared at McArthur, looming large in the gray dawn, with a skull
+carried carefully in both hands.
+
+"Ah, I'm glad to find you awake!" He tiptoed across the floor.
+
+His clothing was wrinkled with the damp, night air, and his face looked
+haggard in the cold light, but the fire of enthusiasm burned undimmed
+behind his spectacles.
+
+"Congratulate me!"
+
+"I do--what for?"
+
+"My dear sir, if I can prove to the satisfaction of scientific sceptics
+that this cranium is not pathological, I shall have bounded in a single
+day--night--bounded from comparative obscurity to the pinnacle of fame!
+Undoubtedly--beyond question--a race of giants existed in North
+America----"
+
+"Pardon me," Ralston interrupted his husky eloquence; "but where have you
+been all night?"
+
+"Ah, where have I _not_ been? Walking--walking under the stars! Under the
+stimulus of success, I have covered miles with no feeling of fatigue. Have
+you ever experienced, my dear sir, the sensation which comes from the
+realization of a life-dream?"
+
+"Not yet," Ralston replied prosaically. "Where was your horse?"
+
+"Ah, yes, my horse. Where _is_ my horse? I asked myself that question each
+time that I stopped to remove one of the poisonous spines of the cactus
+from my feet. Whether my horse lost me or I lost my horse, I am unable to
+say. I left him grazing in a gulch, and was not again able to locate the
+gulch. I wandered all night--or until Fate guided me into a barbed wire
+fence, where, as you will observe, I tore my trousers. I followed the
+fence, and here I am--I and my companion"--McArthur patted the skull
+lovingly--"this giant--the slayer of mastodons--whose history lies
+concealed in 'the dark backward and abysm of time'!"
+
+As he looked into Ralston's non-committal eyes with his own burning orbs,
+he realized that great joy, like great sorrow, is something which cannot
+well be shared.
+
+"Forgive me," he said with hurt dignity; "I have again forgotten that you
+have no interest in such things."
+
+"You are mistaken. I wanted to hear."
+
+After McArthur had retired to his pneumatic mattress, Ralston lay
+wide-eyed, more mystified than before. Had Bear Chief's eyes deceived him,
+or was McArthur the cleverest of rogues?
+
+Breakfast was done when Ralston said:
+
+"Will you be good enough to step into the bunk-house, Mr. McArthur?"
+
+Something in his voice chilled the sensitive man. Ralston, whom he greatly
+admired, always had been most friendly. He followed him now in wonder.
+
+"You are sure this is the man, Bear Chief?"
+
+The Indian had stepped forward at their entrance.
+
+"Yas, I know him," he reiterated.
+
+McArthur looked from one to the other.
+
+"Bear Chief accuses you of stealing his horses, Mr. McArthur," explained
+Ralston bluntly.
+
+"What!"
+
+"You slick little horse-thief, but I see you good. Where you cache my
+race-pony?" The Indian's demand was a threat.
+
+For reply, McArthur walked over and sat down on the edge of a bunk, as if
+his legs of a sudden were too weak to support him.
+
+"Bear Chief swears he saw you, McArthur." Ralston's tone was not
+unfriendly now, for something within him pleaded the bug-hunter's cause
+with irritating persistence.
+
+"Me a horse-thief? Running off race-ponies?" McArthur found himself able
+to exclaim at last: "But I had no horse of my own!"
+
+"Have you any credentials--anything at all by which we can identify you?"
+
+"Not with me; but certainly I can furnish them. The name of McArthur is
+not unknown in Connecticut," he answered with a tinge of pride.
+
+"Where are your riding-breeches? Bear Chief says you were wearing them
+yesterday. Can you produce them now?"
+
+McArthur, with hauteur, walked to the nails where his wardrobe hung and
+fumbled among the clothing.
+
+They were gone!
+
+His jaw dropped, and a slight pallor overspread his face.
+
+Susie, who had been listening from the doorway, flung a flour-sack at his
+feet.
+
+"Search my trunk, pardner," she said with her old-time impish grin.
+
+McArthur mechanically did as she bade him, and his riding-breeches dropped
+from the sack.
+
+"I hope you'll 'scuse me for makin' so free with your clothes, like," she
+said, "but I just naturally had to have them yesterday."
+
+A light broke in upon Ralston.
+
+"You!"
+
+"Yep, I did it, me--Susie." Her tone and manner were a ludicrous imitation
+of Smith's. She added: "I saw you all pikin' in here, so I tagged."
+
+"But why"--Ralston stared at her in incredulity--"why should _you_ steal
+horses?"
+
+"It's this way," Susie explained, in a loud, confidential whisper: "I've
+been playin' a little game of my own. When the right time came, I meant to
+let Mr. Ralston in on it, but when Bear Chief saw me, I knew I'd have to
+tell, to keep my pardner here from gettin' the blame."
+
+"But the beard,"--Ralston still looked sceptical.
+
+"Shucks! That's easy. I saw Bear Chief before he saw me, and I just took
+the black silk hankerchief from my neck and tied it hold-up fashion around
+the lower part of my face. Bear Chief was excited when he saw his running
+horse travelling out of the country at the gait we was goin' then."
+
+"I don't see yet, Susie?"
+
+She turned upon Ralston in good-natured contempt.
+
+"Goodness, but you're slow! Don't you understand? Smith's my pal; we're
+workin' together. He cooked this up--him takin' the safe and easy end of
+it himself. He sprung it on me that day I had a sull on. Don't you see his
+game? He thinks if he can get me mixed up in something crooked, he can
+manage me. He's noticed, maybe, that I'm not halter-broke. So I pretended
+to fall right in with his plans, once I had promised, meanin' all the time
+to turn state's evidence, or whatever you call it, and send him over the
+road. I wanted to show Mother and everybody else what kind of a man he
+is. I don't want no step-papa named Smith."
+
+The three men stared in amazement at the intrepid little creature with her
+canny Scotch eyes.
+
+"And do you mean to say," Ralston asked, "that you've held your tongue and
+played your part so well that Smith has no suspicions?"
+
+"Hatin' makes you smart," she answered, "and I hate Smith so hard I can't
+sleep nights. No, I don't think he is suspicious; because I'm to pack grub
+to him this morning, and if he was afraid of me, he'd never let me know
+where he was camped. He's holdin' the horses over there in a blind canyon,
+and when I go over I'm to help him blotch the brands."
+
+"We want to get the drop on him when he's using the branding-iron."
+
+"And you want to see that he shoves up his hands and keeps them there,"
+suggested Susie further, "for he'll take big chances rather than have the
+Schoolmarm see him ridin' to the Agency with his wrists tied to the
+saddle-horn."
+
+"I know." Ralston knew even better than Susie that Smith would fight like
+a rat in a corner to avoid this possibility.
+
+"My!" and Susie gave an explosive sigh, "but it's an awful relief not to
+have that secret to pack around any longer, and to feel that I've got
+somebody to back me up."
+
+A lump rose in Ralston's throat, and, taking her brown little paws in both
+of his, he said:
+
+"To the limit, Susie--to the end of the road."
+
+"And my pardner's in on it, too, if he wants to be," she declared loyally,
+slipping her arm through McArthur's.
+
+"To be sure," Ralston seconded cordially. "It will be an adventure for
+your diary." He added, laying his hand upon McArthur's shoulder: "I'm more
+than sorry about the mistake this morning, old man. Will you forgive Bear
+Chief and me?"
+
+In all McArthur's studious, lonely life, no person ever had put his hand
+upon his shoulder and called him "old man." The quick tears filled his
+eyes, and a glow, tingling in its warmth, rushed over him. The simple,
+manly act made him Ralston's slave for life, but he answered in his quiet
+voice:
+
+"The mistake was natural, my dear sir."
+
+"Smith will be gettin' restless," Susie suggested, "for his breakfast must
+have been pretty slim. We'd better be startin'.
+
+"Now, I'll take straight across the hills in a bee-line, and the rest of
+you keep me in sight, but follow the draws. When I drop into the canyon,
+you cache yourselves until I come up and swing my hat. I'll do my best to
+separate Smith from his gun, but if I can't, I'll throw you the sign to
+jump him."
+
+"I shall arm myself with a pistol, and, if the occasion demands, I shall
+not hesitate to use it," said McArthur, closing his lips with great
+firmness.
+
+Bear Chief was given a rifle, and then there was a scurrying about for
+cartridges. When they were saddled, each rode in a different direction, to
+meet again when out of sight of the ranch. With varied emotions, they soon
+were following Susie's lead, and it was no easy task to keep the flying
+figure in sight.
+
+McArthur, panting, perspiring, choking his saddle-horn to death, wondered
+if any person of his acquaintance ever had participated in such a reckless
+ride. The instructor in Dead Languages, it is true, frequently had
+thrilled his colleagues with his recital of a night spent in a sapling,
+owing to the proximity of a she-bear, and McArthur always had mildly
+envied him the adventure, but now, he felt, if he lived to tell the tale,
+he had no further cause for envy.
+
+Bear Chief's eyes were gleaming with the fires of other days, while the
+faded overalls and flannel shirt of civilization seemed to take on a look
+of savagery.
+
+Only Ralston's eyes were sombre. He had no thought of weakening, but he
+had no feeling of elation; though, for the sake of his own self-respect,
+he was glad to know that his suspicions of Smith were not inspired by
+jealousy or malice. Now that the opportunity for which he had hoped and
+waited had come, his strongest feeling was one of sorrow for Dora. With
+the tenderness of real love, he shrank from hurting her, from mortifying
+her by the exposé of Smith.
+
+In no other way were the natures of the two men more strongly contrasted
+than in this. When Smith flamed with jealousy he wanted to hurt Dora and
+Ralston alike, and when he had the advantage he shoved the hot iron home.
+Ralston could be just, generous even, and, though he believed she had
+unreservedly given her preference to Smith, he still yearned to shield
+her, to spare her pain and humiliation.
+
+Susie finally disappeared, and when she did not come in sight again they
+knew she had reached the rendezvous. Dismounting, they tied their horses
+in a deep draw, and crawled to the top, where they could watch for her
+signal.
+
+"She'll give him plenty of time," said Ralston.
+
+He had barely finished speaking when they saw Susie at the top of the
+canyon wall waving her hat.
+
+"Something's gone wrong," said Ralston quickly.
+
+With rifles ready for action, the three of them ran toward Susie.
+
+Ralston and Bear Chief reached her together. Without a word she pointed
+into the empty canyon, where a dying camp-fire told the story. Smith had
+been gone for hours.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+WHERE A MAN GETS A THIRST
+
+
+While the four stood staring blankly at the trampled earth and the thin
+thread of smoke rising from a smouldering stick on a bed of ashes, Smith,
+miles away, was watching the skyline in the direction from which he had
+come, and gulping coffee from a tin can. He had slept--the print of his
+body was still in the sand--but his sleep had been broken and brief. He
+had ridden fast and all night long, but he was not yet far enough away to
+feel secure. There was always a danger, too, that the horses would break
+for their home range, although he kept the mare who led the band on the
+picket rope when they were not travelling. His own horse, always saddled,
+was picketed close.
+
+"I'll never make a turn like this alone again," he muttered
+discontentedly. "It's too much like work to suit me, and I ain't in shape
+to make a hard ride. I've got soft layin' around the ranch." He stretched
+his stiff muscles and made a wry face. Then he smiled. "I'd like to see
+that brat's face when she comes with my grub this mornin'." He looked off
+again to the skyline.
+
+"I ketched her eyein' me once or twice in a way that didn't look good to
+me; and I had that notorious strong feelin' take holt of me that she
+wasn't on the square. I'd better be sure nor sorry;--that's no josh. I
+takes no chances, me--Smith; I tips my hand to no petticoat."
+
+He noted with relief that the wind was rising. He was glad, for it would
+obliterate every print and make tracking impossible. He had kept to the
+rocks, as the unshod and now foot-sore horses bore evidence, but, even so,
+there was always a chance of tell-tale prints.
+
+"I can take it easy after I get to water," he told himself. "This water
+business is ser'ous"--he looked uneasily at the stretch of desolation
+ahead of him--"but unless the Injuns lied, they's _some_.
+
+"I hope the boys are to home," he went on, "for if they are it won't take
+us long to work these brands over. When they take 'em off my hands and I
+gets my wad, I'll soak it away, me--Smith. I'll hand it in at the bank,
+and I'll say to the dude at the winder, 'Feller,' I'll say, 'me and a
+little Schoolmarm are goin' to housekeepin' after while, so just hang on
+to that till I calls.'" Smith grinned appreciatively at the picture.
+
+"His eyes will stick out till you could snare 'em with a log-chain, for I
+ain't known as a marryin' man." His face sobered. "I've got to get to work
+and get a wad--she shot that into me straight; and she's right. I couldn't
+ask no woman like her to hang out her own wash in front of a two-roomed
+shack. I got to get the _dinero_, and between man and man, Smith, like you
+and me, I'm nowise particular how I gets it, so long as she don't know.
+I'll take any old chance, me--Smith. And dead men's eyes hasn't got the
+habit of follerin' me around in the dark, like some I've knowed. She'd
+think I was a horrible feller if--but shucks! What's done's done."
+
+He lifted his arms and stretched them toward the skyline, and his voice
+vibrated:
+
+"I love you, girl! I love you, and I couldn't hurt you no more nor a
+baby!"
+
+Before he coiled the picket-ropes and started the horses moving, he got
+down on his knees and took a mouthful of water from a lukewarm pool. He
+spat it upon the ground in disgust.
+
+"That's worse nor pizen," he declared with a grimace. "You bet I've got to
+strike water to-day somehow. The horses won't hardly touch this, and
+they're all ga'nted up for the want of it. There ought to be water over
+there in some of them gulches, seems-like"--he looked anxiously at the
+expanse stretching interminably to the northeast--"and I'll have to haze
+'em along until we hit it."
+
+His tired horse seemed to sag beneath his weight as he landed heavily in
+the saddle; and the band of foot-sore horses, the hair of their necks and
+legs stiff with sweat and dust, bore little resemblance to the spirited
+animals that Susie had driven from the reservation. It was now no effort
+to keep up with them, and Smith herded them in front of him like a flock
+of sheep. He wondered what another day, perhaps two days more, of
+constant travel would do, if fifty miles or so had used them up. There was
+not now the fear of capture to urge him forward, but the need of reaching
+water was an equally great incentive to haste.
+
+Smith travelled until late in the afternoon without an audible complaint
+at the intense discomforts of the day. He found no water, and he ate only
+a handful of sugar as he rode. He journeyed constantly toward the
+northeast, in which direction, he thought, must be the ranch which was his
+destination. At each intervening gulch a hope arose that it might contain
+water, but always he was disappointed. Between the alkali dust and the
+heat of the midday sun, which was unusually hot for the time of year, his
+lips were cracked and his throat dry.
+
+"Ain't this hell!" he finally muttered fretfully. "And no more jump in
+this horse nor a cow. I can do without grub, but water! Oh, Lord! I could
+lap up a gallon."
+
+The slight motion of his lips started them bleeding. He wiped the blood
+away on the back of his hand and continued:
+
+"This is a reg'lar stretch of Bad Lands. If them blamed Injuns hadn't
+lied, I could have packed water easy enough. They don't seem to be no end
+to it, and I must have come forty mile. You're in for it, Smith. It's
+goin' to be worse before it's better. If I could only lay in a crick--roll
+in it--douse my face in it--soak my clothes in it! God! I'm dry!"
+
+He spurred his horse, but there was no response from it. It was dead on
+its feet, between the hard travel of the previous day and night and
+another day without water. He cursed the horses ahead as they lagged and
+necessitated extra steps.
+
+He rode for awhile longer, until he realized that at the snail's pace they
+were moving he was making little headway. A rest would pay better in the
+long run, although there was some two hours of daylight left.
+
+The dull-eyed horses stood with drooping heads, too thirsty and too tired
+to hunt for the straggling spears of grass and salt sage which grew
+sparsely in the alkali soil.
+
+After Smith had unsaddled, he opened the grain-sack which contained his
+provisions. Spreading them out, he stood and eyed them with contempt.
+
+"And I calls myself a prairie man," he said aloud, in self-disgust.
+"Swine-buzzom--when I'm perishin' of thirst! If only I'd put in a couple
+of air-tights. Pears is better nor anything; they ain't so blamed sweet,
+they're kind of cool, and they has juice you can drink. And tomaters--if
+only I had tomaters! This here dude-food, this strawberry jam, is goin' to
+make me thirstier than ever. No water to mix the flour with, nothing to
+cook in but salt grease. Smith, you're up against it, you are."
+
+He built a little sage-brush fire, over which he cooked his bacon, and
+with it he ate a dry biscuit, but his thirst was so great that it
+overshadowed his hunger. Chewing grains of coffee stimulated him somewhat,
+but the bacon and glucose jam increased his thirst tenfold, if such a
+thing were possible. His thoughts of Dora, and his dreams of the future,
+which had helped him through the afternoon, were no longer potent. He
+could now think only of his thirst--of his overpowering desire for water.
+It filled his whole mental horizon. Water! Water! Water! Was there
+anything in the world to be compared with it!
+
+His face was deep-lined with distress as he sat by the camp-fire, trying
+in vain to moisten his lips with his dry tongue. One picture after another
+arose before him: streams of crystal water which he had forded; icy
+mountain springs at which he had knelt and drank; deep wells from which he
+had thrown whole bucketfuls away after he had quenched what he then called
+thirst. Thirst! He never had known thirst. What he had called thirst was
+laughable in comparison with this awful longing, this madness, this desire
+beside which all else paled.
+
+In any other than an alkali country, the lack of water for the same length
+of time would have meant little more than discomfort, but the parching,
+drying effect of the deadly white dust entailed untold suffering upon the
+traveller caught unprepared as was Smith.
+
+He rolled and smoked innumerable cigarettes, rising at intervals to pace
+restlessly to and fro. His lips and tongue were so parched that both taste
+and feeling seemed deadened. Had he not seen the smoke, it is doubtful if
+he could have been sure he was smoking.
+
+He wandered away from the fire after a time, walking aimlessly, having no
+objective point. He desired only to be moving. Something like a half-mile
+from his camp he came into a shallow cut which appeared to have been made
+during bygone rainy seasons, but which now bore no evidence of having
+carried water for many years. He followed it mechanically, stumbling
+awkwardly in his high-heeled cowboy boots over the rocks which had washed
+into its bed from the alkali-coated sides. Suddenly he cried aloud, with a
+shrill, penetrating cry that was peculiar to him when surprised or
+startled. He had inadvertently kicked up a rock which showed moisture
+beneath it!
+
+He began to run, with his mouth open, his bloodshot eyes wide and staring.
+There was a bare chance that it might come from one of those desert
+springs which appear and disappear at irregular intervals in the sand. As
+he ran, he saw hoof-tracks in what had once been mud, and his heart beat
+higher with hope. He had a thought in his half-crazed brain that the water
+might disappear before he could reach it, and he ran like one frenzied
+with fear. The world was swimming around him, his heart was pounding in
+his breast, yet still he stumbled on at top speed.
+
+[Illustration: IT MEANT DEATH--BUT IT WAS WET!--IT WAS WATER!]
+
+The cut grew deeper, and indications of moisture increased. He saw a
+growth of large sage-brush, then a clump or two of rank, saw-edged grass.
+These things meant water! He turned a bend and there, beneath a high bank,
+was a pool crusted to the edge with alkali!
+
+Smith knew that it was strongly alkali; that it meant certain
+illness--enough of it, death. But it was wet!--it was water!--and he must
+drink. He fell, rather than knelt, in it. When taste came back he realized
+that it was flat and lukewarm, but he continued to gulp it down. At any
+other time it would have nauseated him, but now he drank to his capacity.
+When he could drink no more, he sat up--realizing what he had done. He had
+swallowed liquid poison--nothing less. The result was inevitable. He was
+going to be ill--excruciatingly, terribly ill, alone in the Bad Lands!
+This was as certain as was the fact that night had come.
+
+"I was so dry," he whimpered, "I couldn't help it! I was so dry!" He
+scrambled to his feet.
+
+"I gotta get back to camp. This water's goin' to raise thunder when it
+begins to get in its work. I gotta get back to my blankets and lay down."
+
+Before he reached the heap of ashes which he called camp, the first
+symptoms of his coming agony began to show themselves. He felt slightly
+nauseated; then a quick, griping pain which was a forerunner of others
+which were to make him sweat blood.
+
+Many of these springs and stagnant pools carry arsenic in large
+quantities, and of such was the water of which Smith had drunk. In his
+exhaustion, the poison and accompanying impurities took hold of him with a
+fierceness which it might not have done had he been in perfect physical
+condition; but his stomach, already disordered from irregular and improper
+food, absorbed the poison with avidity, and the result was an agony
+indescribable.
+
+As he writhed on his saddle-blankets under the stars, he groaned and
+cursed that unknown God above him. His face and hands were covered with a
+cold sweat; his forehead and finger-tips were icy. The night air was
+chill, but he was burning with an inward fever, and his thirst now was
+akin to madness. With all his strength of will, he fought against his
+desire to return to the pool.
+
+Smith did not expect to die. He felt that if he could keep his senses and
+not crawl back to drink again, he would pull through somehow. The living
+hell he now endured would pass.
+
+He wallowed and threshed about like a suffering animal, beating the earth
+with his clenched fists, during the paroxysms of cutting, wrenching pain.
+His suffering was supreme. All else in the world shrank into
+insignificance beside it. No thoughts of Dora fortified him; no mother's
+face came to comfort him; nor that of any human being he had ever known.
+He was just Smith--self-centred--alone; just Smith, fighting and suffering
+and struggling for his life. His anguish found expression in the single
+sentence:
+
+"I'm sick! I'm sick! Oh, God! I'm sick!" He repeated it in every key with
+every inflection, and his moans lost themselves in the silence of the
+desert.
+
+Yet underneath it all, when his agony was at its height, he still believed
+in himself. In a kind of subconscious arrogance, he believed that he was
+stronger than Fate, more powerful than Death. He would not die; he would
+live because he wanted to live. Death was not for him--Smith. For others,
+but not for him.
+
+At last the paroxysms became less frequent and lost their violence. When
+they ceased altogether, he lay limp and half-conscious. He was content to
+remain motionless until the flies and insects of the sand roused him to
+the fact that another day had come.
+
+He was incredibly weak, and it took all his remaining strength to throw
+his forty-pound cow-saddle upon his horse's back. His knees shook under
+him, and he had to rest before he could lift his foot to the stirrup and
+pull himself into the seat.
+
+Before he rode away he turned and looked at the hollow in the sand where
+his blankets had been.
+
+"That was a close squeak, Smith," was all he said.
+
+He had no desire for breakfast; in fact, he could not have eaten, for his
+tongue was swollen, and his throat felt too dry to swallow. His skin was
+the color of his saddle-leather, and his inflamed eye-balls had the
+redness of live coals. Smith was far from handsome that morning.
+
+His own recent sufferings had in nowise made him more merciful: he spurred
+his stiff and lifeless horse without pity, but he spurred uselessly. It
+stumbled under him as he drove the spiritless band toward the hopeless
+waste ahead of him.
+
+"Unless I'm turned around, we ought to get out of this to-day," he
+thought. The effort of speaking aloud was too great to be made. "Unless
+I'm lost, or fall off my horse, we ought to make it sure."
+
+Distance had meant nothing to him during the first evening and night of
+his ride. He had fixed his eye upon the furthermost object within his
+range of vision and ridden for it--buoyant, confident, as his horse's
+flying feet ate up the intervening miles. Now he shrank from looking
+ahead. He dreaded to lift his eyes to the interminable desolation
+stretching before him. The minutes seemed hours long; time was protracted
+as though he had been eating hasheesh. He felt as if he had ridden for a
+week, before his horse's shadow told him that noon had come. The jar of
+his horse hurt him, and it all seemed unreal at times, like a torturing
+nightmare from which he must soon awake. He rode long distances with
+closed eyes as the day wore on. The world, red and wavering, swung around
+him, and he gripped his saddle-horn hard. The only real thing, the agony
+of which was too great to be mistaken for anything else, was his thirst.
+This was superlatively intense. There were moments when he had a desire to
+slide easily from his horse into the sand and lie still--just to be rid
+for a time of that jar that hurt him so. He viewed the distance to the
+ground contemplatively. It was not great. He would merely crumple up like
+a drunken person and go to sleep.
+
+But these moments soon passed: the instinct of self-preservation was quick
+to assert itself. Each time, he took a fresh grip on the slack reins and
+kept his horse plodding onward, ever onward, through the heavy sand and
+blistering alkali dust, and always to the northeast, where somewhere there
+was relief which somehow he must reach.
+
+Mile after mile crept under his horse's lagging feet. The midday sun beat
+down upon him, drying the very blood in his veins, scorching him,
+shrivelling him, and yet there seemed no end to the waterless gulches, to
+the sand, the cactuses, the stunted sage-brush. His horse was stumbling
+oftener, but he felt no pity--only irritation that it had not more
+stamina. A sort of numbness, the lethargy of great weakness, was creeping
+over him; his heart was sagging with a dull despair. He believed that he
+must be lost, yet he was past cursing or complaining aloud. Only an
+occasional gasp or a fretful, inarticulate sound came when his horse
+stumbled badly.
+
+He thought he saw a barbed wire fence. A barbed wire fence meant
+civilization! He swung his horse and rode toward it. The dark spots he had
+thought were posts were only sage-brush. The smarting of his eye-balls and
+eyelids aroused him to an astonishing fact: he was crying in his weakness,
+crying of disappointment like a child! But he was astonished most that he
+had tears to shed--that they had not dried up like his blood.
+
+Tears! He remembered his last tears, and they kept on sliding down his
+cheek now as he recalled the occasion. His father had given him a colt
+back there where they slept between sheets. He had broken it himself, and
+taught it tricks. It whinnied to him when he passed the stable. The other
+boys envied him his colt, and he meant to show it at the fair. He came
+home one day and the colt was gone. His father handed him a silver dollar.
+He had thrown the money at his father and struck him in the face, and
+while the tears streamed from his eyes he had cursed his father with the
+oaths with which his father had so frequently cursed him; and he had kept
+on cursing until he was beaten into unconsciousness. There had been no
+love between them, ever, but he had not expected that. Since then there
+had been no time or inclination for tears, for it was then he had "quit
+the flat." The rage of his boyhood came back to Smith as he thought of it
+now. He swore, though it hurt him to speak.
+
+His eyes were still smarting when he raised them to see a horseman on a
+distant ridge. The sight roused him like a stimulant. Was he friend or
+foe? He reined his horse, and, drawing his rifle from its scabbard,
+waited; for the stranger had seen him and was riding toward him down the
+ridge.
+
+"If he ain't my kind, I'll have to stop him," Smith muttered.
+
+The strength of excitement came to him, and once more he sat erect in the
+saddle, fingering the trigger as the horseman came steadily on.
+
+"He rides like a Texican," Smith thought. There was something familiar in
+the stranger's outlines, the way he threw his weight in one stirrup, but
+Smith was taking no chances. He put out a hand in warning, and the other
+man stopped.
+
+The swarthy face of the stranger wore a comprehending grin. No honest man
+drove horses across the Bad Lands. He threw the Indian sign of friendship
+to Smith, and they each advanced.
+
+"How far to water, Clayt?"
+
+"Well, dog-gone me! Smith!"
+
+"How far to water?" Smith yelled the words in hoarse ferocity.
+
+The stranger glanced at the barebacked horses, and then at the shimmering
+heat waves of the desert.
+
+"Just around the ridge," he answered. "My God, man, didn't you pack
+water?"
+
+But Smith was already out of hearing.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+TINHORN FRANK SMELLS MONEY
+
+
+Smith did not care for money in itself; that is, he did not care for it
+enough to work for it, or to hoard it when he had it. Yet perhaps even
+more than most persons he loved the feel of it in his fingers, the
+sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and
+money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he
+craved. He could call any flashy talker's bluff when his pockets were full
+of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his
+propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy
+him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He took a roll of
+banknotes from the belt pocket of his leather chaps and counted them for
+the third time.
+
+"I'll buy a few drinks, flash this wad on them pinheads in town, and then
+I'll soak it away." He returned the roll to his pocket with an expression
+of satisfaction upon his face.
+
+He had done well with the horses. The "boys" had paid him a third more
+than he had expected; they had done so, he knew, as an incentive to
+further transactions. And Smith had outlined a plan to them which had made
+their eyes sparkle.
+
+"It's risky, but if you can do it----" they had said.
+
+"Sure, I can do it, and I'll start as soon as it's safe after I get back
+to the ranch. I gotta get to work and make a stake--_me_," he had
+declared.
+
+They had looked at him quizzically.
+
+"The fact is, I'm tired of livin' under my hat. I aims to settle down."
+
+"And reform?" They had laughed uproariously.
+
+"Not to notice."
+
+Smith sincerely believed that nothing stood between him and Dora but his
+lack of money. Once she saw it, the actual money, when he could go to her
+and throw it in her lap, a hatful, and say, "Come on, girl"--well, women
+were like that, he told himself.
+
+Ahead of Smith, on the dusty flat, was the little cow-town, looking, in
+the distance, like a scattered herd of dingy sheep. He was glad his ride
+was ended for the day. He was thirsty, hot, and a bit tired.
+
+Tinhorn Frank, resting the small of his back against a monument of elk and
+buffalo horns in front of his log saloon, was the first to spy Smith
+ambling leisurely into town.
+
+"There's Smithy!" he exclaimed to the man who loafed beside him, "and he's
+got a roll!"
+
+His fellow lounger looked at him curiously.
+
+"Tinhorn, I b'lieve you kin _smell_ money; and I swear they's kind of a
+scum comes over your eyes when you see it. How do you know he's carryin' a
+roll?"
+
+Tinhorn Frank laughed.
+
+"I know Smithy as well as if I had made him. I kin tell by the way he
+rides. I always could. When he's broke he's slouchy-like. He don't take no
+pride in coilin' his rope, and he jams his hat over his eyes--tough. Look
+at him now--settin' square in the saddle, his rope coiled like a top
+Californy cowboy on a Fourth of July. That's how I know. Hello, Smithy!
+Fall off and arrigate."
+
+"Hullo!" Smith answered deliberately.
+
+"How's she comin'?"
+
+"Slow." He swung his leg over the cantle of the saddle.
+
+"What'll you have?" Tinhorn slapped Smith's back so hard that the dust
+rose.
+
+"Get me out somethin' stimulating, somethin' fur-reachin', somethin' that
+you can tell where it stops. I want a drink that feels like a yard of
+barb-wire goin' down." Smith was tying his horse.
+
+"Here's somethin' special," said Tinhorn, when Smith went inside. "I keeps
+it for my friends."
+
+Smith swallowed nearly a tumblerful.
+
+"When I drinks, I drinks, and I likes somethin' I can notice." He wiped
+the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
+
+"I guarantee you kin notice that in about five minutes. It's a never
+failing remedy for man and beast--not meaning to claim that its horse
+liniment at all. Put it back, Smithy; your money ain't good here!"
+
+Tinhorn Frank's dark eyes gleamed with an avaricious light at sight of the
+roll of yellow banknotes which Smith flung carelessly upon the bar, but he
+had earned his living by his wits too long to betray eagerness. He masked
+the adamantine hardness of his grasping nature beneath an air of generous
+and bluff good-fellowship.
+
+He was a dark man, with a skin of oily sallowness; thickset, with
+something of the slow ungainliness of a toad. His head was set low between
+stooped shoulders, and his crafty eyes had in them a look of scheming,
+scheming always for his own interests. Smith knew his record as well as he
+knew his own: a dance-hall hanger-on in his youth, despised of men; a
+blackmailer; the keeper of a notorious road-house; a petty grafter in a
+small political office in the little cow-town. Smith understood perfectly
+the source of his present interest, yet it flattered him almost as much as
+if it had been sincere, it pleased him as if he had been the object of a
+gentleman's attentions. When he had money, Smith demanded satellites,
+sycophants who would laugh boisterously at his jokes, praise him in broad
+compliments, and follow him like a paid retinue from saloon to saloon.
+This was enjoying life! And upon this weakness, the least clever, the
+most insignificant and unimportant person could play if he understood
+Smith.
+
+The word had gone down the line that Smith was in town with money. They
+rallied around him with loud protestations of joy at the sight of him.
+Smith held the centre of the stage, he was the conspicuous figure, the
+magnet which drew them all. He gloried in it, revelled in his popularity;
+and the "special brand" was beginning to sizzle in his veins.
+
+"I'm feelin' lucky to-day, me--Smith!" he cried exultantly. "I has a
+notorious idea that I can buck the wheel and win!"
+
+He had not meant to gamble--he had told himself that he would not; but his
+admiring friends urged him on, his blood was running fast and hot, his
+heart beat high with confidence and hope. Big prospects loomed ahead of
+him; success looked easy. He flung his money recklessly upon the red and
+black, and with throbbing pulses watched the wheel go round.
+
+Again and again he won. It seemed as if he could not lose.
+
+"I told you!" he cried. "I'm feelin' lucky!"
+
+When he finally stopped, his winnings were the envy of many eyes.
+
+"Set 'em up, Tinhorn! Everybody drink! Bring in the horses!"
+
+Bedlam reigned. It was "Smithy this" and "Smithy that," and it was all as
+the breath of life to Smith.
+
+"Tinhorn"--he leaned heavily on the bar--"when I feels lucky like this, I
+makes it a rule to crowd my luck. Are you game for stud?"
+
+The film which the lounger had mentioned seemed to cover Tinhorn's eyes.
+
+"I'm locoed to set agin such luck as yours, but I like to be sociable, and
+you don't come often."
+
+"I likes a swift game," said Smith, as he pulled a chair from the pine
+table. "Draw is good enough for kids and dudes, but stud's the only play
+for men."
+
+"Now you've talked!" declared the admiring throng.
+
+"Keep 'em movin', Tinhorn! Deal 'em out fast."
+
+"Smithy, you're a cyclone!"
+
+A hundred of Smith's money went for chips.
+
+"Dough is jest like mud to some fellers," said a voice enviously.
+
+"I likes a game where you make or break on a hand. I've lost thousands
+while you could spit, me--Smith!"
+
+"It's like a chinook in winter just to see you in town agin, Smithy."
+
+The "hole" card was not promising--it was only a six-spot; but, backing
+his luck, Smith bet high on it. Tinhorn came back at him strong. He wanted
+Smith's money, and he wanted it quick.
+
+Smith's next card was a jack, and he bet three times its value. When
+Tinhorn dealt him another jack he bought more chips and backed his pair,
+for Tinhorn, as yet, had none in sight. The next turn showed up a queen
+for Tinhorn and a three-spot for Smith. And they bet and raised, and
+raised again. On the last turn Smith drew another three and Tinhorn
+another queen. With two pairs in sight, Smith had him beaten. When Smith
+bet, Tinhorn raised him. Was Tinhorn bluffing or did he have another queen
+in the "hole"? Smith believed he was bluffing, but there was an equal
+chance that he was not. While he hesitated, the other watched him like a
+hungry mountain lion.
+
+"Are you gettin' cold feet, Smithy?" There was the suspicion of a sneer in
+the satellite's voice. "Did you say you liked to make or break on a
+hand?"
+
+"I thought you liked a swift game," gibed Tinhorn.
+
+The taunt settled it.
+
+"I can play as swift as most--and then, some." He shoved a pile of chips
+into the centre of the table with both hands. "Come again!"
+
+Tinhorn did come again; and again, and again, and again. He bet with the
+confidence of knowledge--with a confidence that put the fear in Smith's
+heart. But he could not, and he would not, quit now. His jaw was set as he
+pulled off banknote after banknote in the tense silence which had fallen.
+
+When the last of them fluttered to the table he asked:
+
+"What you got?"
+
+For answer, Tinhorn turned over a third queen. Encircling the pile of
+money and chips with his arm, he swept them toward him.
+
+Smith rose and kicked the chair out of his way.
+
+"That's the end of my rope," he said, with a hard laugh. "I'm done."
+
+"Have a drink," urged Tinhorn.
+
+"Not to-day," he answered shortly.
+
+The crowd parted to let him pass. Untying his horse, he sprang into the
+saddle, and not much more than an hour from the time he had arrived he
+rode down the main street, past the bank where he was to leave his roll,
+flat broke.
+
+At the end of the street he turned in his saddle and looked behind him.
+His satellites stood in the bar-room door, loungers loafed on the
+curbstone, a woman or two drifted into the General Merchandise Store. The
+Postmaster was eying him idly through his fly-specked window, and a group
+of boys, who had been drawing pictures with their bare toes in the deep
+white dust of the street, scowled after him because his horse's feet had
+spoiled their work. His advent had left no more impression than the tiny
+whirlwind in its erratic and momentary flurry. The money for which he had
+sweat blood was gone. Mechanically he jambed his hands into his empty
+pockets.
+
+"Hell!" he said bitterly. "Hell!"
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+SUSIE HUMBLES HERSELF TO SMITH
+
+
+Smith's return to the ranch was awaited with keen interest by several
+persons, though for different reasons.
+
+Bear Chief wanted to learn the whereabouts of his race-horse, and seemed
+to find small comfort in Ralston's assurance that the proper authorities
+had been notified and that every effort would be made to locate the stolen
+ponies.
+
+Dora was troubled that Smith's educational progress should have come to
+such an abrupt stop; and she felt not a little hurt that he should
+disappear for such a length of time without having told her of his going,
+and disappointed in him, also, that he would permit anything to interfere
+with the improvement of his mind.
+
+Susie's impatience for his return increased daily. Her chagrin over being
+outwitted by Smith was almost comical. She considered it a reflection upon
+her own intelligence, and tears of mortification came to her eyes each
+time she discussed it with Ralston. He urged her to be patient, and tried
+to comfort her by saying:
+
+"We have only to wait, Susie."
+
+"Yes, I thought that before, and look what happened."
+
+"The situation is different now."
+
+"But maybe he'll reform and we'll never get another crack at him," she
+said dolefully.
+
+Ralston shook his head.
+
+"Don't let that disturb you. Take certain natures under given
+circumstances, and you can come pretty near foretelling results. Smith
+will do the same thing again, only on a bigger scale; that is, unless he
+learns that he has been found out. He won't be afraid of you, because he
+will think that you are as deep in the mire as he is; but if he thought I
+suspected him, or the Indians, it would make him cautious."
+
+"You don't think he's charmed, or got such a stout medicine that nobody
+can catch him?"
+
+Ralston could not refrain from smiling at the Indian superstition which
+cropped out at times in Susie.
+
+"Not for a moment," he answered positively. "He appears to have been
+fortunate--lucky--but in a case like this, I don't believe there's any
+luck can win, in the long run, against vigilance, patience, and
+determination; and the greatest of these is patience." Ralston, waxing
+philosophical went on: "It's a great thing to be able to wait,
+Susie--coolly, smilingly, to wait--providing, as the phrase goes, you
+hustle while you wait. One victory for your enemy doesn't mean defeat for
+yourself. It's usually the last trick that counts, and sometimes games are
+long in the playing. Wait for your enemy's head, and when it comes up,
+_whack it_! Neither you nor I, Susie, have been reared to believe that
+when we are swatted on one cheek we should turn the other."
+
+"No;" Susie shook her head gravely. "That ain't sense."
+
+The person who took Smith's absence most deeply to heart was the Indian
+woman. She missed him, and, besides, she was tormented with jealous
+suspicions. She knew nothing of his life beyond what she had seen at the
+ranch. There might be another woman. She suffered from the ever-present
+fear that he might not come back; that he would go as scores of
+grub-liners had gone, without a word at parting.
+
+In the house she was restless, and her moccasined feet padded often from
+her bench in the corner to the window overlooking the road down which he
+might come. She sat for hours at a time upon an elevation which commanded
+a view of the surrounding country. Heavy-featured, moody-eyed, she was the
+personification of dog-like fidelity and patience. Naturally, it was she
+who first saw Smith jogging leisurely down the road on his jaded horse.
+
+The long roof of the MacDonald ranch, which was visible through the cool
+willows, looked good to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and
+inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there
+to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in
+the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his
+horse's pace--he could squirm out somehow.
+
+It gave him no concern that he had not a dollar to divide with Susie, as
+he had promised, and his chagrin over the loss of the money had vanished
+as he rode. His temperament was sanguine, and soon he was telling himself
+that so long as there were cattle and horses on the range there was always
+a stake for him. Following up this cheerful vein of thought, he soon felt
+as comfortable as if the money were already in his pocket.
+
+Smith threw up his hand in friendly greeting as the Indian woman came down
+the path to meet him.
+
+There was no response, and he scowled.
+
+"The old woman's got her sull on," he muttered, but his voice was pleasant
+enough when he asked: "Ain't you glad to see me, Prairie Flower?"
+
+The woman's face did not relax.
+
+"Where you been?" she demanded.
+
+He stopped unsaddling and looked at her.
+
+"I never had no boss, me--Smith," he answered with significance.
+
+"You got a woman!" she burst out fiercely.
+
+Smith's brow cleared.
+
+"Sure I got a woman."
+
+"You lie to me!"
+
+"I call her Prairie Flower--my woman." He reached and took her clenched
+hand.
+
+The tense muscles gradually relaxed, and the darkness lifted from her face
+like a cloud that has obscured the sun. She smiled and her eyelids dropped
+shyly.
+
+"Why you go and no tell me?" she asked plaintively.
+
+"It was a business trip, Prairie Flower, and I like to talk to you of
+love, not business," he replied evasively.
+
+She looked puzzled.
+
+"I not know you have business."
+
+"Oh, yes; I do a rushin' business--by spells."
+
+She persisted, unsatisfied:
+
+"But what kind of business?"
+
+Smith laughed outright.
+
+"Well," he answered humorously, "I travels a good deal--in the dark of the
+moon."
+
+"Smith!"
+
+She was keener than he had thought, for she drew her right hand slyly
+under her left arm in the expressive Indian sign signifying theft. He did
+not answer, so she said in a tone of mingled fear and reproach:
+
+"You steal Indian horses!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+She grasped his coat-sleeve.
+
+"Don't do dat no more! De Indians' hearts are stirred. Dey mad. Dis time
+maybe dey not ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more brave and you
+steal from white man. You steal two, t'ree cow, maybe all right, but when
+you steal de white man's horses de rope is on your neck. I know--I have
+seen. Some time de thief he swing in de wind, and de magpie pick at him,
+and de coyote jump at him. Yes, I have seen it like dat."
+
+Smith shivered.
+
+"Don't talk about them things," he said impatiently. "I've been near
+lynchin' twice, and I hates the looks of a slip-noose yet; but I gotta
+have money."
+
+As he stood above her, looking down upon her anxious face, a thought came
+to him, a plan so simple that he was amazed that it had not occurred to
+him before. Undoubtedly she had money in the bank, this infatuated,
+love-sick-woman--the Scotchman would have taught her how to save and care
+for it; but if she had not, she had resources which amounted to the same:
+the best of security upon which she could borrow money. He was sure that
+her cattle and horses were free of mortgages, and there was the coming
+crop of hay. She had promised him the proceeds from that, if he would
+stay, but the sale of it was still months away.
+
+"If I had a stake, Prairie Flower," he said mournfully, "I'd cut out this
+crooked work and quit takin' chances. But a feller like me has got pride:
+he can't go around without two bits in his pocket, and feel like a man. If
+I had the price, I'd buy me a good bunch of cattle, get a permit, and
+range 'em on the reserve."
+
+"When we get tied right," said the woman eagerly, "I give you de stake
+_quick_."
+
+Smith shook his head.
+
+"Do you think I'm goin' to have the whole country sayin' I just married
+you for what you got? I've got some feelin's, me--Smith, and before I
+marry a rich woman, I want to have a little somethin' of my own."
+
+She looked pleased, for Susie's words had rankled.
+
+"How big bunch cattle you like buy? How much money you want?"
+
+He shook his head dejectedly.
+
+"More money nor I can raise, Prairie Flower. Five--ten thousand
+dollars--maybe more." He watched the effect of his words narrowly. She did
+not seem startled by the size of the sums he mentioned. He added: "There's
+nothin' in monkeyin' with just a few."
+
+"I got de money, and I gift it to you. My heart is right to you, white
+man!" she said passionately.
+
+"Do you mean it, Prairie Flower?"
+
+"Yas, but don't tell Susie."
+
+He watched her going up the path, her hips wobbling, her step heavy, and
+he hated her. Her love irritated him; her devotion was ridiculous. He saw
+in her only a means to an end, and he was without scruples or pity.
+
+"She ain't no more to me nor a dumb brute," he said contemptuously.
+
+Smith felt that he was able to foretell with considerable accuracy the
+nature of his interview with Susie upon their meeting, and her opening
+words did not fall short of his expectations.
+
+"You're all right, you are!" she said in her high voice. "I'd stick to a
+pal like you through thick and thin, I would! What did you pull out like
+that for anyhow?"
+
+Smith chuckled.
+
+"Well, sir, Susie, it fair broke my heart to start off without seein' your
+pretty face and hearin' your sweet voice again, but the fact is, I got so
+lonesome awaitin' for you that I just naturally had to be travellin'. I
+ups and hits the breeze, and I has no pencil or paper to leave a note
+behind. It wasn't perlite, Susie, I admits," he said mockingly.
+
+"Dig up that money you're goin' to divide." Susie looked like a young
+wildcat that has been poked with a stick.
+
+Smith drew an exaggerated sigh and shook his head lugubriously.
+
+"Child, I'm the only son of Trouble. I gets in a game and I loses every
+one of our honest, hard-earned dollars. The tears has been pilin' out of
+my eyes and down my cheeks for forty miles, thinkin' how I'd have to break
+the news to you."
+
+"Smith, you're just a common, _common_ thief!" All the scorn of which she
+was capable was in her voice. "To steal from your own pal!"
+
+"Thief?" Smith put his fingers in his ears. "Don't use that word, Susie.
+It sounds horrid, comin' from a child you love as if she was your own
+step-daughter."
+
+The muscles of Susie's throat contracted so it hurt her; her face drew up
+in an unbecoming grimace; she cried with a child's abandon, indifferent to
+the fact that her tears made her ludicrously ugly.
+
+"Smith," she sobbed, "don't you ever feel sorry for anybody? Couldn't you
+ever pity anybody? Couldn't you pity me?"
+
+Smith made no reply, so she went on brokenly;
+
+"Can't you remember that you was a kid once, too, and didn't know how, and
+couldn't, fight grown up people that was mean to you?--and how you felt? I
+know you don't _have_ to do anything for me--you don't _have_ to--but
+won't you? Won't you do somethin' good when you've got a chance--just this
+once, Smith? Won't you go away from here? You don't care anything at all
+for Mother, Smith, and she's all I've got!" She stretched her hands toward
+him appealing, while the hot tears wet her cheeks. She was the picture of
+childish humiliation and misery.
+
+Smith looked at her and listened without derision or triumph. He looked at
+her in simple curiosity, as he would have looked at a suffering animal
+biting itself in pain. The unexpected outbreak interested him.
+
+Through a blur of tears, Susie read something of this in his face, and her
+hands dropped limply to her sides. Her appeal was useless.
+
+It was not that Smith did not understand her feelings. He did--perfectly.
+He knew how deep a child's hurt is. He had been hurt himself, and the scar
+was still there. It was only that he did not care. He had lived through
+his hurt, and so would she. It was to his interest to stay, and first and
+always he considered Smith.
+
+"You needn't say anything," Susie said slowly, and there was no more
+supplication in her voice. "I thought I knew you before, Smith, but I know
+you better now. When a white man is onery, he's meaner than an Injun, and
+that's the kind of a white man you are. I'll never forget this. I'll never
+forget that I've crawled to you, and you listened like a stone."
+
+Smith answered in a voice that was not unkind--as he would have warned her
+of a sink-hole or a bad crossing:
+
+"You can't buck me, Susie, and you'd better not try. You're game, but
+you're just a kid."
+
+"Kids grow up sometimes;" and she turned away.
+
+McArthur, strolling, while he enjoyed his pipe, came upon Susie lying face
+downward, her head pillowed on her arm, on a sand dune not far from the
+house. He thought she was asleep until she sat up and looked at him. Then
+he saw her swollen eyes.
+
+"Why, Susie, are you ill?"
+
+"Yes, I'm sick here." She laid her hand upon her heart.
+
+He sat down beside her and stroked the streaked brown hair timidly.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said gently.
+
+She felt the sympathy in his touch, and was quick to respond to it.
+
+"Oh, pardner," she said, "I just feel awful!"
+
+"I'm sorry, Susie," he said again.
+
+"Did _your_ mother ever go back on you, pardner?"
+
+McArthur shook his head gravely.
+
+"No, Susie."
+
+"It's terrible. I can't tell you hardly how it is; but it's like everybody
+that you ever cared for in the world had died. It's like standin' over a
+quicksand and feelin' yourself goin' down. It's like the dreams when you
+wake up screamin' and you have to tell yourself over and over it isn't
+so--except that I have to tell myself over and over it _is_ so."
+
+"Susie, I think you're wrong."
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+"I wish I was wrong, but I'm not."
+
+"She worries when you are late getting home, or are not well."
+
+"Yes, she's like that," she nodded. "Mother would fight for me like a bear
+with cubs if anybody would hurt me so she could see it, but the worst
+hurt--the kind that doesn't show--I guess she don't understand. Before now
+I could tell anybody that come on the ranch and wasn't nice to me to
+'git,' and mother would back me up. Even yet I could tell you or Tubbs or
+Mr. Ralston to leave, and they'd have to go. But Smith?--no! He's come
+back to stay. And she'll let him stay, if she knows it will drive me away
+from home. Mother's Injun, and she can only read a little and write a
+little that my Dad taught her, and she wears blankets and moccasins, but I
+never was 'shamed of Mother before. If she marries Smith, what can I do?
+Where can I go? I could take my pack outfit and start out to hunt Dad's
+folks, but if Mother marries Smith, she'll need me after a while. Yet how
+can I stay? I feel sometimes like they was two of me--one was good and one
+was bad; and if Mother lets Smith turn me out, maybe all the bad in me
+would come to the top. But there's one thing I couldn't forget. Dad used
+to say to me lots of times when we were alone--oh, often he said it:
+'Susie, girl, never forget you're a MacDonald!'"
+
+McArthur turned quickly and looked at her.
+
+"Did your father say that?"
+
+Susie nodded.
+
+"Just like that?"
+
+"Yes; he always straightened himself and said it just like that."
+
+McArthur was studying her face with a peculiar intentness, as if he were
+seeing her for the first time.
+
+"What was his first name, Susie?"
+
+"Donald."
+
+"Donald MacDonald?"
+
+"Yes; there was lots of MacDonalds up there in the north country."
+
+"Have you a picture, Susie?"
+
+A rifle-shot broke the stillness of the droning afternoon. Susie was on
+her feet the instant. There was another--then a fusillade!
+
+"It's the Indians after Smith!" she cried. "They promised me they
+wouldn't! Come--stand up here where you can see."
+
+McArthur took a place beside her on a knoll and watched the scene with
+horrified eyes. The Indians were grouped, with Bear Chief in advance.
+
+"They're shootin' into the stable! They've got him cornered," Susie
+explained excitedly. "No--look! He's comin' out! He's goin' to make a run
+for it! He's headed for the house. He can run like a scared wolf!"
+
+"Do they mean to kill him?" McArthur asked in a shocked voice.
+
+"Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think that's target practice? But look
+where the dust flies up--they're striking all around him--behind
+him--beside him--everywhere but in him! They're so anxious that they're
+shootin' wild. Runnin' Rabbit ought to get him--he's a good shot! He
+_did_! No, he stumbled. He's charmed--that Smith. He's got a strong
+medicine."
+
+"He's not too brave to run," said McArthur, but added: "I ran, myself,
+when they were after me."
+
+"He'd better run," Susie replied. "But he's after his gun; he means to
+fight."
+
+"He'll make it!" McArthur cried.
+
+Susie's voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!" but the cracking rifles drowned Susie's
+shrill cry of entreaty.
+
+The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if
+to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when
+she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect,
+unflinching, and while the Indians' fire wavered Smith gained the
+doorway.
+
+Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding
+teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the
+deer-horn gun-rack above the door.
+
+The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies.
+
+"Get out of the way!" he yelled, but she did not hear him.
+
+"The fool!" he snarled. "The fool! I'll have to crease her."
+
+He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in the fleshy part of her
+arm near the shoulder. She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A BAD HOMBRE
+
+
+The Indians ceased firing when the woman fell, and when Susie reached her
+mother Smith was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith who led her
+into the house and ripped her sleeve.
+
+It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the bullet had gone a few inches
+higher it would have shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told
+Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of aim.
+
+He always carried a small roll of bandages in his hip-pocket, and with
+these he dressed the woman's arm with surprising skill.
+
+"When you needs a bandage, you generally needs it bad," he explained.
+
+He wondered if she knew that it was his shot which had struck her. If she
+did know, she said nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed
+his every movement.
+
+"Looks like somebody's squeaked," Smith said meaningly to Susie.
+
+"Nobody's squeaked," she lied glibly. "They're mad, and they're
+suspicious, but they didn't see you."
+
+"If they'd go after me like that on suspicion," said Smith dryly, "looks
+like they'd be plumb hos-tile if they was sure. Is this here war goin' to
+keep up, or has they had satisfaction?"
+
+Through Susie, a kind of armistice was arranged between Smith and the
+Indians. It took much argument to induce them to defer their vengeance and
+let the law take its course.
+
+"You'll only get in trouble," she urged, "and Mr. Ralston will see that
+Smith gets all that's comin' to him when he has enough proof. He's stole
+more than horses from me," she said bitterly, "and if I can wait and trust
+the white man to handle him as he thinks best, you can, too."
+
+So the Indians reluctantly withdrew, but both Smith and Susie knew that
+their smouldering resentment was ready to break out again upon the
+slightest provocation.
+
+Susie's assurance that the attack of the Indians was due only to suspicion
+did not convince Smith. He noticed that, with the exception of Yellow
+Bird, there was not a single Indian stopping at the ranch, and Yellow Bird
+not only refused to be drawn into friendly conversation, but distinctly
+avoided him.
+
+Smith knew that he was now upon dangerous ground, yet, with his
+unfaltering faith in himself and his luck, he continued to walk with a
+firm tread. If he could make one good turn and get the Indian woman's
+stake, he told himself, then he and Dora could look for a more healthful
+clime.
+
+The Schoolmarm never had appeared more trim, more self-respecting, more
+desirable, than when in her clean, white shirt-waist and well-cut skirt
+she stepped forward to greet him with a friendly, outstretched hand. His
+heart beat wildly as he took it.
+
+"I was afraid you had gone 'for keeps,'" she said.
+
+"Were you _afraid_?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Not exactly afraid, to be more explicit, but I should have been sorry."
+She smiled up into his face with her frank, ingenuous smile.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You were getting along so well with your lessons. Besides, I should have
+thought it unfriendly of you to go without saying good-by."
+
+"Unfriendly?" Smith laughed shortly. "Me unfriendly! Why, girl, you're
+like a mountain to me. When I'm tired and hot and all give out, I raises
+my eyes and sees you there above me--quiet and cool and comfortable,
+like--and I takes a fresh grip."
+
+"I'm glad I help you," Dora replied gently. "I want to."
+
+"I'm in the way of makin' a stake now," Smith went on, "and when I gets
+it"--he hesitated--"well, when I gets it I aims to let you know."
+
+When Dora went into the house, to her own room, Smith stepped into the
+living-room, where the Indian woman sat by the window.
+
+"You like dat white woman better den me?" she burst out as he entered.
+
+"Prairie Flower," he replied wearily, "if I had a dollar for every time
+I've answered that question, I wouldn't be lookin' for no stake to buy
+cattle with."
+
+"De white woman couldn't give you no stake."
+
+He made no reply to her taunt. He was thinking. The words of a cowpuncher
+came back to him as he sat and regarded with unseeing eyes the Indian
+woman. The cowpuncher had said: "When a feller rides the range month in
+and month out, and don't see nobody but other punchers and Injuns, some
+Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes begins to look kind of good to him when
+he rides into camp and she smiles as if she was glad he had come. He gits
+used to seein' her sittin' on an antelope hide, beadin' moccasins, and the
+country where they wear pointed-toed shoes and sit in chairs gits farther
+and farther away. And after awhile he tells himself that he don't mind
+smoke and the smell of buckskin, and a tepee is a better home nor none,
+and that he thinks as much of this here Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes
+as he could think of any woman, and he wonders when the priest could come.
+And while he's studyin' it over, some white girl cuts across his trail,
+and, with the sight of her, Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes looks like a
+dirty two-spot in a clean deck." The cowpuncher's words came back to
+Smith as though they had been said only yesterday.
+
+"Why don't you say what you think?" the woman asked, uneasy under his long
+stare.
+
+"No," said Smith, rousing himself; "the Schoolmarm couldn't give me no
+stake; and money talks."
+
+"When you want your money?"
+
+"Quick."
+
+"How much you want?"
+
+"How much you got?" he asked bluntly. He was sure of her, and he was in no
+mood to finesse.
+
+"Eight--nine thousand."
+
+"If I'm goin' to do anything with cattle this year, I want to get at it."
+
+"I give you de little paper MacDonald call check. I know how to write
+check," she said with pride.
+
+Smith shook his head. A check was evidence.
+
+"It's better for you to go to the bank and get the cash yourself.
+Meeteetse can hitch up and take you. It won't bother your arm none, for
+you ain't bad hurt. Nine thousand is quite a wad to get without givin'
+notice, and I doubt if you gets it, but draw all you can. Take a
+flour-sack along and put the stuff in it; then when you gets home, pass it
+over to me first chance. Don't let 'em load you down with silver--I hates
+to pack silver on horseback."
+
+To all of which instructions the woman agreed.
+
+That she might avoid Susie's questions, she did not start the next morning
+until Susie was well on her way to school. Then, dressed in her gaudiest
+skirt, her widest brass-studded belt, her best and hottest blanket, she
+was ready for the long drive.
+
+Smith put a fresh bandage on her arm, and praised the scrawling signature
+on the check which she had filled out after laborious and oft-repeated
+efforts. He made sure that she had the flour-sack, and that the check was
+pinned securely inside her capacious pocket, before he helped her in the
+wagon. He had been all attention that morning, and her eyes were liquid
+with gratitude and devotion as she and Meeteetse drove away. She turned
+before they were out of sight, and her face brightened when she saw Smith
+still looking after them. She thought comfortably of the fast approaching
+day when she would be envied by the women who had married only "bloods" or
+"breeds."
+
+Smith, as it happened, was remarking contemptuously to Tubbs, as he nodded
+after the disappearing wagon:
+
+"Don't that look like a reg'lar Injun outfit? One old white horse and a
+spotted buzzard-head; harness wired up with Mormon beeswax; a lopsided
+spring seat; one side-board gone and no paint on the wagon."
+
+"You'd think Meeteetse'd think more of hisself than to go ridin' around
+with a blanket-squaw."
+
+"He _said_ he was out of tobacer, but he probably aims to get drunk."
+
+"More'n likely," Tubbs agreed. "Meeteetse's gittin' to be a reg'lar
+squawman anyhow, hangin' around Injuns so much and runnin' with 'em. He
+believes in signs and dreams, and he ain't washed his neck for six
+weeks."
+
+"Associatin' too much with Injuns will spile a good man. Tubbs," Smith
+went on solemnly, "you ain't the feller you was when you come."
+
+"I knows it," Tubbs agreed plaintively. "I hain't half the gumption I
+had."
+
+"It hurts me to see a bright mind like yours goin' to seed, and there's
+nothin'll do harm to a feller quicker nor associatin' with them as ain't
+his equal. Tubbs, like you was my own brother, I says that bug-hunter
+ain't no man for you to run with."
+
+"He ain't vicious and the likes o' that," said Tubbs, in mild defense of
+his employer.
+
+"What's 'vicious' anyhow?" demanded Smith. "Who's goin' to say what's
+vicious and what ain't? I says it's vicious to lie like he does about them
+idjot skulls and ham-bones he digs out and brings home, makin' out that
+they might be pieces of fellers what could use one of them cotton-woods
+for a walkin' stick and et animals the size of that meat-house at a
+meal."
+
+"He never said jest that."
+
+"He might as well. What I'm aimin' at is that it's demoralizin' to get
+interested in things like that and spend your life diggin' up the dead.
+It's too tame for a feller of any spirit."
+
+"It's nowise dang'rous," Tubbs admitted.
+
+"If I thought you was my kind, Tubbs, I'd give you a chance. I'd let you
+in on a deal that'd be the makin' of you."
+
+"All I needs is a chanct," Tubbs declared eagerly.
+
+"I believe you," Smith replied, with flattering emphasis.
+
+A disturbing thought made Tubbs inquire anxiously:
+
+"This here chanct your speakin' of--it ain't work, is it?--real right-down
+work?"
+
+"Not degradin' work, like pitchin' hay or plowin'."
+
+"I hates low-down work, where you gits out and sweats."
+
+"I see where you're right. There's no call for a man of your sand and
+_sabe_ to do day's work. Let them as hasn't neither and is afraid to take
+chances pitch hay and do plowin' for wages."
+
+Tubbs looked a little startled.
+
+"What kind of chances?"
+
+Smith looked at Tubbs before he lowered his voice and asked:
+
+"Wasn't you ever on the rustle none?"
+
+Tubbs reflected.
+
+"Onct back east, in I-ó-wa, I rustled me a set of underwear off'n a
+clothes-line."
+
+Smith eyed Tubbs in genuine disgust. He had all the contempt for a
+petty-larceny thief that the skilled safe-breaker has for the common
+purse-snatcher. The line between pilfering and legitimate stealing was
+very clear in his mind. He said merely,
+
+"Tubbs, I believe you're a bad _hombre_."
+
+"They _is_ worse, I s'pose," said Tubbs modestly, "but I've been pretty
+rank in my time."
+
+"Can you ride? Can you rope? Can you cut out a steer and burn a brand?
+Would you get buck-ague in a pinch and quit me if it came to a show-down?
+Are you a stayer?"
+
+"Try me," said Tubbs, swelling.
+
+"Shake," said Smith. "I wisht we'd got acquainted sooner."
+
+"And mebby I kin tell you somethin' about brands," Tubbs went on
+boastfully.
+
+"More'n likely."
+
+"I kin take a wet blanket and a piece of copper wire and put an addition
+to an old brand so it'll last till you kin git the stock off'n your hands.
+I've never done it, but I've see it done."
+
+"I've heard tell of somethin' like that," Smith replied dryly.
+
+"Er you kin draw out a brand so you never would know nothin' was there.
+You take a chunk of green cottonwood, and saw it off square; then you bile
+it and bile it, and when it's hot through, you slaps it on the brand, and
+when you lifts it up after while the brand is drawed out."
+
+"Did you dream that, Tubbs?"
+
+"I b'leeve it'll work," declared Tubbs stoutly.
+
+"Maybe it would work in I-ó-wa," said Smith, "but I doubts if it would
+work here. Any way," he added conciliatingly, "we'll give it a try."
+
+"And this chanct--it's tolable safe?"
+
+"Same as if you was home in bed. When I says 'ready,' will you come?"
+
+"Watch my smoke," answered Tubbs.
+
+Smith's eyes followed Tubbs's hulking figure as he shambled off, and his
+face was full of derision.
+
+"Say"--he addressed the world in general--"you show me a man from I-ó-wa
+or Nebrasky and I'll show you a son-of-a-gun."
+
+Tubbs was putty in the hands of Smith, who could play upon his vanity and
+ignorance to any degree--though he believed that beyond a certain point
+Tubbs was an arrant coward. But Smith had a theory regarding the
+management of cowards. He believed that on the same principle that one
+uses a whip on a scared horse--to make it more afraid of that which is
+behind than of that which is ahead--he could by threats and intimidations
+force Tubbs to do his bidding if the occasion arose. Tubbs's mental
+calibre was 22-short; but Smith needed help, and Tubbs seemed the most
+pliable material at hand. That Tubbs had pledged himself to something the
+nature of which he knew only vaguely, was in itself sufficient to receive
+Smith's contempt. He had learned from observation that little dependence
+can be placed upon those who accept responsibilities too readily and
+lightly, but he was confident that he could utilize Tubbs as long as he
+should need him, and after that--Smith shrugged his shoulders--what was an
+I-ó-wan more or less?
+
+Altogether, he felt well satisfied with what he had accomplished in the
+short while since his return.
+
+When Susie came home from school, Smith was looking through the
+corral-fence at a few ponies which Ralston had bought and driven in, to
+give color to his story.
+
+"See anything there you'd like?" she inquired, with significant emphasis.
+
+"I'd buy the bunch if I was goin' to set me some bear-traps." Smith could
+see nothing to praise in anything which belonged to Ralston.
+
+Susie missed her mother immediately upon going into the house, and in
+their sleeping-room she saw every sign of a hurried departure.
+
+"Where's mother gone?" she asked Ling.
+
+"Town."
+
+"To town? To see a doctor about her arm?"
+
+"Beads."
+
+"Beads?"
+
+"Blue beads, gleen beads. She no have enough beads for finish moccasin."
+
+"When's she comin' home?"
+
+"She come 'night."
+
+Forty miles over a rough road, with her bandaged arm, for beads! It did
+not sound reasonable to Susie, but since Smith was accounted for, and her
+mother would return that night, there seemed no cause for worry. Susie
+could not remember ever before having come home without finding her mother
+somewhere in the house, and now, as she fidgeted about, she realized how
+much she would miss her if that which she most feared should transpire to
+separate them.
+
+She walked to the door, and while she stood idly kicking her heel against
+the door-sill she saw Ralston, who was passing, stoop and pick up a scrap
+of paper which had been caught between two small stones. She observed that
+he examined it with interest, but while he stood with his lips pursed in a
+half-whistle a puff of wind flirted it from his fingers. He pursued it as
+though it had value, and Susie, who was not above curiosity, joined in the
+chase.
+
+It lodged in one of the giant sage-brushes which grew some little distance
+away on the outer edge of the dooryard, and into this brush Ralston
+reached and carefully drew it forth. He looked at it again, lest his eyes
+had deceived him, then he passed it to Susie, who stared blankly from the
+scrap of paper to him.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+WHEN THE CLOUDS PLAYED WOLF
+
+
+The Indian woman was restless; she had been so from the time they had lost
+sight of the town, but her restlessness had increased as the daylight
+faded and night fell.
+
+"You're goin' to bust this seat in if you don't quit jammin' around,"
+Meeteetse Ed warned her peevishly.
+
+Meeteetse was irritable, a state due largely to the waning exhilaration of
+a short and unsatisfactory spree.
+
+The woman clucked at the horses, and, to the great annoyance of her
+driver, reached for the reins and slapped them on the back.
+
+"They're about played out," he growled. "Forty miles is a awful trip for
+these buzzard-heads to make in a day. We orter have put up some'eres
+overnight."
+
+"I could have stayed with Little Coyote's woman."
+
+"We orter have done it, too. Look at them cayuses stumblin' along! Say, we
+won't git in before 'leven or twelve at this gait, and I'm so hungry I
+don't know where I'm goin' to sleep to-night."
+
+"Little Coyote's woman gifted me some sa'vis berries."
+
+"Aw, sa'vis berries! I can't go sa'vis berries," growled Meeteetse.
+"They're too sweet. The only way they're fit to eat is to dry 'em and
+pound 'em up with jerked elk--then they ain't bad eatin'. I've et 'most
+ev'ry thing in my day. I've et wolf, and dog, and old mountain billy-goat,
+and bull-snakes, and grasshoppers, so you kin see I ain't finnicky, but I
+can't stummick sa'vis berries." He asked querulously: "What's ailin' of
+you?"
+
+The Indian woman, who had been studying the black clouds as they drifted
+across the sky to dim the starlight, said in a half-whisper:
+
+"The clouds no look good to me. They look like enemies playin' wolf. I
+feel as if somethin' goin' happen."
+
+The bare suggestion of the supernatural was sufficient to alarm Meeteetse.
+He asked in a startled voice:
+
+"How do you feel?"
+
+"I feel sad. My heart drags down to de ground, and it seem like de dark
+hide somethin'."
+
+Meeteetse elongated his neck and peered fearfully into the darkness.
+
+"What do you think it hides?" he asked in a husky whisper.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I don't know, but I have de bad feelin'."
+
+"I forgot to sleep with my feet crossed last night," said Meeteetse, "and
+I dreamed horrible dreams all night long. Maybe they was warnin's. I can't
+think of anything much that could happen to us though," he went on, having
+forgotten some of his ill-nature in his alarm for his personal safety.
+"These here horses ain't goin' to run away--I wisht they would, fer 't
+would git us quite a piece on our road. We ain't no enemies worth
+mentionin', and we ain't worth stealin', so I don't hardly think your
+feelin' means any wrong for us. More'n likely it's jest somebody dead."
+
+This thought, slightly consoling to Meeteetse, did not seem to comfort the
+Indian woman, who continued to squirm on the rickety seat and to strain
+her eyes into the darkness.
+
+"If anybody ud come along and want to mix with me--say, do you see that
+fist? If ever I hit anybody with that fist, they'll have to have it dug
+out of 'em. I don't row often, but when I does--oh, lordy! lordy! I jest
+raves and caves. I was home on a visit onct, and my old-maid aunt gits a
+notion of pickin' on me. Say, I ups and runs her all over the house with
+an axe! I'm more er less a dang'rous character when I'm on the peck. Is
+that feelin' workin off of you any?" he inquired anxiously.
+
+"It comes stronger," she answered, and her grip tightened on the
+flour-sack she held under her blanket.
+
+"I wisht I knowed what it was. I'm gittin' all strung up myself." His
+popping eyes ached from trying to see into the darkness around them. "If
+we kin git past them gulches onct! That ud be a dum bad place to roll off
+the side. We'd go kerplunk into the crick-bottom. Gosh! what was that?" He
+stopped the weary horses with a terrific jerk.
+
+It was only a little night prowler which had scurried under the horses'
+feet and rustled into the brush.
+
+"You see how on aidge I am! I'll tell you," he went on garrulously--the
+sound of his own voice was always pleasant to Meeteetse: "I take more
+stock in signs and feelin's than most people, for I've seen 'em work out.
+Down there in Hermosy there was a feller made a stake out'n a silver
+prospect, and he takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky and hunt up
+his wife, that he'd run off and left some time prev'ous. As the date gits
+clost for him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He'd skerce crack a
+smile. The night before the stage was comin' to git him, he was settin' in
+a 'dobe with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of his chair, with
+his hands in his pockets.
+
+"'Boys,' he says, 'I'll never git back to Genevieve. I feels it; I knows
+it; I'll bet you any amount I'm goin' to cash in between here and
+Nebrasky. I've seen myself in my coffin four times hand-runnin', when I
+was wide awake.'
+
+"Everybody had their mouths open to let out a holler and laff when jest
+then one of the biggest terrantuler that I ever see dropped down out'n the
+dirt and straw and lands on his bald head. It hangs on and bites 'fore
+anybody kin bresh it off, and, 'fore Gawd, he ups and dies while the
+medicine shark is comin' from the next town!"
+
+His companion did not find Meeteetse's reminiscence specially interesting,
+possibly because she had heard it before, so at its conclusion she made no
+comment, but continued to watch with anxious eyes the clouds and the road
+ahead.
+
+"Now if that ud been me," Meeteetse started to say, in nowise disconcerted
+by the unresponsiveness of his listener--"if that ud----"
+
+"Throw up your hands!" The curt command came out of the night with the
+startling distinctness of a gun-shot. The horses were thrown back on their
+haunches by a figure at their head.
+
+Meeteetse not only threw up his hands, but his feet. He threw them up so
+high and so hard that he lost his equilibrium, and, as a result, the
+ill-balanced seat went over, carrying with it Meeteetse and the Indian
+woman.
+
+The latter's mind acted quickly. She knew that her errand to the bank had
+become known. Undoubtedly they had been followed from town. As soon as she
+could disentangle herself from Meeteetse's convulsive embrace, she threw
+the flour-sack from her with all her strength, hoping it would drop out of
+sight in the sage-brush. It was caught in mid-air by a tall figure at the
+wagon-side.
+
+"Thank you, madam," said a hollow voice, "Good-night."
+
+It was all done so quickly and neatly that Meeteetse and the Indian woman
+were still in the bottom of the wagon when two dark figures clattered past
+and vanishing hoof-beats told them the thieves were on their way to town.
+
+"Well, sir!" Meeteetse found his feet, also his tongue, at last.
+
+"Well, sir!" He adjusted the seat.
+
+"Well, sir!" He picked up the reins and clucked to the horses.
+
+"Well, sir! I know 'em. Them's the fellers that held up the Great
+Northern!"
+
+The Indian woman said not a word. Her heart was filled with despair. What
+would Smith say? was her thought. What would he do? She felt intuitively
+how great would be his disappointment. How could she tell him?
+
+She drew the blanket tighter about her shoulders and across her face,
+crouching on the seat like a culprit.
+
+The ranch-house was dark when they drove into the yard, for which she was
+thankful. She left Meeteetse to unharness, and, without striking a light
+or speaking to Susie, crept between her blankets like a frightened child.
+
+Smith, in his dreams, had heard the rumble of the wagon as it crossed the
+ford, and he awoke the next morning with a sensation of pleasurable
+anticipation. In his mind's eye, he saw the banknotes in a heap before
+him. There were all kinds in the picture--greasy ones, crisp ones,
+tattered bills pasted together with white strips of paper. He rather liked
+these best, because the care with which they had been preserved conveyed
+an idea of value. They had been treasured, coveted by others, counted
+often.
+
+Eager, animated, his eyes bright, his lips curving in a smile, Smith
+hurried into his clothes and to the ranch-house, to seek the Indian woman.
+He heard her heavy step as she crossed the floor of the living-room, and
+he waited outside the door.
+
+"Prairie Flower!" he whispered as she stood before him.
+
+She avoided his eyes, and her fingers fumbled nervously with the buckle of
+her wide belt.
+
+"Could you get it?"
+
+"Most of it."
+
+"Where is it?" His eyes gleamed with the light of avarice.
+
+She drew in her breath hard.
+
+"It was stole."
+
+His face went blood-red; the cords of his neck swelled as if he were
+straining at a weight. She shrank from the snarling ferocity of his
+mouth.
+
+"You lie!" The voice was not human.
+
+He clenched his huge fist and knocked her down.
+
+She was on the ground when Susie came out.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+The woman blinked up at her.
+
+"I slip. I gettin' too fat," she said, and struggled to her feet.
+
+Elsewhere, with great minuteness of detail, Meeteetse was describing the
+exciting incident of the night, and what would have happened if only he
+could have laid hold of his gun.
+
+"Maybe they wouldn't 'a' split the wind if I could have jest drawed my
+automatic in time! As 'twas, I put up the best fight I could, with a woman
+screamin' and hangin' to me for pertection. I rastled the big feller
+around in the road there for some time, neither of us able to git a good
+holt. He was glad enough to break away, I kin tell you. They's no manner
+o' doubt in my mind but them was the Great Northern hold-ups."
+
+"But what would they tackle _you_ for?" demanded Old Man Rulison.
+"Everybody knows _you_ ain't got nothin', and you say all they took from
+the old woman was a flour-sack full of dried sa'vis berries. It's some of
+a come-down, looks to me, from robbing trains to stealin' stewin'-fruit."
+
+"Well, there you are." Meeteetse shrugged his shoulders. "That's your
+mystery. All I knows is, that I pulled ha'r every jump in the road to save
+them berries."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE LOVE MEDICINE OF THE SIOUX
+
+
+Still breathing hard, Smith hunted Tubbs.
+
+"Tubbs, will you be ready for business, to-day?"
+
+"The sooner, the quicker," Tubbs answered, with his vacuous wit.
+
+"Do you know the gulch where they found that dead Injun?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Saddle up and meet me over there as quick as you can."
+
+"Right." Tubbs winked knowingly, and immediately after breakfast started
+to do as he was bid.
+
+Smith's face was not good to look upon as he sat at the table. He took no
+part in the conversation, and scarcely touched the food before him. His
+disappointment was so deep that it actually sickened him, and his
+unreasoning anger toward the woman was so great that he wanted to get out
+of her sight and her presence. She was like a dog which after a whipping
+tries to curry favor with its master. She was ready to go to him at the
+first sign of relenting. She felt no resentment because of his injustice
+and brutality. She felt nothing but that he was angry at her, that he
+kept his eyes averted and repelled her timid advances. Her heart ached,
+and she would have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her. In her
+desperation, she made up her mind to try on him the love-charm of the
+Sioux women. It might soften his heart toward her. She would have
+sacrificed anything and all to bring him back.
+
+Smith was glad to get away into the hills for a time. He was filled with a
+feverish impatience to bring about that which he so much desired. The
+picture of the ranch-house with the white curtains at the windows became
+more and more attractive to him as he dwelt upon it. He looked upon it as
+a certainty, one which could not be too quickly realized to please him.
+Then, too, the atmosphere of the MacDonald ranch had grown distasteful to
+him. With that sudden revulsion of feeling which was characteristic, he
+had grown tired of the place, he wanted a change, to be on the move again;
+but, of more importance than these things, he sensed hostility in the air.
+There was something significant in the absence of the Indians at the
+ranch. There was an ominous quiet hanging over the place that chilled him.
+He had a feeling that he was being followed, without being able to detect
+so much as a shadow. He felt as if the world were full of eyes--glued upon
+him. Sudden sounds startled him, and he had found himself peering into
+dark stable corners and stooping to look where the shadows lay black in
+the thick creek-brush.
+
+He told himself that the trip through the Bad Lands had unnerved him, but
+the explanation was not satisfying. Through it all, he had an underlying
+feeling that something was wrong; yet he had no thought of altering his
+plans. He wanted money, and he wanted Dora. The combination was sufficient
+to nerve him to take chances.
+
+Tubbs was waiting in the gulch. Smith looked at the spot where White
+Antelope's body had lain, and reflected that it was curious how long the
+black stain of blood would stay on sand and gravel. He had been lucky to
+get out of that scrape so easily, he told himself as he rode by.
+
+"I guess you know what you're up against, feller," he said bluntly, as he
+and Tubbs met.
+
+"I inclines to the opinion that it's a little cattle deal," Tubbs replied
+facetiously.
+
+"You inclines right. Now, here's our play--listen. The Bar C outfit is
+workin' up in the mountains, so they won't interfere with us none, and
+about three or three and a half days' drive from here there's some fellers
+what'll take 'em off our hands. We gets our wad and divvies."
+
+"What for a hand do I take?"
+
+"By rights, maybe, we ought to do our work at night, but I've rode over
+the country, and it looks safe enough to drive 'em into the gulch to-day.
+They isn't a human in sight, and if one shows up, I reckon you know what
+to do."
+
+"It sounds easy enough, if it works," said Tubbs dubiously.
+
+"If it works? Feller, if you've got a yeller streak, you better quit right
+here."
+
+"I merely means," Tubbs hastened to explain, "that it sounds so easy that
+it makes me sore we wasn't doin' it before."
+
+The reply appeared to pacify Smith.
+
+"I hates to fool with cattle," he admitted, "'specially these here Texas
+brutes that spread out, leavin' tracks all over the flat, and they can't
+make time just off green grass. Gimme horses--but horses ain't safe right
+now, with the Injuns riled up. Now, you start out and gather up what you
+can, and hold 'em here till I get back. I'll go to the ranch and get a
+little grub together and get here as quick as it's safe."
+
+Smith galloped back to the ranch, to learn that Dora had ridden to the
+Agency to spend the day. He was keenly disappointed that he had missed the
+opportunity of saying good-by. She had chided him before for not telling
+her of his contemplated absence, and he had promised not to neglect to do
+so again; for she was in the habit of arranging the table for her
+night-school and waiting until he came. Then it occurred to Smith that he
+might write. He was delighted with the idea, and undoubtedly Dora would be
+equally delighted to receive a letter from him. It would show her that he
+remembered his promise, and also give her a chance to note his progress.
+Since Smith had learned that a capital letter is used to designate the
+personal pronoun, and that a period is placed at such points as one's
+breath gives out, he had begun to think himself something of a scholar.
+
+His enthusiasm grew as he thought of it, and he decided that while he was
+about it he would write a genuine love-letter.
+
+Borrowing paper, an erratic pen, and ink pale from frequent watering, from
+a shelf in the living-room, he repaired to the dining-room table and gave
+himself up to the throes of composition.
+
+Bearing in mind that the superlative of dear is dearest, he wrote:
+
+  Dearest Girl.
+
+  I have got to go away on bizness. I had ought to hav said good-by but
+  I cant wate till you gets back so I thort I wold write. I love you. I
+  hates everyboddy else when I think of you. I dont love no other woman
+  but you. Nor never did. If ever I go away and dont come back dont
+  forget what I say because I will be ded, I mean it. I will hav a stak
+  perty quick then I will show you this aint no josh. You no the rest,
+  good-by for this time.
+
+                                                                Smith.
+The perspiration stood out on his forehead, and he wiped it away with his
+ink-stained fingers.
+
+"Writin' is harder work nor shoein' a horse," he observed to Ling, and
+added for the Indian woman's benefit, "I'm sendin' off to get me a pair of
+them Angory saddle-pockets."
+
+His explanation did not deceive the person for whom it was intended. With
+the intuition of a jealous woman, she knew that he was writing a letter
+which he would not have her see. She meant to know, if possible, to whom
+he was writing, and what. Although she did not raise her eyes from her
+work when he replaced the pen and ink, she did not let him out of her
+sight. She believed that he had written to Dora, and she was sure of it
+when, thinking himself unobserved, he crept to Dora's open window, outside
+of the house, and dropped the letter into the top drawer of her bureau,
+which stood close.
+
+As soon as Smith was out of sight, she too crept stealthily to the open
+window. A red spot burned on either swarthy cheek, and her aching heart
+beat fast. She took the letter from the drawer, and, going toward the
+creek, plunged into the willows, with the instinct of the wounded animal
+seeking cover.
+
+The woman could read a little--not much, but better than she could write.
+She had been to the Mission when she was younger, and MacDonald had
+labored patiently to teach her more. Now, concealed among the willows,
+sitting cross-legged on the ground, she spelled out Smith's letter word by
+word,
+
+I love you. I hates everyboddy else when I think of you. I don't love no
+other woman but you. Nor never did.
+
+She read it slowly, carefully, each word sinking deep. Then she stroked
+her hair with long, deliberate strokes, and read it again.
+
+I don't love no other woman but you. Nor never did.
+
+She laid the letter on the ground, and, folding her arms, rocked her body
+to and fro, as though in physical agony. When she shut her lips they
+trembled as they touched each other, but she made no sound. The wound in
+her arm was beginning to heal. It itched, and she scratched it hard, for
+the pain served as a kind of counter-irritant. A third time she read the
+letter, stroking her hair incessantly with the long, deliberate strokes.
+Then she folded it, and, reaching for a pointed stick, dug a hole in the
+soft dirt. In the bottom of the hole she laid the letter and covered it
+with earth, patting and smoothing it until it was level. Before she left
+she sprinkled a few leaves over the spot.
+
+She looked old and ugly when she went into the house, seeming, for the
+first time, the woman of middle-age that she was. Quietly, purposefully,
+she drew out a chair, and, standing upon it, took down from the rafters
+the plant which Little Coyote's woman, the Mandan, had given her. It had
+hung there a long time, and the leaves crumpled and dropped off at her
+touch. She filled a basin with water and put the plant and root to soak,
+while she searched for a sharp knife. Turning her back to the room and
+facing the corner, like a child in mischief, she peeled the outer bark
+from the root with the greatest care. The inner bark was blood-red, and
+this too she peeled away carefully, very, very carefully saving the
+smallest particles, and laid it upon a paper. When she had it all, she
+burned the plant; but the red inner bark she put in a tin cup and covered
+it with boiling water, to steep.
+
+"Don't touch dat," she warned Ling.
+
+The afternoon was waning when she went again to the willows, but the air
+was still hot, for the rocks and sand held the heat until well after
+nightfall. In the willows she cut a stick--a forked stick, which she
+trimmed so that it left a crotch with a long handle. Hiding the stick
+under her blanket, she stepped out of the willows, and seemed to be
+wandering aimlessly until she was out of sight of the house and the
+bunk-house. Then she walked rapidly, with a purpose. Her objective point
+was a hill covered so thickly with rocks that scarcely a spear of grass
+grew upon it. The climb left her short of breath, she wiped the
+perspiration from her face with her blanket, but she did not falter.
+Stepping softly, listening, she crept over the rocks with the utmost
+caution, peering here and there as if in search of something which she did
+not wish to alarm. A long, sibilant sound stopped her. She located it as
+coming from under a rock only a few feet away, and a little gleam of
+satisfaction in her sombre eyes showed that she had found that for which
+she searched. The angry rattlesnake was coiled to strike, but she
+approached without hesitancy. Calculating how far it could throw itself,
+she stood a little beyond its range and for a moment stood watching the
+glitter of its wicked little eyes, the lightning-like action of its
+tongue. When she moved, its head followed her, but she dexterously pinned
+it to the rock with her forked stick and placed the heel of her moccasin
+upon its writhing body. Then, stooping, she severed its head from its body
+with her knife.
+
+She put the head in a square of cloth and continued her search. After a
+time, she found another, and when she went down the hill there were three
+heads in the blood-soaked square of cloth. She hid them in the willows,
+and went into the house to stir the contents of the tin cup. She noted
+with evident satisfaction that it had thickened somewhat. Little Coyote's
+woman had told her it would do so. She found a bottle which had contained
+lemon extract, and this she rinsed. She measured a teaspoonful of the
+thick, reddish-brown liquid and poured it into the bottle, filling it
+afterward with water. The cup she took with her into the willows. Laying
+the heads of the snakes upon a flat stone, she cut them through the jaws,
+and, extracting the poison sac, stirred the fluid into the tin cup. While
+she stirred, she remembered that she had heard an owl hoot the night
+before. It was an ill-omen, and it had sounded close. The hooting of an
+owl meant harm to some one. She wondered now if an owl feather would not
+make the medicine stronger. She set down her cup and looked carefully
+under the trees, but could find no feathers. Ah, well, it was stout enough
+medicine without it!
+
+She had brought a long, keen-bladed hunting-knife into the willows, and
+she dipped the point of it into the concoction--blowing upon it until it
+dried, then repeating the process. When the point of the blade was well
+discolored, she muttered:
+
+"Dat's de strong medicine!"
+
+Her eyes glittered like the eyes of the snakes among the rocks, and they
+seemed smaller. Their roundness and the liquid softness of them was gone.
+She looked "pure Injun," as Smith would have phrased it, with murder in
+her heart. Deliberately, malevolently, she spat upon the earth beneath
+which the letter lay, before she returned to the house.
+
+She heard Susie's voice in the Schoolmarm's room, and quickly hid the
+knife behind a mirror in the living-room, where she hid everything which
+she wished to conceal, imagining, for some unknown reason, that no one but
+herself would ever think of looking there. Susie often had thought
+laughingly that it looked like a pack-rat's nest.
+
+The woman poured the liquid which remained in the tin cup into another
+bottle, frowning when she spilled a few precious drops upon her hand.
+This bottle she also hid behind the mirror.
+
+In Dora Marshall's room, Susie was examining the teacher's toilette
+articles, which held an unfailing interest for her. She meant to have an
+exact duplicate of the manicure set and of the hairbrush with the heavy
+silver back. To Susie, these things, along with side-combs and petticoats
+that rustled, were symbols of that elegance which she longed to attain.
+
+As she stood by the bureau, fumbling with the various articles, she caught
+sight of a box through the crack of the half-open drawer. She had seen
+that battered box before. It was the grasshopper box--for there was the
+slit in the top.
+
+Susie was not widely experienced in matters of sentiment, but she had her
+feminine intuitions, besides remarkably well-developed reasoning powers
+for her years.
+
+Why, she asked herself as she continued to stare through the crack, why
+should Teacher be cherishing that old bait-box? Why should she have it
+there among her handkerchiefs and smelly silk things, and the soft lace
+things she wore at her throat? Why--unless she attached value to it?
+Why--unless it was a romantic and sacred keepsake?
+
+Susie rather prided herself on being in touch with all that went on, and
+now she had an uneasy feeling that she might have missed something. She
+remembered the day of their fishing trip well, and at the time had
+thought she had scented a budding romance. Had they quarrelled, she
+wondered?
+
+She sat on the edge of the bed and swung her feet.
+
+"My, but won't it seem lonesome here without Mr. Ralston?" Susie sighed
+deeply.
+
+"Is he going away?" Dora asked quickly.
+
+"He'll be goin' pretty soon now, because he's found most of his strays and
+bought all the ponies he wants."
+
+"I suppose he will be glad to get back among his friends."
+
+Susie thought Teacher looked a little pale.
+
+"Maybe he'll go back and get married."
+
+"Did he say so?"
+
+Susie was _sure_ she was paler.
+
+"No," she replied nonchalantly. "I just thought so, because anybody that's
+as good-looking as he is, gets gobbled up quick. Don't you think he is
+good-looking?"
+
+"Oh, he does very well."
+
+"Gee whiz, I wish he'd ask me to marry him!" said Susie unblushingly. "You
+couldn't see me for dust, the way I'd travel. But there's no danger. Look
+at them there skinny arms!"
+
+"Susie! What grammar!"
+
+"Those there skinny arms."
+
+"Those."
+
+"Those skinny arms; those hair; those eyes--soft and gentle like a couple
+of augers, Meeteetse says." Susie shook her head in mock despondency.
+"I've tried to be beautiful, too. Once I cut a piece out of a newspaper
+that told how you could get rosy cheeks. It gave all the different things
+to put in, so I sent off and got 'em. I mixed 'em like it said and rubbed
+it on my face. There wasn't any mistake about my rosy cheeks, but you
+ought to have seen the blisters on my cheek-bones--big as dollars!"
+
+"I'm sure you will not be so thin when you are older," Dora said
+consolingly, "and your hair would be a very pretty color if only you would
+wear a hat and take a little care of it."
+
+Susie shook her head and sighed again.
+
+"Oh, it will be too late then, for he will be snapped up by some of those
+stylish town girls. You see."
+
+Dora put buttons in her shirt-waist sleeves in silence.
+
+"I think he liked to stay here until you quarrelled with him."
+
+"I quarrelled with him?"
+
+"Oh, didn't you?" Susie was innocence itself. "You treat him so polite, I
+thought you must have quarrelled--such a chilly polite," she explained.
+
+"I don't think _he_ has observed it," Dora answered coldly.
+
+"Oh, yes, he has." Susie waited discreetly.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"When you come to the table and say, Good-morning, and look at him without
+seeing him, I know he'd a lot rather you cuffed him."
+
+"What a dreadful word, Susie, and what an absurd idea!"
+
+Susie noted that Teacher's eyes brightened.
+
+"_You'll_ be goin' away, too, pretty soon, and I s'pose you'll be glad you
+will never see him again. But," she added dolefully, "ain't it awful the
+way people just meets and parts?"
+
+Dora was a long time finding that for which she was searching among the
+clothes hanging on a row of nails, and Susie, rolling her eyes in that
+direction, was sure, very sure, that she saw Teacher dab at her lashes
+with the frilly ruffle of a petticoat before she turned around.
+
+"When did he say he was going?"
+
+"He didn't say; but to-day or to-morrow, I should think."
+
+"If he cared so much because I am cool to him, he certainly would have
+asked me why I treated him so. But he didn't care enough to ask."
+
+Teacher's voice sounded queer even to herself, and she seemed intensely
+interested in buttoning her boots.
+
+"Pooh! I know why. It's because he thinks you like that Smith."
+
+"Smith!"
+
+"Yes, Smith."
+
+The jangle of Ling's triangle interrupted the fascinating conversation.
+
+"How perfectly foolish!" gasped Dora.
+
+"Not to Smith," Susie replied dryly, "nor to Mr. Ralston."
+
+Susie looked at the unoccupied chairs at the table as she and Dora seated
+themselves. Ralston's, Tubbs's, Smith's, and McArthur's chairs were
+vacant.
+
+"Looks like you're losin' your boarders fast, Ling," she remarked.
+
+"Good thing," Ling answered candidly.
+
+The Indian woman gulped her coffee, but refused the food which was passed
+to her. A strange faintness, accompanied by nausea, was creeping upon her.
+Her vision was blurred, and she saw Meeteetse Ed, at the opposite end of
+the table, as through a fog. She pushed back her chair and went into the
+living-room, swaying a little as she walked. A faint moan caught Susie's
+ear, and she hastened to her mother.
+
+The woman was lying on the floor by the bench where she sewed, her head
+pillowed on her rag-rug.
+
+"Mother! Why, what's the matter with your hand? It's swelled!"
+
+"I heap sick, Susie!" she moaned. "My arm aches me."
+
+"Look!" cried Susie, who had turned back her sleeve. "Her arm is black--a
+purple black, and it's swellin' up!"
+
+"Oh, I heap sick!"
+
+"What did you do to your arm, Mother? Did you have the bandage off?"
+
+"Yes, it come off, and I pin him up," said Ling, who was standing by.
+
+A paroxysm of pain seized the woman, and she writhed.
+
+"It looks exactly like a rattlesnake bite! I saw a fellow once that was
+bit in the ankle, and it swelled up and turned a color like that,"
+declared Susie in horror. "Mother, you haven't been foolin' with snakes,
+or been bit?"
+
+The woman shook her head.
+
+"I no been bit," she groaned, and her eyes had in them the appealing look
+of a sick spaniel.
+
+Dora and Susie helped her to her room, and though they tried every simple
+remedy of which they had ever heard, to reduce the rapidly swelling arm,
+all seemed equally unavailing. The woman's convulsions hourly became more
+violent and frequent, while her arm was frightful to behold--black, as it
+was, from hand to shoulder with coagulated blood.
+
+"If only we had an idea of the cause!" cried Dora, distracted.
+
+"Mother, can't you imagine anything that would make your arm bad like
+this? Try to think."
+
+But though drops of perspiration stood on the woman's forehead, and her
+grip tore the pillow, she obstinately shook her head.
+
+"I be better pretty soon," was all she would say, and tried to smile at
+Susie.
+
+"If only some one would come!" Dora went to the open window often and
+listened for Ralston's voice or McArthur's--the latter having gone for his
+mail.
+
+The strain of watching the woman's suffering told on both of the girls,
+and the night by her bedside seemed centuries long. Toward morning the
+paroxysms appeared to reach a climax and then to subside. They were of
+shorter duration, and the intervals between were longer.
+
+"She's better, I'm sure," Dora said hopefully, but Susie shook her head.
+
+"I don't think so; she's worse. There's that look behind, back of her
+eyes--that dead look--can't you see it? And it's in her face, too. I don't
+know how to say what I mean, but it's there, and it makes me shiver like
+cold." The girl looked in mingled awe and horror at the first human being
+she ever had seen die.
+
+Unable to endure the strain any longer, Dora went into the fresh air, and
+Susie dropped on her knees by the bedside and took her mother's limp hand
+in both of hers.
+
+"Oh, Mother," she begged pitifully, "say something. Don't go away without
+sayin' something to Susie!"
+
+With an effort of will, the woman slowly opened her dull eyes and fixed
+them upon the child's face.
+
+"Yas," she breathed; "I _want_ to say something."
+
+The words came slowly and thickly.
+
+"I no--get well."
+
+"Oh, Mother!"
+
+Unheeding the wail, perhaps not hearing it, she went on, stopping often
+between words:
+
+"I steal--from you--my little girl. I bad woman, Susie. It is right I die.
+I take de money--out of de bank dat MacDonald leave us--to give to Smith.
+De hold-ups steal de money on--de road. I have de bad heart--Susie--to do
+dat. I know now."
+
+"You mustn't talk like that, Mother!" cried Susie, gripping her hand
+convulsively. "You thought you'd get it again and put it back. You didn't
+mean to steal from me. I know all about it. And I've got the money. Mr.
+Ralston found a check you had thrown away--you'd signed your name on it in
+the wrong place. When we saw the date, and what a lot of money it was, and
+found you had gone to town, we guessed the rest. It was easy to see Smith
+in that. So we held you up, and got it back. We knew there was no danger
+to anybody, but, of course, we felt bad to worry and frighten you."
+
+"I'm glad," said the woman simply. She had no strength or breath or time
+to spare. "Dey's more. I tell you--I kill Smith--if he lie. He lie. He
+bull-dog white man. I make de strong medicine to kill him--and I get de
+poison in my arm when de bandage slip. Get de bottles and de knife behind
+de lookin'-glass--I show you."
+
+Susie quickly did as she was bid.
+
+"De lemon bottle is de love-charm of de Sioux. One teaspoonful--no more,
+Little Coyote's woman say. De other bottle is de bad medicine. Be careful.
+Smith--make fool--of me--Susie." What else she would have said ended in a
+gurgle. Her jaw dropped, and she died with her glazing eyes upon Susie's
+face.
+
+Susie pulled the gay Indian blanket gently over her mother's shoulders, as
+if afraid she would be cold. Then she slipped a needle and some beads and
+buckskin, to complete an unfinished moccasin, underneath the blanket. Her
+mother was going on a long journey, and would want occupation. There were
+no tears in Susie's eyes when she replaced the bottles and the skinning
+knife with the discolored blade behind the mirror.
+
+The wan little creature seemed to have no tears to shed. She was
+unresponsive to Dora's broken words of sympathy, and the grub-liners'
+awkward condolences--they seemed not to reach her heart at all. She heard
+them without hearing, for her mind was chaos as she moved silently from
+room to room, or huddled, a forlorn figure, on the bench where her mother
+always had sat.
+
+Breakfast was long since over and the forenoon well advanced when she
+finally left the silent house and crept like the ghost of her spirited
+self down the path to the stable and into the roomy stall where her stout
+little cow-pony stood munching hay.
+
+In her sorrow, the dumb animal was the one thing to which she turned. He
+lifted his head when she went in, and threw his cropped ears forward,
+while his eyes grew limpid as a horse's eyes will at the approach of some
+one it knows well and looks to for food and affection.
+
+They had almost grown up together, and the time Susie had spent on his
+back, or with him in the corral or stall, formerly had been half her
+waking hours. They had no fear of each other; only deep love and mutual
+understanding.
+
+"Oh, Croppy! Croppy!" her childish voice quavered. "Oh, Croppy, you're all
+I've got left!" She slipped her arms around his thick neck and hid her
+face in his mane.
+
+He stopped eating and stood motionless while she clung to him, his ears
+alert at the sound of the familiar voice.
+
+"What _shall_ I do!" she wailed in an abandonment of grief.
+
+In her inexperience, it seemed to Susie, that with her mother's death all
+the world had come to an end for her. Undemonstrative as they were, and
+meagre as had been any spoken words of affection, the bond of natural love
+between them had seemed strong and unbreakable until Smith's coming. They
+had been all in all to each other in their unemotional way; and now this
+unexpected tragedy seemed to crush the child, because it was something
+which never had entered her thoughts. It was a crisis with which she did
+not know how to cope or to bear. The world could never be blacker for her
+than it was when she clung sobbing to the little sorrel pony's thick neck
+that morning. The future looked utterly cheerless and impossible to
+endure. She had not learned that no tragedy is so blighting that there is
+not a way out--a way which the sufferer makes himself, which comes to him,
+or into which he is forced. Nothing stays as it is. But it appeared to
+Susie that life could never be different, except to be worse.
+
+She had talked much to McArthur of the outside world, and questioned him,
+and a doubt had sprung up as to the feasibility of searching for her
+kinsfolk, as she had planned. There were many, many trails and wire fences
+to bewilder one, and people--hundreds of people--people who were not
+always kind. His answers filled her with vague fears. To be only sixteen,
+and alone, is cause enough for tears, and Susie shed them now.
+
+McArthur, with a radiant face, was riding toward the ranch to which he had
+become singularly attached. His saddle-pockets bulged with mail, and his
+elbows flapped joyously as he urged his horse to greater speed. He looked
+up eagerly at the house as he crossed the ford, and his kind eyes shone
+with happiness when he rode into the stable-yard and swung out of the
+saddle.
+
+He heard a sound, the unmistakable sound of sobbing, as he was unsaddling.
+Listening, he knew it came from somewhere in the stable, so he left his
+horse and went inside.
+
+It was Susie, as he had thought. She lifted her tear-stained face from the
+pony's mane when he spoke, and he knew that she was glad to see him.
+
+"Oh, pardner, I thought you'd _never_ come!"
+
+"The mail was late, and I stayed with the Major to wait for it. What has
+gone wrong?"
+
+"Mother's dead," she said. "She was poisoned accidentally."
+
+"Susie! And there was no one here?" The news seemed incredible.
+
+"Only Teacher and me--no one that knew what to do. We sent Meeteetse for a
+doctor, but he hasn't come yet. He probably got drunk and forgot what he
+went for. It's been a terrible night, pardner, and a terrible day!"
+
+McArthur looked at her with troubled eyes, and once more he stroked her
+hair with his gentle, timid touch.
+
+"Everything just looks awful to me, with Dad and mother both gone, and me
+here alone on this big ranch, with only Ling and grub-liners. And to think
+of it all the rest of my life like this--with nobody that I belong to, or
+that belongs to me!"
+
+Something was recalled to McArthur with a start by Susie's words. He had
+forgotten!
+
+"Come, Susie, come with me."
+
+She followed him outside, where he unbuckled his saddle-pocket and took a
+daguerreotype from a wooden box which had come in the mail. The gilt frame
+was tarnished, the purple velvet lining faded, and when he handed the case
+to Susie she had to hold it slanting in the light to see the picture.
+
+"Dad!"
+
+She looked at McArthur with eyes wide in wonder.
+
+"Donald MacDonald, my aunt Harriet's brother, who went north to buy furs
+for the Hudson Bay Company!" McArthur's eyes were smiling through the
+moisture in them.
+
+"We've got one just like it!" Susie cried, still half unable to believe
+her eyes and ears.
+
+"I was sure that day you mimicked your father when he said, 'Never forget
+you are a MacDonald!' for I have heard my aunt say that a thousand times,
+and in just that way. But I wanted to be surer before I said anything to
+you, so I sent for this."
+
+"Oh, pardner!" and with a sudden impulse which was neither Scotch nor
+Indian, but entirely of herself, Susie threw her arms about his neck and
+all but choked him in the only hug which Peter McArthur, A.M., Ph.D.,
+could remember ever having had.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE MURDERER OF WHITE ANTELOPE
+
+
+It was nearly dusk, and Ralston was only a few hundred yards from the Bar
+C gate, when he met Babe, highly perfumed and with his hair suspiciously
+slick, coming out. Babe's look of disappointment upon seeing him was not
+flattering, but Ralston ignored it in his own delight at the meeting.
+
+"What was your rush? I was just goin' over to see you," was Babe's glum
+greeting.
+
+"And I'm here to see you," Ralston returned, "but I forgot to perfume
+myself and tallow my hair."
+
+"Aw-w-w," rumbled Babe, sheepishly. "What'd you want?"
+
+"You know what I'm in the country for?"
+
+Babe nodded.
+
+"I've located my man, and he's going to drive off a big bunch to-night.
+There's two of them in fact, and I'll need help. Are you game for it?"
+
+"Oh, mamma!" Babe rolled his eyes in ecstasy.
+
+"He has a horror of doing time," Ralston went on, "and if he has any show
+at all, he's going to put up a hard fight. I'd like the satisfaction of
+bringing them both in, single-handed, but it isn't fair to the Colonel to
+take any chances of their getting away."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Smith."
+
+"That bastard with his teeth stickin' out?"
+
+Ralston laughed assent.
+
+"Pickin's!" cried Babe, with gusto. "I'd like to kill that feller every
+mornin' before breakfast. Will I go? Will I? _Will_ I?" Babe's crescendo
+ended in a joyous whoop of exultation. "Wait till I ride back and tell the
+Colonel, and git my ca'tridge belt. I take it off of an evenin' these
+tranquil times."
+
+Ralston turned his horse and started back, so engrossed in thoughts of the
+work ahead of him that it was not until Babe overtook him that he
+remembered he had forgotten to ask Babe's business with him.
+
+"Well, I guess the old Colonel was tickled when he heard you'd spotted the
+rustlers," said Babe, as he reined in beside him. "He wanted to come
+along--did for a fact, and him nearly seventy. He'd push the lid off his
+coffin and climb out at his own funeral if somebody'd happen to mention
+that thieves was brandin' his calves."
+
+"You said you had started to the ranch to see me."
+
+"Oh, yes--I forgot. Your father sent word to the Colonel that he was
+sellin' off his cattle and goin' into sheep, and wanted the Colonel to
+let you know."
+
+"The poor old Governor! It'll about break his heart, I know; and I should
+be there. At his time of life it's a pretty hard and galling thing to quit
+cattle--to be forced out of the business into sheep. It's like bein' made
+to change your politics or religion against your will."
+
+"'Fore I'd wrangle woolers," declared Babe, "I'd hold up trains or rob
+dudes or do 'most any old thing. Say, I've rid by sheep-wagons when I was
+durn near starvin' ruther than eat with a sheep-herder or owe one a favor.
+Where do you find a man like the Colonel in sheep?" demanded Babe. "You
+don't find 'em. Nothin' but a lot of upstart sheep-herders, that's got
+rich in five years and don't know how to act."
+
+"Oh, you're prejudiced, Babe. Not all sheepmen are muckers any more than
+all cattlemen are gentlemen."
+
+"I'm not prejudiced a-_tall_!" declared Babe excitedly. "I'm perfectly
+fair and square. Woolers is demoralizin'. Associate with woolers, and it
+takes the spirit out of a feller quicker'n cookin.' In five years you
+won't be half the man you are now if you go into sheep. I'll sure hate to
+see it!" His voice was all but pathetic as he contemplated Ralston's
+downfall.
+
+"I think you will, though, Babe, if I get out of this with a whole hide."
+
+"You'll be so well fixed you can git married then?" There was some
+constraint in Babe's tone, which he meant to be casual.
+
+Ralston's heart gave him a twinge of pain.
+
+"I s'pose you've had every chance to git acquainted with the Schoolmarm,"
+he observed, since Ralston did not reply.
+
+"She doesn't like me, Babe."
+
+"_What_!" yelled Babe, screwing up his face in a grimace of surprise and
+unbelief.
+
+"She would rather talk to Ling than to me--at least, she seems far more
+friendly to any one else than to me."
+
+"Say, she must be loony not to like you!"
+
+Ralston could not help laughing outright at Babe's vigorous loyalty.
+
+"It's not necessarily a sign of insanity to dislike me."
+
+"She doesn't go that far, does she?" demanded Babe.
+
+"Sometimes I think so."
+
+"You don't care a-tall, do you?"
+
+"Yes," Ralston replied quietly; "I care a great deal. It hurts me more
+than I ever was hurt before; because, you see, Babe, I never loved a woman
+before."
+
+"Aw-w-w," replied Babe, in deepest sympathy.
+
+Smith had congratulated himself often during the day upon the fact that he
+could not have chosen a more propitious time for the execution of his
+plans--at least, so far as the Bar C outfit was concerned. His uneasiness
+passed as the protecting darkness fell without their having seen a single
+person the entire day.
+
+When the last glimmer of daylight had faded, Tubbs and Smith started on
+the drive, heading the cattle direct for their destination. They were
+fatter than Smith had supposed, so they could not travel as rapidly as he
+had calculated, but he and Tubbs pushed them along as fast as they could
+without overheating them.
+
+The darkness, which gave Smith courage, made Tubbs nervous. He swore at
+the cattle, he swore at his horse, he swore at the rocks over which his
+horse stumbled; and he constantly strained his roving eyes to penetrate
+the darkness for pursuers. Every gulch and gully held for him a fresh
+terror.
+
+"Gee! I wisht I was out of this onct!" burst from him when the howl of a
+wolf set his nerves jangling.
+
+"What'd you say?" Smith stopped in the middle of a song he was singing.
+
+"I said I wisht I was down where the monkeys are throwin' nuts! I'm
+chilly," declared Tubbs.
+
+"Chilly? It's hot!"
+
+Smith was light-hearted, sanguine. He told himself that perhaps it was as
+well, after all, that the hold-ups had got off with the "old woman's"
+money. She might have made trouble when she found that he meant to go or
+had gone with Dora.
+
+"You can't tell about women," Smith said to himself. "They're like ducks:
+no two fly alike."
+
+He felt secure, yet from force of habit his hand frequently sought his
+cartridge-belt, his rifle in its scabbard, his six-shooter in the holster
+under his arm. And while he serenely hummed the songs of the dance-halls
+and round-up camps, two silent figures, so close that they heard the
+clacking of the cattle's split hoofs, Tubbs's vacuous oaths, Smith's
+contented voice, were following with the business-like persistency of the
+law.
+
+The four mounted men rode all night, speaking seldom, each thinking his
+own thoughts, dreaming his own dreams. Not until the faintest light grayed
+the east did the pursuers fall behind.
+
+"We're not more'n a mile to water now"--Smith had made sure of his country
+this time--"and we'll hold the cattle in the brush and take turns
+watchin'."
+
+"It's a go with me," answered Tubbs, yawning until his jaws cracked. "I'm
+asleep now."
+
+Ralston and Babe knew that Smith would camp for several hours in the
+creek-bottom, so they dropped into a gulch and waited.
+
+"They'll picket their horses first, then one of them will keep watch while
+the other sleeps. Very likely Tubbs will be the first guard, and, unless
+I'm mistaken, Tubbs will be dead to the world in fifteen minutes--though,
+maybe, he's too scared to sleep." Ralston's surmise proved to be correct
+in every particular.
+
+After they had picketed their horses, Smith told Tubbs to keep watch for a
+couple of hours, while he slept.
+
+"Couldn't we jest switch that programme around?" inquired Tubbs
+plaintively. "I can't hardly keep my eyes open."
+
+"Do as I tell you," Smith returned sharply.
+
+Tubbs eyed him with envy as he spread down his own and Tubbs's
+saddle-blankets.
+
+"I ain't what you'd call 'crazy with the heat.'" Tubbs shivered. "Couldn't
+I crawl under one of them blankets with you?"
+
+"You bet you can't. I'd jest as lief sleep with a bull-snake as a man,"
+snorted Smith in disgust, and, pulling the blankets about his ears, was
+lost in oblivion.
+
+"I kin look back upon times when I've enj'yed myself more," muttered Tubbs
+disconsolately, as he paced to and fro, or at intervals climbed wearily
+out of the creek-bottom to look and listen.
+
+Ralston and Babe had concealed themselves behind a cut-bank which in the
+rainy season was a tributary of the creek. They were waiting for daylight,
+and for the guard to grow sleepy and careless. With little more emotion
+than hunters waiting in a blind for the birds to go over, the two men
+examined their rifles and six-shooters. They talked in undertones,
+laughing a little at some droll observation or reminiscence. Only by a
+sparkle of deviltry in Babe's blue eyes, and an added gravity of
+expression upon Ralston's face, at moments, would the closest observer
+have known that anything unusual was about to take place. Yet each
+realized to the fullest extent the possible dangers ahead of them. Smith,
+they knew to be resourceful, he would be desperate, and Tubbs, ignorant
+and weak of will as he was, might be frightened into a kind of frenzied
+courage. The best laid plans did not always work out according to
+schedule, and if by any chance they were discovered, and the thieves
+reached their guns, the odds were equal. But it was not their way to talk
+of danger to themselves. That there was danger was a fact, too obvious to
+discuss, but that it was no hindrance to the carrying out of their plans
+was also accepted as being too evident to waste words upon.
+
+While the east grew pink, they talked of mutual acquaintances, of horses
+they had owned, of guns and big game, of dinners they had eaten, of socks
+and saddle blankets that had been stolen from them in cow outfits--the
+important and trivial were of like interest to these old friends waiting
+for what, as each well knew, might be their last sunrise.
+
+Ralston finally crawled to the top of the cut-bank and looked cautiously
+about.
+
+"It's time," he said briefly.
+
+"_Bueno_." Babe gave an extra twitch to the silk handkerchief knotted
+about his neck, which, with him, signified a readiness for action.
+
+He joined Ralston at the top of the cut-bank.
+
+"Not a sign!" he whispered. "Looks like you and me owned the world,
+Dick."
+
+"We'll lead the horses a little closer, in case we need them quick. Then,
+we'll keep that bunch of brush between us and them, till we get close
+enough. You take Tubbs, and I'll cover Smith--I want that satisfaction,"
+he added grimly.
+
+It was a typical desert morning, redolent with sage, which the night's dew
+brought out strongly. The pink light changing rapidly to crimson was
+seeking out the draws and coulees where the purple shadows of night still
+lay. The only sound was the cry of the mourning doves, answering each
+other's plaintive calls. And across the panorama of yellow sand, green
+sage-brush, burning cactus flowers, distant peaks of purple, all bathed
+alike in the gorgeous crimson light of morning, two dark figures crept
+with the stealthiness of Indians.
+
+From behind the bush which had been their objective-point they could hear
+and see the cattle moving in the brush below; then a horse on picket
+snorted, and as they slid quietly down the bank they heard a sound which
+made Babe snicker.
+
+"Is that a cow chokin' to death," he whispered, "or one of them cherubs
+merely sleepin'?"
+
+In sight of the prone figures, they halted.
+
+Smith, with his hat on, his head pillowed on his saddle, was rolled in an
+old army blanket; while Tubbs, from a sitting position against a tree, had
+fallen over on the ground with his knees drawn to his chin. His mouth,
+from which frightful sounds of strangulation were issuing, was wide open,
+and he showed a little of the whites of his eyes as he slumbered.
+
+"Ain't he a dream?" breathed Babe in Ralston's ear. "How I'd like a
+picture of that face to keep in the back of my watch!"
+
+Smith's rifle was under the edge of his blanket, and his six-shooter in
+its holster lay by his head; but Tubbs, with the carelessness of a green
+hand and the over-confidence which had succeeded his nervousness, had
+leaned his rifle against a tree and laid his six-shooter and
+cartridge-belt in a crotch.
+
+Ralston nodded to Babe, and simultaneously they raised their rifles and
+viewed the prostrate forms along the barrels.
+
+"Put up your hands, men!"
+
+The quick command, sharp, stern, penetrated the senses of the men inert in
+heavy sleep. Instantly Smith's hand was upon his gun. He had reached for
+it instinctively even before he sat up.
+
+"Drop it!" There was no mistaking the intention expressed in Ralston's
+voice, and the gun fell from Smith's hand.
+
+The red of Smith's skin changed to a curious yellow, not unlike the yellow
+of the slicker rolled on the back of his saddle. Panic-stricken for the
+moment, he grinned, almost foolishly; then his hands shot above his head.
+
+A line of sunlight dropped into the creek-bottom, and a ray was caught by
+the deputy's badge which shone on Ralston's breast. The glitter of it
+seemed to fascinate Smith.
+
+"You"--he drawled a vile name. "I orter have known!"
+
+Still dazed with sleep, and not yet comprehending anything beyond the fact
+that he had been advised to put up his hands, and that a stranger had
+drawn an uncommonly fine bead on the head which he was in honor bound to
+preserve from mutilation, Tubbs blinked at Babe and inquired peevishly:
+
+"What's the matter with you?" He had forgotten that he was a thief.
+
+"Shove up your hands!" yelled Babe.
+
+With an expression of annoyance, Tubbs did as he was bid, but dropped them
+again upon seeing Ralston.
+
+"Oh, hello!" he called cheerfully.
+
+"Put them hands back!" Babe waved his rifle-barrel significantly.
+
+"What's the matter with you, feller?" inquired Tubbs crossly. Though he
+now recollected the circumstances under which they were found, Ralston's
+presence robbed the situation of any seriousness for him. It did not occur
+to Tubbs that any one who knew him could possibly do him harm.
+
+"Keep your hands up, Tubbs," said Ralston curtly, "and, Babe, take the
+guns."
+
+"What for a josh is this anyhow?"--in an aggrieved tone. "Ain't we all
+friends?"
+
+"Shut up, you idjot!" snapped Smith irritably. His glance was full of
+malevolence as Babe took his guns. The yellow of his skin was now the only
+sign by which he betrayed his feelings. To all other appearances, he was
+himself again--insolent, defiant.
+
+When it thoroughly dawned upon Tubbs that they were cornered and under
+arrest, he promptly went to pieces. He thrust his hands so high above his
+head that they lifted him to tiptoe, and they shook as with palsy.
+
+"Stack the guns and get our horses, Babe," said Ralston.
+
+"Mine's hard for a stranger to ketch," said Smith surlily. "I'll get him,
+for I don't aim to walk."
+
+"All right; but don't make any break, Smith," Ralston warned.
+
+"I'm not a fool," Smith answered gruffly.
+
+Ralston's face relaxed as Smith sauntered toward his horse. He was glad
+that they had been taken without bloodshed, and, now the prisoners' guns
+had been removed, that possibility was passed.
+
+Smith's horse was a newly broken bronco, and he was a wild beggar, as
+Smith had said; but he talked to him reassuringly as the horse jumped to
+the end of his picket-rope and stood snorting and trembling in fright, and
+finally laid his hand upon his neck and back. The fingers of one hand were
+entwined in the horse's mane, and suddenly, with a cat-like spring made
+possible only by his desperation, Smith landed on the bronco's back. With
+a yell of defiance which Ralston and Babe remembered for many a day, he
+kicked the animal in the ribs, and, as it reared in fright, it pulled
+loose from the picket-stake. Smith reached for the trailing rope, and they
+were gone!
+
+Ralston shot to cripple the horse, but almost with the flash they were
+around the bend of the creek and out of sight. The breathless, speechless
+seconds seemed minutes long before he heard Babe coming.
+
+"Aw-w-w!" roared that person in consternation and chagrin, as he literally
+dragged the horses behind him.
+
+Ralston ran to meet him, and a glance of understanding passed between them
+as he leaped into the saddle and swept around the bend like a whirlwind,
+less than thirty seconds behind Smith.
+
+Babe knew that he must secure Tubbs before he joined in the pursuit, and
+he was pulling the rawhide riata from his saddle when Tubbs, inspired by
+Smith's example and imbued with the hysterical courage which sometimes
+comes to men of his type in desperate straits, made a dash for his rifle,
+and reached it. He threw it to his shoulder, but, quick as he was, Babe
+was quicker.
+
+[Illustration: SMITH REACHED FOR THE TRAILING ROPE AND THEY WERE GONE!]
+
+With the lightning-like gesture which had made his name a byword where
+Babe himself was unknown, he pulled his six-shooter from its holster and
+shot Tubbs through the head. He fell his length, like a bundle of
+blankets, and, even as he dropped, Babe was in the saddle and away.
+
+It was a desperate race that was on, between desperate men; for if Smith
+was desperate, Ralston was not less so. Every fibre of his being was
+concentrated in the determination to recapture the man who had twice
+outwitted him. The deputy sheriff's reputation was at stake; his pride and
+self-respect as well; and the blood-thirst was rising in him with each
+jump of his horse. Every other emotion paled, every other interest faded,
+beside the intensity of his desire to stop the man ahead of him.
+
+Smith knew that he had only a chance in a thousand. He had seen Ralston
+with a six-shooter explode a cartridge placed on a rock as far away as he
+could see it, and he was riding the little brown mare whose swiftness
+Smith had reason to remember.
+
+But he had the start, his bronco was young, its wind of the best, and it
+might have speed. The country was rough, Ralston's horse might fall with
+him. So long as Smith was at liberty there was a fighting chance, and as
+always, he took it.
+
+The young horse, mad with fright, kept to the serpentine course of the
+creek-bottom, and Ralston, on the little mare, sure-footed and swift as a
+jack-rabbit, followed its lead.
+
+The race was like a steeple-chase, with boulders and brush and fallen logs
+to be hurdled, and gullies and washouts to complicate the course. And at
+every outward curve the _pin-n-gg!_ of a bullet told Smith of his
+pursuer's nearness. Lying flat on the barebacked horse, he hung well to
+the side until he was again out of sight. The lead plowed up the dirt
+ahead of him and behind him, and flattened itself against rocks; and at
+each futile shot Smith looked over his shoulder and grinned in derision,
+though his skin had still the curious yellowness of fear.
+
+The race was lasting longer than Smith had dared hope. It began to look as
+if it were to narrow to a test of endurance, for although Ralston's shots
+missed by only a hair's breadth at times, still, they missed. If Smith
+ever had prayed, he would have prayed then; but he had neither words nor
+faith, so he only hoped and rode.
+
+A flat came into sight ahead and a yell burst from Ralston--a yell that
+was unexpected to himself. A wave of exultation which seemed to come from
+without swept over him. He touched the mare with the spur, and she skimmed
+the rocks as if his weight on her back were nothing. It was smoother, and
+he was close enough now to use his best weapon. He thrust the empty rifle
+into its scabbard, and shot at Smith's horse with his six-shooter. It
+stumbled; then its knees doubled under it, and Smith turned in the air.
+The game was up; Smith was afoot.
+
+He picked up his hat and dusted his coat-sleeve while he waited, and his
+face was yellow and evil.
+
+"That was a dum good horse," was Babe's single comment as he rode up.
+
+"Get back to camp!" said Ralston peremptorily, and Smith, in his
+high-heeled, narrow-soled boots, stumbled ahead of them without a word.
+
+He looked at Tubbs's body without surprise. Sullen and surly, he felt no
+regret that Tubbs, braggart and fool though he was, was dead. Smith had no
+conscience to remind him that he himself was responsible.
+
+Babe shook out Smith's blue army blanket and rolled Tubbs in it. Smith had
+bought it from a drunken soldier, and he had owned it a long time. It was
+light and almost water-proof; he liked it, and he eyed Babe's action with
+disfavor.
+
+"I reckon this gent will have to spend the day in a tree," said Babe
+prosaically.
+
+"Couldn't you use no other blanket nor that?" demanded Smith.
+
+It was the first time he had spoken.
+
+"Don't take on so," Babe replied comfortingly. "They furnish blankets
+where you're goin'."
+
+He went on with his work of throwing a hitch around Tubbs with his
+picket-rope.
+
+Ralston divided the scanty rations which Smith and Tubbs, and he and Babe,
+had brought with them. He made coffee, and handed a cup to Smith first.
+The latter arose and changed his seat.
+
+"I never could eat with a corp' settin' around," he said disagreeably.
+
+Smith's fastidiousness made Babe's jaw drop, and a piece of biscuit which
+had made his cheek bulge inadvertently rolled out, but was skillfully
+intercepted before it reached the ground.
+
+"I hope you'll excuse us, Mr. Smith," said Babe, bowing as well as he
+could sitting cross-legged on the ground. "I hope you'll overlook our
+forgittin' the napkins and toothpicks."
+
+When they had finished, they slung Tubbs's body into a tree, beyond the
+reach of coyotes. The cattle they left to drift back to their range.
+Tubbs's horse was saddled for Smith, and, with Ralston holding the lead
+rope and Babe in the rear, the procession started back to the ranch.
+
+Smith had much time to think on the homeward ride. He based his hopes upon
+the Indian woman. He knew that he could conciliate her with a look. She
+was resourceful, she had unlimited influence with the Indians, and she had
+proven that she was careless of her own life where he was concerned. She
+was a powerful ally. The situation was not so bad as it had seemed. He had
+been in tighter places, he told himself, and his spirits rose as he rode.
+Without the plodding cattle, they retraced their steps in half the time it
+had taken them to come, and it was not much after midday when they were
+sighted from the MacDonald ranch.
+
+The Indians that Smith had missed were at the ford to meet them: Bear
+Chief, Yellow Bird, Running Rabbit, and others, who were strangers to him.
+They followed as Ralston and Babe rode with their prisoner up the path to
+put him under guard in the bunk-house.
+
+Susie, McArthur, and Dora were at the door of the ranch-house, and Susie
+stepped out and stopped them when they would have passed.
+
+"You can't take him there; that place is for our _friends_. There's the
+harness-house below. The dogs sleep there. There'll be room for one
+more."
+
+The insult stung Smith to the quick.
+
+"What _you_ got to say about it? Where's your mother?"
+
+With narrowed eyes she looked for a moment into his ugly visage, then she
+laid her hand upon the rope and led his horse close to the open window of
+the bedroom.
+
+"There," and she pointed to the still figure on its improvised bier.
+"There's my mother!"
+
+Smith looked in silence, and once more showed by his yellowing skin the
+fear within him. The avenue of escape upon which he had counted almost
+with certainty, was closed to him. At that moment the harsh, high walls of
+the penitentiary loomed close; the doors looked wide open to receive him;
+but, after an instant's hesitation, he only shrugged his shoulders and
+said:
+
+"Hell! I sleeps good anywhere."
+
+In deference to Susie's wishes, Ralston and Babe had swung their horses to
+go back down the path when Smith turned in his saddle and looked at Dora.
+She was regarding him sorrowfully, her eyes misty with disappointment in
+him; and Smith misunderstood. A rush of feeling swept over him, and he
+burst out impulsively:
+
+"Don't go back on me! I done it for you, girl! I done it to make _our
+stake_!"
+
+Dora stood speechless, bewildered, confused under the astonished eyes upon
+her. She was appalled by the light in which he had placed her; and while
+the others followed to the harness-house below, she sank limply upon the
+door-sill, her face in her hands.
+
+Smith sat on a wagon-tongue, swinging his legs, while they cleaned out the
+harness-house a bit for his occupancy.
+
+"Throw down some straw and rustle up a blanket or two," said Babe; and
+McArthur pulled his saddle-blankets apart to contribute the cleanest
+toward Smith's bed.
+
+Something in the alacrity the "bug-hunter" displayed angered Smith. He
+always had despised the little man in a general way. He uncinched his
+saddle on the wrong side; he clucked at his horse; he removed his hat when
+he talked to women; he was a weak and innocent fool to Smith, who lost no
+occasion to belittle him. Now, when the prisoner saw him moving about,
+free to go and come as he pleased, while he, Smith, was tied like an
+unruly pup, it, of a sudden, made his gorge rise; and, with one of his
+swift, characteristic transitions of mood, Smith turned to the Indians who
+guarded him.
+
+"You never could find out who killed White Antelope--you smart-Alec
+Injuns!" he sneered contemptuously. "And you've always wanted to know,
+haven't you?" He eyed them one by one. "Why, you don't know straight up,
+you women warriors! I've a notion to tell you who killed White
+Antelope--just for fun--just because I want to laugh, me--Smith!"
+
+The Indians drew closer.
+
+"You think you're scouts," he went on tauntingly, "and you never saw White
+Antelope's blanket right under your nose! Put it back, feller"--he nodded
+at McArthur. "I don't aim to sleep on dead men's clothes!"
+
+The Indians looked at the blanket, and at McArthur, whom they had grown to
+like and trust. They recognized it now, and in the corner they saw the
+stiff and dingy stain, the jagged tell-tale holes.
+
+McArthur mechanically held it up to view. He had not the faintest
+recollection where it had been purchased, or of whom obtained. Tubbs
+always had attended to such things.
+
+No one spoke in the grave silence, and Smith leered.
+
+"I likes company," he said. "I'm sociable inclined. Put him in the
+dog-house with me."
+
+Susie had listened with the Indians; she had looked at the blanket, the
+stain, the holes; she saw the blank consternation in McArthur's face, the
+gathering storm in the Indians' eyes. She stepped out a little from the
+rest.
+
+"Mister _Smith_!" she said. "_Mister_ Smith"--with oily, sarcastic
+emphasis--"how did you know that was White Antelope's blanket, when you
+never _saw_ White Antelope?"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A MONGOLIAN CUPID
+
+
+With his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, Ralston leaned against
+the corner of the bunk-house, from which point of vantage he could catch a
+glimpse of the Schoolmarm's white-curtained window. He now had no feeling
+of elation over his success. Smith was a victorious captive. Ralston's
+heart ached miserably, and he wished that the day was ended and the
+morning come, that he might go, never to return.
+
+He too had seen the mist in Dora's eyes; and, with Smith's words, the
+air-castles which had persistently built themselves without volition on
+his part, crumbled. There was nothing for him to do but to efface himself
+as quickly and as completely as possible. The sight of him could only be
+painful to Dora, and he wished to spare her all of that within his power.
+
+He looked at the foothills, the red butte rising in their midst, the
+tinted Bad Lands, the winding, willow-fringed creek. It was all beautiful
+in its bizarre colorings; but the spirit of the picture, the warm, glowing
+heart of it, had gone from it for him. The world looked a dull and
+lifeless place. His love for Dora was greater than he had known, far
+mightier than he had realized until the end, the positive end, had come.
+
+"Oh, Dora!" he whispered in utter wretchedness. "Dear little Schoolmarm!"
+
+In the room behind the white-curtained window the Schoolmarm walked the
+floor with her cheeks aflame and as close to hysteria as ever she had been
+in her life.
+
+"What _will_ he think of me!" she asked herself over and over again,
+clasping and unclasping her cold hands. "What _can_ he think but one
+thing?"
+
+The more overwrought she became, the worse the situation seemed.
+
+"And how he looked at me! How they all looked at me! Oh, it was too
+dreadful!"
+
+She covered her burning face with her hands.
+
+"There isn't the slightest doubt," she went on, "but that he thinks I knew
+all about it. Perhaps"--she paused in front of the mirror and stared into
+her own horrified eyes--"perhaps he thinks I belong to a gang of robbers!
+Maybe he thinks I am Smith's tool, or that Smith is my tool, or something
+like that! Oh, whatever made him say such a thing! 'Our stake--_our_
+stake'--and--'I done it for you!'"
+
+Another thought, still more terrifying occurred to her excited mind:
+
+"What if he should have to arrest me as an accomplice!"
+
+She sat down weakly on the edge of the bed.
+
+"Oh," and she rocked to and fro in misery, "if only I never had tried to
+improve Smith's mind!"
+
+The tears slipped from under the Schoolmarm's lashes, and her chin
+quivered.
+
+Worn out by the all night's vigil at her mother's bedside, and the
+exciting events of the morning, Susie finally succumbed to the strain and
+slept the sleep of exhaustion. It was almost supper-time when she
+awakened. Passing the Schoolmarm's door, she heard a sound at which she
+stopped and frankly listened. Teacher was crying!
+
+"Ling, this is an awful world. Everything seems to be upside down and
+inside out!"
+
+"Plenty tlouble," agreed Ling, stepping briskly about as he collected
+ingredients for his biscuits.
+
+"Don't seem to make much difference whether you love people or hate 'em;
+it all ends the same way--in tears."
+
+"Plitty bad thing--love." Ling solemnly measured baking-powder. "Make
+people cly."
+
+Susie surmised correctly that Ling's ears also had been close to a nearby
+keyhole.
+
+"There'd 'a' been fewer tears on this ranch if it hadn't been for Smith."
+
+"Many devils--Smith."
+
+Susie sat on the corner of his work-table, and there was silence while he
+deftly mixed, rolled, and cut his dough.
+
+"Mr. Ralston intends to go away in the morning," said Susie, as the
+biscuits were slammed in the oven.
+
+Ling wagged his head dolorously.
+
+"And they'll never see each other again."
+
+His head continued to wag.
+
+"Ling," Susie whispered, "we've got to _do_ something." She stepped
+lightly to the open door and closed it.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were few at the supper-table that night, and there was none of the
+noisy banter which usually prevailed. The grub-liners came in softly and
+spoke in hushed tones, out of a kind of respect for two empty chairs which
+had been the recognized seats of Tubbs and the Indian woman.
+
+Ralston bowed gravely as Dora entered--pale, her eyes showing traces of
+recent tears. Susie was absent, having no heart for food or company, and
+preferring to sit beside her mother for the brief time which remained to
+her. Even Meeteetse Ed shared in the general depression, and therefore it
+was in no spirit of flippancy that he observed as he replaced his cup
+violently in its saucer:
+
+"Gosh A'mighty, Ling, you must have biled a gum-boot in this here tea!"
+
+Dora, who had drank nearly half of hers, was unable to account for the
+peculiar tang which destroyed its flavor, and Ralston eyed the contents of
+his cup doubtfully after each swallow.
+
+"Like as not the water's gittin' alkali," ventured Old Man Rulison.
+
+"Alkali nothin'. That's gum-boot, or else a plug of Battle Ax fell in."
+
+Ling bore Meeteetse's criticisms with surprising equanimity.
+
+A moment later the lights blurred for Dora.
+
+"I--I feel faint," she whispered, striving to rise.
+
+Ralston, who had already noted her increasing pallor, hastened around the
+table and helped her into the air. Ling's immobile face was a study as he
+saw them leave the room together, but satisfaction was the most marked of
+its many expressions. He watched them from the pantry window as they
+walked to the cottonwood log which served as a garden-seat for all.
+
+"I wonder if it was that queer tea?"
+
+"It has been a hard day for you," Ralston replied gently.
+
+Dora was silent, and they remained so for some minutes. Ralston spoke at
+last and with an effort.
+
+"I am sorry--sorrier than I can tell you--that it has been necessary for
+me to hurt you. I should rather, far, far rather, hurt myself than you,
+Miss Marshall--I wish I could make you know that. What I have done has
+been because it was my duty. I am employed by men who trust me, and I was
+in honor bound to follow the course I have; but if I had known what I know
+now--if I had been sure--I might in some way have made it easier for you.
+I am going away to-morrow, and perhaps it will do no harm to tell you that
+I had hoped"--he stopped to steady his voice, and went on--"I had hoped
+that our friendship might end differently.
+
+"I shall be gone in the morning before you are awake, so I will say
+good-night--and good-by." He arose and put out his hand. "Shall I send
+Susie to you?"
+
+The lump in Dora's throat hurt her.
+
+"Wait a minute," she whispered in a strained voice. "I want to say
+something, too, before you go. I don't want you to go away thinking that I
+knew anything of Smith's plans; that I knew he was going to steal cattle;
+that he was trying to make a 'stake' for us--for _me_. It is all a
+misunderstanding."
+
+Dora was looking straight ahead of her, and did not see the change which
+came over Ralston's face.
+
+"I never thought of Smith in any way except to help him," she went on. "He
+seemed different from most that stopped here, and I thought if I could
+just start him right, if only I could show him what he might do if he
+tried, he might be better for my efforts. And, after all, my time and good
+intentions were wasted. He deceived me in making me think that he too
+wanted to make more of his life, and that he was trying. And then to make
+such a speech before you all!"
+
+"Don't think about it--or Smith," Ralston answered. "He has come to his
+inevitable end. When there's bad blood, mistaken ideals, and wrong
+standards of living, you can't do much--you can't do anything. There is
+only one thing which controls men of his type, and that is fear--fear of
+the law. His love for you is undoubtedly the best, the whitest, thing that
+ever came into his life, but it couldn't keep him straight, and never
+would. Don't worry. Your efforts haven't hurt him, or you. You are wiser,
+and maybe he is better."
+
+"It's awfully good of you to comfort me," said Dora gratefully.
+
+"Good of me?" he laughed softly. "Little Schoolmarm"--he laid a hand upon
+each shoulder and looked into her eyes--"I love you."
+
+Her pupils dilated, and she breathed in wonder.
+
+"You _love_ me?"
+
+"I do." He brushed back a wisp of hair which had blown across her cheek,
+and, stooping, kissed her deliberately upon the mouth.
+
+Inside the house a radiant Mongolian rushed from the pantry window into
+the room where Susie sat. He carried a nearly empty bottle which had once
+contained lemon extract, and his almond eyes danced as he handed it to
+her, whispering gleefully:
+
+"All light! Good medicine!"
+
+The big kerosene lamp screwed to the wall in the living-room had long
+since been lighted, but Susie still sat on the floor, leaning her cheek
+against the blanket which covered the Indian woman. The house was quiet
+save for Ling in the kitchen--and lonely--but she had a fancy that her
+mother would like to have her there beside her; so, although she was
+cramped from sitting, and the house was close after a hot day, she refused
+all offers to relieve her.
+
+She was glad to see McArthur when he tapped on the door.
+
+"I thought you'd like to read the letter that came with the picture," he
+said, as he pulled up a chair beside her. "I want you to know how welcome
+you will be."
+
+He handed her the letter, with its neat, old-fashioned penmanship, its
+primness a little tremulous from the excitement of the writer at the time
+she had penned it. Susie read it carefully, and when she had finished she
+looked up at him with softened, grateful eyes.
+
+"Isn't she good!"
+
+"The kindest of gentlewomen--your Aunt Harriet."
+
+"My Aunt Harriet!" Susie said it to herself rapturously.
+
+"She hasn't much in her life now--_she's_ lonely, too--and if you can be
+spoiled, Susie, you soon will be well on the way--between Aunt Harriet and
+me." He stroked her hair fondly.
+
+"And I'm to go to school back there and live with her. I can't believe it
+yet!" Susie declared. "So much has happened in the last twenty-four hours
+that I don't know what to think about first. More things have happened in
+this little time than in all my life put together."
+
+"That's the way life seems to be," McArthur said musingly--"a few hours at
+a tension, and long, dull stretches in between."
+
+"Does she know--does Aunt Harriet know--how _green_ I am?"
+
+McArthur laughed at her anxiety.
+
+"I am sure," he replied reassuringly, "that she isn't expecting a young
+lady of fashion."
+
+"Oh, I've got clothes," said Susie. "Mother made me a dress that will be
+just the thing to wear in that--what do you call it?--train. She made it
+out of two shawls that she bought at the Agency."
+
+McArthur looked startled at the frock of red, green, and black plaids
+which Susie took from a nail behind the door.
+
+"The colors seem a little--a little----"
+
+"If that black was yellow, it _would_ look better," Susie admitted. "I've
+got a new Stetson, too."
+
+"It will take some little time to arrange your affairs out here, and in
+the meantime I'll write Aunt Harriet to choose a wardrobe for you and send
+it. It will give her the greatest pleasure."
+
+"Can I take Croppy and Daisy May?"
+
+"Daisy May?"
+
+"The pet badger," she explained. "I named her after a Schoolmarm we
+had--she looks so solemn and important. I can keep her on a chain, and she
+needn't eat until we get there," Susie pleaded.
+
+Trying not to smile at the mental picture of himself arriving in the staid
+college town, with a tawny-skinned child in a red, green, and black frock,
+a crop-eared cayuse, and a badger on a chain, McArthur ventured it as his
+opinion that the climate would be detrimental to Daisy May's health.
+
+"You undoubtedly will prefer to spend your summers here, and it will be
+pleasant to have Croppy and Daisy May home to welcome you."
+
+Susie's face sobered.
+
+"Oh, yes, I must come back when school is over. I wouldn't feel it was
+right to go away for always and leave Dad and Mother here. Besides, I
+guess I'd _want_ to come back; because, after all, you know, I'm half
+Injun."
+
+"I wish you'd try and sleep, and let me sit here," urged McArthur kindly.
+
+Susie shook her head.
+
+"No; Ling will stay after awhile, and I'm not sleepy or tired now."
+
+"Well, good-night, little sister." He patted her head, while all the
+kindliness of his gentle nature shone from his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+IN THEIR OWN WAY
+
+
+Through the chinks in the logs, where the daubing had dropped out, Smith
+watched the lights in the ranch-house. He relieved the tedium of the hours
+by trying to imagine what was going on inside, and in each picture Dora
+was the central figure. Now, he told himself, she was wiping the dishes
+for Ling, and teaching him English, as she often did; and when she had
+finished she would bring her portfolio into the dining-room and write home
+the exciting events of the day. He wondered what had "ailed" the Indian
+woman, that she should die so suddenly; but it was immaterial, since she
+_was_ dead. He knew that Susie would sit by her mother; probably in the
+chair with the cushion of goose-feathers. It was his favorite chair,
+though it went over backwards when he rocked too hard. Ralston--curse
+him!--was sitting on one of the benches outside the bunk-house, telling
+the grub-liners of Smith's capture, and the bug-hunter was making notes of
+the story in his journal. But, alas! as is usual with the pictures one
+conjures, nothing at all took place as Smith fancied.
+
+When all the lights, save the one in the living-room, had gone out, there
+was nothing to divert his thoughts. Babe, who was on guard outside,
+refused to converse with him, and he finally lay down, only to toss
+restlessly upon the blankets. The night seemed unusually still and the
+stillness made him nervous; even the sound of Babe's back rubbing against
+the door when he shifted his position was company. Smith's uneasiness was
+unlike him, and he wondered at it, while unable to conquer it. It must
+have been nearly midnight when, staring into the darkness with sleepless
+eyes, he felt, rather than heard, something move outside. It came from the
+rear, and Babe was at the door for only a moment before he had struck a
+match on a log to light a cigarette. The sound was so slight that only a
+trained ear like Smith's would have detected it.
+
+It had sounded like the scraping of the leg of an overall against a
+sage-brush, and yet it was so trifling, so indistinct, that a field mouse
+might have made it. But somehow Smith knew, he was sure, that something
+human had caused it; and as he listened for a recurrence of the sound, the
+conviction grew upon him that there was movement and life outside. He was
+convinced that something was going to happen.
+
+His judgment told him that the prowlers were more likely to be enemies
+than friends--he was in the enemies' country. But, on the other hand,
+there was always the chance that unexpected help had arrived. Smith still
+believed in his luck. The grub-liners might come to his rescue, or "the
+boys," who had been waiting at the rendezvous, might have learned in some
+unexpected way what had befallen him. Even if they were his enemies, they
+would first be obliged to overpower Babe, and, he told himself, in the
+"ruckus" he might somehow escape.
+
+But even as he argued the question pro and con, unable to decide whether
+or not to warn Babe, a stifled exclamation and the thud of a heavy body
+against the door told him that it had been answered for him. Wide-eyed,
+breathless, his nerves at a tension, his heart pounding in his breast, he
+interpreted the sounds which followed as correctly as if he had been an
+eye-witness to the scene.
+
+He could hear Babe's heels strike the ground as he kicked and threshed,
+and the inarticulate epithets told Smith that his guard was gagged. He
+knew, too, that the attack was made by more than two men, for Babe was a
+young Hercules in strength.
+
+Were they friends or foes? Were they Bar C cowpunchers come to take the
+law into their own hands, or were they his hoped-for rescuers? The
+suspense sent the perspiration out in beads on Smith's forehead, and he
+wiped his moist face with his shirt-sleeve. Then he heard the shoulders
+against the door, the heavy breathing, the strain of muscles, and the
+creaking timber. It crashed in, and for a second Smith's heart ceased to
+beat. He sniffed--and he knew! He smelled buckskin and the smoke of
+tepees. He spoke a word or two in their own tongue. They laughed softly,
+without answering. From instinct, he backed into a corner, and they groped
+for him in the darkness.
+
+"The rat is hiding. Shall we get the cat?" The voice was Bear Chief's.
+
+Running Rabbit spoke as he struck a match.
+
+"Come out, white man. It is too hot in here for you."
+
+Smith recovered himself, and said as he stepped forward:
+
+"I am ready, friends."
+
+They tied his hands and pushed him into the open air. Babe squirmed in
+impotent rage as he passed. Dark shadows were gliding in and out of the
+stable and corrals, and when they led him to a saddled horse they motioned
+him to mount. He did so, and they tied his feet under the horse's belly,
+his wrists to the saddle-horn. Seeing the thickness of the rope, he
+jested:
+
+"Friends, I am not an ox."
+
+"If you were," Yellow Bird answered, "there would be fresh meat
+to-morrow."
+
+There were other Indians waiting on their horses, deep in the gloom of the
+willows, and when the three whom Smith recognized were in the saddle they
+led the way to the creek, and the others fell in behind. They followed the
+stream for some distance, that they might leave no tracks, and there was
+no sound but the splashing and floundering of the horses as they slipped
+on the moss-covered rocks of the creek-bed.
+
+Smith showed no fear or curiosity--he knew Indians too well to do either.
+His stoicism was theirs under similar circumstances. Had they been of his
+own race, his hope would have lain in throwing himself upon their mercy;
+for twice the instinctive sympathy of the white man for the under dog, for
+the individual who fights against overwhelming odds, had saved his life;
+but no such tactics would avail him now.
+
+His hope lay in playing upon their superstitions and weaknesses; in
+winning their admiration, if possible; and in devising means by which to
+gain time. He knew that as soon as his absence was discovered an effort
+would be made to rescue him. He found some little comfort, too, in telling
+himself that these reservation Indians, broken in spirit by the white
+man's laws and restrictions, were not the Indians of the old days on the
+Big Muddy and the Yellowstone. The fear of the white man's vengeance would
+keep them from going too far. And so, as he rode, his hopes rose
+gradually; his confidence, to a degree, returned; and he even began to
+have a kind of curiosity as to what form their attempted revenge would
+take.
+
+The slowness of their progress down the creek-bed had given him
+satisfaction, but once they left the water, there was no cause for
+congratulation as they quirted their horses at a breakneck speed over
+rocks and gullies in the direction of the Bad Lands. He could see that
+they had some definite destination, for when the horses veered somewhat to
+the south, Running Rabbit motioned them northward.
+
+"He was there yesterday; Running Rabbit knows," said Bear Chief, in answer
+to an Indian's question; and Smith, listening, wondered where "there"
+might be, and what it was that Running Rabbit knew.
+
+He asked himself if it could be that they were taking him to some desert
+spring, where they meant to tie him to die of thirst in sight of water.
+The alkali plain held many forms of torture, as he knew.
+
+His captors did not taunt or insult him. They rode too hard, they were too
+much in earnest, to take the time for byplay. It was evident to Smith that
+they feared pursuit, and were anxious to reach their objective point
+before the sun rose. He knew this from the manner in which they watched
+the east.
+
+Somehow, as the miles sped under their horses' feet, the ride became more
+and more unreal to Smith. The moon, big, glorious, and late in rising,
+silvered the desert with its white light until they looked to be riding
+into an ocean. It made Smith think of the Big Water, by moonlight, over
+there on the Sundown slope. Even the lean, dark figures riding beside him
+seemed a part of a dream; and Dora, when he thought of her, was shadowy,
+unreal. He had a strange feeling that he was galloping, galloping out of
+her life.
+
+[Illustration: THEY QUIRTED THEIR HORSES AT BREAKNECK SPEED IN THE
+DIRECTION OF THE BAD LANDS.]
+
+There were times when he felt as if he were floating. His sensations were
+like the hallucinations of fever, and then he would find himself called
+back to a realization of facts by the swish of leather thongs on a horse's
+flank, or some smothered, half-uttered imprecation when a horse stumbled.
+The air of the coming morning fanned his cheeks, its coolness stimulated
+him, and something of the fairy-like beauty of the white world around him
+impressed even Smith.
+
+They had left the flatter country behind them, and were riding among hills
+and limestone cliffs, Running Rabbit winding in and out with the certainty
+of one on familiar ground. The way was rough, and they slackened their
+pace, riding one behind the other, Indian file.
+
+Running Rabbit reined in where the moonlight turned a limestone hill to
+silver, and threw up his hand to halt.
+
+He untied the rope which bound Smith's hands and feet.
+
+"You can't coil a rope no more nor a gopher," said Smith, watching him.
+
+"The white man does many things better than the Indian." Running Rabbit
+went on coiling the rope.
+
+He motioned Smith to follow, and led the way on foot.
+
+"I dotes on these moonlight picnics," said Smith sardonically, as he
+panted up the steep hills, his high-heeled boots clattering among the
+rocks in contrast to the silent footsteps of the Indian's moccasined
+feet.
+
+Running Rabbit stopped where the limestone hill had cracked, leaving a
+crevice wide at the top and shallowing at the bottom.
+
+"This is a good place for a white man who coils a rope so well, to rest,"
+he said, and seated himself near the edge of the crevice, motioning Smith
+to be seated also.
+
+"Or for white men who shoot old Indians in the back to think about what
+they have done." Yellow Bird joined them.
+
+"Or for smart thieves to tell where they left their stolen horses." Bear
+Chief dropped cross-legged near them.
+
+"Or for those whose forked tongue talks love to two women at once to use
+it for himself." The voice was sneering.
+
+"Smith, you're up against it!" the prisoner said to himself.
+
+As the others came up the hill, they enlarged the half-circle which now
+faced him. Recovering himself, he eyed them indifferently, one by one.
+
+"I have enemies, friends," he said.
+
+"White Antelope had no enemies," Yellow Bird replied.
+
+"The Indian woman had no enemies," said Running Rabbit.
+
+"It is our friends who steal our horses"--Bear Chief's voice was even and
+unemotional.
+
+Their behavior puzzled Smith. They seemed now to be in no hurry. Without
+gibes or jeers, they sat as if waiting for something or somebody. What was
+it? He asked himself the question over and over again. They listened with
+interest to the stories of his prowess and adventures. He flattered them
+collectively and individually, and they responded sometimes in praise as
+fulsome as has own. All the knowledge, the tact, the wit, of which he was
+possessed, he used to gain time. If only he could hold them until the sun
+rose. But why had they brought him there? With all his adroitness and
+subtlety, he could get no inkling of their intentions. The suspense got on
+Smith's nerves, though he gave no outward sign. The first gray light of
+morning came, and still they waited. The east flamed.
+
+"It will be hot to-day," said Running Rabbit. "The sky is red."
+
+Then the sun showed itself, glowing like a red-hot stove-lid shoved above
+the horizon.
+
+In silence they watched the coming day.
+
+"This limestone draws the heat," said Smith, and he laid aside his coat.
+"But it suits me. I hates to be chilly."
+
+Bear Chief stood up, and they all arose.
+
+"You are like us--you like the sun. It is warm; it is good. Look at it.
+Look long time, white man!"
+
+There was something ominous in his tone, and Smith moistened his short
+upper lip with the tip of his tongue.
+
+"Over there is the ranch where the white woman lives. Look--look long
+time, white man!" He swung his gaunt arm to the west.
+
+"You make the big talk, Injun," sneered Smith, but his mouth was dry.
+
+"Up there is the sky where the clouds send messages, where the sun shines
+to warm us and the moon to light us. There's antelope over there in the
+foothills, and elk in the mountains, and sheep on the peaks. You like to
+hunt, white man, same as us. Look long time on all--for you will never see
+it again!"
+
+The sun rose higher and hotter while the Indian talked. He had not
+finished speaking when Smith said:
+
+"God!"
+
+A look of indescribable horror was on his face. His skin had yellowed, and
+he stared into the crevice at his feet. Now he understood! He knew why
+they waited on the limestone hill! An odor, scarcely perceptible as yet,
+but which, faint as it was, sickened him, told him his fate. It was the
+unmistakable odor of rattlesnakes!
+
+The crevice below was a breeding-place, a rattlesnakes' den. Smith had
+seen such places often, and the stench which came from them when the sun
+was hot was like nothing else in the world. The recollection alone was
+almost enough to nauseate him, and he always had ridden a wide circle at
+the first whiff.
+
+His aversion for snakes was like a pre-natal mark. He avoided cowpunchers
+who wore rattlesnake bands on their hats or stretched the skin over the
+edge of the cantle of their saddles. He always slept with a hair rope
+around his blankets when he spent a night in the open. He would not sit in
+a room where snake-rattles decorated the parlor mantel or the organ. A
+curiosity as to how they had learned his peculiarity crept through the
+paralyzing horror which numbed him, and as if in answer the scene in the
+dining-room of the ranch rose before him. "I hates snakes and mouse-traps
+goin' off," he had said. Yes, he remembered.
+
+The Indians looked at his yellow skin and at his eyes in which the horror
+stayed, and laughed. He did not struggle when they stood him, mute, upon
+his feet and bound him, for Smith knew Indians. His lips and chin
+trembled; his throat, dry and contracted, made a clicking sound when he
+swallowed. His knees shook, and he had no power to control the twitching
+muscles of his arms and legs.
+
+"He dances," said Yellow Bird.
+
+As the sun rose higher and streamed into the crevice, the overpowering
+odor increased with the heat. The yellow of Smith's skin took on a
+greenish tinge.
+
+"Ugh!" An Indian laid his hand upon his stomach. "Me sick!"
+
+A bit of limestone fell into the crevice and bounded from one shelf of
+rock to the other. Upon each ledge a nest of rattlesnakes basked in the
+sun, and a chorus of hisses followed the fall of the stone.
+
+"They sing! Their voices are strong to-day," said Running Rabbit.
+
+The Indians threw Smith upon the edge of the crevice, face downward, so
+that he could look below. With his staring, bloodshot eyes he saw them
+all--dozens of them--a hundred or more! Crawling on the shelves and in the
+bottom, writhing, wriggling, hissing, coiled to strike! Every marking,
+every shading, every size--Smith saw them all with his bulging, fascinated
+eyes. The Indians stoned them until a forked tongue darted from every
+mouth and every wicked eye flamed red.
+
+The thick rope was tied under Smith's arms, and a noose thrown over a huge
+rock. They shoved him over the edge--slowly--looking at him and each
+other, laughing a little at the sound of reptile fury from below. It was
+the end. Smith's eyes opened before they let him drop, and his lips drew
+back from his white, slightly protruding teeth. They thought he meant to
+beg at last, and, rejoicing, waited. He looked like a coyote, a coyote
+when its ribs are crushed, its legs broken; when its eyes are blurred with
+the death film, and its mouth drips blood. He gathered himself--he was all
+but fainting--and threw back his head, looking at Bear Chief. He
+snarled--there was no tenderness in his voice when he gave the message:
+
+"Tell _her_, you damned Injuns--tell the Schoolmarm I died game,
+me--Smith!"
+
+
+
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+
+THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips.
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+
+A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and
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+
+"DOC." GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated by Frank T.
+Merrill.
+
+Against the familiar background of American town life, the author portrays
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+
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+KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece.
+
+Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly
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+
+The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and the
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+THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell Illustrated by T. de
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+
+A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, a glad,
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+SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illustrated by C. W. Relyea.
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+The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg in
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+
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+ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and the
+effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.
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+action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet
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+page.
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+THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS
+
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+
+THE LONESOME TRAIL
+
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+
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+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Me-Smith', by Caroline Lockhart
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+<title>
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of "Me-Smith", by Caroline Lockhart.
+</title>
+
+<style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Me-Smith', by Caroline Lockhart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'Me-Smith'
+
+Author: Caroline Lockhart
+
+Illustrator: Gayle Hoskins
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #27438]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'ME-SMITH' ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a>
+<img src='images/img-fpc.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 367px; height: 546px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 367px;'>
+&#8220;THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES&mdash;THAT LOOK AS IF YOU HADN&#8217;T NOTHIN&#8217; TO HIDE&mdash;IS IT TRUE?&#8221; <i>Page 59</i><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:2.2em; margin-bottom:1em;'>&#8220;ME-SMITH&#8221;</p>
+<p>BY</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:4em;'>CAROLINE LOCKHART</p>
+<p>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.2em;'>GAYLE HOSKINS</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/img-emb.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 32px; height: 30px;' /><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p>NEW YORK</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em;'>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</p>
+<p>PUBLISHERS</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce' style='font-size:0.8em;'>
+<p>Copyright 1911</p>
+<p style='margin-bottom:1em;'>By J. B. Lippincott Company</p>
+<p>Published February 15, 1911</p>
+<p>Second printing, February 25, 1911</p>
+<p>Third printing, March 5, 1911</p>
+<p>Fourth printing, March 20, 1911</p>
+<p>Fifth Printing, June 5, 1911</p>
+<p>Sixth Printing, July 1, 1911</p>
+<p>Seventh Printing, August 17, 1911</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>CONTENTS</p>
+</div>
+
+<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'><span style='font-size:small;'>CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align='right'><span style='font-size:small;'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>I.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>&#8220;Me&mdash;Smith&#8221;</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#I__ME_SMITH'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>II.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>On the Alkali Hill</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#II_ON_THE_ALKALI_HILL'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>III.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Empty Chair</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#III_THE_EMPTY_CHAIR'>29</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Swap in Saddle Blankets</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IV_A_SWAP_IN_SADDLE_BLANKETS'>48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>V.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Smith Makes Medicine with the Schoolmarm</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#V_SMITH_MAKES_MEDICINE_WITH_THE_SCHOOLMARM'>58</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Great Secret</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VI_THE_GREAT_SECRET'>79</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Cupid &#8220;Wings&#8221; a Deputy Sheriff</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VII_CUPID__WINGS__A_DEPUTY_SHERIFF'>95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Bug-hunter Elucidates</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#VIII_THE_BUGHUNTER_ELUCIDATES'>110</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IX.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Speaking Of Grasshoppers&mdash;&mdash;</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#IX_SPEAKING_OF_GRASSHOPPERS'>123</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>X.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Mother Love and Savage Passion Conflict</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#X_MOTHER_LOVE_AND_SAVAGE_PASSION_CONFLICT'>130</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Best Horse</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XI_THE_BEST_HORSE'>142</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Smith Gets &#8220;Hunks&#8221;</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XII_SMITH_GETS__HUNKS'>156</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Susie&#8217;s Indian Blood</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIII_SUSIE_S_INDIAN_BLOOD'>162</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Slayer of Mastodons</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIV_THE_SLAYER_OF_MASTODONS'>169</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XV.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Where a Man Gets a Thirst</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XV_WHERE_A_MAN_GETS_A_THIRST'>190</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Tinhorn Frank Smells Money</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVI_TINHORN_FRANK_SMELLS_MONEY'>205</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Susie Humbles Herself to Smith</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVII_SUSIE_HUMBLES_HERSELF_TO_SMITH'>213</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Bad &#8220;Hombre&#8221;</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XVIII_A_BAD__HOMBRE'>228</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIX.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>When The Clouds Played Wolf</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XIX_WHEN_THE_CLOUDS_PLAYED_WOLF'>240</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XX.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Love Medicine of the Sioux</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XX_THE_LOVE_MEDICINE_OF_THE_SIOUX'>248</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXI.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>The Murderer of White Antelope</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXI_THE_MURDERER_OF_WHITE_ANTELOPE'>272</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>A Mongolian Cupid</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXII_A_MONGOLIAN_CUPID'>293</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIII.</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>In Their Own Way</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#XXIII_IN_THEIR_OWN_WAY'>303</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
+</div>
+
+<table border='0' width='500' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Illustrations' style='margin:1em auto'>
+<col style='width:80%;' />
+<col style='width:20%;' />
+<tr>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align='right'><span style='font-size:small'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'>&#8220;That Look in Your Eyes&mdash;That Look as if You Hadn&#8217;t Nothin&#8217; to Hide&mdash;is it True?&#8221;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_1'> <i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'>&#8220;She&#8217;s a Game Kid, All Right,&#8221; Said Smith to Himself at the Top of the Hill.</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_2'>22</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'>It Meant Death&mdash;but it was Wet!&mdash;it was Water!</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_3'>196</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'>Smith Reached for the Trailing Rope and They Were Gone!</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_4'>284</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' align='left'>They Quirted Their Horses at Breakneck Speed In the Direction of the Bad Lands.</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#linki_5'>308</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:1.6em;'>&#8220;ME&mdash;SMITH&#8221;</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='I__ME_SMITH' id='I__ME_SMITH'></a>
+<h2>I</h2>
+<h3>&#8220;ME&mdash;SMITH&#8221;</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>A man on a tired gray horse reined in where
+a dim cattle-trail dropped into a gulch, and looked
+behind him. Nothing was in sight. He half closed
+his eyes and searched the horizon. No, there was
+nothing&mdash;just the same old sand and sage-brush,
+hills, more sand and sage-brush, and then to the
+west and north the spur of the Rockies, whose
+jagged peaks were white with a fresh fall of snow.
+The wind was chill. He shivered, and looked to the
+eastward. For the last few hours he had felt snow
+in the air, and now he could see it in the dim,
+gray mist&mdash;still far off, but creeping toward him.</p>
+<p>For the thousandth time, he wondered where he
+was. He knew vaguely that he was &#8220;over the line&#8221;&mdash;that
+Montana was behind him&mdash;but he was riding
+an unfamiliar range, and the peaks and hills which
+are the guide-boards of the West meant nothing
+to him. So far as he knew, he was the only human
+being within a hundred miles. His lips drew back
+in a half-grin and exposed a row of upper teeth
+unusually white and slightly protruding. He was
+thinking of the meeting with the last person to
+whom he had spoken within twenty-four hours.
+He closed one eye and looked up at the sun. Yes,
+it was just about the same time yesterday that a
+dude from the English ranch, a dude in knee
+breeches and shiny-topped riding boots, had galloped
+confidently toward him. He had dismounted
+and pretended to be cinching his saddle. When
+the dude was close enough Smith had thrown down
+on him with his gun.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Feller,&#8221; he had said, &#8220;I guess I&#8217;ll have to trade
+horses with you. And fall off quick, for I&#8217;m in
+kind of a hurry.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The grin widened as he thought of the dude&#8217;s
+surprised eyes and the dude&#8217;s face as he dropped
+out of the saddle without a word. Smith had
+stood his victim with his hands above his head
+while he pulled the saddle from his horse and threw
+it upon his own. The dude rode a saddle with
+a double cinch, and the fact had awakened in
+the Westerner a kind of interest. He had even
+felt a certain friendliness for the man he was robbing.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Feller,&#8221; he had asked, &#8220;do you come from
+the Maņana country?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;From Chepstow, Monmouth County, Wales,&#8221;
+the dude had replied, in a shaking voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where did you get that double-rigged saddle,
+then?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Texas.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The answer had pleased Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ain&#8217;t losin&#8217; none on this deal,&#8221; he had
+then volunteered. &#8220;This horse that you just
+traded for is a looker when he is rested, and he
+can run like hell. You can go your pile on him.
+Just burn out that lazy S brand and run on your
+own. You can hold him easy, then. I like a
+feller that rides a double-rigged saddle in a single-rigged
+country. S&#8217;long, and keep your hands up
+till I&#8217;m out of range.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you,&#8221; the dude had replied feebly.</p>
+<p>When Smith had ridden for a half a mile he
+had turned to look behind him. The dude was
+still standing with his hands high above his head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder if he&#8217;s there yet?&#8221; The man on
+horseback grinned.</p>
+<p>He reached in the pocket of his mackinaw coat
+and took out a handful of sugar.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can travel longer on it nor anything,&#8221;
+he muttered.</p>
+<p>He congratulated himself that he had filled his
+pocket from the booze-clerk&#8217;s sugar-bowl before the
+mix came. The act was characteristic of him, as
+was the forethought which had sent him to the door
+to pick the best saddle-horse at the hitching-post,
+before the lead began to fly.</p>
+<p>The man suddenly realized that the mist in the
+east was denser, and spreading. He jabbed the
+spurs into his horse and sent the jaded animal
+sliding on its fetlocks down the steep and rocky
+trail that led into the dry bed of a creek which
+in the spring flowed bank high. In the bottom
+he pulled his horse to its haunches and leaned from
+his saddle to look at a foot-print in a little patch
+of smooth sand no larger than his two hands.
+The print had been made by a moccasined foot, and
+recently; otherwise the wind would have wiped it
+out.</p>
+<p>He threw his leg over the cantle of the saddle
+and stepped softly to the ground. Dropping the
+reins, he looked up and down the gulch. Then
+he drew his rifle from the scabbard and began to
+hunt for more tracks. As he searched, his movements
+were no longer those of a white man. His
+pantomime, stealthy, cautious, was the pantomime
+of the Indian. He crept up the gulch to a point
+where it turned sharply. His stealth became the
+stealth of the coyote. In spite of the leather soles
+and exaggerated high heels of the boots he wore
+his movements were absolutely noiseless.</p>
+<p>An Indian of middle age, in blue overalls, moccasins,
+a limp felt hat coming far down over his
+braided hair, a gaily striped blanket drawn about
+his shoulders, stood in an attitude of listening,
+carelessly holding a cheap, single-barrelled shotgun.
+He had heard the horse sliding down the
+trail and was waiting for it to appear on the
+bench above.</p>
+<p>The stranger took in the details of the Indian&#8217;s
+costume, but his eye rested longest upon the gay
+blanket. He might need a blanket with that snow
+in the air. It looked like a good blanket. It
+seemed to be thick and was undoubtedly warm.</p>
+<p>The Indian saw him the instant he rose from
+his hiding-place behind a huge sage-brush.
+Startled, the red man instinctively half raised his
+gun. The stranger gave the sign of attention,
+then, touching his breast and lifting his hand
+slightly, told him in the sign language used by
+all tribes that &#8220;his heart was right&#8221;&mdash;he was a
+friend.</p>
+<p>The Indian hesitated and lowered his gun, but
+did not advance. The stranger then asked him
+where he would find the nearest house, and whether
+it was that of a white or a red man. In swift
+pantomime, the Indian told him that the nearest
+house was the home of a &#8220;full-blood,&#8221; a woman,
+a fat woman, who lived five miles to the southeast,
+in a log cabin, on running water.</p>
+<p>Before he turned to go, the stranger again
+touched his breast and raised his hand above his
+heart to reiterate his friendship. He took a half-dozen
+steps, then whirled on his heel. As he did so,
+he brought his rifle on a line with the Indian&#8217;s
+back, which was toward him. Simultaneously with
+the report, the Indian fell on his back on the side
+of the gulch. He drew up his leg, and the
+stranger, thinking he had raised it for a gun-rest,
+riddled him with bullets.</p>
+<p>The white man&#8217;s bright blue eyes gleamed; the
+pupils were like pin-points. The grin which disclosed
+his protruding teeth was like the snarl of a
+dog before it snaps. The expression of the man&#8217;s
+face was that of animal ferocity, pure and simple.
+He edged up cautiously, but there was no further
+movement from the Indian. He had been dead
+when he fell. The white man gave a short laugh
+when he realized that the raising of the leg had
+been only a muscular contraction. To save the
+blanket from the blood which was soiling it, he
+tore it from the limp, unresisting shoulders, and
+rubbed it in the dirt to obliterate the stain. He
+cursed when he saw that a bullet had torn in it two
+jagged, tell-tale holes.</p>
+<p>He glanced at the Indian&#8217;s moccasins, then,
+stooping, ripped one off. He examined it with interest.
+It was a Cree moccasin. The Indian was
+far from home. He examined the centre seam:
+yes, it was sewed with deer-sinew.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Crees can tan to beat the world,&#8221; he muttered,
+&#8220;but I hates the shape of the Cree moccasin.
+The Piegans make better.&#8221; He tossed it
+from him contemptuously and picked up the shotgun.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No good.&#8221; He threw it down and straightened
+the Indian&#8217;s head with the toe of his boot.
+&#8220;I despises to lie cramped up, myself.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Returning to his horse, he removed his saddle,
+and folded the Indian&#8217;s blanket inside of his own.
+Then he recinched his saddle, and turned his horse&#8217;s
+head to the southeast, where &#8220;the full-blood&mdash;the
+woman, the fat woman&mdash;lived in a log cabin by
+running water.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He glanced over his shoulder as he spurred his
+horse to a gallop.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a killer, me&mdash;Smith,&#8221; he said, and grinned.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='II_ON_THE_ALKALI_HILL' id='II_ON_THE_ALKALI_HILL'></a>
+<h2>II</h2>
+<h3>ON THE ALKALI HILL</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was at least an hour and a half of daylight
+left when Smith struck a wagon-road. He
+looked each way doubtfully. The woman&#8217;s house
+was quite as likely to be to the right as to the
+left; there was no way of telling. While he hesitated,
+his horse lifted its ears. Smith also thought
+he heard voices. Swinging his horse to the right,
+he rode to the edge of the bench where the road
+made a steep and sudden drop.</p>
+<p>At the bottom of the hill he saw a driver on
+the spring-seat of a round-up wagon urging two
+lean-necked and narrow-chested horses up the hill.
+They were smooth-shod, and, the weight of the
+wagon being out of all proportion to their
+strength, they fell often in their futile struggles.
+At the side of the road near the top of the hill
+the water oozed from an alkali spring, which kept
+the road perpetually muddy. The horses were
+straining every nerve and muscle, their eyes bulging
+and nostrils distended, and still the driver, loudmouthed
+and vacuously profane, lashed them mercilessly
+with the stinging thongs of his leather
+whip. Smith, from the top of the hill, watched
+him with a sneer on his face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He drives like a Missourian,&#8221; he muttered.</p>
+<p>He could have helped the troubled driver, knowing
+perfectly well what to do, but it would have
+entailed an effort which he did not care to make.
+It was nothing to him whether the round-up wagon
+got up the hill that night&mdash;or never.</p>
+<p>Smith thought the driver was alone until he
+began to back the team to rush the hill once more.
+Then he heard angry exclamations coming from
+the rear of the wagon&mdash;exclamations which sounded
+not unlike the buzzing of an enraged bumble-bee.
+He stretched his neck and saw that which suggested
+an overgrown hoop-snake rolling down the hill. At
+the bottom a little mud-coated man stood up. The
+part of his face that was visible above his beard
+was pale with anger. His brown eyes gleamed behind
+mud-splashed spectacles.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oscar Tubbs,&#8221; he demanded, &#8220;why did you not
+tell me that you were about to back the wagon?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I would have did it if I had knowed myself
+that the team were goin&#8217; to back,&#8221; replied Tubbs,
+in the conciliatory tone of one who addresses the
+man who pays him his wages.</p>
+<p>The man in spectacles groaned. &#8220;Three inexcusable
+errors in one sentence. Oscar Tubbs, you
+are hopeless!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yep,&#8221; replied that person resignedly; &#8220;nobody
+never could learn me nothin&#8217;. Onct I
+knowed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Stop! We have no time for a reminiscence.
+Have you any reason to believe that we can get
+up this hill to-night?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No chanst of it. These buzzard-heads has
+drawed every poun&#8217; they kin pull. But I has some
+reason to believe that if you don&#8217;t hist your hoofs
+out&#8217;n that mud-hole, you&#8217;ll bog down. You&#8217;re up
+to your pant-leg now. Onct I knowed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>The little man threw out his hand in a restraining
+gesture, and Tubbs, foiled again, closed his
+lips and watched his employer stand back on one
+leg while he pulled the other out of the mud with
+a long, sucking sound.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for an outfit is that, anyhow?&#8221; mused
+Smith, watching the proceedings with some interest.
+&#8220;He looks like one of them bug-hunters. He&#8217;s
+got a pair of shoulders on him like a drink of
+water, and his legs look like the runnin&#8217;-gears
+of a katydid.&#8221;</p>
+<p>So intently were they all engaged in watching
+the man&#8217;s struggles that no one observed a girl
+on a galloping horse until she was almost upon
+them. She sat her sturdy, spirited pony like a
+cowboy. She was about sixteen, with a suggestion
+of boyishness in her appearance. Her brown hair,
+worn in a single braid, was bleached to a lighter
+shade on top, as if she rode always with bared
+head. Her eyes were gray, in curious contrast
+to a tawny skin. She was slight to scrawniness,
+and, one might have thought, insufficiently clad for
+the time of year.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bogged down, pardner?&#8221; she inquired in a
+friendly voice, as she rode up behind and drew
+rein. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been in that soap-hole myself. Here,
+ketch to my pommel, and I&#8217;ll snake you out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smiling dubiously he gripped the pommel. The
+pony had sunk to its knees, and as it leaped to
+free itself the little man&#8217;s legs fairly snapped in
+the air.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thank you, Miss,&#8221; he said, removing his plaid
+travelling cap as he dropped on solid ground.
+&#8220;That was really quite an adventure.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;This mud is like grease,&#8221; said the girl.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Onct I knowed some mud&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; began the
+driver, but the little man, ignoring him, said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are in a dilemma, Miss. Our horses seem
+unable to pull our wagon up the hill. Night is
+almost upon us, and our next camping spot is
+several miles beyond.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is the worst grade in the country,&#8221; replied
+the girl. &#8220;A team that can haul a load up
+here can go anywhere. What&#8217;s the matter with
+that fellow up there? Why don&#8217;t he help?&#8221;&mdash;pointing
+to Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He has made no offer of assistance.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He must be some Scissor-Bill from Missouri.
+They all act like that when they first come out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Onct some Missourians I knowed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oscar Tubbs, if you attempt to relate another
+reminiscence while in my employ, I shall make a
+deduction from your wages. I warn you&mdash;I warn
+you in the presence of this witness. My overwrought
+nerves can endure no more. Between your
+inexpiable English and your inopportune reminiscences,
+I am a nervous wreck!&#8221; The little man&#8217;s
+voice ended on high C.</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right, Doc, suit yourself,&#8221; replied Tubbs,
+temporarily subdued.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And in Heaven&#8217;s name, I entreat, I implore,
+do not call me &#8216;Doc&#8217;!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sorry I spoke, Cap.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The little man threw up both hands in exasperation.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say, Mister,&#8221; said the girl curtly to Tubbs,
+&#8220;if you&#8217;ll take that hundred and seventy pounds
+of yourn off the wagon and get some rocks and
+block the wheels, I guess my cayuse can help
+some.&#8221; As she spoke, she began uncoiling the
+rawhide riata which was tied to her saddle.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I appreciate the kindness of your intentions,
+Miss, but I cannot permit you to put yourself in
+peril.&#8221; The little man was watching her preparations
+with troubled eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No peril at all. It&#8217;s easy. Croppy can pull
+like the devil. Wait till you see him lay down
+on the rope. That yap up there at the top of
+the hill could have done this for you long ago.
+Here, Windy&#8221;&mdash;addressing Tubbs&mdash;&#8220;tie this rope
+to the X, and make a knot that will hold.&#8221;</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<a name='linki_2' id='linki_2'></a>
+<img src='images/img-023.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 323px; height: 489px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 323px;'>
+&#8220;SHE&#8217;S A GAME KID, ALL RIGHT,&#8221; SAID SMITH TO HIMSELF AT THE TOP OF THE HILL.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The girl&#8217;s words and manner inspired confidence.
+Interest and relief were in the face of the little
+man standing at the side of the road.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, Windy, hand me the rope. I&#8217;ll take
+three turns around my saddle-horn, and when I
+say &#8217;go&#8217; you see that your team get down in
+their collars.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a game kid, all right,&#8221; said Smith to
+himself at the top of the hill.</p>
+<p>When the sorrel pony at the head of the team
+felt the rope grow taut on the saddle-horn, it lay
+down to its work. The grit and muscle of a
+dozen horses seemed concentrated in the little cayuse.
+It pulled until every vein and cord in its
+body appeared to stand out beneath its skin. It
+lay down on the rope until its chest almost touched
+the ground. There was a look of determination
+that was almost human in its bright, excited eyes
+as it strained and struggled on the slippery hillside
+with no word of urging from the girl. She
+was standing in one stirrup, one hand on the cantle,
+the other on the pommel, watching everything with
+keen eyes. She issued orders to Tubbs like a general,
+telling him when to block the wheels, when
+to urge the exhausted team to greater efforts,
+when to relax. Nothing escaped her. She and
+the little sorrel knew their work. As the man
+at the roadside watched the gallant little brute
+struggle, literally inch by inch, up the terrible
+grade he felt himself choking with excitement and
+making inarticulate sounds. At last the rear
+wheels of the wagon lurched over the hill and stood
+on level ground, while the horses, with spreading
+legs and heaving sides, gasped for breath.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Awful tired, ain&#8217;t you, Mister?&#8221; the girl asked
+dryly, of the stranger on horseback, as she recoiled
+her rope with supple wrist and tied it again to the
+saddle by the buckskin thongs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Plumb worn to a frazzle,&#8221; Smith replied with
+cool impudence, as he looked her over in much the
+same manner as he would have eyed a heifer on
+the range. &#8220;I was whipped for working when I
+was a boy, and I&#8217;ve always remembered.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It must be quite a ride&mdash;from the brush back
+there in Missouri where you was drug up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ranges on the Sundown slope,&#8221; he replied
+shortly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They have sheep-camps over there, then?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again the slurring insinuation pricked him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I can twist a rope and ride a horse fast
+enough to keep warm.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;So?&#8221;&mdash;the inflection was tantalizing. &#8220;Was
+that horse gentled for your grandmother?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He eyed her angrily, but checked the reply on
+his tongue.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say, girl, can you tell me where I can find that
+fat Injun woman&#8217;s tepee who lives around here?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mean my mother?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked at her with new interest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does she live in a log cabin on a crick?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;She did about an hour ago.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is your mother a widder?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lookin&#8217; for widders?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I likes widders. It happens frequent that widders
+are sociable inclined&mdash;especially if they are
+hard up,&#8221; he added insolently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re ridin&#8217; the grub-line?&#8221; Her insolence
+equalled his own.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not yet;&#8221; and he took from his pocket a thick
+roll of banknotes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blood money? Some sheep-herder&#8217;s month&#8217;s
+pay, I guess.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a good guesser.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not very&mdash;you&#8217;re easy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl&#8217;s dislike for Smith was as unreasoning
+and violent as was her liking for the excitable
+little man whom she had helped up the hill, and
+whose wagon was now rumbling close at her horse&#8217;s
+heels.</p>
+<p>They all travelled together in silence until, after
+a mile and a half on the flat, the road sloped
+gradually toward a creek shadowed by willows. On
+the opposite side of the creek were a ranch-house,
+stables, and corrals, the extent of which brought a
+glint of surprise to Smith&#8217;s eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s where the widder lives who might be
+sociable inclined if she was hard up,&#8221; said the girl,
+with a sneer which made Smith&#8217;s fingers itch to
+choke her. &#8220;Couldn&#8217;t coax you to stop, could I?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I aims to stay,&#8221; Smith replied coolly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure&mdash;it won&#8217;t cost you nothin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The girl waited for the wagon, and, with a
+change of manner in marked contrast to her impudent
+attitude toward Smith, invited the little
+man to spend the night at the ranch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We should not be intruders?&#8221; he asked doubtfully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t feel lonesome,&#8221; she answered with
+a laugh. &#8220;We keep a kind of free hotel.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Colonel, I cakalate we better lay over here,&#8221;
+broke in Tubbs.</p>
+<p>His employer winced at this new title, but nodded
+assent; so they all forded the shallow stream
+and entered the dooryard together.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221; called the girl.</p>
+<p>One of the heavy plank doors of the long log-house
+opened, and a short woman, large-hipped,
+full-busted&mdash;in appearance a typical blanket squaw&mdash;stood
+in the doorway. Her thick hair was
+braided Indian fashion, her fingers adorned with
+many rings. The wide girdle about her waist was
+studded with brass nail-heads, while gaily-beaded
+moccasins covered her short, broad feet. Her eyes
+were soft and luminous, like an animal&#8217;s when it
+is content; but there was savage passion too in
+their dark depths.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is my mother,&#8221; said the girl briefly. &#8220;I
+am Susie MacDonald.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My name is Peter McArthur, madam.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The little man concealed his surprise as best he
+could, and bowed.</p>
+<p>The girl, quick to note his puzzled expression,
+explained laconically:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a breed. My father was a white man.
+You&#8217;re on the reservation when you cross the crick.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Recovering himself, the stranger said politely:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, MacDonald&mdash;that good Scotch name is a
+very familiar one to me. I had an uncle&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I go show dem where to turn de horses,&#8221; interrupted
+the Indian woman, to whom the conversation
+was uninteresting. So, without ceremony,
+she padded away in her moccasins, drawing her
+blanket squaw-fashion across her face as she waddled
+down the path.</p>
+<p>At the mission the woman had obtained the rudiments
+of an education. There, too, she had learned
+to cut and make a dress, after a crude, laborious
+fashion, and had acquired the ways of the white
+people&#8217;s housekeeping. She was noted for the
+acumen which she displayed in disposing of the
+crop from her extensive hay-ranch to the neighboring
+white cattlemen; and MacDonald, the big,
+silent Scotch MacDonald who had come down from
+the north country and married her before the reservation
+priest, was given the credit for having instilled
+into her some of his own shrewdness and
+thrift.</p>
+<p>In the corral the Indian woman came upon Smith.
+He turned his head slowly and looked at her. For
+a second, two, three seconds, or more, they looked
+into each other&#8217;s eyes. His gaze was confident,
+masterful, compelling; hers was wondering, until
+finally she dropped her eyes in the submissive,
+modest, half-shy way of Indian women.</p>
+<p>Smith moistened his short upper lip with the
+tip of his tongue, while the shadow of a smile
+lurked at the corner of his mouth. He turned
+to his saddle, again, and without speaking, she
+watched him until he had gone into the barn. His
+saddle lay on the ground, half covering his blankets.
+Something in this heap caught the woman&#8217;s eyes
+and held them. Swooping forward, she caught a
+protruding corner between her thumb and finger
+and pulled a gay, striped blanket from the rest.
+Lifting it to her nose, she smelled it. Smith saw
+the act as he came out of the door, but there was
+neither consternation nor fear in his face. Smith
+knew Indian women.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='III_THE_EMPTY_CHAIR' id='III_THE_EMPTY_CHAIR'></a>
+<h2>III</h2>
+<h3>THE EMPTY CHAIR</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Peter McArthur came into the big living-room
+of the ranch-house bearing tenderly in his
+arms a long brown sack. He set it upon a chair,
+and, as he patted it affectionately, he said to the
+Indian woman in explanation:</p>
+<p>&#8220;These are some specimens which I have been
+fortunate enough to find in a limestone formation
+in the country through which we have just passed.
+No doubt you will be amused, madam, but the
+wealth of Cr&oelig;sus could not buy from me the contents
+of this canvas sack.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I broke a horse for that son-of-a-gun onct. He
+owes me a dollar and six bits for the job yet,&#8221;
+remarked Tubbs.</p>
+<p>The fire of enthusiasm died in McArthur&#8217;s eyes
+as they rested upon his man.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for a prospect do you aim to open up
+in a limestone formation?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith, tipped on the rear legs of his chair, with
+his head resting comfortably against the unbleached
+muslin sheeting which lined the walls, winked at
+Tubbs as he asked the question.</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;What for a prospect&#8217;?&#8221; repeated McArthur.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, &#8216;prospect&#8217;&mdash;that&#8217;s what I said. You
+say you&#8217;ve got your war-bag full of spec&#8217;mens.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur laughed heartily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, my dear sir, I understand. You are referring
+to mines&mdash;to mineral specimens. These are
+the specimens of which I am speaking.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Opening the sack, McArthur held up for inspection
+what looked to be a lump of dried mud.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is a magnificent specimen of the crustacean
+period,&#8221; he declared.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman looked from the prized object
+to his animated face; then, with puzzled eyes, she
+looked at Smith, who touched his forehead with his
+finger, making a spiral, upward gesture which in
+the sign language says &#8220;crazy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman promptly gathered up the rag rug
+she was braiding and moved to a bench in the farthermost
+corner of the room.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can get you a wagon-load of chunks like
+that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my dear sir&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith&#8217;s my name.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, Mr. Smith&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I trusts no man that &#8217;Misters&#8217; me,&#8221; Smith
+scowled. &#8220;Every time I&#8217;ve ever been beat in a
+deal, it&#8217;s been by some feller that&#8217;s called me
+&#8217;Mister.&#8217; Jest Smith suits me better.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, if you prefer,&#8221; amicably replied
+McArthur, although unenlightened by the explanation.</p>
+<p>He replaced his specimen and tied the sack,
+convinced that it would be useless to explain to
+this person that fossils like this were not found
+by the wagon-load; that perhaps in the entire world
+there was not one in which the branchiocardiac
+grooves were so clearly defined, in which the emostigite
+and the ambulatory legs were so perfectly
+preserved.</p>
+<p>He seemed a singular person, this Smith.
+McArthur was not sure that he fancied him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say, Guv&#8217;ner, what business do you follow,
+anyhow?&#8221; Tubbs asked the question in the tone
+of one who really wanted to get at the bottom
+of a matter which had troubled him. &#8220;Air you a
+bug-hunter by trade, or what? I&#8217;ve hauled you
+around fer more&#8217;n a month now, and ain&#8217;t figgered
+it out what you&#8217;re after. We&#8217;ve dug up ant-hills
+and busted open most of the rocks between here
+and the North Fork of Powder River, but I&#8217;ve
+never seen you git anything yet that anybuddy&#8217;d
+want.&#8221;</p>
+<p>In the beginning of their tour, Tubbs&#8217;s questions
+and caustic comment would have given McArthur
+offense, but a longer acquaintance had taught him
+that none was intended; that his words were merely
+those of a man entirely without knowledge upon
+any subject save those which had come under his
+direct observation. While Tubbs frequently exasperated
+him beyond expression, he found at the
+same time a certain fascination in the man&#8217;s incredible
+ignorance. In many respects his mind
+was like that of a child, and his horizon as narrow
+as McArthur&#8217;s own, though his companion did not
+suspect it. The little scientist saw life from the
+viewpoint of a small college and a New England
+village; Tubbs knew only the sage-brush plains.</p>
+<p>McArthur now replied dryly, but without irritation:</p>
+<p>&#8220;My real trade&mdash;&#8216;job,&#8217; if you prefer&mdash;is anthropology.
+Strictly speaking, I might, I think, be
+called an anthropologist.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gawd, feller!&#8221; ejaculated Smith in mock dismay.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t tip your hand like that. I&#8217;m a
+killer myself, but I plays a lone game. I opens
+up to no man or woman livin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs looked slightly ashamed of his employer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say, never give nobody the cinch on you.
+Many a good man&#8217;s tongue has hung him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur studied Smith&#8217;s unsmiling face in perplexity,
+not at all sure that he was not in earnest.</p>
+<p>They sat in silence after this, even Tubbs being
+too hungry to indulge in reminiscence.</p>
+<p>The odor of frying steak filled the room, and
+the warmth from the round sheet-iron stove gave
+Smith, in particular, a delicious sense of comfort.
+He felt as a cat on a comfortable cushion must
+feel after days and nights of prowling for food
+and shelter. The other two men, occupied with
+their own thoughts, closed their eyes; but not
+so Smith. Nothing, to the smallest detail, escaped
+him. He appraised everything with as perfect an
+appreciation of its value as an auctioneer.</p>
+<p>Through the dining-room door which opened into
+the kitchen, he could see the kitchen range&mdash;a big
+one&mdash;the largest made for private houses. Smith
+liked that. He liked things on a big scale. Besides,
+it denoted generosity, and he had come to regard
+a woman&#8217;s kitchen as an index to her character.
+He distinctly approved of the big meat-platter
+upon which the Chinese cook was piling
+steak. He eyed the mongrel dog lying at the
+Indian woman&#8217;s feet, and noted that its sides were
+distended with food. He was prejudiced against,
+suspicious of, a woman who kept lean dogs.</p>
+<p>In the same impersonal way in which he eyed
+her belongings, he looked at the woman who owned
+it all. She was far too stout to please his taste,
+but he liked her square shoulders and the thickness
+of them; also her hair, which was long for
+an Indian woman&#8217;s. She was too short in the body.
+He wondered if she rode. He had a peculiar aversion
+for women short in the body who rode on
+horseback. This woman could love&mdash;all Indian
+women can do that, as Smith well knew&mdash;love to
+the end, faithfully, like dogs.</p>
+<p>In the general analysis of his surroundings, Smith
+looked at Tubbs, openly sneering as he eyed him.
+He was like a sheep-dog that never had been
+trained. And McArthur? Innocent as a yearling
+calf, and honest as some sky-pilots.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Glub&#8217;s piled!&#8221; yelled the cook from the kitchen
+door. &#8220;Come an&#8217; git it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs all but fell off his chair.</p>
+<p>At the back door the cook hammered on a huge
+iron triangle with a poker, in response to which
+sound a motley half-dozen men filed from a nearby
+bunk-house at a gait very nearly resembling a
+trot.</p>
+<p>The long dining-table was covered with a red
+table-cloth, and at each end piles of bread and
+fried steak rose like monuments. At each place
+there was a platter, and beside it a steel knife,
+a fork, and a tin spoon.</p>
+<p>The bunk-house crowd wasted no time in ceremony.
+Poising their forks above the meat-platter
+in a candid search for the most desirable piece,
+they alternately stabbed chunks of steak and bread.</p>
+<p>Their platters once loaded with a generous
+sample of all the food in sight, they fell upon it
+with unconcealed relish. Eating, McArthur observed,
+was a business; there was no time for the
+amenities of social intercourse until the first pangs
+of hunger were appeased. The Chinese cook, too,
+interested him as he watched him shuffling over the
+hewn plank floor in his straw sandals. A very different
+type, this swaggering Celestial, from the
+furtive-eyed Chinamen of the east. His tightly
+coiled cue was as smooth and shining as a king-snake,
+his loose blouse was immaculate, and the
+flippant voice in which he demanded in each person&#8217;s
+ear, &#8220;Coffee? Milk?&#8221; was like a challenge.
+Whatever the individual&#8217;s choice might be, he got
+it in a torrent in his stone-china cup.</p>
+<p>There was no attempt at conversation, and only
+the clatter and rattle of knives, forks, and dishes
+was heard until a laugh from an adjoining room
+broke the silence&mdash;a laugh that was mirthless, shrill,
+and horrible.</p>
+<p>McArthur sent a startled glance of inquiry about
+the table. The laugh was repeated, and the sound
+was even more wild and maniacal. The little man
+was shocked at the grin which he noted upon each
+face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She ought to take a feather and ile her voice,&#8221;
+observed a guest known as &#8220;Meeteetse Ed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur could not resist saying indignantly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;The unfortunate are to be pitied, my dear sir.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is jest a mild spasm she&#8217;s havin&#8217; now.
+You ought to hear her when she&#8217;s warmed up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur was about to administer a sharper
+rebuke when the door opened and Susie came out.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How&#8217;s that for a screech?&#8221; she demanded
+triumphantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d sure make a bunch of coyotes take fer
+home,&#8221; Meeteetse Ed replied flatteringly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have come in my way not once or twice,
+but thrice; and now you die! Ha! Ha!&#8221; Reaching
+for a spoon, Susie stabbed Meeteetse Ed on
+the second china button of his flannel shirt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d rather die than have you laff in my ear
+like that,&#8221; declared Meeteetse.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Next time I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to learn a comical piece.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Any of &#8217;em&#8217;s comical enough,&#8221; replied a husky
+voice from the far end of the table. &#8220;I broke
+somethin&#8217; inside of me laffin&#8217; at that one about
+your dyin&#8217; child.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care,&#8221; Susie answered, unabashed by
+criticism. &#8220;Teacher says I&#8217;ve got quite a strain
+of pathos in me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought to do somethin&#8217; for it,&#8221; suggested
+a new voice. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you bile up some Oregon
+grape-root? That&#8217;ll take most anything out of
+your blood.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Or go to Warm Springs and get your head
+examined.&#8221; This voice was Smith&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Could they help <i>you</i> any?&#8221; The girl&#8217;s eyes
+narrowed and there was nothing of the previous
+good-natured banter in her shrill tones.</p>
+<p>Smith flushed under the shout of mocking laughter
+which followed. He tried to join in it, but
+the glitter of his blue eyes betrayed his anger.</p>
+<p>The incident sobered the table-full, and silence
+fell once more, until McArthur, feeling that an
+effort toward conversation was a duty he owed his
+hostess, cleared his throat and inquired pleasantly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have any fragments ever been found in that
+red formation which I observed to the left of us,
+which would indicate that this vicinity was once the
+home of the mammoth dinosaur?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Too late he realized that the question was ill-advised.
+As might be expected, it was Tubbs who
+broke the awkward silence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t look to me, as I rid along, that it
+ever were the home of anybuddy. A homestid&#8217;s no
+good if you can&#8217;t git water on it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur hesitated, then explained: &#8220;The
+dinosaur was a prehistoric reptile,&#8221; adding modestly,
+&#8220;I once had the pleasure of helping to
+restore an armored dinosaur.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If ever I gits a rope on one of them things,
+I&#8217;ll box him up and ship him on to you,&#8221; said
+Tubbs generously. Then he inquired as an afterthought:
+&#8220;Would he snap or chaw me up
+a-tall?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s a prehysteric reptile?&#8221; interrupted
+Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This particular reptile was a big snake, with
+feet, that lived here when this country was a
+marsh,&#8221; McArthur explained simply, for Susie&#8217;s
+benefit.</p>
+<p>The guests exchanged incredulous glances, but
+it was Meeteetse Ed who laughed explosively and
+said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Mister, they ain&#8217;t been a sixteenth of
+an inch of standin&#8217; water on this hull reserve in
+twenty year.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Better haul in your horns, feller, when you&#8217;re
+talkin&#8217; to a real prairie man.&#8221; Smith&#8217;s contemptuous
+tone nettled McArthur, but Susie retorted
+for him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Feller,&#8221; mocked Susie, &#8220;looks like you&#8217;re
+mixed. You mean when he&#8217;s talkin&#8217; to a Yellow-back.
+No real prairie man packs a chip on his
+shoulder all the time. That buttermilk you was
+raised on back there in Missoury has soured you
+some.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Again an angry flush betrayed Smith&#8217;s feeling.</p>
+<p>&#8220;A Yellow-back,&#8221; Susie explained with gusto in
+response to McArthur&#8217;s puzzled look, &#8220;is one of
+these ducks that reads books with buckskin-colored
+covers, until he gets to thinkin&#8217; that he&#8217;s a Bad
+Man himself. This here country is all tunnelled
+over with the graves of Yellow-backs what couldn&#8217;t
+make their bluffs stick; fellers that just knew
+enough to start rows and couldn&#8217;t see &#8217;em
+through.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Generally,&#8221; said Smith evenly, as he stared
+unblinkingly into Susie&#8217;s eyes, &#8220;when I starts
+rows, I sees &#8217;em through.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And any time,&#8221; Susie answered, staring back
+at him, &#8220;that you start a row on <i>this</i> ranch,
+you&#8217;ve <i>got</i> to see it through.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The grub-liners raised their eyes in surprise, for
+there was unmistakable ill-feeling in her voice. It
+was unlike her, this antagonistic attitude toward
+a stranger, for, as they all knew, her hospitality
+was unlimited, and every passer-by whose horse
+fed at the big hayrack was regarded and treated as
+a welcome friend.</p>
+<p>There was rarely malice behind the sharp personalities
+which she flung at random about the
+table. Knowing no social distinctions, Susie was
+no respecter of persons. She chaffed and flouted
+the man who wintered a thousand head of cattle
+with the same impartiality with which she gibed
+his blushing cowpuncher. Her good-nature was a
+byword, as were her generosity and boyish daring.
+Susie MacDonald was a local celebrity in
+her way, and on the big hay-ranch her lightest
+word was law.</p>
+<p>But the mere presence of this new-comer seemed
+to fill her with resentment, making of her an irrepressible
+young shrew who gloated openly in his
+angry confusion.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Speakin&#8217; of Yellow-backs,&#8221; said Meeteetse, with
+the candid intent of being tactful, &#8220;reminds me
+of a song a pardner of mine wrote up about &#8217;em
+once. Comical? <i>T&#8217;&mdash;t&#8217;&mdash;t&#8217;&mdash;!</i>&#8221; He wagged his
+head as if he had no words in which to describe
+its incomparable humor. &#8220;He had another song
+that was a reg&#8217;lar tear-starter: &#8216;Whar the Silver
+Colorady Wends Its Way.&#8217; Ever hear it? It&#8217;s
+about a feller that buried his wife by the silver
+Colorady, and turned outlaw. This pardner of
+mine used to beller every time he sung it. He
+cried like he was a Mormon, and he hadn&#8217;t no
+more wife than a jack rabbit.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Some songs is touchin&#8217;,&#8221; agreed Arkansaw
+Red.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This was,&#8221; declared Meeteetse. &#8220;How she
+faded day by day, till a pale, white corp&#8217; she lay!
+If I hadn&#8217;t got this cold on me&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hate to see you sufferin&#8217;, Meeteetse, but if it
+keeps you from warblin&#8217;&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>He ignored Susie&#8217;s implication, and went on
+serenely:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like it&#8217;s settled on me for life, and it
+all comes of tryin&#8217; not to be a hog.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope it&#8217;ll be a lesson to you,&#8221; said Susie
+soberly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That there Bar C cowpuncher, Babe, comes
+over the other night, and, the bunk-house bein&#8217;
+full, I offers him half my blankets. I never put
+in such a night since I froze to death on South
+Pass. For fair, I&#8217;d ruther sleep with a two-year-ole
+steer&mdash;couldn&#8217;t kick no worse than that Babe.
+Why them blankets was in the air more&#8217;n half the
+time, with him pullin&#8217; his way, and me snatchin&#8217;
+of &#8217;em back. Finally I gits a corner of a soogan
+in my teeth, and that way I manages a little sleep.
+I vows I&#8217;d ruther be a hog and git a night&#8217;s rest
+than take in such a turrible bed-feller as him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Apropos of the restless Babe, one James Padden
+observed: &#8220;They say he&#8217;s licked more&#8217;n half the
+Bar C outfit.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lick &#8217;em!&#8221; exclaimed Meeteetse, with enthusiasm.
+&#8220;Why, he could eat &#8217;em! He jest tapped
+me an easy one and nigh busted my jaw. If he
+ever reely hit you with that fist of his&#8217;n, it ud sink
+in up to the elbow. I ast him once: &#8217;Babe,&#8217; I
+says, &#8216;how big are you anyhow?&#8217; &#8216;Big?&#8217; he
+says surprised. &#8216;I ain&#8217;t big. I&#8217;m the runt of the
+family. Pa was thirty-two inches between the eyes,
+and they fed him with a shovel.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie giggled at some thought, and then inquired:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did anybody ever see that horse he&#8217;s huntin&#8217;?
+He says it&#8217;s a two-year-old filly that he thinks
+the world of. It&#8217;s brown, with a star in its forehead,
+and one hip is knocked down. He never
+hunts anywhere except on that road past the
+school-house, and he stops at the pump each way&mdash;goin&#8217;
+and comin&#8217;. I never saw anybody with such
+a thirst. He looks in the window while he&#8217;s drinkin&#8217;,
+and swallows a gallon of water at a time, and
+don&#8217;t know it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Love is a turrible disease.&#8221; Tubbs spoke with
+the emphasis of conviction. &#8220;It&#8217;s worse&#8217;n lump-jaw
+er blackleg. It&#8217;s dum nigh as bad as glanders.
+It&#8217;s ketchin&#8217;, too, and I holds that anybody that&#8217;s
+got it bad ought to be dipped and quarantined.
+I knowed a feller over in Judith Basin what suffered
+agonies with it for two months, then shot
+hisself. There was seven of &#8217;em tyin&#8217; their horses
+to the same Schoolmarm&#8217;s hitchin&#8217;-post.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take a long-geared Schoolmarm in a woolly
+Tam-o&#8217;-shanter, and she&#8217;s a reg&#8217;lar storm-centre,&#8221;
+vouchsafed the husky voice of &#8220;Banjo&#8221; Johnson.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They is! They is!&#8221; declared Meeteetse, with
+more feeling than the occasion seemed to warrant.</p>
+<p>The knob of a door adjoining the dining-room
+turned, and the grub-liners straightened in their
+chairs. Susie&#8217;s eyes danced with mischief as she
+leaned toward Meeteetse and asked innocently:</p>
+<p>&#8220;They is <i>what</i>?&#8221;</p>
+<p>But with the opening of the door the voluble
+Meeteetse seemed to be stricken dumb.</p>
+<p>As a young woman came out, Smith stared, and
+instinctively McArthur half rose from his chair.
+Believing his employer contemplated flight, Tubbs
+laid a restraining hand upon his coat-tail, while
+inadvertently he turned his knife in his mouth with
+painful results.</p>
+<p>The young woman who seated herself in one of
+the two unoccupied chairs was not of the far West.
+Her complexion alone testified to this fact, for
+the fineness and whiteness of it were conspicuous
+in a country where the winter&#8217;s wind and burning
+suns of summer tan the skins of men and women
+alike until they resemble leather in color and in
+texture. Had this young woman possessed no
+other good feature, her markedly fine complexion
+alone would have saved her from plainness. But
+her thick brown hair, glossy, and growing prettily
+about her temples, was equally attractive to the
+men who had been used to seeing only the straight,
+black hair of the Indian women, and Susie&#8217;s sun-bleached
+pigtail, which, as Meeteetse took frequent
+occasion to remind her, looked like a hair-cinch.
+Her eyes, set rather too far apart for beauty,
+were round, with pupils which dilated until they
+all but covered the blue iris; the eyes of an emotional
+nature, an imaginative mind. Her other
+features, though delicate, were not exceptional, but
+the <i>tout ensemble</i> was such that her looks would
+have been considered above the average even in a
+country where pretty girls were plentiful. In her
+present surroundings, and by contrast with the
+womenfolk about her, she was regarded as the
+most beautiful of her sex. Her manner, reserved
+to the point of stiffness, and paralyzing, as it
+did, the glibbest masculine tongue among them, was
+also looked upon as the acme of perfection and
+all that was desirable in young ladyhood; each
+individual humbly admitting that while he never
+before had met a real lady, he knew one when he
+saw her.</p>
+<p>The young woman returned McArthur&#8217;s bow
+with a friendly smile, his action having at once
+placed him as being &#8220;different.&#8221; Noting the fact,
+the grub-liners resolved not to be outdone in
+future in a mere matter of bows.</p>
+<p>While nearly every arm was outstretched with an
+offer of food, Susie leaned forward and whispered
+ostentatiously behind her hand to Smith:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you make any cracks. That&#8217;s the
+Schoolmarm.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been around the world some,&#8221; Smith replied
+curtly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The south side of Billings ain&#8217;t the world.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was only a random shot, as she did not know
+Billings or any other town save by hearsay, but
+it made a bull&#8217;s-eye. Susie knew it by the startled
+look which she surprised from him, and Smith
+could have throttled her as she snickered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mister McArthur and Mister Tubbs, I&#8217;ll make
+you acquainted with Miss Marshall.&#8221;</p>
+<p>With elaborate formality of tone and manner,
+Susie pointed at each individual with her fork while
+mentioning them by name.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Miss Marshall,&#8221; McArthur murmured, again
+half rising.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Much obliged to meet you,&#8221; said Tubbs
+heartily as, bowing in imitation of his employer,
+he caught the edge of his plate on the band of
+his trousers and upset it.</p>
+<p>Everybody stopped eating during this important
+ceremony, and now all looked at Smith to
+see what form his acknowledgment of the coveted
+introduction to the Schoolmarm would take.</p>
+<p>Smith in turn looked expectantly at Susie, who
+met his eyes with a mocking grin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Anything I can reach for you, Mister Smith?&#8221;
+she inquired. &#8220;Looks like you&#8217;re waitin&#8217; for something.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s face and the red table-cloth were much
+the same shade as he looked annihilation at the
+little half-breed imp.</p>
+<p>Each time that Dora Marshall raised her eyes,
+they met those of Smith. There was nothing of
+impertinence in his stare; it was more of awe&mdash;a
+kind of fascinated wonder&mdash;and she found herself
+speculating as to who and what he was. He
+was not a regular &#8220;grub-liner,&#8221; she was sure
+of that, for he was as different in his way as
+McArthur. He had a personality, not exactly
+pleasant, but unique. Though he was not uncommonly
+tall, his shoulders were thick and broad,
+giving the impression of great strength. His jaw
+was square, but it evidenced brutality rather than
+determination. His nose, in contrast to the intelligence
+denoted by his high, broad forehead, was
+mediocre, inconsequential, the kind of a nose seldom
+seen on the person who achieves. The two features
+were those of the man who conceives big things,
+yet lacks the force to execute them.</p>
+<p>His eyes were unpleasantly bloodshot, but
+whether from drink or the alkali dust of the desert,
+it was impossible to determine; and when Susie
+prodded him they had in them all the vicious meanness
+of an outlaw bronco. His expression then
+held nothing but sullen vindictiveness, while every
+trait of a surly nature was suggested by his voice
+and manner.</p>
+<p>During the Schoolmarm&#8217;s covert study of him,
+he laughed unexpectedly at one of Meeteetse Ed&#8217;s
+sallies. The effect was little short of marvellous;
+it completely transformed him. An unlooked-for
+dimple deepened in one cheek, his eyes sparkled,
+his entire countenance radiated for a moment a
+kind of boyish good-nature which was indescribably
+winning. In the brief space, whatever virtues he
+possessed were as vividly depicted upon his face
+as were his unpleasant characteristics when he was
+displeased. So marked, indeed, was his changed
+expression, that Susie burst out with her usual
+candor as she eyed him:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mister, you ought to laugh all the time.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Contributing but little toward the conversation,
+and that little chiefly in the nature of flings at
+Susie, Smith was yet the dominant figure at the
+table. While he antagonized, he interested, and
+although his insolence was no match for Susie&#8217;s
+self-assured impudence, he still impressed his individuality
+upon every person present.</p>
+<p>He was studied by other eyes than Dora&#8217;s and
+Susie&#8217;s. Not one of the looks which he had given
+the former had escaped the Indian woman. With
+the Schoolmarm&#8217;s coming, she had seen herself ignored,
+and her face had grown as sullen as Smith&#8217;s
+own, while the smouldering glow in her dark eyes
+betrayed jealous resentment.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have a cookie?&#8221; urged Susie hospitably,
+thrusting a plate toward Tubbs. &#8220;Ling makes
+these &#8217;specially for White Antelope.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, thanks, I&#8217;ve et hearty,&#8221; declared Tubbs,
+while McArthur shuddered. &#8220;I&#8217;ve had thousands.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, where is White Antelope?&#8221; Susie looked
+in surprise at the vacant chair, and asked the
+question of her mother.</p>
+<p>Involuntarily Smith&#8217;s eyes and those of the
+Indian woman met. He read correctly all that
+they contained, but he did not remove his own
+until her eyelids slowly dropped, and with a peculiar
+doggedness she drawled:</p>
+<p>&#8220;He go way for l&#8217;il visit; &#8217;bout two, t&#8217;ree sleeps
+maybe.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='IV_A_SWAP_IN_SADDLE_BLANKETS' id='IV_A_SWAP_IN_SADDLE_BLANKETS'></a>
+<h2>IV</h2>
+<h3>A SWAP IN SADDLE BLANKETS</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said McArthur, intercepting the
+Indian woman the next morning while she was on
+her way from the spring with a heavy pail, &#8220;I
+cannot permit you to carry water when I am
+here to do it for you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>In spite of her surprised protest, he gently took
+the bucket from her hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look at that dude,&#8221; said Smith contemptuously,
+viewing the incident through the living-room
+window. &#8220;Queerin&#8217; hisself right along. No
+more <i>sabe</i> than a cotton-tail rabbit. That&#8217;s the
+worse thing he could do. Feller&#8221;&mdash;turning to
+Tubbs&mdash;&#8220;if you want to make a winnin&#8217; with a
+woman, you never want to fetch and carry for
+her.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I knows it,&#8221; acquiesced Tubbs. &#8220;Onct I was
+a reg&#8217;lar doormat fer one, and I only got stomped
+on fer it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can wrangle Injuns to a fare-ye-well,&#8221; Smith
+continued. &#8220;Over on the Blackfoot I was the
+most notorious Injun wrangler that ever jumped
+up; and, feller, on the square, I never run an
+errant for one in my life.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s wrong,&#8221; agreed Tubbs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s that dude tryin&#8217; to make a stand-in,
+and spilin&#8217; his own game all the time by talkin&#8217;.
+You can&#8217;t say he talks, neither; he just opens
+his mouth and lets it say what it damn pleases.
+Is them real words he gets off, or does he make
+&#8217;em up as he goes along?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Search me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tip you off, feller: if ever you want to
+make a strong play at an Injun woman, you don&#8217;t
+want to shoot off your mouth none. Keep still
+and move around just so, and pretty soon she&#8217;ll
+throw you the sign. Did you ever notice a dog
+trottin&#8217; down the street, passin&#8217; everybody up till
+all to once it takes a sniff, turns around, and
+follers some feller off? That&#8217;s an Injun woman.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never had no luck with squaws, and the likes
+o&#8217; that,&#8221; Tubbs confessed. &#8220;They&#8217;re turrible
+hands to git off together and poke fun at you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>As McArthur and the Indian woman came in
+from the kitchen, he was saying earnestly to her:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel sure that here, madam, I should entirely
+recover my health. Besides, this locality seems
+to me such a fertile field for research that if you
+could possibly accommodate my man and me with
+board, you may not be conferring a favor only
+upon me, but indirectly, perhaps, upon the world
+of science. I have with me my own bath-tub and
+pneumatic mattress.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs, seeing the Indian woman&#8217;s puzzled expression,
+explained:</p>
+<p>&#8220;He means we&#8217;ll sleep ourselves if you will eat
+us.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you can stay. I no care.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith frowned; but McArthur, much pleased
+by her assent, told Tubbs to saddle a horse at
+once, that he might lose no time in beginning his
+investigations.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If it were my good fortune to unearth a
+cranium of the Homo primogenus, I should be the
+happiest man in the world,&#8221; declared McArthur,
+clasping his fingers in ecstasy at the thought of
+such unparalleled bliss.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What did I tell you?&#8221; said Smith, accompanying
+Tubbs to the corral. &#8220;He&#8217;s tryin&#8217; to win
+himself a home.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks that way,&#8221; Tubbs agreed. &#8220;These here
+bug-hunters is deep.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The saddle blanket which Tubbs pulled from
+their wagon and threw upon the ground, with
+McArthur&#8217;s saddle, caught Smith&#8217;s eye instantly,
+because of the similarity in color and markings to
+that which he had folded so carefully inside his
+own. This was newer, it had no disfiguring holes,
+or black stain in the corner.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the use of takin&#8217; chances?&#8221; he asked
+himself as he looked it over.</p>
+<p>While Tubbs was catching the horse in the corral,
+Smith deftly exchanged blankets, and Tubbs,
+to whom most saddle blankets looked alike, did not
+detect the difference.</p>
+<p>Upon returning to the house, Smith found the
+Indian woman wiping breakfast dishes for the
+cook. She came into the living-room when he
+beckoned to her, with the towel in her hand. Taking
+it from her, he wadded it up and threw it back
+into the kitchen.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you know any better not to spoil a
+cook like that, woman?&#8221; he asked, smiling down
+upon her. &#8220;You never want to touch a dish for
+a cook. Row with &#8217;em, work &#8217;em over, keep &#8217;em
+down&mdash;but don&#8217;t humor &#8217;em. You can&#8217;t treat a
+cook like a real man. Ev&#8217;ry reg&#8217;lar cook has
+a screw loose or he wouldn&#8217;t be a cook. Cookin&#8217;
+ain&#8217;t no man&#8217;s job. I never had no use for reg&#8217;lar
+cooks&mdash;me, Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;All you women need ribbing up once in awhile,&#8221;
+he added, as, laying his hand lightly on her arm,
+he let it slide its length until it touched her fingers.
+He gave them a gentle pressure and resumed his
+seat against the wall.</p>
+<p>The woman&#8217;s eyes glowed as she looked at him.
+His authoritative attitude appealed to her whose
+ancestors had dressed game, tanned hides, and
+dragged wood for their masters for countless generations.
+The growing passion in her eyes did
+not escape Smith.</p>
+<p>In the long silence which followed he looked at
+her steadily; finally he said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I guess I&#8217;ll saddle up. You look &#8216;just
+so&#8217; to me, woman&mdash;but I got to go.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She laid down the rags of her mat and &#8220;threw
+him the sign&#8221; for which he had waited. It said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;My heart is high; it is good toward you. Talk
+to me&mdash;talk straight.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He shook his head sadly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no, Singing Bird; I am headed for the
+Mexican border&mdash;many, many sleeps from here.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She arose and walked to his side.</p>
+<p>He felt a sudden and violent dislike for her
+flabby, swaying hips, her heavy step, as she moved
+toward him. He knew that the game was won,
+and won so easily it was a school-boy&#8217;s play.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why you go?&#8221; she demanded, and the disappointment
+in her eyes was so intense as to resemble
+fear. &#8220;What you do dere?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked at her through half-closed eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you ever hear of wet horses?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I deals in wet horses&mdash;me, Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman stared at him uncomprehendingly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Down there on the border,&#8221; he explained, &#8220;you
+buy the horses on the Mexico side. You buy &#8217;em
+when the Mexican boss is asleep in his &#8217;dobe, so
+there&#8217;s no kick about the price. You swim &#8217;em
+across the Rio Grande and sell &#8217;em to the Americano
+waitin&#8217; on the other side.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You buy de wet horse?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, by Gawd,&mdash;I wet &#8217;em!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why you steal?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked at her contemptuously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why does anybody steal? I need the dinero&mdash;me,
+Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You want money?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He laughed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I always want money. I never had enough
+but once in my life, and then I had too much.
+Gold is hell to pack,&#8221; he added reminiscently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have de fine hay-ranch, white man, de best
+on de reservation. Two, four t&#8217;ousand dollars I
+have when de hay is sold. De ranch is big&#8221;&mdash;her
+arms swept the horizon to show its extent.
+&#8220;You stay here and make de bargain with de
+cattlemen, and I give you so much&#8221;&mdash;she measured
+a third of her hand with her forefinger.
+&#8220;If dat is not enough, I give you so much&#8221;&mdash;she
+measured the half of her hand with her forefinger.
+&#8220;If dat not enough, I give you all.&#8221; She swept
+the palm of one hand with the other.</p>
+<p>Smith dropped his eyelids, that she might not see
+the triumph shining beneath them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must think, Prairie Flower.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, white man, you no think. You stay!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith, who had arisen, slipped his arm about her
+ample waist. She pulled aside his Mackinaw coat
+and laid her head upon his breast.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The white man&#8217;s heart is strong,&#8221; she said
+softly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It beats for you, Little Fawn;&#8221; and he ran
+out his tongue in derision.</p>
+<p>All the morning she sat on the floor at his
+feet, braiding the rags for her mat, content to
+hear him speak occasionally, and to look often into
+his face with dog-like devotion. It was there Susie
+saw her when she returned from school earlier in
+the afternoon than usual, and was beckoned into
+the kitchen by Ling.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s makin&#8217; a mash,&#8221; said Ling laconically,
+as he jerked his thumb toward the open door of
+the living-room.</p>
+<p>All the girlish vivacity seemed to go out of
+Susie&#8217;s face in her first swift glance. It hardened
+in mingled shame and anger.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother,&#8221; she said sharply, &#8220;you promised me
+that you wouldn&#8217;t sit on the floor like an Injun.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re gettin&#8217; sociable,&#8221; said Smith mockingly.</p>
+<p>The woman glanced at Smith, and hesitated,
+but finally got up and seated herself on the bench.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you try bein&#8217; &#8217;sociable&#8217; with the
+Schoolmarm?&#8221; Susie sneered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe I will.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And <i>maybe</i> you won&#8217;t get passed up like a
+white chip!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I dunno. I&#8217;ve made some winnings.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can tell that by your eyes. You got &#8217;em
+bloodshot, I reckon, hangin&#8217; over the fire in squaw
+camps. White men can&#8217;t stand smoke like Injuns.&#8221;</p>
+<p>This needle-tongued girl jabbed the truth into
+him in a way which maddened him, but he said
+conciliatingly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to quarrel, kid.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mean <i>you</i> don&#8217;t.&#8221; Susie slammed the
+door behind her.</p>
+<p>The child&#8217;s taunt reawakened his interest in the
+Schoolmarm. He thought of her riding home
+alone, and grew restless. Besides, the dulness began
+to bore him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll saddle up, Prairie Flower, and look over
+the ranch. When I come back I&#8217;ll let you know
+if it&#8217;s worth my while to stay.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs was sitting on the wagon-tongue, mending
+harness, when Smith went out,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aimin&#8217; to quit the flat?&#8221; inquired Tubbs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Feller, didn&#8217;t that habit of askin&#8217; questions
+ever git you in trouble?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well I guess <i>so</i>,&#8221; Tubbs replied candidly.
+&#8220;See that scar under my eye?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d invite you along to tell me about it,&#8221; said
+Smith sardonically, &#8220;only, the fact is, feller, I&#8217;m
+goin&#8217; down the road to make medicine with the
+Schoolmarm.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs&#8217;s eyes widened.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gosh!&#8221; he ejaculated enviously. &#8220;I wisht I
+had your gall.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Before Smith swung into the saddle he pulled
+out a heavy silver watch attached to a hair watch-chain.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just the right time,&#8221; he nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Huh?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say, if it was only two o&#8217;clock, or three, I
+wouldn&#8217;t go.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You wouldn&#8217;t? I&#8217;ll tell you about me: I&#8217;d
+go if it was twelve o&#8217;clock at night and twenty
+below zero to ride home with that lady.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Feller,&#8221; said Smith, in a paternal tone, &#8220;you
+never want to make a break at a woman before four
+o&#8217;clock in the afternoon. You might just as well
+go and lay down under a bush in the shade from
+a little after daylight until about this time. You
+wouldn&#8217;t hunt deer or elk in the middle of the
+day, would you? No, nor women&mdash;all same kind
+of huntin&#8217;. They&#8217;ll turn you down sure; white or
+red&mdash;no difference.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is that so?&#8221; said Tubbs, in the awed voice
+of one who sits at the feet of a master.</p>
+<p>&#8220;When the moon&#8217;s out and the lamps are lit,
+they&#8217;ll empty their sack and tell you the story of
+their lives. I don&#8217;t want to toot my horn none, but
+I&#8217;ve wrangled around some. I&#8217;ve hunted big game
+and humans. Their habits, feller, is much the same.&#8221;</p>
+<p>While Smith was galloping down the road
+toward the school-house, Susie was returning from
+a survey of the surrounding country, which was to
+be had from a knoll near the house.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother,&#8221; she said abruptly, &#8220;I feel queer
+here.&#8221; She laid both hands on her flat, childish
+breast and hunched her shoulders. &#8220;I feel like
+something is goin&#8217; to happen.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What happen, you think?&#8221; her mother asked
+listlessly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s something about White Antelope, I
+know.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman looked up quickly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He go visit Bear Chief, maybe.&#8221; There was
+an odd note in her voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He wouldn&#8217;t go away and stay like this without
+telling you or me. He never did before. He
+knows I would worry; besides, he didn&#8217;t take a
+horse, and he never would walk ten miles when
+there are horses to ride. His gun isn&#8217;t here, so he
+must have gone hunting, but he wouldn&#8217;t stay all
+night hunting rabbits; and he couldn&#8217;t be lost,
+when he knows the country as well as you or me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He go to visit,&#8221; the Indian woman insisted
+doggedly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If he isn&#8217;t home to-morrow, I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to hunt
+him, but I know something&#8217;s wrong.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='V_SMITH_MAKES_MEDICINE_WITH_THE_SCHOOLMARM' id='V_SMITH_MAKES_MEDICINE_WITH_THE_SCHOOLMARM'></a>
+<h2>V</h2>
+<h3>SMITH MAKES MEDICINE WITH THE SCHOOLMARM</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Once out of sight of the house, Smith let
+his horse take its own gait, while he viewed the
+surrounding country with the thoughtful consideration
+of a prospective purchaser. As he gazed,
+its possibilities grew upon him. If water was to
+be found somewhere in the Bad Lands the location
+of the ranch was ideal for&mdash;certain purposes.</p>
+<p>The Bar C cattle-range bounded the reservation
+on the west; the MacDonald ranch, as it was
+still called, after the astute Scotch squawman who
+had built it, was close to the reservation line; and
+beyond the sheltering Bad Lands to the northeast
+was a ranch where lived certain friendly persons
+with whom he had had most satisfactory business
+relations in the past.</p>
+<p>A plan began to take definite shape in his active
+brain, but the head of a sleepy white pony appearing
+above the next rise temporarily changed the
+course of his thoughts, and with his recognition
+of its rider life took on an added zest.</p>
+<p>Dora Marshall, engrossed in thought, did not
+see Smith until he pulled his hat-brim in salutation
+and said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a thinker, I take it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I find my work here absorbing,&#8221; she replied,
+coloring under his steady look.</p>
+<p>He turned his horse and swung it into the road
+beside her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was just millin&#8217; around and thought I&#8217;d
+ride down the road and meet you.&#8221; Further than
+this brief explanation, he did not seem to feel
+it incumbent upon him to make conversation.
+Apparently entirely at his ease in the silence which
+followed, he turned his head often and stared at
+her with a frank interest which he made no effort
+to conceal. Finally he shifted his weight to one
+stirrup and, turning in his saddle so that he faced
+her, he asked bluntly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;That look in your eyes&mdash;that look as if you
+hadn&#8217;t nothin&#8217; to hide&mdash;is it true? Is it natural,
+as you might say, or do you just put it on?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her astonished expression led him to explain.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like lookin&#8217; down deep into water that&#8217;s
+so clear you can see the sand shinin&#8217; in the bottom;
+one of these places where there&#8217;s no mud or black
+spots; nothin&#8217; you can&#8217;t see or understand. <i>Sabe</i>
+what I mean?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Since she did not answer, he continued:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve met up with women before now that had
+that same look, but only at first. It didn&#8217;t last;
+they could put it on and take it off like they did
+their hats.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know that I am quite sure what you
+mean,&#8221; the girl replied, embarrassed by the personal
+nature of his questions and comments; &#8220;but
+if you mean to imply that I affect this or that
+expression, for a purpose, you misjudge me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was just askin&#8217;,&#8221; said Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think I am always honest of purpose,&#8221; the
+girl went on slowly, &#8220;and when one is that, I
+think it shows in one&#8217;s eyes. To be sure, I often
+fall short of my intentions. I mean to do right,
+and almost as frequently do wrong.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You do?&#8221; He eyed her with quick intentness.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, don&#8217;t you? Don&#8217;t all of us?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I does what I aims to do,&#8221; he replied ambiguously.</p>
+<p>So she&mdash;this girl with eyes like two deep springs&mdash;did
+wrong&mdash;frequently. He pondered the admission
+for a long time. Smith&#8217;s exact ideas of
+right and wrong would have been difficult to define;
+the dividing line, if there were any, was so vague
+that it had never served as the slightest restraint.
+&#8220;To do what you aim to do, and make a clean
+get-away&#8221;&mdash;that was the successful life.</p>
+<p>He had seen things, it is true; there had been
+incidents and situations which had repelled him,
+but why, he had never asked himself. There was
+one situation in particular to which his mind frequently
+reverted, as it did now. He had known
+worse women than the one who had figured in it,
+but for some reason this single scene was impressed
+upon his mind with a vividness which seemed never
+to grow less.</p>
+<p>He saw a woman seated at an old-fashioned
+organ in a country parlor. There was a rag-carpet
+on the floor&mdash;he remembered how springy
+it was with the freshly laid straw underneath it.
+Her husband held a lamp that she might see the
+notes, while his other hand was upon her shoulder,
+his adoring eyes upon her silly face. He, Smith, was
+rocking in the blue plush chair for which the fool
+with the calloused hands had done extra work that
+he might give it to the woman upon her birthday.
+Each time that she screeched the refrain, &#8220;Love,
+I will love you always,&#8221; she lifted her chin to
+sing it to the man beaming down upon her, while
+upstairs her trunk was packed to desert him.</p>
+<p>Smith always remembered with satisfaction that
+he had left her in Red Lodge with only the price
+of a telegram to her husband, in her shabby purse.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I like your style, girl.&#8221; His eyes swept Dora
+Marshall&#8217;s figure as he spoke.</p>
+<p>There was a difference in his tone, a familiarity
+in his glance, which sent the color flying to the
+Schoolmarm&#8217;s cheeks.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think we could hit it off&mdash;you and me&mdash;if we
+got sociable.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He leaned toward her and laid his gloved hand
+upon hers as it rested on the saddle-horn.</p>
+<p>The pupils of her eyes dilated until they all but
+covered the iris as she turned them, blazing, upon
+Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just what do you mean by that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>There was no mistaking the genuineness nor the
+nature of the emotion which made her voice vibrate.
+But Smith considered. Was she deeper&mdash;&#8220;slicker,&#8221;
+as he phrased it to himself&mdash;than he had thought,
+or had he really misunderstood her? Surprising as
+was the feeling, he hoped some way, that it was
+the latter. He looked at her again before he
+answered gently:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t mean to make you hot none, Miss.
+I&#8217;m ignorant in handlin&#8217; words. I only meant to
+say that I hoped you and me would be good
+friends.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His explanation cleared her face instantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry if I misunderstood you; but one
+or two unpleasant experiences in this country have
+made me quick&mdash;too quick, perhaps&mdash;to take
+offense.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s lots just lookin&#8217; for game like you.
+No better nor brutes,&#8221; said Smith virtuously, entirely
+sincere in his sudden indignation against
+these licentious characters.</p>
+<p>Yes, the Schoolmarm had rebuffed him, as Susie
+had prophesied, but the effect of it upon him was
+such as neither he nor she had reckoned. As they
+rode along a swift, overpowering infatuation for
+Dora Marshall grew upon him. He felt something
+like a flame rising within him, burning him, bewildering
+him with its intensity. She seemed all at
+once to possess every attribute of the angels,
+from mere prettiness her face took on a radiant
+beauty which dazzled him, and when she spoke her
+lightest word held him breathless. As the mountain
+towers above the foothills, so, of a sudden,
+she towered above all other women. He had known
+sensations&mdash;all, he had believed, that it was possible
+to experience; but this one, strange, overwhelming,
+dazed him with its violence.</p>
+<p>Love frequently comes like this to people in
+the wilds, to those who have few interests and
+much time to think. The emotional side of their
+natures has been held in check until a trifle is
+sometimes sufficient to loose a torrent which nothing
+can then divert or check.</p>
+<p>She asked him to loop her latigo, which was
+trailing, and his hand shook as he fumbled with
+the leather strap.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gawd!&#8221; he swore in bewilderment as he returned
+to his own horse, wiping his forehead with
+the back of his gauntlet, &#8220;what feelin&#8217; is this
+workin&#8217; on me? Am I gettin&#8217; locoed, me&mdash;Smith?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad I&#8217;ve found a friend like you,&#8221; said
+the Schoolmarm impulsively. &#8220;One needs friends
+in a country like this.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;A friend!&#8221; It sounded like a jest to Smith.
+&#8220;A friend!&#8221; he repeated with an odd laugh.
+Then he raised his hand, as one takes an oath, and
+whatever of whiteness was left in Smith&#8217;s soul
+illumined his face as he added: &#8220;Yes, to a killin&#8217;
+finish.&#8221;</p>
+<p>If Smith had met Dora among many, the result
+might have been the same in the end, but here,
+in the isolation, she seemed from the first the centre
+of everything, the alpha and omega of the universe,
+and his passion for her was as great as though
+it were the growth of many months instead of less
+than twenty-four hours. The depth, the breadth,
+of it could not quickly be determined, nor the
+lengths to which it would take him. It was something
+new to be reckoned with. To what extent
+it would control him, neither Smith nor any one
+else could have told. He knew only that it now
+seemed the most real, the most sincere, the best
+thing which had ever come into his life.</p>
+<p>Dora Marshall knew nothing of men like Smith,
+or of natures like those of the men of the mountains
+and ranges, who paid her homage. Her
+knowledge of life and people was drawn from
+the limited experiences of a small, Middle West
+town, together with a year at a Middle West co-ed
+college, and as a result of the latter the Schoolmarm
+cherished a fine belief in her worldly wisdom, whereas,
+in a measure, her lack of it was one of her
+charms. Susie, in her way, was wiser.</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm&#8217;s attitude toward her daily
+life was the natural outcome of a romantic nature
+and an imaginative mind. She saw herself as the
+heroine of an absorbing story, the living of which
+story she enjoyed to the utmost, while every incident
+and every person contributed to its interest.
+Quite unconsciously, with unintentional egotism,
+the Schoolmarm had a way of standing off and
+viewing herself, as it were, through the rosy glow
+of romance. Yet she was not a complex character&mdash;this
+Schoolmarm. She had no soaring ambitions,
+though her ideals for herself and for
+others were of the best. To do her duty, to help
+those about her, to win and retain the liking of
+her half-savage little pupils, were her chief desires.</p>
+<p>She had her share of the vanity of her sex,
+and of its natural liking for admiration and attention,
+yet in the freedom of her unique environment
+she never overstepped the bounds of the
+proprieties as she knew them, or violated in the
+slightest degree the conventionalities to which she
+had been accustomed in her rather narrow home
+life. It was this reserve which inspired awe in
+the men with whom she came in contact, used
+as they were to the greater camaraderie of Western
+women.</p>
+<p>In her unsophistication, her provincial innocence,
+Dora Marshall was exactly the sort to misunderstand
+and to be misunderstood, a combination sometimes
+quite as dangerous in its results, and as
+provocative of trouble, as the intrigues of a designing
+woman.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon you think I&#8217;m kind of a mounted
+bum, a grub-liner, or something like that,&#8221; said
+Smith after a time.</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be frank, I <i>have</i> wondered who you are.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you? Have you, honest?&#8221; asked Smith
+delightedly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;you&#8217;re different, you know. I can&#8217;t explain
+just how, but you are not like the others
+who come and go at the ranch.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; Smith replied with some irony; &#8220;I&#8217;m
+not like that there Tubbs.&#8221; He added laconically,
+&#8220;I&#8217;m no angel, me&mdash;Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm laughed. Smith&#8217;s denial was
+so obviously superfluous.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There was a time when I&#8217;d do &#8217;most any old
+thing,&#8221; he went on, unmindful of her amusement.
+&#8220;It was only a few years ago that there was no
+law north of Cheyenne, and a feller got what he
+wanted with his gun. I got my share. I come
+from a country where they sleep between sheets, but
+I got a lickin&#8217; that wasn&#8217;t comin&#8217; to me, and I
+quit the flat when I was thirteen. I&#8217;ve been out
+amongst &#8217;em since.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The desire to reform somebody, which lies dormant
+in every woman&#8217;s bosom, began to stir in
+the Schoolmarm&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you&mdash;you wouldn&#8217;t &#8217;do any old thing&#8217;
+now, would you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith hesitated, and a variety of expressions
+succeeded one another upon his face. It was an
+awkward moment, for, under the uplifting influence
+of the feeling which possessed him, he had an
+odd desire to tell this girl only the truth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t do some of the things I used to
+do,&#8221; he replied evasively.</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm beamed encouragement.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad of that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I used to kill Injuns for fifty dollars a head,
+but I wouldn&#8217;t do it now,&#8221; he said virtuously,
+adding: &#8220;I&#8217;d get my neck stretched.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve killed people&mdash;Indians&mdash;for money!&#8221;
+The Schoolmarm looked at him, wide-eyed with
+horror.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They was clutterin&#8217; up the range,&#8221; Smith explained
+patiently, &#8220;and the cattlemen needed it
+for their stock. I&#8217;d &#8217;a&#8217; killed &#8217;em for nothin&#8217;,
+but when &#8217;twas offered, I might as well get the
+bounty.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm scarcely knew what to say; his
+explanation seemed so entirely satisfactory to himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad those dreadful days have gone.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re gone all right,&#8221; Smith answered
+sourly. &#8220;They make dum near as much fuss
+over an Injun as a white man now, and what
+with jumpin&#8217; up deputies at every turn in the
+road, &#8217;tain&#8217;t safe. Why, I heard a judge say a
+while back that killin&#8217; an Injun was pure murder.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I appreciate your confidence&mdash;your telling me
+of your life,&#8221; said the Schoolmarm, in lieu of something
+better.</p>
+<p>She found him a difficult person with whom to
+converse. They seemed to have no common meeting-ground,
+yet, while he constantly startled and
+shocked, he also fascinated her. In one of those
+illuminating flashes to which the Schoolmarm was
+subject, she saw herself as Smith&#8217;s guiding-star,
+leading him to the triumphant finish of the career
+which she believed his unique but strong personality
+made possible.</p>
+<p>It was Smith&#8217;s turn to look at her. Did she
+think he had told her of his life? The unexpected
+dimple deepened in Smith&#8217;s cheek, and as he
+laughed the Schoolmarm, again noting the effect
+of it, could not in her heart believe that he was
+as black as he had painted himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wisht our trails had crossed sooner, but,
+anyhow, I&#8217;m on the square with you, girl. And
+if ever you ketch me &#8217;talkin&#8217; crooked,&#8217; as the
+Injuns say, I&#8217;ll give you my whole outfit&mdash;horse,
+saddle, blankets, guns, even my dog-gone shirt.
+Excuse me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm glowed. Her woman&#8217;s influence
+for good was having its effect! This was
+a step in the right direction&mdash;a long step. He
+would be &#8220;on the square&#8221; with her&mdash;she liked
+the way he phrased it. Already her mind was
+busy with air-castles for Smith, which would have
+made that person stare, had he known of them.
+An inkling of their nature may be had from her
+question:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Would you like to study, to learn from books,
+if you had the opportunity?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I learned my letters spellin&#8217; out the brands
+on cattle,&#8221; he said frankly, &#8220;and that, with bein&#8217;
+able to write my name on the business end of a
+check, and common, everyday words, has always
+been enough to see me through.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But when one has naturally a good mind, like
+yours, don&#8217;t you think it is almost wicked not to
+use it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I got a mind all right,&#8221; Smith replied complacently.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m kind of a head-worker in my
+way, but steady thinkin&#8217; makes me sicker nor a
+pup. I got a headache for two days spellin&#8217; out
+a description of myself that the sheriff of Choteau
+County spread around the country on handbills.
+It was plumb insultin&#8217;, as I figgered it out, callin&#8217;
+attention to my eyes and ears and busted thumb.
+I sent word to him that I felt hos-tile over it.
+Sheriffs&#8217;ll go too far if you don&#8217;t tell &#8217;em where
+to get off at once in awhile.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm ignored the handbill episode
+and went on:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Besides, a lack of education is such a handicap
+in business.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The worst handicap I has to complain of,&#8221;
+said Smith grimly, &#8220;is the habit people has got
+into of sending money-orders through the mail,
+instead of the cash. It keeps money out of circulation,
+besides bein&#8217; discouragin&#8217; and puttin&#8217; many
+a hard-workin&#8217; hold-up on the bum.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; she persisted, the real meaning of
+Smith&#8217;s observations entirely escaping her, &#8220;even
+the rudiments of an education would be such a
+help to you, opening up many avenues that now
+are closed to you. What I want to say is this:
+that if you intend to stop for a time at the ranch,
+I will be glad to teach you. Susie and I have an
+extra session in the evening, and I will be delighted
+to have you join us.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It had not dawned upon Smith that she had
+questioned him with this end in view. He looked
+at her fixedly, then, from the depths of his experience,
+he said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girl, you must like me some.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora flushed hotly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am interested,&#8221; she replied.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;ll do for now;&#8221; and Smith wondered if
+the lump in his throat was going to choke him.
+&#8220;Will I join that night-school of yours? <i>Will</i>
+I? Watch me! Say,&#8221; he burst out with a kind
+of boyish impulsiveness, &#8220;if ever you see me doin&#8217;
+anything I oughtn&#8217;t, like settin&#8217; down when I
+ought to stand up, or standin&#8217; up when I ought
+to set down, will you just rope me and take a turn
+around a snubbin&#8217;-post and jerk me off my feet?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll get along famously if you really want
+to improve yourself!&#8221; exclaimed the Schoolmarm,
+her eyes shining with enthusiasm. &#8220;If you really
+and truly want to learn.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Really and truly I do,&#8221; Smith echoed, feeling
+at the moment that he would have done dressmaking
+or taken in washing, had she bid him.</p>
+<p>Once more the world looked big, alluring, and
+as full of untried possibilities as when he had
+&#8220;quit the flat&#8221; at thirteen.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you noticed me doin&#8217; anything that isn&#8217;t
+manners?&#8221; he asked in humble anxiety. &#8220;Don&#8217;t
+be afraid of hurtin&#8217; my feelin&#8217;s,&#8221; he urged, &#8220;for
+I ain&#8217;t none.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you honestly want me to tell you things,
+I will; but it seems so&mdash;so queer upon such a
+very short acquaintance.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shucks! What&#8217;s the use of wastin&#8217; time pretendin&#8217;
+to get acquainted, when you&#8217;re acquainted
+as soon as you look at each other? What&#8217;s the
+use of sashayin&#8217; around the bush when you meet
+up with somebody you like? You just cut loose
+on me, girl.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s only a little thing, in a way, and not in
+itself important perhaps; yet it would be, too, if
+circumstances should take you into the world. It
+might make a bad impression upon strangers.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith looked slightly alarmed. He wondered
+if she suspected anything about White Antelope.
+At the moment, he could think of nothing else
+he had done within the last twenty-four hours,
+which might prejudice strangers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I noticed at the table,&#8221; the Schoolmarm went
+on in some embarrassment, &#8220;that you held your
+fork as though you were afraid it would get
+away from you. Like this&#8221;&mdash;she illustrated with
+her fist.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Like a ranch-hand holdin&#8217; onto a pitch-fork,&#8221;
+Smith suggested, relieved.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Something,&#8221; she laughed. &#8220;It should be like
+this. Anyway,&#8221; she declared encouragingly, &#8220;you
+don&#8217;t eat with your knife.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith beamed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you notice that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Naturally, in a land of sword-swallowers, I
+would;&#8221; the Schoolmarm made a wry face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Once I run with a high-stepper from Bowlin&#8217;
+Green, Kentucky, and she told me better nor that,&#8221;
+he explained. &#8220;She said nothin&#8217; give a feller
+away like his habit of handlin&#8217; tools at the table.
+She was a lady all right, but she got the dope
+habit and threw the lamp at me. The way I
+quit her didn&#8217;t trouble <i>me</i>. None of &#8217;em ever
+had any holt on me when it come to a show-down;
+but you, girl, <i>you</i>&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her sharp exclamation interrupted him, and,
+following her gesture, he saw a flying horseman
+in the distance, riding as for his life, while behind
+him two other riders quirted their horses
+in hot pursuit.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it a race&mdash;for fun?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think it,&#8221; Smith replied dryly, noting
+the direction from which they came. &#8220;It looks
+like business.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He knew that the two behind were Indians. He
+could tell by the way they used their quirts and
+sat their horses. Neither was there any mistaking
+the bug-hunter on his ewe-necked sorrel, which,
+displaying unexpected bursts of speed, was keeping
+in the lead and heading straight for the ranch-house.
+With one hand McArthur was clinging to
+the saddle-horn, and with the other was clinging
+quite as tightly to what at a distance appeared
+to be a carbine.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s pulled his gun&mdash;why don&#8217;t he use it?&#8221;
+Smith quickened his horse&#8217;s gait.</p>
+<p>He knew that the Indians had learned White
+Antelope&#8217;s fate. That was a lucky swap Smith
+had made that morning. He congratulated himself
+that he had not &#8220;taken chances.&#8221; He wondered
+how effective McArthur&#8217;s denial would prove
+in the face of the evidence furnished by the saddle-blanket.
+Personally, Smith regarded the bug-hunter&#8217;s
+chances as slim.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll get him in the corral,&#8221; he observed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s Mr. McArthur!&#8221; Dora cried in distress.</p>
+<p>Smith looked at her in quick jealousy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, what of it?&#8221; In her excitement, the
+gruffness of his tone passed unobserved.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come,&#8221; she urged. &#8220;The Indians are angry,
+and he may need us.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Hatless, breathless, pale, McArthur rolled out
+of his saddle and thrust a long, bleached bone into
+Tubbs&#8217;s hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Keep it!&#8221; he gasped. &#8220;Protect it! It may
+be&mdash;I don&#8217;t say it is, but it <i>may</i> be&mdash;a portion
+of the paroccipital bone of an Ichthyopterygian!&#8221;
+Then he turned and faced his pursuers.</p>
+<p>Infuriated, they rode straight at him, but he
+did not flinch, and the horses swerved of their
+own accord.</p>
+<p>Susie had run from the house, and her mother
+had followed, expectancy upon her stolid face, for,
+like Smith, she had guessed the situation.</p>
+<p>The Indians circled, and, returning, pointed
+accusing fingers at McArthur.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He kill White Antelope!&#8221;</p>
+<p>By this time, the grub-liners had reached the
+corral, among them four Indians, all friends of
+the dead man. Their faces darkened.</p>
+<p>&#8220;White Antelope is dead in a gulch!&#8221; cried
+his accusers. &#8220;He is shot to pieces&mdash;here, there,
+everywhere!&#8221;</p>
+<p>A murmur of angry amazement arose. White
+Antelope, the kindly, peaceable Cree, who had not
+an enemy on the reservation!</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is dreadful!&#8221; declared McArthur. &#8220;Believe
+me&#8221;&mdash;he turned to them all&mdash;&#8220;I had but
+found the corpse myself when these men rode up.
+The Indian was cold; he certainly had been dead
+for hours. Besides,&#8221; he demanded, &#8220;what possible
+motive could I have?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Them as likes lettin&#8217; blood don&#8217;t need a motive.&#8221;
+The sneering voice was Smith&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you, sir, met us on the hill. You know
+the direction from which we came.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s easy enough to circle.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why should I go back?&#8221; cried McArthur.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They say there&#8217;s that that draws folks back
+for another look.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s insinuations, the stand he took, had its
+effect upon the Indians, who, hot for revenge,
+needed only this to confirm their suspicions. One
+of the Indians on horseback began to uncoil his
+rawhide saddle-rope. All save McArthur understood
+the significance of the action. They meant to
+tie him hand and foot and take him to the Agency,
+with blows and insults plentiful en route.</p>
+<p>They edged closer to him, every savage instinct
+uppermost, their faces dark and menacing. McArthur,
+his eyes sweeping the circle, felt that he
+had not one friend, not one, in the motley,
+threatening crowd fast closing in upon him; for
+Tubbs, hearing himself indirectly included in the
+accusation, had discreetly, and with perceptible
+haste, withdrawn.</p>
+<p>The Indian swung from his saddle, rope in
+hand, and advanced upon McArthur with unmistakable
+purpose; but he did not reach the little
+scientist, for Susie darted from the circle, her
+flashing gray eyes looking more curiously at
+variance than ever with her tawny skin.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no, Running Rabbit!&#8221; She pushed him
+gently backward with her finger-tips upon his chest.</p>
+<p>There was a murmur of protest from the crowd,
+and it seemed to sting her like a spur. Susie was
+not accustomed to disapproval. She turned to
+where the murmurs came loudest&mdash;from the white
+grub-liners, who were eager for excitement.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who are you,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;that you should be
+so quick to accuse this stranger? You, Arkansaw
+Red, that skipped from Kansas for killin&#8217; a nigger!
+You, Jim Padden, that shot a sheep-herder in cold
+blood! You, Banjo Johnson, that&#8217;s hidin&#8217; out this
+minute! Don&#8217;t you all be so darned anxious to
+hang another man, when there&#8217;s a rope waitin&#8217;
+somewhere for your own necks!</p>
+<p>&#8220;And lemme tell you&#8221;&mdash;she took a step toward
+them. &#8220;The man that lifts a finger to take this
+bug-hunter to the Agency can take his blankets
+along at the same time, for there&#8217;ll never be a
+bunk or a seat at the table for him on this ranch
+as long as he lives. Where&#8217;s your proof against
+this bug-hunter? You can&#8217;t drag a man off without
+something against him&mdash;just because you want
+to <i>hang</i> somebody!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Some sound from Smith attracted her attention;
+she wheeled upon him, and, with her thin arm outstretched
+as she pointed at him in scorn, she cried
+shrilly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, I&#8217;d sooner think <i>you</i> did it, than him!&#8221;</p>
+<p>There was not so much as the flicker of an
+eyelid from Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know you&#8217;d <i>sooner</i> think I did it than him,&#8221;
+he said, playing upon the word. &#8220;You&#8217;d like to
+see <i>me</i> get my neck stretched.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His bravado, his very insolence, was his protection.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And maybe I&#8217;ll have the chanst!&#8221; she retorted
+furiously.</p>
+<p>Turning from him to the Indians, her voice
+dropped, the harsh language taking on the soft
+accent of the squaws as she spoke to them in their
+own tongue. Like many half-breeds, Susie seldom
+admitted that she either understood or could speak
+the Indian language. She had an amusing fashion
+of referring even to her relatives as &#8220;those Injuns&#8221;;
+but now, with hands outstretched, she
+pleaded:</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are all Indians together in this&mdash;friends
+of White Antelope! Our hearts are down; they
+are heavy&mdash;so. You all know that he came from
+the great Cree country with my father, and he
+has told us many times stories of the big north
+woods, where they hunted and trapped. You know
+how he watched me when I was little, and sat with
+his hand upon my head when I had the big fever.
+He was like no one else to me except my father.
+He was wise and good.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could kill with my own hand the man who
+killed White Antelope. I want his blood as much
+as you. I&#8217;d like to see a stake driven through his
+black heart on White Antelope&#8217;s grave. But let us
+not be too quick because the hate is hot in us. My
+heart tells me that the white man talks straight. Let
+us wait&mdash;wait until we find the right one, and when
+we do we will punish in our own way. You hear?
+<i>In our own way!</i>&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith understood something of her plea, and
+for the second time he paid her courage tribute.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a game kid all right,&#8221; he said to himself,
+and a half-formed plan for utilizing her gameness
+began to take definite shape.</p>
+<p>That she had won, he knew before Running Rabbit
+recoiled his rope. After a moment&#8217;s talk among
+themselves, the Indians went to hitch the horses
+to the wagon, to bring White Antelope&#8217;s body
+home.</p>
+<p>Smith was well aware that he had only to point
+to the saddle blanket, the barest edge of which
+showed beneath the leather skirts of McArthur&#8217;s
+saddle, to make Susie&#8217;s impassioned defense in vain.
+Why he did not, he was not himself sure. Perhaps
+it was because he liked the feeling of power,
+of knowing that he held the life of the despised
+bug-hunter in the hollow of his hand; or perhaps
+it was because it would serve his purpose better
+to make the accusation later. One thing was
+certain, however, and that was that he had not
+held his tongue through any consideration for
+McArthur.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='VI_THE_GREAT_SECRET' id='VI_THE_GREAT_SECRET'></a>
+<h2>VI</h2>
+<h3>THE GREAT SECRET</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was the day they buried White Antelope
+that Smith approached Yellow Bird, a Piegan, who
+was among the Indians paying visits of indefinite
+length to the MacDonald ranch. &#8220;Eddie&#8221; Yellow
+Bird, he was called at the Blackfoot mission
+where he had learned to read and write&mdash;though
+he would never have been suspected of these accomplishments,
+since to all appearances he was a
+&#8220;blanket Indian.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith spoke the Piegan tongue almost as fluently
+as his own, so he and Yellow Bird quickly
+became <i>compadres</i>, relating to each other stories
+of their prowess, of horses they had run off, of
+cattle they had stolen, and hinting, Indian fashion,
+with significant intonations and pauses, at crimes
+of greater magnitude.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How is your heart to-day, friend? Is it
+strong?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Weak,&#8221; replied Yellow Bird jestingly, touching
+his breast with a fluttering hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It would be stronger if you had red meat in
+your stomach,&#8221; Smith suggested significantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The bacon is not for Indians,&#8221; agreed Yellow
+Bird.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the woman would have no cattle left if she
+killed only her own beef.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Many people stop here&mdash;strangers and
+friends,&#8221; Yellow Bird admitted.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is plenty on the range.&#8221; Smith looked
+toward the Bar C ranch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He is a dog on the trail, that white man,
+when his cattle are stolen,&#8221; Yellow Bird replied
+doubtfully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve killed dogs&mdash;me, Smith&mdash;when they got
+in my way. Yellow Bird, are you a woman, that
+you are afraid?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wolf Robe, who stole only a calf, sits like
+this&#8221;&mdash;Yellow Bird looked at Smith sullenly
+through his spread fingers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have talked with the forked tongue, Yellow
+Bird. You are not a Piegan buck of the great
+Blackfoot nation; you are a woman. Your fathers
+killed men; <i>you</i> are afraid to kill cattle.&#8221; Smith
+turned from him contemptuously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My heart is as strong as yours. I am ready.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was dusk when Smith returned and held out
+a blood-stained flour sack to the squaw.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Liver. A two-year ole.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The squaw&#8217;s eyes sparkled. Ah, this was as it
+should be! Her man provided for her; he brought
+her meat to eat. He was clever and brave, for it
+was other men&#8217;s meat he brought her to eat. MacDonald
+had killed only his own cattle, and secretly
+it had shamed her, for she mistook his honesty
+for lack of courage. To steal was legitimate; it
+was brave; something to be told among friends
+at night, and laughed over. Susie, she had observed
+with regret, was honest, like her father. She
+patted the back of Smith&#8217;s hand, and looked at
+him with dog-like, adoring eyes as they stood in
+the log meat-house, where fresh quarters hung.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d do more nor this for you, Prairie Flower;&#8221;
+and, laying his hand upon her shoulder, he pressed
+it with his finger-tips.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say, but that&#8217;s great liver!&#8221; Tubbs reached
+half the length of the table and helped himself
+a third time. &#8220;That&#8217;d make a man fight his
+grandmother. Who butchered it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Me,&#8221; Smith answered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It tastes like slow elk,&#8221; said Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe you oughtn&#8217;t to eat it till you&#8217;re showed
+the hide,&#8221; Smith suggested.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe I oughtn&#8217;t,&#8221; Susie retorted. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t
+see any fresh hide a-hangin&#8217; on the fence. We <i>always</i>
+hangs <i>our</i> hides.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I <i>never</i> hangs <i>my</i> hides. I cuts &#8217;em up in strips
+and braids &#8217;em into throw-ropes. It&#8217;s safer.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The grub-liners laughed at the inference which
+Smith so coolly implied.</p>
+<p>The finding of White Antelope&#8217;s body, and its
+subsequent burial, had delayed the opening of
+Dora&#8217;s night-school, so Smith, for reasons of his
+own, had spent much of his time in the bunk-house,
+covertly studying the grub-liners, who passed the
+hours exchanging harrowing experiences of their
+varied careers.</p>
+<p>A strong friendship had sprung up between
+Susie and McArthur. While Susie liked and
+greatly admired the Schoolmarm, she never yet
+had opened her heart to her. Beyond their actual
+school-work, they seemed to have little in common;
+and it was a real disappointment and regret to
+the Schoolmarm that, for some reason which she
+could not reach, she had never been able to break
+through the curious reserve of the little half-breed,
+who, superficially, seemed so transparently frank.
+Each time that she made the attempt, she found
+herself repulsed&mdash;gently, even tactfully, but repulsed.</p>
+<p>Dora Marshall did not suspect that these rebuffs
+were due to an error of her own. In the beginning,
+when Susie had questioned her naïvely of the outside
+world, she had permitted amusement to show in her
+face and manner. She never fully recognized the
+fact that while Susie to all appearances, intents, and
+purposes was Anglo-Saxon, an equal quantity of
+Indian blood flowed in her veins, and that this blood,
+with its accompanying traits and characteristics,
+must be reckoned with.</p>
+<p>As a matter of fact, Susie was suspicious, unforgiving,
+with all the Indians&#8217; sensitiveness to
+and fear of ridicule. She meant never again to
+entertain the Schoolmarm by her ignorant questions,
+although she yearned with all a young girl&#8217;s
+yearning for some one in whom to confide&mdash;some one
+with whom she could discuss the future which she
+often questioned and secretly dreaded.</p>
+<p>With real adroitness Susie had tested McArthur,
+searching his face for the glimmer of amusement
+which would have destroyed irredeemably any
+chance of real comradeship between them. But invariably
+McArthur had answered her questions
+gravely; and when her tears had fallen fast and
+hot at White Antelope&#8217;s grave, she had known,
+with an intuition both savage and childish, that
+his sympathy was sincere. She had felt, too, the
+genuineness of his interest when, later, she had
+repeated to him many of the stories White Antelope
+had told her of the days when he and her
+father had trapped and hunted together in the big
+woods to the north.</p>
+<p>So to-night, when the living-room was deserted
+by all save her mother, at work on her rugs in the
+corner, Susie confided to him her Great Secret, and
+McArthur, some way, felt strangely flattered by
+the confidence. He had no desire to laugh; indeed,
+there were times when the tears were perilously
+close to the surface. He had been a shy,
+lonely student, and quite as lonely as a man, yet
+through the promptings of a heart sympathetic
+and kind and with the fine instinct of gentle birth,
+he understood the bizarre little half-breed in a way
+which surprised himself.</p>
+<p>There was a settee on one side of the room, made
+of elk-horns and interwoven buckskin thongs, and
+it was there, in the whisper which makes a secret
+doubly alluring, that Susie told him of her plans;
+but first she brought from some hiding-place outside
+a long pasteboard box, carefully wrapped and
+tied.</p>
+<p>McArthur, puffing on the briar-wood pipe which
+he was seldom without, waited with interest, but
+without showing curiosity, for he felt that, in a
+way, this was a critical moment in their friendship.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you didn&#8217;t see me here on the reservation,
+would you know I was Injun?&#8221; Susie demanded,
+facing him.</p>
+<p>McArthur regarded her critically.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have certain characteristics&mdash;your rather
+high cheek-bones, for instance&mdash;and your skin has
+a peculiar tint.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I got an awful complexion on me,&#8221; Susie
+agreed, &#8220;but I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to fix that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then, your movements and gestures&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s from talkin&#8217; signs, maybe. I can talk
+signs so fast that the full-bloods themselves have
+to ask me to slow up. But, now, if you saw me
+with my hair frizzled&mdash;all curled up, like, and
+pegged down on top of my head&mdash;and a red silk
+dress on me with a long skirt, and shiny shoes
+coming to a point, and a white hat with birds and
+flowers staked out on it, and maybe kid gloves on
+my hands&mdash;would you know right off it was me?
+Would you say, &#8216;Why, there&#8217;s that Susie MacDonald&mdash;that
+breed young un from the reservation&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; declared McArthur firmly; &#8220;I certainly
+never should say, &#8216;Why, there&#8217;s that Susie MacDonald&mdash;that
+breed young un from the reservation.&#8217;
+As a matter of fact,&#8221; he went on gravely,
+&#8220;I should probably say, &#8216;What a pity that a
+young lady so intelligent and high-spirited should
+frizz her hair&#8217;!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Would you?&#8221; insisted Susie delightedly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Undoubtedly,&#8221; McArthur replied, with satisfying
+emphasis.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And how long do you think it would take me
+to stop slingin&#8217; the buckskin and learn to talk like
+you?&mdash;to say big words without bitin&#8217; my tongue
+and gettin&#8217; red in the face?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do I use large words frequently?&#8221; McArthur
+asked in real surprise.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whoppers!&#8221; said Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do it unconsciously.&#8221; McArthur&#8217;s tone was
+apologetic.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure, I know it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shrink from appearing pedantic,&#8221; said McArthur,
+half to himself.</p>
+<p>&#8220;So do I,&#8221; Susie declared mischievously. &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t know what it is, but I shrink from it. Do
+you think I could learn big words?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of course.&#8221; McArthur wondered where all
+these questions led.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you ever notice that I&#8217;m kind of polite
+sometimes?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Frequently.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That I say &#8217;If you please&#8217; and &#8217;Thank you,&#8217;
+and did you notice the other morning when I asked
+Old Man Rulison how his ribs was getting along
+that Arkansaw Red kicked in, and said I was sorry
+the accident happened?&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I didn&#8217;t mean it.&#8221; She giggled. &#8220;That
+was just my manners that I was practisin&#8217; on him.
+He was onery, and only got what was comin&#8217; to
+him; but if you&#8217;re goin&#8217; to be polite, seems like
+you dassn&#8217;t tell the truth. But Miss Marshall says
+that &#8217;Thank you,&#8217; &#8216;If you please,&#8217; and &#8216;Good
+morning, how&#8217;s your ribs?&#8217; are kind of pass-words
+out in the world that help you along.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Susie; that&#8217;s true.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I&#8217;m tryin&#8217; to catch onto all I can, because&#8221;&mdash;her
+eyes dilated, and she lowered her voice&mdash;&#8220;I&#8217;m
+goin&#8217; out in the world pretty soon.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;To school?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to hunt up Dad&#8217;s relations; and
+when I find &#8217;em, I don&#8217;t want &#8217;em to be ashamed of
+me, and of him for marryin&#8217; into the Injuns.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They need never be ashamed of you, Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Honest? Honest, don&#8217;t you think so?&#8221; She
+looked at him wistfully. &#8220;I&#8217;d try awful hard not
+to make breaks,&#8221; she went on, &#8220;and make &#8217;em feel
+like cachin&#8217; me in the cellar when they saw company
+comin&#8217;. It&#8217;s just plumb awful to be lonesome
+here, like I am sometimes; to be homesick for something
+or somebody&mdash;for other kind of folks besides
+Injuns and grub-liners, and Schoolmarms that
+look at you as if you was a new, queer kind of
+bug, and laugh at you with their eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dad&#8217;s got kin, I know; for lots of times
+when I would go with him to hunt horses, he would
+say, &#8216;I&#8217;ll take you back to see them some time,
+Susie, girl.&#8217; But he never said where &#8217;back&#8217; was,
+so I&#8217;ve got to find out myself. Wouldn&#8217;t it be
+awful, though&#8221;&mdash;and her chin quivered&mdash;&#8220;if after
+I&#8217;d been on the trail for days and days, and my
+ponies were foot-sore, they wasn&#8217;t glad to see me
+when I rode up to the house, but hinted around
+that horse-feed was short and grub was scarce, and
+they couldn&#8217;t well winter me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They wouldn&#8217;t do that,&#8221; said McArthur reassuringly.
+&#8220;Nobody named MacDonald would do
+that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie began to untie the pasteboard box which
+contained her treasures.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nearly ever since Dad died, I&#8217;ve been getting
+ready to go. I don&#8217;t mean that I would leave
+Mother for keeps&mdash;of course not; but after I&#8217;ve
+found &#8217;em, maybe I can coax &#8217;em to come and live
+with us. I used to ask White Antelope every question
+I could think of, but all he knew was that
+after they&#8217;d sold their furs to the Hudson Bay
+Company, they sometimes went to a lodge in Canada
+called Selkirk, where almost everybody there was
+named MacDonald or MacDougal or Mackenzie or
+Mac something. Lots of his friends there married
+Sioux and went to the Walla Walla valley, and
+maybe I&#8217;ll have to go there to find somebody who
+knew him; but first I&#8217;ll go to Selkirk.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll take a good pack-outfit, and Running Rabbit
+to find trails and wrangle horses. See&mdash;I&#8217;ve
+got my trail all marked out on the map.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She unfolded a worn leaf from a school geography.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It looks as if it was only a sleep or two away,
+but White Antelope said it was the big ride&mdash;maybe
+a hundred sleeps. And lookee&#8221;&mdash;she unfolded
+fashion plates of several periods. &#8220;I&#8217;ve
+even picked out the clothes I&#8217;ll buy to put on
+when I get nearly to the ranch where they live. I
+can make camp, you know, and change my clothes,
+and then go walkin&#8217; down the road carryin&#8217; this
+here parasol and wearin&#8217; this here white hat and
+holdin&#8217; up this here long skirt like Teacher on
+Sunday.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t they be surprised when they open the
+door and see me standin&#8217; on the door-step? I&#8217;ll
+say, &#8216;How do you do? I&#8217;m Susie MacDonald,
+your relation what&#8217;s come to visit you.&#8217; I think
+this would be better than showin&#8217; up with Running
+Rabbit and the pack-outfit, until I&#8217;d kind of broke
+the news to &#8217;em. I&#8217;d keep Running Rabbit cached
+in the brush till I sent for him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You see, I&#8217;ve thought about it so much that
+it seems like it was as good as done; but maybe
+when I start I won&#8217;t find it so easy. I might have
+to ride clear to this Minnesota country, or beyond
+the big waters to the New York or Connecticut
+country, mightn&#8217;t I?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You might,&#8221; McArthur replied soberly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I&#8217;d take a lot of jerked elk, and everybody
+says grub&#8217;s easy to get if you have money,
+I&#8217;d start with about nine ponies in my string, so
+it looks like I ought to get through?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She waited anxiously for McArthur to express
+his opinion.</p>
+<p>He wondered how he could disillusionize her,
+shatter the dream which he could see had become a
+part of her life. Should he explain to her that
+when she had crossed the mountains and left behind
+her the deserts which constituted the only world
+she knew, and by which, with its people, she judged
+the country she meant to penetrate, she would find
+herself a bewildered little savage in a callous, complex
+civilization where she had no place&mdash;wondered
+at, gibed at, defeated of her purpose?</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you sure you have no other clues&mdash;no
+old letters, no photographs?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She was about to answer when a tapping like the
+pecking of a snowbird on a window-sill was heard
+on the door.</p>
+<p>Susie opened it.</p>
+<p>In ludicrous contrast to the timid rap, a huge
+figure that all but filled it was framed in the doorway.</p>
+<p>It was &#8220;Babe&#8221; from the Bar C ranch; &#8220;Baby&#8221;
+Britt, curly-haired, pink-cheeked, with one innocent
+blue eye dark from recent impact with a fist,
+which gave its owner the appearance of a dissipated
+cherub.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Evenin&#8217;,&#8221; he said tremulously, his eyes roving
+as though in search of some one.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I lost a horse&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; he began.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Brown?&#8221; interrupted Susie, with suspicious
+interest. &#8220;With a star in the forehead?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;One white stockin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh-huh.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Roached mane?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ye-ah.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Kind of a rat-tail?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yep.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Left hip knocked down?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Babe&#8221; nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Saddle-sore?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it. Where did you see him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t see him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw-w-w,&#8221; rumbled &#8220;Babe&#8221; in disgust.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Teacher!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora Marshall&#8217;s door opened in response to
+Susie&#8217;s lusty call.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you seen a brown horse with a star in
+its forehead, roached mane&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw, g&#8217;wan, Susie!&#8221; In confusion, &#8220;Babe&#8221;
+began to remove his spurs, thereby serving notice
+upon the Schoolmarm that he had &#8220;come to set a
+spell.&#8221;</p>
+<p>So the Schoolmarm brought her needlework, and
+while she explained to Mr. Britt the exact shadings
+which she intended to give to each leaf and flower,
+that person sat with his entranced eyes upon her
+white hands, with their slender, tapering fingers&mdash;the
+smallest, the most beautiful hands, he firmly
+believed, in the whole world.</p>
+<p>It was not easy to carry on a spirited conversation
+with Mr. Britt. At best, his range of
+topics was limited, and in his present frame of
+mind he was about as vivacious as a deaf mute.
+He was quite content to sit with the high heels of
+his cowboy boots&mdash;from which a faint odor of the
+stable emanated&mdash;hung over the rung of his chair,
+and to watch the Schoolmarm&#8217;s hand plying the
+needle on that almost sacred sofa-pillow.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your work must be very interesting, Mr.
+Britt,&#8221; suggested Dora.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I dunno as &#8217;tis,&#8221; replied Mr. Britt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s so&mdash;so picturesque.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Mr. Britt considered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t say it was.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you like it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not by a high-kick!&#8221;</p>
+<p>If there was one thing upon which Mr. Britt
+prided himself more than another, it was upon
+knowing how to temper his language to his company.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why do you stick to it, then?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t know how to do anything else.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t get much time to read, do you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes; <i>P&#8217;lice Gazette</i> comes reg&#8217;lar.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you have no church or social privileges?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say, you have no entertainment, no time or
+opportunity for amusement, have you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my, yes,&#8221; Mr. Britt declared heartily.
+&#8220;We has a game of stud poker nearly every
+Sunday mornin&#8217;, and races in the afternoon.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t he sparklin&#8217;?&#8221; whispered Susie across
+the room to Dora, who pretended not to hear.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are fond of horses?&#8221; inquired the Schoolmarm,
+desperately.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I has nothin&#8217; agin &#8217;em.&#8221; He qualified his
+statement by adding: &#8220;Leastways, unless they
+come from the Buffalo Basin country. Then I
+shore hates &#8217;em.&#8221; At last Mr. Britt was upon a
+subject upon which he could talk fluently and for
+an indefinite length of time. &#8220;You take that there
+Buffalo Basin stock,&#8221; he went on earnestly, &#8220;and
+they&#8217;re nothin&#8217; but inbred cayuse outlaws. They&#8217;re
+treach&#8217;rous. Oneriest horses that ever wore hair.
+Can&#8217;t gentle &#8217;em&mdash;simply can&#8217;t be done. They&#8217;ve
+piled me up more times than any horses that run.
+Sunfishers&mdash;the hull of &#8217;em; rare up and fall over
+backwards. &#8217;Tain&#8217;t pleasant ridin&#8217; a horse like
+that. Wheel on you quicker&#8217;n a weasel; shy
+clean acrost the road at nothin&#8217;; kick&mdash;stand up
+and strike at you in the corral. It&#8217;s irritatin&#8217;.
+Hard keepers, too. Maybe you&#8217;ve noticed
+that blue roan I&#8217;m ridin&#8217;. Well, sir, the way
+I&#8217;ve throwed feed into that horse is a scandal,
+and the more he eats the worse he
+looks. Besides, it spoils them Buffalo Basin
+buzzard-heads to eat. Give &#8217;em three square
+meals, and you can&#8217;t hardly ride &#8217;em. They ain&#8217;t
+stayers, neither; no bottom, seems-like. Forty
+miles, and that horse of mine is played out. What
+for a horse is that? Is that a horse? Not by a
+high-kick! Gimme a buckskin with a black line
+down his back, and zebra stripes on his legs&mdash;high
+back, square chest&mdash;say, then you got a <i>horse!</i>&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was apparent enough that Mr. Britt had not
+commenced to exhaust the subject of the Buffalo
+Basin stock. As a matter of fact, he had barely
+started; but the sound of horses coming up the
+path, and a whoop outside, caused a suspension of
+his conversation.</p>
+<p>Something heavy was thrown against the door,
+and when Susie opened it a roll of roped canvas
+rolled inside, while the lamplight fell upon the
+grinning faces of two Bar C cowpunchers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221; The Schoolmarm looked wonderingly
+at the bundle.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw-w-w!&#8221; Mr. Britt replied, in angry confusion.
+&#8220;It&#8217;s my bed. I&#8217;ll put a crimp in them
+two for this.&#8221; He shouldered his blankets sheepishly
+and went out.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='VII_CUPID__WINGS__A_DEPUTY_SHERIFF' id='VII_CUPID__WINGS__A_DEPUTY_SHERIFF'></a>
+<h2>VII</h2>
+<h3>CUPID &#8220;WINGS&#8221; A DEPUTY SHERIFF</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Riding home next morning with his bed on a
+borrowed pack-horse, morose, his mind occupied
+with divers plans for punishing the cowpunchers
+who had spoiled his evening and made him ridiculous
+before the Schoolmarm, &#8220;Babe&#8221; came upon
+something in a gulch which caused him to rein
+his horse sharply and swing from the saddle.</p>
+<p>With an ejaculation of surprise, he pulled a
+fresh hide from under a pile of rock, it having
+been partially uncovered by coyotes. The brand
+had been cut out, and with the sight of this significant
+find, the two cowpunchers, their obnoxious
+joke, even the Schoolmarm, were forgotten; for
+there was a new thief on the range, and a new
+thief meant excitement and adventure.</p>
+<p>Colonel Tolman&#8217;s deep-set eyes glittered when
+he heard the news. As Running Rabbit had said,
+on the trail of a cattle-thief he was as relentless
+as a bloodhound. He could not eat or sleep in
+peace until the man who had robbed him was behind
+the bars. The Colonel was an old-time Texas
+cattleman, and his herds had ranged from the
+Mexican border to the Alberta line. He had made
+and lost fortunes. Disease, droughts, and blizzards
+had cleaned him out at various times, and always
+he had taken his medicine without a whimper; but
+the loss of so much as a yearling calf by theft
+threw him into a rage that was like hysteria.</p>
+<p>His hand shook as he sat down at his desk and
+wrote a note to the Stockmen&#8217;s Association, asking
+for the services of their best detective. It
+meant four days of hard riding to deliver the note,
+but the Colonel put it into &#8220;Babe&#8217;s&#8221; hand as if
+he were asking him to drop it in the mail-box
+around the corner.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go, and git back,&#8221; were his laconic instructions,
+and he turned to pace the floor.</p>
+<p>When &#8220;Babe&#8221; returned some eight days later,
+with the deputy sheriff, he found the Colonel
+striding to and fro, his wrath having in no wise
+abated. The cowboy wondered if his employer
+had been walking the floor all that time.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My name is Ralston,&#8221; said the tall young
+deputy, as he stood before the old cattleman.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ralston?&#8221; The Colonel rose on his toes a
+trifle to peer into his face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not Dick Ralston&#8217;s boy?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The six-foot deputy smiled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The same, sir.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Colonel&#8217;s hand shot out in greeting.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Anybody of that name is pretty near like kin
+to me. Many&#8217;s the time your dad and I have
+eaten out of the same frying-pan.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I&#8217;ve heard him say.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does he know you&#8217;re down here on this job?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The young man shook his head soberly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Colonel looked at him keenly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Had a falling out?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; scarcely that; but we couldn&#8217;t agree
+exactly upon some things, so I struck out for
+myself when I came home from college.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No future for you in this sleuthing business,&#8221;
+commented the old man tersely. &#8220;Why didn&#8217;t
+you go into cattle with your dad?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s where we disagreed, sir. I wanted to
+buy sheep, and he goes straight into the air at the
+very word.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Colonel laughed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can believe that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Over there the range is going fast, and it&#8217;s
+fight and scrap and quarrel all the time to keep
+the sheep off what little there is left; and then
+you ship and bottom drops out of the market as
+soon as your cattle are loaded. There&#8217;s nothing
+in it; and while I don&#8217;t like sheep any better
+than the Governor, there&#8217;s no use in hanging on
+and going broke in cattle because of a prejudice.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dick&#8217;s stubborn,&#8221;&mdash;the Colonel nodded knowingly&mdash;&#8220;and
+I don&#8217;t believe he&#8217;ll ever give in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; I don&#8217;t think he will, and I&#8217;m sorry for
+his sake, because he&#8217;s getting too old to worry.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Worry? Cattle&#8217;s nothing but worry!&mdash;which
+reminds me of what you are here for.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you any suspicions?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No. I don&#8217;t believe I can help you any. The
+Injuns been good as pie since we sent Wolf Robe
+over the road. Don&#8217;t hardly think it&#8217;s Injuns.
+Don&#8217;t know what to think. Might be some of
+these Mormon outfits going north. Might be some
+of these nesters off in the hills. Might be anybody!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is he an old hand?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like it. Cuts the brand out and buries
+the hide.&#8221; The Colonel began pacing the floor.
+&#8220;Cattle-thieves are people that&#8217;s got to be nipped
+in the bud <i>muy pronto</i>. There ought to be a lynching
+on every cattle-range once in seven years. It&#8217;s
+the only way to hold &#8217;em level. Down there on
+the Rio Grande we rode away and left fourteen
+of &#8217;em swinging over the bluff. It&#8217;s got to be done
+in all cattle countries, and since they&#8217;ve started
+in here&mdash;well, a hanging is overdue by two years.&#8221;
+The Colonel ejected his words with the decisive click
+of a riot-gun.</p>
+<p>So Dick Ralston, Jr., rode the range for the
+purpose of getting the lay of the country, and,
+on one pretext or another, visited the squalid homes
+of the nesters, but nowhere found anybody or
+anything in the least suspicious. He learned of
+the murder of White Antelope, and of the &#8220;queer-actin&#8217;&#8221;
+bug-hunter and his pal, who had been
+accused of it. It was rather generally believed
+that McArthur was a desperado of a new and
+original kind. While it was conceded that he
+seemed to have no way of disposing of the meat,
+and certainly could not kill a cow and eat it himself,
+it was nevertheless declared that he was
+&#8220;worth watching.&#8221;</p>
+<p>While the hangers-on at the MacDonald ranch
+were all known to have records, no particular suspicion
+had attached to them in this instance, because
+the squaw was known to kill her own beef, and
+no shadow of doubt had ever fallen upon the good
+name of the ranch.</p>
+<p>The trapping of cattle-thieves is not the work
+of a day or a week, but sometimes of months; and
+when evidence of another stolen beef was found
+upon the range, Ralston realized that his efforts
+lay in that vicinity for some time to come. He
+decided to ride over to the MacDonald ranch that
+evening and have a look at the bad <i>hombre</i> who
+masqueraded as a bug-hunter&mdash;bug-hunter, it
+should be explained, being a Western term for any
+stranger engaged in scientific pursuits.</p>
+<p>While Ralston was riding over the lonely road
+in the moonlight, Dora was arranging the dining-room
+table for her night-school, which had been in
+session several evenings. Smith was studying
+grammar, of which branch of learning Dora had
+decided he stood most in need, while Susie groaned
+over compound fractions.</p>
+<p>Tubbs, with his chair tilted against the wall,
+looked on with a tolerant smile. In the kitchen,
+paring a huge pan of potatoes for breakfast, Ling
+listened with such an intensity of interest to what
+was being said that his ears seemed fairly to quiver.
+From her bench in the living-room, the Indian
+woman braided rags and darted jealous glances at
+teacher and pupil. Smith, his hair looking like
+a bunch of tumble-weed in a high wind, hung over
+a book with a look of genuine misery upon his
+face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t have any notion there was so much
+in the world I didn&#8217;t know,&#8221; he burst out. &#8220;I
+thought when I&#8217;d learnt that if you sprinkle your
+saddle-blanket you can hold the biggest steer that
+runs, without your saddle slippin&#8217;, I&#8217;d learnt about
+all they was worth knowin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s tedious,&#8221; Dora admitted.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tedious?&#8221; echoed Smith in loud pathos. &#8220;It&#8217;s
+hell! Say, I can tie a fancy knot in a bridle-rein
+that can&#8217;t be beat by any puncher in the country,
+but <i>darn</i> me if I can see the difference between a
+adjective and one of these here adverbs! Once I
+thought I knowed something&mdash;me, Smith&mdash;but say,
+I don&#8217;t know enough to make a mark in the
+road!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he repeated:</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;I have had, you have had, he has had.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you would have had about six drinks, I
+think you could git that,&#8221; observed Tubbs
+judicially, watching Smith&#8217;s mental suffering with
+keen interest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be discouraged,&#8221; said Dora cheerfully,
+seating herself beside him. &#8220;Let&#8217;s take a little
+review. Do you remember what I told you about
+this?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She pointed to the letter <i>a</i> marked with the long
+sound.</p>
+<p>Smith ran both hands through his hair, while a
+wild, panic-stricken look came upon his face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dog-gone me! I know it&#8217;s a <i>a</i>, but I plumb
+forget how you called it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs unhooked his toes from the chair-legs and
+walked around to look over Smith&#8217;s shoulder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith, you got a great forgitter,&#8221; he said
+sarcastically. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you use your head a
+little? That there is a Bar A. You ought to
+have knowed that. The Bar A stock run all over
+the Judith Basin.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you remember I told you that whenever
+you saw that mark over a letter you should give
+it the long sound?&#8221; explained Dora patiently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Like the <i>a</i> in &#8216;aig,&#8217;&#8221; elucidated Tubbs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Like the <i>a</i> in &#8216;snake,&#8217;&#8221; corrected the Schoolmarm.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Or &#8217;wake,&#8217; or &#8217;skate,&#8217; or &#8216;break,&#8217;&#8221; said Smith
+hopefully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fine!&#8221; declared the Schoolmarm.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I knowed that much myself,&#8221; said Tubbs enviously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ll pardon me, Mr. Tubbs,&#8221; said Dora,
+in some irritation, &#8220;there is no such word as
+&#8216;knowed.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you talk grammatical, Tubbs?&#8221;
+Smith demanded, with alacrity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I talks what I knows,&#8221; said Tubbs, going back
+to his chair.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you forgotten all I told you about adjectives?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Adjectives is words describin&#8217; things. They&#8217;s
+two kinds, comparative and superlative,&#8221; Smith replied
+promptly. He added. &#8220;Adjectives kind of
+stuck in my craw.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can you give me examples?&#8221; Dora felt encouraged.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You got a horrible pretty hand,&#8221; Smith replied,
+without hesitation. &#8220;&#8216;Horrible pretty&#8217; is
+a adjective describin&#8217; your hand.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora burst out laughing, and Tubbs, without
+knowing why, joined in heartily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tubbs,&#8221; continued Smith, glaring at that person,
+&#8220;has got the horriblest mug I ever seen, and
+if he opens it and laffs like that at me again, I
+aims to break his head. &#8217;Horriblest&#8217; is a superlative
+adjective describin&#8217; Tubbs&#8217;s mug.&#8221;</p>
+<p>To Smith&#8217;s chagrin and Tubbs&#8217;s delight, Dora
+explained that &#8220;horrible&#8221; was a word which could
+not be used in conjunction with &#8220;pretty,&#8221; and
+that its superlative was not &#8220;horriblest.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith buried his head in his hands despondently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I was where I could, I&#8217;d get drunk!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s nothing to feel so badly about,&#8221; said Dora
+comfortingly. &#8220;Let&#8217;s go back to prepositions.
+Can you define a preposition?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith screwed up his face and groped for words,
+but before he found them Tubbs broke in:</p>
+<p>&#8220;A preposition is what a feller has to sell that
+nobody wants,&#8221; he explained glibly. &#8220;They&#8217;s copper
+prepositions, silver-lead prepositions, and onct
+I had a oil preposition up in the Swift Current
+country.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith reached inside his coat and pulled out
+the carved, ivory-handled six-shooter which he
+wore in a holster under his arm. He laid it on
+the table beside his grammar, and looked at Tubbs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Feller,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I hates to make a gun-play
+before the Schoolmarm, but if you jump into this
+here game again, I aims to try a chunk of lead on
+you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If book-learnin&#8217; ud ever make me as peevish
+as it does you,&#8221; declared Tubbs, rising hastily, &#8220;I
+hopes I never knows nothin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs slammed the door behind him as he went
+to seek more amiable company in the bunk-house.</p>
+<p>Save for the Indian woman, Smith and Dora
+were now practically alone; for Ling had gone
+to bed, and Susie was oblivious to everything except
+fractions. Smith continued to struggle with
+prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs, but he found
+it difficult to concentrate his thoughts on them
+with Dora so close beside him. He knew that
+his slightest glance, every expression which crossed
+his face, was observed by the Indian woman; and
+although he did his utmost not to betray his feelings,
+he saw the sullen, jealous resentment rising
+within her.</p>
+<p>She read aright the light in his eyes; besides,
+her intuitions were greater than his powers of
+concealment. When she could no longer endure
+the sight of Smith and the Schoolmarm sitting side
+by side, she laid down her work and slipped out
+into the star-lit night, closing the door softly behind
+her.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s judgment told him that he should end
+the lesson and go after her, but the spell of love
+was upon him, overwhelming him, holding him fast
+in delicious thraldom. He had not the strength
+of will just then to break it.</p>
+<p>Dora had been reading &#8220;Hiawatha&#8221; aloud each
+evening to Susie, Tubbs, and Smith, so when she
+finally closed the grammar, she asked if he would
+like to hear more of the Indian story, as he called
+it, to which he nodded assent.</p>
+<p>Dora read well, with intelligence and sympathy;
+her trained voice was flexible. Then, too, she
+loved this greatest of American legends. It appealed
+to her audience as perhaps no other poem
+would have done. It was real to them, it was
+&#8220;life,&#8221; their life in a little different environment
+and told in a musical rhythm which held them
+breathless, enchanted.</p>
+<p>Dora had reached the story of &#8220;The Famine.&#8221;
+She knew the refrain by heart, and the wail of old
+Nokomis was in her voice as she repeated from
+memory:</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto; '><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;Wahonowin! Wahonowin!</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Would that I had perished for you!</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Would that I were dead as you are!</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Wahonowin! Wahonowin!</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;·&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;Then they buried Minnehaha;</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In the snow a grave they made her,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>In the forest deep and darksome,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Underneath the moaning hemlocks;</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Clothed her in her richest garments,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>Covered her with snow, like ermine;</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>So they buried Minnehaha.&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The pathos of the lines never failed to touch
+Dora anew. Her voice broke, and, pausing to recover
+herself, she glanced at Smith. There were
+tears in his eyes. The brutal chin was quivering
+like that of a tender-hearted child.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The man that wrote that was a <i>chief</i>,&#8221; he
+said huskily. &#8220;It hurts me here&mdash;in my neck.&#8221;
+He rubbed the contracted muscles of his throat.
+&#8220;I&#8217;d feel like that, girl, if you should die.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He repeated softly, and choked:</p>
+<table summary='poetry' style='margin:0 auto; '><tr><td>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>&#8220;All my heart is buried with you,</p>
+<p  style='margin: 0 0 0 0.0em;'>All my thoughts go onward with you!&#8221;</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The impression which the poem made upon
+Smith was deep. It was a constant surprise to him
+also. The thoughts it expressed, the sensations it
+described, he had believed were entirely original with
+himself. He had not conceived it possible that
+any one else could feel toward a woman as he felt
+toward Dora. Therefore, when the poet put many
+of his heart-throbs into words, they startled him,
+as though, somehow, his own heart were photographed
+and held up to view.</p>
+<p>Susie had finished her lesson, and, cramped from
+sitting, was walking about the living-room to rest
+herself, while this conversation was taking place.
+Her glance fell upon a gaudy vase on a shelf,
+and some thought came to her which made her
+laugh mischievously. She emptied the contents of
+the vase into the palm of her hand and, closing
+the other over it, tiptoed into the dining-room
+and stood behind Smith.</p>
+<p>Dora and he, engrossed in conversation, paid
+no attention to her. She put her cupped palms
+close to Smith&#8217;s ear and, shaking them vigorously,
+shouted:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Snakes!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The result was such as Susie had not anticipated.</p>
+<p>With a shriek which was womanish in its shrillness,
+Smith sprang to his feet, all but upsetting
+the lamp in his violence. Unmixed horror was written
+upon his face.</p>
+<p>The girl herself shrank back at what she had
+done; then, holding out several rattles for inspection,
+she said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like you don&#8217;t care for snakes.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&mdash;you little&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Only Susie guessed the unspeakable epithet he
+meant to use. Her eyes warned him, and, too, he
+remembered Dora in time. He said instead, with
+a slight laugh of confusion:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Snakes scares me, and rat-traps goin&#8217; off.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The color had not yet returned to his face when
+a knock came upon the door.</p>
+<p>In response to Susie&#8217;s call, a tall stranger
+stepped inside&mdash;a stranger wide of shoulder, and
+with a kind of grim strength in his young face.</p>
+<p>From the unnatural brightness of the eyes of
+Susie and of Smith, and their still tense attitudes,
+Ralston sensed the fact that something had happened.
+He returned Smith&#8217;s unpleasant look with
+a gaze as steady as his own. Then his eyes fell
+upon Dora and lingered there.</p>
+<p>She had sprung to her feet and was still standing.
+Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes luminous,
+and the soft lamplight burnishing her brown hair
+made the moment one of her best. Smith saw
+the frank admiration in the stranger&#8217;s look.</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I stop here to-night?&#8221; He addressed
+Dora.</p>
+<p>He had the characteristic Western gravity of
+manner and expression, the distinguishing definiteness
+of purpose. Though the quality of his
+voice, its modulation, bespoke the man of poise
+and education, the accent was unmistakably of the
+West.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a bunk-house.&#8221; It was Smith who
+answered.</p>
+<p>His unuttered epithet still rankled; Susie
+turned upon him with insulting emphasis:</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you&#8217;d better get out to it!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you the boss here?&#8221; The stranger put
+the question to Smith with cool politeness.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What I say <i>goes!</i>&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith looked marvellously ugly.</p>
+<p>Susie leaned toward him, and her childish face
+was distorted with anger as she shrieked:</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>Not yet, Mister Smith!</i>&#8221;</p>
+<p>Involuntarily, Dora and the stranger exchanged
+glances in the awkward silence which followed.
+Then, more to relieve her embarrassment than for
+any other reason, Ralston said quietly, &#8220;Very
+well, I will do as this&mdash;gentleman suggests,&#8221; and
+withdrew.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good-night,&#8221; said Dora, gathering up her
+books; but neither Smith nor Susie answered.</p>
+<p>With both hands deep in his trousers&#8217; pockets,
+Smith was smiling at Susie, with a smile which
+was little short of devilish; and the girl, throwing
+a last look of defiance at him, also left the
+room, violently slamming behind her the door of
+the bed-chamber occupied by her mother and herself.</p>
+<p>For a full minute Smith stood as they had left
+him&mdash;motionless, his eyelids drooping. Rousing
+himself, he went to the window and looked into
+the moonlight-flooded world outside. Huddled in a
+blanket, a squat figure sat on a fallen cottonwood
+tree.</p>
+<p>Smith eyed it, then asked himself contemptuously:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t that pure Injun?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Taking his hat, he too stepped into the moonlight.</p>
+<p>The woman did not look up at his approach, so
+he stooped until his cheek touched hers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter, Prairie Flower?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My heart is under my feet.&#8221; Her voice was
+harsh.</p>
+<p>In the tone one uses to a sulky child, he said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come into the house.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You no like me, white man. You like de
+white woman.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith reached under the blanket and took her
+hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you marry de white woman?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He pressed her hand tightly against his heart.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come into the house, Prairie Flower.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her face relaxed like that of a child when it
+smiles through its tears. And Smith, in the hour
+when the first real love of his life was at its zenith,
+when his heart was so full of it that it seemed
+well nigh bursting, walked back to the house with
+the squaw clinging tightly to his fingers.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='VIII_THE_BUGHUNTER_ELUCIDATES' id='VIII_THE_BUGHUNTER_ELUCIDATES'></a>
+<h2>VIII</h2>
+<h3>THE BUG-HUNTER ELUCIDATES</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The same instinct which made Ralston recognize
+Susie as his friend told him that Smith was his
+enemy; though, verily, that person who would have
+construed as evidences of esteem and budding
+friendship Smith&#8217;s black looks when Ralston presumed
+to talk with Dora, even upon the most
+ordinary topics, would have been dull of comprehension
+indeed.</p>
+<p>While no reason for remaining appeared to be
+necessary at the MacDonald ranch, Ralston hinted
+at hunting stray horses; and casually expressed a
+hope that he might be able to pick up a bunch of
+good ponies at a reasonable figure&mdash;which explanation
+was entirely satisfactory to all save
+Smith. The latter frequently voiced the opinion
+that Ralston lingered solely for the purpose of
+courting the Schoolmarm, an opinion which the
+grub-liners agreed was logical, since they too, along
+with the majority of unmarried males for fifty
+miles around, cherished a similar ambition.</p>
+<p>Dora had long since ceased to consider as extraordinary
+the extended visits which strangers
+paid to the ranch; therefore, she saw nothing
+unusual in the fact that Ralston stayed on.</p>
+<p>If furtive-eyed and restless passers-by arrived
+after dark, slept in the hay near their unsaddled
+horses, and departed at dawn, assuredly no person
+at the MacDonald ranch was rude enough to ask
+reasons for their haste. Its hospitality was as
+boundless, as free, as the range itself; and if upon
+leaving any guest had happened to express gratitude
+for food and shelter, it is doubtful if any
+incident could more have surprised Susie and her
+mother, unless, mayhap, it might have been an
+offer of payment for the same.</p>
+<p>Ralston told himself that, since he could remain
+without comment, the ranch was much better
+situated for his purpose than Colonel Tolman&#8217;s
+home; but the really convincing point in its favor,
+though one which he refused to recognize as influencing
+him in the least, was that he was nearer
+Dora by something like eight miles than he would
+have been at the Bar C. Then, too, though there
+was nothing tangible to justify his suspicions,
+Ralston believed that his work lay close at hand.</p>
+<p>Like Colonel Tolman, he had come to think
+that it was not the Indians who were killing; and
+the nesters, though a spiritless, shiftless lot, had
+always been honest enough. But the bunk-house
+on the MacDonald ranch was often filled with the
+material of which horse and cattle thieves are made,
+and Ralston hoped that he might get a clue from
+some word inadvertently dropped there.</p>
+<p>He often thought that he never had seen a
+more heterogeneous gathering than that which
+assembled at times around the table. And with
+Longfellow in the dining-room, ethnological dissertations
+in one end of the bunk-house, and personal
+reminiscences and experiences in gun-fights
+and affairs of the heart in the other end, there was
+afforded a sufficient variety of mental diversion
+to suit nearly any taste.</p>
+<p>McArthur in the rôle of desperado seemed preposterous
+to Ralston; yet he remembered that Ben
+Reed, a graduate of a theological seminary, who
+could talk tears into the eyes of an Apache, was
+the slickest stock thief west of the Mississippi.
+He was well aware that a pair of mild eyes and
+gentle, ingenuous manners are many a rogue&#8217;s most
+valuable asset, and though the bug-hunter talked
+frankly of his pilgrimages into the hills, there was
+always a chance that his pursuit was a pose, his
+zeal counterfeit.</p>
+<p>One evening which was typical of others, Ralston
+sat on the edge of his bunk, rolling an occasional
+cigarette and listening with huge enjoyment to the
+conversation of a group around the sheet-iron
+stove, of which McArthur was the central figure.</p>
+<p>McArthur, riding his hobby enthusiastically,
+quite forgot the character of his listeners, and laid
+his theories regarding the interchange of mammalian
+life between America and Asia during the
+early Pleistocene period, before Meeteetse Ed, Old
+Man Rulison, Tubbs, and others, in the same language
+in which he would have argued moot questions
+with colleagues engaged in similar research.
+The language of learning was as natural to
+McArthur as the vernacular of the West was to
+Tubbs, and in moments of excitement he lapsed into
+it as a foreigner does into his native tongue under
+stress of feeling.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I maintain,&#8221; asserted McArthur, with a gesture
+of emphasis, &#8220;that the Paleolithic man of
+Europe followed the mastodon to North America
+and here remained.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Meeteetse Ed, whose cheeks were flushed, laid his
+hot hand upon his forehead and declared plaintively
+as he blinked at McArthur:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pardner, I&#8217;m gittin&#8217; a headache from tryin&#8217;
+to see what you&#8217;re talkin&#8217; about.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Air you sayin&#8217; anything a-tall,&#8221; demanded Old
+Man Rulison, suspiciously, &#8220;or air you joshin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Them&#8217;s words all right,&#8221; said Tubbs. &#8220;Onct
+I worked under a section boss over on the Great
+Northern what talked words like them. He believed
+we sprung up from tuds and lizards&mdash;and the likes
+o&#8217; that. Yes, he did&mdash;on the square.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;There are many believers in the theory of
+evolution,&#8221; observed McArthur.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it&mdash;that&#8217;s the word. That&#8217;s what he
+was.&#8221; Then, in the tone of one who hands out a
+clincher, Tubbs demanded: &#8220;Look here, Doc, if
+that&#8217;s so why ain&#8217;t all these ponds and cricks around
+here a-hatchin&#8217; out children?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Guess that&#8217;ll hold him for a minute,&#8221; Meeteetse
+Ed whispered to his neighbor.</p>
+<p>But instead of being covered with confusion by
+this seemingly unanswerable argument, McArthur
+gazed at Tubbs in genuine pity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me consider how I can make it quite clear
+to you. Perhaps,&#8221; he said thoughtfully, &#8220;I cannot
+do better than to give you Herbert Spencer&#8217;s
+definition. Spencer defines evolution, as nearly as
+I can remember his exact words, as an integration
+of matter and concomita, dissipation of motion;
+during which the matter passes from an indefinite
+heterogeneity to a definite, incoherent heterogeneity,
+and during which the retained motion undergoes
+a parallel transformation. Materialistic,
+agnostic, and theistic evolution&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Meeteetse Ed fell off his chair in a mock faint
+and crashed to the floor.</p>
+<p>Susie, who had entered, saw McArthur&#8217;s embarrassment,
+and refused to join in the shout of
+laughter, though her eyes danced.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t mind him,&#8221; she said comfortingly, as she
+eyed Meeteetse, sprawled on his back with his eyes
+closed. &#8220;He&#8217;s afraid he&#8217;ll learn something. He
+used to be a sheep-herder, and I don&#8217;t reckon he&#8217;s
+got more&#8217;n two hundred and fifty words in his
+whole vocabulary. Why, I&#8217;ll bet he never <i>heard</i>
+a word of more&#8217;n three syllables before. Get up,
+Meeteetse. Go out in the fresh air and build yourself
+a couple of them sheep-herder&#8217;s monuments.
+It&#8217;ll make you feel better.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The prostrate humorist revived. Susie&#8217;s jeers
+had the effect of a bucket of ice-water, for he had
+not been aware that this blot upon his escutcheon&mdash;the
+disgraceful epoch in his life when he had
+earned honest money herding sheep&mdash;was known.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My enthusiasm runs away with me when I
+get upon this subject,&#8221; said McArthur, in blushing
+apology to the group. &#8220;I am sorry that I
+have bored you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No bore a-tall,&#8221; declared Old Man Rulison
+magnanimously. &#8220;You cut loose whenever you feel
+like it: we kin stand it as long as you kin.&#8221;</p>
+<p>After McArthur had gone to his pneumatic mattress
+in the patent tent pitched near the bunk-house,
+Ralston said to Susie:</p>
+<p>&#8220;You and the bug-hunter are great friends,
+aren&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You bet! We&#8217;re pardners. Anybody that
+gets funny with him has got me to fight.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s like that, is it?&#8221; Ralston laughed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got secrets&mdash;the bug-hunter and me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re rather young for secrets, Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nobody&#8217;s too young for secrets,&#8221; she declared.
+&#8220;Haven&#8217;t you any?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure,&#8221; Ralston nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I like you,&#8221; Susie whispered impulsively.
+&#8220;Let&#8217;s swap secrets.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He looked at her and wished he dared. He
+would have liked to tell her of his mission, to ask
+her help; for he realized that, if she chose, no
+one could help him more. Like Smith, he recognized
+that quality in her they each called &#8220;gameness,&#8221;
+and even more than Smith he appreciated
+the commingling of Scotch shrewdness and Indian
+craft. He believed Susie to be honest; but he had
+believed many things in the past which time had
+not demonstrated to be facts. No, the chance was
+too great to take; for should she prove untrustworthy
+or indiscreet, his mission would be a failure.
+So he answered jestingly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;My secrets are not for little girls to know.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie gave him a quick glance.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you don&#8217;t look as though you had that
+kind,&#8221; and turned away.</p>
+<p>Ralston felt somehow that he had lost an opportunity.
+He could not rid himself of the feeling
+the entire evening; and he made up his mind
+to cultivate Susie&#8217;s friendship. But it was too
+late; he had made a mistake not unlike Dora&#8217;s.
+Susie had felt herself rebuffed, and, like the Schoolmarm,
+Ralston had laughed at her with his eyes.
+It was a great thing&mdash;a really sacred thing to
+Susie&mdash;this secret that she had offered him. The
+telling of it to McArthur had been so delightful
+an experience that she yearned to repeat it, but
+now she meant never to tell any one else. Any
+way, McArthur was her &#8220;pardner,&#8221; and it was
+enough that he should know. So it came about
+that afterwards, when Ralston sought her company
+and endeavored to learn something of the
+workings of her mind, he found the same barrier
+of childish reserve which had balked Dora, and no
+amount of tact or patience seemed able to break
+it down.</p>
+<p>The young deputy sheriff&#8217;s interest in Dora increased
+in leaps and bounds. He experienced an
+odd but delightful agitation when he saw the
+sleepy white pony plodding down the hill, and
+the sensation became one easily defined each
+time that he observed Smith&#8217;s horse ambling
+in the road beside hers. The feeling which inspired
+Tubbs&#8217;s disgruntled comment, &#8220;Smith rides
+herd on the Schoolmarm like a cow outfit in a bad
+wolf country,&#8221; found an echo in Ralston&#8217;s own
+breast. Truly, Smith guarded the Schoolmarm
+with the vigilance of a sheep-dog.</p>
+<p>He saw a possible rival in every new-comer, but
+most of all he feared Ralston; for Smith was not
+too blinded by prejudice to appreciate the fact
+that Ralston was handsome in a strong, man&#8217;s
+way, younger than himself, and possessed of the
+advantages of education which enabled him to talk
+with Dora upon subjects that left him, Smith,
+dumb. Such times were wormwood and gall to
+Smith; yet in his heart he never doubted but that
+he would have Dora and her love in the end. Smith&#8217;s
+faith in himself and his ability to get what he
+really desired was sublime. The chasm between
+himself and Dora&mdash;the difference of birth and education&mdash;meant
+nothing to him. It is doubtful if
+he recognized it. He would have considered himself
+a king&#8217;s equal; indeed, it would have gone
+hard with royalty, had royalty by any chance
+ordered Smith to saddle his horse. He judged by
+the standards of the plains: namely, gameness,
+skill, resourcefulness; to him, there <i>were</i> no other
+standards. After all, Dora Marshall was only a
+woman&mdash;the superior of other women, to be sure,
+but a woman; and if he wanted her&mdash;why not?</p>
+<p>He would have been amazed, enraged through
+wounded vanity, if it had been possible for him
+to see himself from Dora&#8217;s point of view: a
+subject for reformation; a test for many trite
+theories; an erring human to be reclaimed by a
+woman&#8217;s benign influence. Naturally, these thoughts
+had not suggested themselves to Smith.</p>
+<p>Ralston looked forward eagerly to the evening
+meal, since it was almost the only time at which
+he could exchange a word with Dora. Breakfast
+was a hurried affair, while both she and Susie
+were absent from the midday dinner. The shy,
+fluttering glances which he occasionally surprised
+from her, the look of mutual appreciation which
+sometimes passed between them at a quaint bit of
+philosophy or naïve remark, started his pulses
+dancing and set the whole world singing a wordless
+song of joy.</p>
+<p>Somehow, eating seemed a vulgar function in
+the Schoolmarm&#8217;s presence, and he wished with all
+his heart that the abominable grammar lessons
+which filled her evenings might some time end; in
+which case he would be able to converse with her
+when not engaged in rushing bread and meat to
+and fro.</p>
+<p>His most carefully laid plans to obtain a few
+minutes alone with her were invariably thwarted
+by Smith. And from the heights to which he had
+been transported by some more than passing
+friendly glance at the table, he was dragged each
+evening to the depths by the sight of Dora and
+Smith with their heads together over that accursed
+grammar.</p>
+<p>He commenced to feel a distaste for his bunk-house
+associates, and took to wandering out of
+doors, pausing most frequently in his meanderings
+just outside the circle of light thrown
+through the window by the dining-room lamp.
+Dora&#8217;s guilelessness in believing that Smith&#8217;s interest
+in his lessons was due to a desire for knowledge
+did not make the tableau less tantalizing to
+Ralston, but it would have been against every tenet
+in his code to suggest to Dora that Smith was
+not the misguided diamond-in-the-rough which she
+believed him.</p>
+<p>Smith, on the contrary, had no such scruples.
+He lost no opportunity to sneer at Ralston. When
+he discovered Dora wearing one of the first flowers
+of spring, which Ralston had brought her, Smith
+said darkly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;That fresh guy is a dead ringer for a feller
+that quit his wife and five kids in Livingston and
+run off with a biscuit-shooter.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora laughed aloud. The clean-cut and youthful
+Ralston deserting a wife and five children for
+a &#8220;biscuit-shooter&#8221; was not a convincing picture.
+That she did not receive his insinuation seriously
+but added fuel to the unreasoning jealousy beginning
+to flame in Smith&#8217;s breast.</p>
+<p>Yet Smith treated Ralston with a consideration
+which was surprising in view of the wanton insults
+he frequently inflicted upon those whom he
+disliked. Susie guessed the reason for his superficial
+courtesy, and Ralston, perhaps, suspected
+it also. In his heart, Smith was afraid. First
+and always, he was a judge of men&mdash;rather, of
+certain qualities in men. He knew that should he
+give intentional offense to Ralston, he would be
+obliged either to retract or to back up his insult
+with a gun. Ralston would be the last man to
+accept an affront with meekness.</p>
+<p>Smith did not wish affairs to reach this crisis.
+He did not want to force an issue until he had
+demonstrated to his own satisfaction that he was
+the better man of the two with words or fists or
+weapons. But once he found the flaw in Ralston&#8217;s
+armor, he would speedily become the aggressor.
+Such were Smith&#8217;s tactics. He was reckless with
+caution; daring when it was safe.</p>
+<p>The rôle he was playing gave him no concern.
+Though the Indian woman&#8217;s spells of sullenness
+irritated him, he conciliated her with endearing
+words, caresses, and the promise of a speedy marriage.
+He appeased her jealousy of Dora by
+telling her that he studied the foolish book-words
+only that he might the better work for her interests;
+that he was fitting himself to cope with
+the shrewd cattlemen with whom there were constant
+dealings, and that when they were married,
+the Schoolmarm should live elsewhere. Like others
+of her sex, regardless of race or color, the Indian
+woman believed because she wanted to believe.</p>
+<p>Just where his actions were leading him, Smith
+did not stop to consider. He had no fear of results.
+With an overweening confidence arising from
+past successes, he believed that matters would adjust
+themselves as they always had. Smith wanted
+a home, and the MacDonald cattle, horses, and
+hay; but more than any of them he wanted Dora
+Marshall. How he was going to obtain them all
+was not then clear to him, but that when the time
+came he could make a way, he never for a moment
+doubted.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s confidence in himself was supreme. If
+he could have expressed his belief in words, he
+might have said that he could control Destiny,
+shape events and his own life as he liked. He
+had been shot at, pursued by posses, all but
+lynched upon an occasion, and always he had
+escaped in some unlooked-for manner little short
+of miraculous. As a result, he had come to cherish
+a superstitious belief that he bore a charmed life,
+that no real harm could come to him. So he
+courted each woman according to her nature as
+he read it, and waited blindly for success.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='IX_SPEAKING_OF_GRASSHOPPERS' id='IX_SPEAKING_OF_GRASSHOPPERS'></a>
+<h2>IX</h2>
+<h3>SPEAKING OF GRASSHOPPERS&mdash;&mdash;</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was Saturday, and, there being no school,
+both Susie and Dora were at home. Ralston was
+considering in which direction he should ride that
+day when Susie came to him and after saying to
+Smith with elaborate politeness, &#8220;Excuse me, Mr.
+Smith, for whispering, but I have something very
+private and confidential to say to Mr. Ralston,&#8221;
+she shielded her mouth with her hand and said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Teacher and I are going fishing. We are
+going up on the side-hill now to catch grasshoppers
+for bait, and I thought maybe you&#8217;d like to help,
+and to fish with us this afternoon.&#8221; She tittered in
+his ear.</p>
+<p>Susie&#8217;s action conveyed two things to Ralston&#8217;s
+mind: first, that he had not been so clever as he
+had supposed in dissembling his feelings; and
+second, that Susie, recognizing them, was disposed
+to render him friendly aid.</p>
+<p>Smith noted Ralston&#8217;s brightening eye with suspicion,
+jumping to the very natural conclusion that
+only some pleasing information concerning the
+Schoolmarm would account for it. When, a few
+minutes later, he saw the three starting away together,
+each with a tin or pasteboard box, he
+realized that his surmise was correct.</p>
+<p>Glowering, Smith walked restlessly about the
+house, ignoring the Indian woman&#8217;s inquiring,
+wistful eyes, cursing to himself as he wandered
+through the corrals and stables, hating with a
+personal hatred everything which belonged to
+Ralston: his gentle-eyed brown mare; his expensive
+Navajo saddle-blanket; his single-rigged
+saddle; his bridle with the wide cheek pieces and
+the hand-forged bit. It would have been a satisfaction
+to destroy them all. He hated particularly
+the little brown mare which Ralston brushed with
+such care each morning. Smith&#8217;s mood was black
+indeed.</p>
+<p>But Ralston, as he walked between Dora and
+Susie to the side-hill where the first grasshoppers
+of spring were always found, felt at peace with
+all the world&mdash;even Smith&mdash;and it was in his heart
+to hug the elfish half-breed child as she skipped
+beside him. Dora&#8217;s frequent, bubbling laughter
+made him thrill; he longed to shout aloud like a
+schoolboy given an unexpected holiday.</p>
+<p>Each time that his eyes sought Dora&#8217;s, shadowed
+by the wide brim of her hat, her eyelids drooped,
+slowly, reluctantly, as though they fell against her
+will, while the color came and went under her
+clear skin in a fashion which filled him with delighted
+wonder.</p>
+<p>It may be said that there are few things in life
+so absorbing as catching grasshoppers. While
+Ralston previously had recognized this fact, he
+never had supposed that it contained any element
+of pleasure akin to the delights of Paradise. To
+chase grasshoppers by oneself is one thing; to
+pursue them in the company of a fascinating schoolmarm
+is another; and when one has in his mind
+the thought that ultimately he and the schoolmarm
+may chance to fall upon the same grasshopper,
+the chase becomes a sport for the gods
+to envy.</p>
+<p>Anent grasshoppers. While the first grasshopper
+of early spring has not the devilish agility of
+his August descendant, he is sufficiently alert to
+make his capture no mean feat. It must be borne
+in mind that the grasshopper is not a fool, and
+that he appears to see best from the rear. Though
+he remains motionless while the enemy is slipping
+stealthily upon him, it by no means follows that
+he is not aware of said enemy&#8217;s approach. The
+grasshopper has a more highly developed sense
+of humor than any other known insect. It is an
+established fact that after a person has fallen upon
+his face and clawed at the earth where the grasshopper
+was but is not, the grasshopper will be
+seen distinctly to laugh from his coign of vantage
+beyond reach.</p>
+<p>Furthermore, it is quite impossible to fathom
+the mind of the grasshopper, his intentions or
+habits; particularly those of the small, gray-pink
+variety. He is as erratic in his flight as a clay
+pigeon, though it is tolerably safe to assume
+that he will not jump backward. He may not jump
+at all, but, with a deceptive movement, merely sidle
+under a sage-leaf. Where questions concerning
+his personal safety are concerned, he shows rare
+judgment, appearing to recognize exactly the
+psychological moment in which to fly, jump, or sit
+still.</p>
+<p>No sluggard, be it known, can hope to catch
+grasshoppers with any degree of success. It requires
+an individual nimble of mind and body,
+whose nerves are keyed to a tension, who is dominated
+by a mood which refuses to recognize the
+perils of snakes, cactus, and prairie-dog holes;
+forgetful of self and dignity, inured to ridicule.
+Such a one is justified in making the attempt.</p>
+<p>The large, brownish-black, grandfatherly-looking
+grasshopper is the most easily captured, though
+not so satisfactory for bait as the pea-green or
+the gray-pink. It was to the first variety that
+Dora and Ralston devoted themselves, while Susie
+followed the smaller and more sprightly around
+the hill till she was out of sight.</p>
+<p>Ralston became aware that no matter in which
+direction the grasshopper he had marked for his
+own took him, singularly enough he always ended
+in pursuit of Dora&#8217;s. As a matter of fact, her
+grasshopper looked so much more desirable than
+his, that he could not well do otherwise than abandon
+the pursuit of his own for hers.</p>
+<p>Her low &#8220;Oh, thank you so much!&#8221; was so
+heartfelt and sincere when he pushed the insect
+through the slit in her pasteboard box that he truly
+believed he would have run one all the way to
+the Middle Fork of Powder River only to hear
+her say it again. And then her womanly aversion
+to inflicting pain, her appealing femininity when she
+brought a bulky-bodied, tobacco-chewing grasshopper
+for him to pinch its head into insensibility!
+He liked this best of all, for, of necessity, their
+fingers touched in the exchange, and he wondered
+a little at his strength of will in refraining from
+catching her hand in his and refusing to let go.</p>
+<p>Finally a grasshopper of abnormal size went up
+with a whir. Big he was, in comparison with
+his kind, as the monster steer in the side-show,
+the Cardiff giant, or Jumbo the mammoth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; cried Dora; &#8220;we must have him!&#8221; and
+they ran side by side in wild, determined pursuit.</p>
+<p>The insect sailed far and fast, but they could
+not lose sight of him, for he was like an aeroplane
+in flight, and when in an ill-advised moment he lit
+to gather himself, they fell upon him tooth and
+nail&mdash;to use a phrase. Dora&#8217;s hand closed over
+the grasshopper, and Ralston&#8217;s closed over Dora&#8217;s,
+holding it tight in one confused moment of delicious,
+tongue-tied silence.</p>
+<p>Her shoulder touched his, her hair brushed his
+cheek. He wished that they might go on holding
+down that grasshopper until the end of time. She
+was panting with the exertion, her nose was moist
+like a baby&#8217;s when it sleeps, and he noticed in a
+swift, sidelong glance that the pupils of her eyes
+all but covered the iris.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&mdash;he&#8217;s wiggling!&#8221; she said tremulously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is he?&#8221; Ralston asked fatuously, at a loss for
+words, but making no move to lift his hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And there&#8217;s a cactus in my finger.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me see it.&#8221; Immediately his face was full
+of deep concern.</p>
+<p>He held her fingers, turning the small pink
+palm upward.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must get it out,&#8221; he declared firmly.
+&#8220;They poison some people.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He wondered if it was imagination, or did her
+hand tremble a little in his? His relief was not
+unmixed with disappointment when the cactus spine
+came out easily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They hurt&mdash;those needles.&#8221; He continued to
+regard the tiny puncture with unabated interest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tra! la! la!&#8221; sang Susie from the brow of
+the hill. &#8220;Old Smith is comin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston dropped Dora&#8217;s hand, and they both
+reddened, each wondering how long Susie had been
+doing picket duty.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Out for your failin&#8217; health, Mister Smith?&#8221;
+inquired Susie, with solicitude.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m huntin&#8217; horses, and hopin&#8217; to pick up a
+bunch of ponies cheap,&#8221; he replied with ugly significance
+as he rode by.</p>
+<p>And while the soft light faded from Ralston&#8217;s
+eyes, the color leaped to his face; unconsciously
+his fists clenched as he looked after Smith&#8217;s vanishing
+back. It was the latter&#8217;s first overt act of
+hostility; Ralston knew, and perhaps Smith intended
+it so, that the clash between them must
+now come soon.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='X_MOTHER_LOVE_AND_SAVAGE_PASSION_CONFLICT' id='X_MOTHER_LOVE_AND_SAVAGE_PASSION_CONFLICT'></a>
+<h2>X</h2>
+<h3>MOTHER LOVE AND SAVAGE PASSION CONFLICT</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was Sunday, a day later, when Susie came
+into the living-room and noticed her mother sewing
+muskrat around the top of a moccasin. It was
+a man&#8217;s moccasin. The woman had made no men&#8217;s
+moccasins since her husband&#8217;s death. The sight
+chilled the girl.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother,&#8221; she asked abruptly, &#8220;what do you
+let that hold-up hang around here for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who you mean?&#8221; the woman asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That Smith!&#8221; Susie spat out the word like
+something offensive.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman avoided the girl&#8217;s eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I like him,&#8221; she answered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe he stay all time.&#8221; Her tone was stubborn,
+as though she expected and was prepared to
+resist an attack.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t&mdash;you <i>can&#8217;t</i>&mdash;mean it!&#8221;. Susie&#8217;s
+thin face flushed scarlet with shame.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sa-ah,&#8221; the woman nodded, &#8220;I mean it;&#8221; and
+Susie, staring at her in a kind of terror, saw that
+she did.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Mother! Mother!&#8221; she cried passionately,
+dropping on the floor at the woman&#8217;s feet and
+clasping her arms convulsively about the Indian
+woman&#8217;s knees. &#8220;Don&#8217;t&mdash;don&#8217;t say that! We&#8217;ve
+always been a little different from the rest. We&#8217;ve
+always held our heads up. People like us and
+respect us&mdash;both Injuns and white. We&#8217;ve never
+been talked about&mdash;you and me&mdash;and now you are
+going to spoil it all!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I get tied up to him right,&#8221; defended the
+woman sullenly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Mother!&#8221; wailed the child.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We need good white man to run de ranch.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But <i>Smith</i>&mdash;do you think <i>he&#8217;s</i> good? Good!
+Is a rattlesnake good? Can&#8217;t you see what he is,
+Mother?&mdash;you who are smarter than me in seeing
+through people? He&#8217;s mean&mdash;onery to the marrow&mdash;and
+some day sure&mdash;<i>sure</i>&mdash;he&#8217;ll turn, and
+strike his fangs into you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He no onery,&#8221; the woman replied, in something
+like anger.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s his nature,&#8221; Susie went on, without heeding
+her. &#8220;He can&#8217;t help it. All his thoughts and
+talk and schemes are about something crooked.
+Can&#8217;t you tell by the things he lets drop that he
+ought to be in the &#8217;pen&#8217;? He&#8217;s treacherous, ungrateful,
+a born thief. I saw him take Tubbs&#8217;s
+halter, and there was the regular thief look in
+his eyes when he cut his own name on it. I saw
+him kick a dog, and he kicked it like a brute. He
+kicked it in the ribs with his toe. Men&mdash;decent
+men&mdash;kick a dog with the side of their foot. I
+saw his horse fall with him, and he held it down
+and beat it on the neck with a chain, where it
+wouldn&#8217;t show. He&#8217;d hold up a bank or rob a
+woman; he&#8217;d kill a man or a prairie-dog, and think
+no more of the one than the other.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I tell you, Mother, as sure as I sit here on
+the floor at your feet, begging you, he&#8217;s going to
+bring us trouble; he&#8217;s going to deal us misery!
+I feel it! I <i>know</i> it!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You no like de white man.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s right; I don&#8217;t like the white man. He
+wants a good place to stay; he wants your horses
+and cattle and hay; and&mdash;he wants the Schoolmarm.
+He&#8217;s making a fool of you, Mother.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He no make fool of me,&#8221; she answered complacently.
+&#8220;He make fool of de white woman,
+maybe.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look out of the window and see for yourself.&#8221;</p>
+<p>They arose together, and the girl pointed to
+Smith and Dora, seated side by side on the cottonwood
+log.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did he ever look at you like that, Mother?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He make fool of de white woman,&#8221; she reiterated
+stubbornly, but her face clouded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He makes a fool of himself, but not of her,&#8221;
+declared Susie. &#8220;He&#8217;s crazy about her&mdash;locoed.
+Everybody sees it except her. Believe me, Mother,
+listen to Susie just this once.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He like me. I stick to him;&#8221; but she went
+back to her bench. The unfamiliar softness of
+Smith&#8217;s face hurt her.</p>
+<p>The tears filled Susie&#8217;s eyes and ran down her
+cheeks. Her mother&#8217;s passion for this hateful
+stranger was stronger than her mother-love, that
+silent, undemonstrative love in which Susie had believed
+as she believed that the sun would rise each
+morning over there in the Bad Lands, to warm
+her when she was cold. She buried her face in
+her mother&#8217;s lap and sobbed aloud.</p>
+<p>The woman had not seen Susie cry since she
+was a tiny child, save when her father and White
+Antelope died, and the numbed maternal instinct
+stirred in her breast. She laid her dark, ringed
+fingers upon Susie&#8217;s hair and stroked it gently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry,&#8221; she said slowly. &#8220;If he make fool
+of me, if he lie when he say he tie up to me right,
+if he like de white woman better den me, I kill
+him. I kill him, Susie.&#8221; She pointed to a bunch
+of roots and short dried stalks which hung from
+the rafters in one corner of the room. &#8220;See&mdash;that
+is the love-charm of the Sioux. It was gifted
+to me by Little Coyote&#8217;s woman&mdash;a Mandan. It
+bring de love, and too much&mdash;it kill. If he make
+fool of me, if he not like me better den de white
+woman, I give him de love-charm of de Sioux. I
+fix him! <i>I fix him right!</i>&#8221;</p>
+<p>Out on the cottonwood log Smith and the Schoolmarm
+had been speaking of many things; for
+the man could talk fluently in his peculiar vernacular,
+upon any subject which interested him or
+with which he was familiar.</p>
+<p>The best of his nature, whatever of good there
+was in him, was uppermost when with Dora. He
+really believed at such times that he was what
+she thought him, and he condemned the shortcomings
+of others like one speaking from the
+lofty pinnacle of unimpeachable virtue.</p>
+<p>In her presence, new ambitions, new desires,
+awakened, and sentiments which he never had suspected
+he possessed revealed themselves. He was
+happy in being near her; content when he felt
+the touch of her loose cape on his arm.</p>
+<p>It never before had occurred to Smith that the
+world through which he had gone his tumultuous
+way was a beautiful place, or that there was joy
+in the simple fact of being strongly alive. When
+the sage-brush commenced to turn green and the
+many brilliant flowers of the desert bloomed, when
+the air was stimulating like wine and fragrant with
+the scents of spring, it had meant little to Smith
+beyond the facts that horse-feed would soon be
+plentiful and that he could lay aside his Mackinaw
+coat. The mountains suggested nothing but that
+they held big game and were awkward places to
+get through on horseback, while the deserts brought
+no thoughts save of thirst and loneliness and choking
+alkali dust. Upon a time a stranger had mentioned
+the scenery, and Smith had replied ironically
+that there was plenty of it and for him to help
+himself!</p>
+<p>But this spring was different&mdash;so different that
+he asked himself wonderingly if other springs had
+been like it; and to-day, as he sat in the sunshine
+and looked about him, he saw for the first
+time grandeur in the saw-toothed, snow-covered
+peaks outlined against the dazzling blue of the
+western sky. For the first time he saw the awing
+vastness of the desert, and the soft pastel shades
+which made their desolation beautiful. He breathed
+deep of the odorous air and stared about him like
+a blind man who suddenly sees.</p>
+<p>During a silence, Smith looked at Dora with his
+curiously intent gaze; his characteristic stare which
+held nothing of impertinence&mdash;only interest, intense,
+absorbing interest&mdash;and as he looked a
+thought came to him, a thought so unexpected, so
+startling, that he blinked as if some one had struck
+him in the face. It sent a bright red rushing over
+him, coloring his neck, his ears, his white, broad
+forehead.</p>
+<p>He thought of her as the mother of children&mdash;his
+children&mdash;bearing his name, miniatures of himself
+and of her. He never had thought of this
+before. He never had met a woman who inspired
+in him any such desire. He followed the thought
+further. What if he should have a permanent
+home&mdash;a ranch that belonged to him exclusively&mdash;&#8220;Smith&#8217;s
+Ranch&#8221;&mdash;where there were white curtains
+at the windows, and little ones who came
+tumbling through the door to greet him when
+he rode into the yard? A place where people
+came to visit, people who reckoned him a person
+of consequence because he stood for something.
+He must have seen a place like it somewhere, the
+picture was so vivid in his mind.</p>
+<p>The thought of living like others never before
+had entered into the scheme of his calculations.
+Since the time when he had &#8220;quit the flat&#8221; back
+in the country where they slept between sheets,
+the world had been lined up against him in its
+own defense. Life had been a constant game of
+hare and hounds, with the pack frequently close
+at his heels. He had been ever on the move, both
+for reasons of safety and as a matter of taste. His
+point of view was the abnormal one of the professional
+law-breaker: the world was his legitimate
+prey; the business of his life was to do as he
+pleased and keep his liberty; to outwit sheriffs and
+make a clean get-away. To be known among his
+kind as &#8220;game&#8221; and &#8220;slick,&#8221; was the only distinction
+he craved. His chiefest ambition had been
+to live up to his title of &#8220;Bad Man.&#8221; In this he
+had found glory which satisfied him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; Dora asked at last, smiling up at him,
+&#8220;what is it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith hesitated; then he burst out:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girl, do I stack up different to you nor anybody
+else? Have you any feelin&#8217; for me at all?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, I think I&#8217;ve shown my interest in trying
+to teach you,&#8221; she replied, a little abashed by
+his vehemence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you want to teach me for?&#8221; he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because,&#8221; Dora declared, &#8220;you have possibilities.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you teach Meeteetse Ed and
+Tubbs?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora laughed aloud.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Candidly, I think it would be a waste of time.
+They could never hope to be much more than we
+see them here. And they are content as they are.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;So was I, girl, until our trails crossed. I could
+ride without grub all day, and sing. I could sleep
+on a saddle-blanket like a tired pup, with only a
+rock for a wind-break and my saddle for a pillow.
+Now I can&#8217;t sleep in a bed. It&#8217;s horrible&mdash;this
+mixed up feelin&#8217;&mdash;half the time wantin&#8217; to holler
+and laugh and the other half wantin&#8217; to cry.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see why you should feel like that,&#8221;
+said Dora gravely. &#8220;You are getting along. It&#8217;s
+slow, but you&#8217;re learning.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, I&#8217;m learnin&#8217;,&#8221; Smith answered grimly&mdash;&#8220;fast.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He saw her wondering look and went on fiercely.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girl, don&#8217;t you see what I mean? Don&#8217;t you
+<i>sabe</i>? My feelin&#8217; for you is more nor friendship.
+I can&#8217;t tell you how I feel. It&#8217;s nothin&#8217; I ever
+had before, but I&#8217;ve heard of it a-plenty. It&#8217;s
+love&mdash;that&#8217;s what it is! I&#8217;ve seen it, too, a-plenty.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s two things in the world a feller&#8217;ll go
+through hell for&mdash;just two: love and gold. I
+don&#8217;t mean money, but gold&mdash;the pure stuff.
+They&#8217;ll waller through snow-drifts, they&#8217;ll swim
+rivers with the ice runnin&#8217;, they&#8217;ll crawl through
+canyons and over trails on their hands and knees,
+they&#8217;ll starve and they&#8217;ll freeze, they&#8217;ll work till
+the blood runs from their blistered hands, they&#8217;ll
+kill their horses and their pardners, for gold!
+And they&#8217;ll do it for love. Yes, I&#8217;ve seen it a-plenty,
+me&mdash;Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Things I&#8217;ve done, I&#8217;ve done, and they don&#8217;t
+worry me none,&#8221; he went on, &#8220;but lately I&#8217;ve
+thought of Dutch Joe. I worked him over for
+singin&#8217; a love-song, and I wisht I hadn&#8217;t. He&#8217;d
+held up a stage, and was cached in my camp till
+things simmered down. It was lonesome, and I&#8217;d
+want to talk; but he&#8217;d sit back in the dark, away
+from the camp-fire, and sing to himself about
+&#8217;ridin&#8217; to Annie.&#8217; How the miles wasn&#8217;t long or
+the trail rough if only he was &#8217;ridin&#8217; to Annie.&#8217;
+Sittin&#8217; back there in the brush, he sounded like
+a sick coyote a-hollerin&#8217;. It hadn&#8217;t no tune, and
+I thought it was the damnedest fool song I ever
+heard. After he&#8217;d sung it more&#8217;n five hundred
+times, I hit him on the head with a six-shooter,
+and we mixed. He quit singin&#8217;, but he held that
+gretch against me as long as he lived.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought it was because he was Dutch, but
+it wasn&#8217;t. &#8217;Twas love. Why, girl, I&#8217;d ride as
+long as my horse could stand up under me, and
+then I&#8217;d hoof it, just to hear you say, &#8216;Smith,
+do you think it will rain?&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I never thought of this!&#8221; cried Dora,
+as Smith paused.</p>
+<p>Her face was full of distress, and her hands
+lay tightly clenched in her lap.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean I haven&#8217;t any show&mdash;no show
+at all?&#8221; The color fading from Smith&#8217;s face left
+it a peculiar yellow.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It never occurred to me that you would misunderstand,
+or think anything but that I wanted
+to help you. I thought that you wanted to learn
+so that you would have a better chance in life.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you&mdash;honest? Are you as innocent as
+that, girl?&#8221; he asked in savage scepticism. &#8220;Did
+you believe that I&#8217;d set and study them damned
+verbs just so I&#8217;d have a better chanct in life?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You said so.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, maybe I <i>said</i> so.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Surely, <i>surely</i>, you don&#8217;t think I would intentionally
+mislead you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When a woman wants a man to dress or act
+or talk different, she generally cares some.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I do &#8216;care some&#8217;!&#8221; Dora cried impulsively.
+&#8220;I believe that you are not making the
+best of yourself, of your life; that you are better
+than your surroundings; and because I do believe
+in you, I want to help you. Don&#8217;t you
+understand?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her explanation was not convincing to Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it because I don&#8217;t talk grammar, and you
+think you&#8217;d have to live in a log-house and hang
+out your own wash?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora considered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Even if I cared for you, those things would
+have weight,&#8221; she answered truthfully. &#8220;I am
+content out here now, and like it because it is
+novel and I know it is temporary; but if I were
+asked to live here always, as you suggest, in a
+log-house and hang out my own wash, I should
+have to care a great deal.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s because I haven&#8217;t a stake, then,&#8221; he said
+bitterly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, not because you haven&#8217;t a stake. I merely
+say that extreme poverty would be an objection.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But if I should get the <i>dinero</i>&mdash;me, Smith&mdash;plenty
+of it? Tell me,&#8221; he demanded fiercely&mdash;&#8220;it&#8217;s
+the time to talk now&mdash;is there any one else?
+It&#8217;s me for the devil straight if you throw me!
+You&#8217;d better take this gun here, plant it on my
+heart, and pull the trigger. Because if I live&mdash;I&#8217;m
+talkin&#8217; straight&mdash;what I have done will be
+just a kid&#8217;s play to what I&#8217;ll do, if I ever cut
+loose for fair. Don&#8217;t throw me, girl! Give me
+a show&mdash;if there ain&#8217;t any one else! If there is,
+I&#8217;m quittin&#8217; the flat to-day.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora was silent, panic-stricken with the responsibility
+which he seemed to have thrust upon
+her, almost terrified by the thought that he was
+leaving his future in her hands&mdash;a malleable object,
+to be shaped according to her will for good
+or evil.</p>
+<p>A certain self-contained, spectacled youth, whose
+weekly letters arrived with regularity, rose before
+her mental vision, and as quickly vanished, leaving
+in his stead a man of a different type, a man at
+once unyielding and gentle, both shy and bold; a
+man who seemed to typify in himself the faults
+and virtues of the raw but vigorous West. Though
+she hesitated, she replied:</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, there is no one.&#8221;</p>
+<p>And Ralston, fording the stream, lifted his eyes
+midway and saw Smith raise Dora&#8217;s hand to his
+lips.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XI_THE_BEST_HORSE' id='XI_THE_BEST_HORSE'></a>
+<h2>XI</h2>
+<h3>THE BEST HORSE</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a subtle change in Ralston, which
+Dora was quick to feel. He was deferential, as
+always, and as eager to please; but he no longer
+sought her company, and she missed the quick
+exchange of sympathetic glances at the table. It
+seemed to her, also, that the grimness in his face
+was accentuated of late. She found herself crying
+one night, and called it homesickness, yet the
+small items of news contained in the latest letter
+from the spectacled youth had irritated her, and
+she had realized that she no longer regarded church
+fairs, choir practice, and oyster suppers as
+&#8220;events.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She wondered how she had offended Ralston, if
+at all; or was it that he thought her bold, a
+brazen creature, because she had let him keep her
+hand so long upon the memorable occasion of the
+grasshopper hunt? She blushed in the darkness
+at the thought, and the tears slipped down her
+cheeks again as she decided that this must be so,
+since there could be no other explanation. Before
+she finally slept, she had fully made up her mind
+that she would show him by added reserve and
+dignity of manner that she was not the forward
+hoyden he undoubtedly believed her. And as a
+result of this midnight decision, the Schoolmarm&#8217;s
+&#8220;Good-morning, Mr. Ralston,&#8221; chilled that person
+like a draught from cold storage.</p>
+<p>Susie noticed the absence of their former cordiality
+toward each other; and the obvious lack
+of warmth filled Smith with keen satisfaction. He
+had no notion of its cause; it was sufficient that
+it was so.</p>
+<p>As their conversation daily became more forced,
+the estrangement more marked, Ralston&#8217;s wretchedness
+increased in proportion. He brooded miserably
+over the scene he had witnessed; troubled, aside
+from his own interest in Dora, that she should be
+misled by a man of Smith&#8217;s moral calibre. While he
+had delighted in her unworldly, childlike belief in
+people and things, in this instance he deeply regretted
+it.</p>
+<p>Ralston understood perfectly the part which
+Smith desired to play in her eyes. He had heard
+through Dora the stories Smith had told her of
+wild adventures in which he figured to advantage,
+of reckless deeds which he hinted would be impossible
+since falling under her influence. He
+posed as a brand snatched from the burning, and
+conveyed the impression that his salvation was a
+duty which had fallen in her path for her to perform.
+That she applied herself to the task of
+elevating Smith with such combined patience and
+ardor, was the grievance of which Ralston had most
+to complain.</p>
+<p>In his darker moments he told himself that she
+must have a liking for the man far stronger than
+he had believed, to have permitted the liberty which
+he had witnessed, one which, coming from Smith,
+seemed little short of sacrilege. His unhappiness
+was not lessened by the instances he recalled where
+women had married beneath them through this
+mistaken sense of duty, pity, or less commendable
+emotions.</p>
+<p>Upon one thing he was determined, and that
+was never again to force his attentions upon her,
+to take advantage of her helplessness as he had
+when he had held her hand so tightly and, as he
+now believed, against her wishes. Although she
+did not show it, she must have thought him a bumpkin,
+an oaf, an underbred cur. He groaned as he
+ransacked his vocabulary for fitting words.</p>
+<p>If only something would arise to reveal Smith&#8217;s
+character to her in its true light! But this was
+too much to hope. In his depression, it seemed
+to Ralston that the sun would never shine for him
+again, that failure was written on him like an I.&nbsp;D.
+brand, that sorrow everlasting would eat and sleep
+with him. In this mood, after a brief exchange
+of breakfast civilities, far worse than none, he
+walked slowly to the corral to saddle, cursing
+Smith for the braggart he knew he was and for
+the scoundrel he believed him to be.</p>
+<p>Smith, it seemed, was riding that morning also,
+for when Ralston led his brown mare saddled and
+bridled from the stable, Smith was tightening the
+cinch on his long-legged gray&mdash;the horse he had
+taken from the Englishman. The Schoolmarm, in
+her riding clothes, ran down the trail, calling impartially:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will one of you please get my horse for me?
+He broke loose last night and is over there in the
+pasture.&#8221;</p>
+<p>For reply, both Ralston and Smith swung into
+their saddles.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I aims to get that horse. There&#8217;s no call
+for you to go, feller.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Above all else, it was odious to Ralston to be
+addressed by Smith &#8220;feller.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you happen to get to him first,&#8221; he answered
+curtly. &#8220;And I&#8217;d like to suggest that my
+name is Ralston.&#8221;</p>
+<p>By way of answer, Smith dug the spurs cruelly
+into the thin-skinned blooded gray. Ralston
+loosened the reins on his brown mare, and it was
+a run from the jump.</p>
+<p>Each realized that the inevitable clash had come,
+that no pretense of friendliness would longer be
+possible between them, that from now on they would
+be avowed enemies. As for Ralston, he was glad
+that the crisis had arrived; glad of anything
+which would divert him for ever so short a time
+from his own bitter thoughts; glad of the test
+which he could meet in the open, like a man.</p>
+<p>The corral gate was open, and this led into a
+lane something like three-quarters of a mile in
+length, at the end of which was another gate,
+opening into the pasture where the runaway pony
+had crawled through the loose wire fence.</p>
+<p>The brown mare had responded to Ralston&#8217;s
+signal like the loyal, honest little brute she was.
+The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat
+of the horses&#8217; hoofs on the hard road was like the
+roll of a drum. They were running neck and
+neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result,
+unless the gray had phenomenal speed.</p>
+<p>Ralston knew that whoever reached the gate
+first must open it. If he could get far enough in
+the lead, he could afford to do so; if not, he
+meant to &#8220;pull&#8221; his horse and leave it to Smith.
+The real race would be from the gate to the pony.</p>
+<p>The gray horse could run&mdash;his build showed
+that, and his stride bore out his appearance. Yet
+Ralston felt no uneasiness, for the mare had still
+several links of speed to let out&mdash;&#8220;and then
+some,&#8221; as he phrased it. The pace was furious
+even to the gate; they ran neck and neck, like
+a team, and the face of each rider was set in lines
+of determination. Ralston quickly saw that in the
+short stretch he would be unable to get sufficiently
+in the lead to open the gate in safety. So he
+pulled his horse a little, wondering if Smith would
+do the same. But he did not. Instead, he spurred
+viciously, and, to Ralston&#8217;s amazement, he went
+at the gate hard. Lifting the gray horse&#8217;s head,
+he went over and on without a break!</p>
+<p>It was a chance, but Smith had taken it! He
+never had tried the horse, but it was from the
+English ranch, where he knew they were bred and
+trained to jump. His mocking laugh floated back
+to Ralston while he tore at the fastenings of the
+gate and hurled it from him.</p>
+<p>Ralston measured the gap between them and his
+heart sank. It looked hopeless. The only thing
+in his favor was that it was a long run, and the
+gray might not have the wind or the endurance.
+The little mare stood still, her nose out, her soft
+eyes shining. As he lifted the reins, he patted
+her neck and cried, breathing hard:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Molly, old girl, if you win, it&#8217;s oats and a
+rest all your life!&#8221;</p>
+<p>He could have sworn the mare shared his
+humiliation.</p>
+<p>The saddle-leathers creaked beneath him at the
+leap she gave. She lay down to her work like a
+hound, running low, her neck outstretched, her
+tail lying out on the breeze. Game, graceful, reaching
+out with her slim legs and tiny hoofs, she
+ate up the distance between herself and the gray
+in a way that made even Ralston gasp. And still
+she gained&mdash;and gained! Her muscles seemed like
+steel springs, and the unfaltering courage in her
+brave heart made Ralston choke with pride and
+tenderness and gratitude. Even if she lost, the
+race she was making was something to remember
+always. But she was gaining inch by inch. The
+sage-brush and cactus swam under her feet. When
+Ralston thought she had done her best, given all
+that was in her, she did a little more.</p>
+<p>Smith knew, too, that she was gaining, though
+he would not turn his head to look. When her
+nose was at his horse&#8217;s rump, he had it in his heart
+to turn and shoot her as she ran. She crept up
+and up, and both Smith and Ralston knew that
+the straining, pounding gray had done its best.
+The work was too rough for its feet. There was
+too much thoroughbred in it for lava-rock and sage-brush
+hummocks. Blind rage consumed Smith as
+he felt the increasing effort of each stride and
+knew that it was going &#8220;dead&#8221; under him. He
+used his spurs with savage brutality, but the brown
+mare&#8217;s breath was coming hot on his leg. The
+gray horse stumbled; its breath came and went in
+sobs. Now they were neck and neck again. Then
+it was over, the little brown mare swept by, and
+Ralston&#8217;s rope, cutting the air, dropped about the
+neck of the insignificant, white &#8220;digger&#8221; that had
+caused it all.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I guess you&#8217;re ridin&#8217; the best horse to-day,&#8221;
+said Smith, as he dropped from the saddle to retie
+his latigo.</p>
+<p>He gave the words a peculiar emphasis and inflection
+which made the other man look at him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Molly and I have a prejudice against taking
+dust,&#8221; Ralston answered quietly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It happens frequent that a feller has to get
+over his prejudices out in this country.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That depends a little upon the fellow;&#8221; and
+he turned Molly&#8217;s head toward the ranch, with the
+pony in tow.</p>
+<p>Smith said nothing more, but rode off across
+the hills with all the evil in his nature showing
+in his lowering countenance.</p>
+<p>Dora&#8217;s eyes were brilliant as they always were
+under excitement; and when Ralston dismounted
+she stroked Molly&#8217;s nose, saying in a voice which
+was more natural than it had been for days when
+addressing him, &#8220;It was splendid! <i>She</i> is splendid!&#8221;
+and he glowed, feeling that perhaps he
+was included a little in her praise.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You want to watch out now,&#8221; said Susie
+soberly. &#8220;Smith&#8217;ll never rest till he&#8217;s &#8216;hunks.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston thought the Schoolmarm hesitated, as
+if she were waiting for him to join them, or were
+going to ask him to do so; but she did not, and,
+although it was some satisfaction to feel that he
+had drawn first blood, he felt his despondency
+returning as soon as Dora and Susie had ridden
+away.</p>
+<p>He walked aimlessly about, waiting for Molly
+to cool a bit before he let her drink preparatory
+to starting on his tiresome ride over the range.
+Both he and the Colonel believed that the thieves
+would soon grow bolder, and his strongest hope
+lay in coming upon them at work. He had noted
+that there were no fresh hides among those which
+hung on the fence, and he sauntered down to have
+another look at the old ones. With his foot
+he turned over something which lay close against
+a fence-post, half concealed in a sage-brush.
+Stooping, he unrolled it and shook it out; then
+he whistled softly. It was a fresh hide with the
+brand cut out!</p>
+<p>Ralston nodded his head in mingled satisfaction
+and regret. So the thief was working from
+the MacDonald ranch! Did the Indian woman
+know, he wondered. Was it possible that Susie
+was in ignorance? With all his heart, he hoped
+she was. He walked leisurely to the house and
+leaned against the jamb of the kitchen door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have the makings, Ling?&#8221; He passed his
+tobacco-sack and paper to the cook.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure!&#8221; said Ling jauntily. &#8220;I like &#8217;em
+cigilette.&#8221;</p>
+<p>And as they smoked fraternally together, they
+talked of food and its preparation&mdash;subjects from
+which Ling&#8217;s thoughts seldom wandered far. When
+the advantages of soda and sour milk over baking
+powder were thoroughly exhausted as a topic,
+Ralston asked casually:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who killed your last beef, Ling? It&#8217;s hard
+to beat.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yellow Bird,&#8221; he replied. &#8220;Him good
+butcher.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Ralston agreed; &#8220;I should say that
+Yellow Bird was an uncommonly good butcher.&#8221;</p>
+<p>So, after all, it was the Indians who were killing.
+Ralston sauntered on to the bunk-house
+to think it over.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tubbs,&#8221; McArthur was saying, as he eyed
+that person with an interest which he seldom bestowed
+upon his hireling, &#8220;you really have a most
+remarkable skull.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs, visibly flattered, smirked.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s claimed that it&#8217;s double by people what
+have tried to work me over. Onct I crawled in
+a winder and et up a batch of &#8217;son-of-a-gun-in-a-sack&#8217;
+that the feller who lived there had jest
+made. He come in upon me suddent, and the
+way he hammered me over the head with the stove-lifter
+didn&#8217;t trouble <i>him</i>, but,&#8221; declared Tubbs
+proudly, &#8220;he never even knocked me to my
+knees.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is of the type of dolichocephalic,&#8221; mused
+McArthur.</p>
+<p>&#8220;A barber told me that same thing the last
+time I had a hair-cut,&#8221; observed Tubbs blandly.
+&#8220;&#8216;Tubbs,&#8217; says he, &#8216;you ought to have a massaj
+every week, and lay the b&#8217;ar-ile on a-plenty.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is remarkably suggestive of the skulls found
+in the ancient paraderos of Patagonia. Very
+similar in contour&mdash;very similar.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no Irish in me,&#8221; Tubbs declared with
+a touch of resentment. &#8220;I&#8217;m pure mungrel&mdash;English
+and Dutch.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is an extremely curious skull&mdash;most peculiar.&#8221;
+He felt of Tubbs&#8217;s head with growing interest.
+&#8220;This bump behind the ear, if the system
+of phrenology has any value, would indicate unusual
+pugnacity.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s where a mule kicked me and put his
+laig out of joint,&#8221; said Tubbs humorously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, that renders the skull pathological; but,
+even so, it is an interesting skull to an anthropologist&mdash;a
+really valuable skull, it would be to
+me, illustrating as it does certain features in dispute,
+for which I have stubbornly contended in
+controversies with the Preparator of Anthropology
+at the École des Haute Études in Paris.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you sell it to him, Tubbs?&#8221; suggested
+Ralston, who had listened in unfeigned
+amusement.</p>
+<p>Tubbs, startled, clasped both hands over the top
+of his head and backed off.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, I need it myself.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly&mdash;we understand that; but supposing
+you were to die&mdash;supposing something happened
+to you, as is liable to happen out here&mdash;you
+wouldn&#8217;t care what became of your skull, once
+you were good and dead. If it were sold, you&#8217;d
+be just that much in, besides making an invaluable
+contribution to science,&#8221; Ralston urged persuasively.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It not infrequently happens that paupers, and
+prisoners sentenced to suffer capital punishment,
+dispose of their bodies for anatomical purposes,
+for which they are paid in advance. As a matter
+of fact, Tubbs,&#8221; declared McArthur earnestly,
+&#8220;my superficial examination of your head has so
+impressed me that upon the chance of some day
+adding it to my collection I am willing to offer
+you a reasonable sum for it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s on bi-products that the money is made,&#8221;
+declared Ralston soberly, &#8220;and I advise you not
+to let this chance pass. You can raise money
+on the rest of your anatomy any time; but selling
+your head separately like this&mdash;don&#8217;t miss it,
+Tubbs!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t I git the money till you git my head?&#8221;
+Tubbs demanded suspiciously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could make a first payment to you, and
+the remainder could be paid to your heirs.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My heirs! Say, all that I&#8217;ll ever git for my
+head wouldn&#8217;t be a smell amongst my heirs. A
+round-up of my heirs would take in the hull of
+North Dakoty. Not aimin&#8217; to brag, I got mavericks
+runnin&#8217; on that range what must be twelve-year-old.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur looked the disgust he felt at Tubbs&#8217;s
+ribald humor.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your jests are exceedingly distasteful to me,
+Tubbs.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That ain&#8217;t no jest. Onct I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s get down to business,&#8221; interrupted
+Ralston. &#8220;What do you consider your skull
+worth?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s wuth considerable to me. I don&#8217;t know
+as I&#8217;m so turrible anxious to sell. I can eat
+with it, and it gits me around.&#8221; Tubbs&#8217;s tone
+took on the assumed indifference of an astute
+horse trader. &#8220;I&#8217;ve always held my head high, as
+you might say, and it looks to me like it ought to
+bring a hunderd dollars in the open market. No,
+I couldn&#8217;t think of lettin&#8217; it go for less than a
+hundred&mdash;cash.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur considered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you will agree to my conditions, I will give
+you my check for one hundred dollars,&#8221; he said
+at last.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That sounds reasonable,&#8221; Tubbs assented.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should want you to carry constantly upon
+your person my name, address, and written instructions
+as to the care of and disposal of your
+skull, in the event of your demise. I shall also
+insist that you do not voluntarily place your head
+where your skull may be injured; because, as you
+can readily see, if it were badly crushed, it would
+be worthless for my purpose, or that of the scientific
+body to whom I intend to bequeath my interest
+in it, should I die before yourself.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t aimin&#8217; to lay it in a vise,&#8221; remarked
+Tubbs.</p>
+<p>While McArthur was drawing up the agreement
+between them, Tubbs&#8217;s face brightened with a
+unique thought.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say,&#8221; he suggested, &#8220;why don&#8217;t you leave
+word in them instructions for me to be mounted?
+I know a taxidermist over there near the Yellowstone
+Park what can put up a b&#8217;ar or a timber
+wolf so natural you wouldn&#8217;t know &#8217;twas dead.
+Wouldn&#8217;t it be kinda nice to see me settin&#8217; around
+the house with my teeth showin&#8217; and an ear of corn
+in my mouth? I&#8217;ll tell you what I&#8217;ll do: I&#8217;ll sell
+you my hull hide for a hundred more. It might
+cost two dollars to have me tanned, and with a
+nice felt linin&#8217; you could have a good rug out of
+me for a very little money.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur replied ironically:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never have regarded you as an ornament,
+Tubbs.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs looked at the check McArthur handed
+him, with satisfaction.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what I call clear velvet!&#8221; he declared,
+and went off chuckling to show it to his friends.</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you think of it, this is a very singular
+transaction,&#8221; observed McArthur, wiping his fountain-pen
+carefully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; and Ralston, no longer able to contain
+himself, shouted with laughter; &#8220;it is.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XII_SMITH_GETS__HUNKS' id='XII_SMITH_GETS__HUNKS'></a>
+<h2>XII</h2>
+<h3>SMITH GETS &#8220;HUNKS&#8221;</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Smith&#8217;s ugly mood was still upon him when he
+picked up his grammar that evening. Jealous,
+humiliated by the loss of the morning&#8217;s race, full
+of revengeful thoughts and evil feelings, he wanted
+to hurt somebody&mdash;something&mdash;even Dora. He
+had a vague, sullen notion that she was to blame
+because Ralston was in love with her. She could
+have discouraged him in the beginning, he told
+himself; she could have stopped it.</p>
+<p>Unaccustomed as Smith was to self-restraint,
+he quickly showed his frame of mind to Dora.
+He had no <i>savoir faire</i> with which to conceal his
+mood; besides, he entertained a feeling of proprietorship
+over her which justified his resentment
+to himself. Was she not to be his? Would he
+not eventually control her, her actions, choose her
+friends?</p>
+<p>Dora found him a dense and disagreeable pupil,
+and one who seemingly had forgotten everything
+he had learned during previous lessons. His replies
+at times were so curt as to be uncivil, and
+a feeling of indignation gradually rose within her.
+She was at a loss to understand his mood, unless
+it was due to the result of the morning&#8217;s race;
+yet she could scarcely believe that his disappointment,
+perhaps chagrin, could account for his rudeness
+to her.</p>
+<p>When the useless lesson was finished, she closed
+the book and asked:</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are not yourself to-night. What is
+wrong?&#8221;</p>
+<p>With an expression upon his face which both
+startled and shocked her he snarled:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sick of seein&#8217; that lady-killer hangin&#8217;
+around here!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mean&mdash;&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ralston!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora had never looked at Smith as she looked
+at him now.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I beg to be excused from your criticisms of
+Mr. Ralston.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith had not dreamed that the gentle, girlish
+voice could take on such a quality. It cut him,
+stung him, until he felt hot and cold by turns.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I didn&#8217;t know he was such a friend,&#8221; he
+sneered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes&#8221;&mdash;her eyes did not quail before the look
+that flamed in his&mdash;&#8220;he is <i>just</i> such a friend!&#8221;</p>
+<p>They had risen; and Smith, looking at her
+as she stood erect, her head high in defiance, could
+have choked her in his jealous rage.</p>
+<p>He stumbled rather than walked toward the
+door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good-night,&#8221; he said in a strained, throaty
+voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good-night.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She stared at the door as it closed behind him.
+She had something of the feeling of one who, making
+a pet of a tiger, feels its claws for the first
+time, sees the first indication of its ferocious
+nature. This new phase of Smith&#8217;s character,
+while it angered, also filled her with uneasiness.</p>
+<p>It was later than usual when Smith came in to
+say a word to the Indian woman, after Dora and
+Susie had retired. He did not bring with him the
+fumes of tobacco, the smoke of which rose in
+clouds in the bunk-house, making it all but impossible
+to see the length of the building; he
+brought, rather, an odor of freshness, a feeling of
+coolness, as though he had been long in the night
+air.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman sniffed imperceptibly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where you been?&#8221;</p>
+<p>His look was evil as he answered:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Me? I&#8217;ve been payin&#8217; my debts, me&mdash;Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He took her impassive hand in both of his and
+pressed it against his heart.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Prairie Flower,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I want you to tell
+Ralston to go. <i>I hate him</i>.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman looked at him, but did not answer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I tell him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She raised her narrowing eyes to his.</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>When you tell de white woman to go</i>.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+
+<p>Ralston had felt that the old Colonel was growing
+impatient with his seeming inactivity, so he decided,
+the next morning, to ride to the Bar C and tell him
+that he believed he had a clue. It would not be
+necessary to keep Running Rabbit under close surveillance
+until the beef in the meat-house was
+getting low. Then the deputy sheriff meant not
+to let him out of his sight.</p>
+<p>Smith had not spoken to the man whom he had
+come to regard as his rival since he had ridden
+away from him the morning before. He had ignored
+Ralston&#8217;s conversation at the table and avoided
+him in the bunk-house. Now, engaged in trimming
+his horse&#8217;s fetlocks, Smith did not look up
+as the other man passed, but his eyes followed him
+with a triumphant gleam as he went into the stable
+to saddle Molly.</p>
+<p>Ralston backed the mare to turn her in the stall,
+and she all but fell down. He felt a little surprise
+at her clumsiness, but did not grasp its meaning
+until he led her to the door, where she stepped
+painfully over the low door-sill and all but fell
+again. He led her a step or two further, and she
+went almost to her knees. The mare was lame in
+every leg&mdash;she could barely stand; yet there was
+not a mark on her&mdash;not ever so slight a bruise!
+Her slender legs were as free from swellings as
+when they had carried her past Smith&#8217;s gray; her
+feet looked to be in perfect condition; yet, save
+for the fact that she could stand up, she was as
+crippled as if the bones of every leg were shattered.</p>
+<p>It is doubtful if any but steel-colored eyes can
+take on the look which Ralston&#8217;s contained as they
+met Smith&#8217;s. His skin was gray as he straightened
+himself and drew a hand which shook noticeably
+the length of his cheek and across his mouth.</p>
+<p>In great anger, anger which precedes some quick
+and desperate act, almost every person has some
+gesture peculiar to himself, and this was Ralston&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>A less guilty man than Smith might have flinched
+at that moment. The half-grin on his face faded,
+and he waited for a torrent of accusations and
+oaths. But Ralston, in a voice so low that it
+barely reached him, a voice so ominous, so fraught
+with meaning, that the dullest could not have misunderstood,
+said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll borrow your horse, Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith, like one hypnotized, heard himself saying:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure! Take him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston knew as well as though he had witnessed
+the act that Smith had hammered the frogs
+of Molly&#8217;s feet until they were bruised and sore as
+boils. Her lameness would not be permanent&mdash;she
+would recover in a week or two; but the abuse of,
+the cruelty to, the little mare he loved filled Ralston
+with a hatred for Smith as relentless and deep as
+Smith&#8217;s own.</p>
+<p>&#8220;A man who could do a thing like that,&#8221; said
+Ralston through his set teeth, &#8220;is no common cur!
+He&#8217;s wolf&mdash;all wolf! He isn&#8217;t staying here for
+love, alone. There&#8217;s something else. And I swear
+before the God that made me, I&#8217;ll find out what
+it is, and land him, before I quit!&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XIII_SUSIE_S_INDIAN_BLOOD' id='XIII_SUSIE_S_INDIAN_BLOOD'></a>
+<h2>XIII</h2>
+<h3>SUSIE&#8217;S INDIAN BLOOD</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Coming leisurely up the path from the corrals,
+Smith saw Susie sitting on the cottonwood log,
+wrapped in her mother&#8217;s blanket. She was huddled
+in a squaw&#8217;s attitude. He eyed her; he never had
+seen her like that before. But, knowing Indians
+better, possibly, than he knew his own race, Smith
+understood. He recognized the mood. Her Indian
+blood was uppermost. It rose in most half-breeds
+upon occasion. Sometimes under the influence
+of liquor it cropped out, sometimes anger
+brought it to the surface. He had seen it often&mdash;this
+heavy, smouldering sullenness.</p>
+<p>Smith stood with his hands in his pockets, looking
+at her. He felt more at ease with her than
+ever before.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you sullin&#8217; about, Susie?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She did not answer. Her pertness, her Anglo-Saxon
+vivacity, were gone; her face was wooden,
+expressionless; her restless eyes slow-moving and
+dull; her cheek-bones, always noticeably high,
+looked higher, and her skin was murky and dark.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You look like a squaw with that sull on,&#8221; he
+ventured again, and there was satisfaction in his
+face.</p>
+<p>It was something to know that, after all, Susie
+was &#8220;Injun&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;pure Injun.&#8221; The scheme which
+had lain dormant in his brain now took active shape.
+He had wanted Susie&#8217;s help, but each time that he
+had tried to conciliate her, his overtures had ended
+in a fresh rupture. Now her stinging tongue was
+dumb, and there was no aggressiveness in her
+manner.</p>
+<p>Smith, laying his hand heavily upon her shoulder,
+sat down beside her, and a flash, a transitory gleam,
+shone for an instant in her dull eyes; but she
+did not move or change expression.</p>
+<p>He said in a low voice:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you need is stirrin&#8217; up, Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He watched her narrowly, and continued:</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought to get into a game that has some
+ginger in it. This here life is too tame for a girl
+like you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Without looking at him she asked:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What kind of a game?&#8221; Her voice was lifeless,
+guttural.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s agin my principles to empty my sack to
+a woman; but you&#8217;re diff&#8217;rent&mdash;you&#8217;re game&mdash;you
+are, Susie.&#8221; His voice dropped to a whisper, and
+the weight of his hand made her shoulder sag.
+&#8220;Let&#8217;s you and me rustle a bunch of horses.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie did not betray surprise at the startling
+proposition by so much as the twitching of an
+eyelid.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith replied:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just for the hell of it!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She grunted, but neither in assent nor dissent;
+so Smith went on in an eager, persuasive whisper:</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s Injun enough in you, girl, to make
+horse-stealin&#8217; all the same as breathin&#8217;. You jump
+in with me on this deal and see how easy you lose
+that sull. Don&#8217;t you ever have a feelin&#8217; take holt
+of you that you want to do something onery&mdash;steal
+something, mix with somebody? I do. I&#8217;ve had
+that notorious feelin&#8217; workin&#8217; on me strong for days
+now, and I&#8217;ve got to get rid of it. If you&#8217;ll come
+in on this, we&#8217;ll have the excitement and make a
+stake, too. Talk up, girl&mdash;show your sand! Be
+game!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What horses do you aim to steal?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Reservation horses. Say, the way I can burn
+their brands and fan &#8217;em over the line won&#8217;t trouble
+<i>me</i>. I&#8217;ll come back with a wad&mdash;me, Smith&mdash;and
+I&#8217;ll whack up even. What do you say?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for a hand do I take in it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>A smile of triumph lifted the corners of Smith&#8217;s
+mouth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You gather &#8217;em up and run &#8217;em into a coulee,
+that&#8217;s all. I&#8217;ll do the rest.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you want <i>me</i> to do it for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nobody&#8217;d think anything of it if they saw
+you runnin&#8217; horses, because you&#8217;re always doin&#8217; it;
+but they&#8217;d notice me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s the coulee?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve picked it. I located my plant long ago.
+I&#8217;ve found the best spot in the State to make a
+plant.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where are you goin&#8217; to sell?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith eyed her inscrutable face suspiciously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re askin&#8217; lots of questions, girl. I tips
+my hand too far to no petticoat. You trusts me
+or you don&#8217;t. Will you come in?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; said Susie after a silence; &#8220;I&#8217;ll
+come in&mdash;&#8216;just for the hell of it.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shake!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She looked at his extended hand and wrapped
+her own in her blanket.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no call to shake.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is your heart mixed, Susie?&#8221; he demanded.
+&#8220;Ain&#8217;t it right toward me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;ll be right enough when the time comes,&#8221;
+she answered.</p>
+<p>The reply did not satisfy Smith, but he told
+himself that, once she was committed, he could
+manage her, for, after all, Susie was little more
+than a child. Smith felt uncommonly pleased with
+himself for his bold stroke.</p>
+<p>The new intimacy between Smith and Susie, the
+sudden cessation of hostilities, caused surprise on
+the ranch, but the Indian woman was the only one
+to whom it gave pleasure. She viewed the altered
+relations with satisfaction, since it removed the only
+obstacle, as she believed, to a speedy marriage with
+Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t I tell you he smart white man?&#8221; she
+asked complacently of Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, he&#8217;s awful smart,&#8221; Susie answered
+with sarcasm.</p>
+<p>Ralston, more than any one else, was puzzled
+by their apparent friendship. He had believed that
+Susie&#8217;s antipathy for Smith was as deep as his
+own, and he wondered what could have happened
+to bring about such a sudden and complete revulsion
+of feeling. He was disappointed in her.
+He felt that she had weakly gone over to the
+enemy; and it shook his confidence in her sturdy
+honesty more than anything she could have done.
+He believed that no person who understood Smith,
+as Susie undoubtedly did, could make a friend and
+confidant of him and be &#8220;right.&#8221; But sometimes
+he caught Susie&#8217;s eyes fixed upon him in a kind
+of wistful, inquiring scrutiny, which left the impression
+that something was troubling her, something
+that she longed to confide in some one upon
+whom she could rely; but his past experience had
+taught him the futility of attempting to force her
+confidence, of trying to learn more than she volunteered.</p>
+<p>Smith and Susie rode the surrounding country
+and selected horses from the various bands. Three
+or four bore Bear Chief&#8217;s brand, there were a
+pinto and a black buckskin in Running Rabbit&#8217;s
+herd, and a sorrel or two that belonged to Yellow
+Bird. A couple of bays here were singled out,
+a brown and black there, until they had the pick
+of the range.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to get more nor you can cut
+out alone and handle,&#8221; warned Smith. &#8220;We don&#8217;t
+want no slip-up on the start.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t aim to make no slip-up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got lookers, we have,&#8221; declared Smith.
+&#8220;And them chunky ones go off quickest at a forced
+sale. I know a horse when I meet up with it, me&mdash;Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But where you goin&#8217; to cache &#8217;em?&#8221; insisted
+Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Girl, I ain&#8217;t been ridin&#8217; this range for my
+health. I&#8217;ll show you a blind canyon where a regiment
+of soldiers couldn&#8217;t find a hundred head of
+horses in a year; and over there in the Bad Lands
+there&#8217;s a spring breakin&#8217; out where a man dyin&#8217;
+of thirst would never think of lookin&#8217; for it. We&#8217;re
+all right. You&#8217;re a head-worker, and so am I.&#8221;
+Smith chuckled. &#8220;We&#8217;ll set some of these Injuns
+afoot, and make a clean-get-away.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith was more than satisfied with the zest with
+which Susie now entered into the plot, and the
+shrewdness which she showed in planning details
+that he himself had overlooked.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You work along with me, kid, and I&#8217;ll make
+a dead-game one out of you!&#8221; he declared with
+enthusiasm. &#8220;When we make a stake, we&#8217;ll go
+to Billings and rip up the sod!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll like that,&#8221; said Susie dryly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;When the right time comes, I&#8217;ll know it,&#8221; Smith
+went on. &#8220;When I wakes up some mornin&#8217; with
+a feelin&#8217; that it&#8217;s the day to get action on, I
+always follows that feelin&#8217;&mdash;if it takes holt of me
+anyways strong. I has to do certain things on
+certain days. I hates a chilly day worse nor anything.
+I wants to hole up, and I feels mean enough
+to bite myself. But when the sun shines, it thaws
+me; it draws the frost out of my heart, like.
+I hates to let anybody&#8217;s blood when the sun shines.
+I likes to lie out on a rock like a lizard, and I
+feels kind. I&#8217;m cur&#8217;ous that way, about sun, me&mdash;Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XIV_THE_SLAYER_OF_MASTODONS' id='XIV_THE_SLAYER_OF_MASTODONS'></a>
+<h2>XIV</h2>
+<h3>THE SLAYER OF MASTODONS</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dora and Susie had planned to botanize one
+fine Saturday morning, and Susie, dressed for a
+tramp in the hills, was playing with a pup in the
+dooryard, waiting for Dora, when she saw Smith
+coming toward her with the short, quick step which,
+she had learned, with him denoted mental activity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is the day for it,&#8221; he said decisively.
+&#8220;I had that notorious feelin&#8217; take holt of me when
+I got awake. How&#8217;s your heart, girl?&#8221;</p>
+<p>It had given a thump at Smith&#8217;s approach, and
+Susie&#8217;s tawny skin had paled under its tan, but by
+way of reply she gave the suggestive Indian sign
+of strength.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good!&#8221; he nodded. &#8220;You&#8217;ll need a strong
+heart for the ridin&#8217; you&#8217;ve got to do to-day; but
+I&#8217;m not a worryin&#8217; that you can&#8217;t do it, kid, for
+I&#8217;ve watched you close.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Guess I could ride a flyin&#8217; squirrel if I had to,&#8221;
+Susie replied shortly, &#8220;but Teacher wanted me to
+go with her to get flowers. She doesn&#8217;t like to
+go alone.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no call for her to go alone. I&#8217;ll go
+with her. It&#8217;s no use for me to get to the plant
+before afternoon. I&#8217;ll go on this flower-pickin&#8217;
+spree, and be at the mouth of the canyon in time
+to hold the first bunch of horses you bring in.
+They&#8217;re pretty much scattered, you know. What
+for an outfit you goin&#8217; to wear? You don&#8217;t want
+no flappin&#8217; skirts to advertise you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie answered curtly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I got some sense.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a sassy side-kicker,&#8221; he observed good-humoredly.</p>
+<p>She pouted.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care, I wanted to pick flowers.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith said mockingly, &#8220;So do I, angel child. I
+jest worships flowers!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;From pickin&#8217; flowers to stealin&#8217; horses is some
+of a jump.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I holds a record for long jumps.&#8221; As a final
+warning Smith said: &#8220;Now, don&#8217;t make no mistake
+in cuttin&#8217; out, for we&#8217;ve picked the top horses
+of the range. And remember, once you get &#8217;em
+strung out, haze &#8217;em along&mdash;for there&#8217;ll be hell
+a-poppin&#8217; on the reservation when they&#8217;re missed.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie had disappeared when the Schoolmarm came
+out with her basket and knife, prepared to start,
+and Smith gave some plausible excuse for her
+change of plan.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She told me to go in her place,&#8221; said Smith
+eagerly, &#8220;and I know a gulch where there&#8217;s a
+barrel of them Mormon lilies, and rock-roses, and
+a reg&#8217;lar carpet of these here durn little blue
+flowers that look so nice and smell like a Chinese
+laundry. I can dig like a badger, too.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora laughed, and, looking at him, noticed, as
+she often had before, the wonderful vividness with
+which his varying moods were reflected in his face,
+completely altering his expression.</p>
+<p>He looked boyish, brimming with the buoyant
+spirits of youth. His skin had unwonted clearness,
+his eyes were bright, his face was animated;
+he seemed to radiate exuberant good-humor. Even
+his voice was different and his laugh was less hard.
+As he walked away with the Schoolmarm&#8217;s basket
+swinging on his arm, he was for the time what he
+should have been always. He had long since made
+ample apology to Dora for his offense and there
+had been no further outbreak from him of which
+to complain.</p>
+<p>The day&#8217;s work was cut out for Ralston also,
+when he saw Yellow Bird and another Indian ride
+away, each leading a pack-horse, and learned from
+Ling that they had gone to butcher. They started
+off over the reservation, in the direction in which
+the MacDonald cattle ranged; with the intention,
+Ralston supposed, of circling and coming out on
+the Bar C range. He thought that by keeping
+well to the draws and gulches he could remain fairly
+well hidden and yet keep them in sight.</p>
+<p>He heard voices, and turned a hill just in time
+to see Smith take a flower gently from Dora&#8217;s
+hand and, with some significant word, lay it with
+care between the leaves of a pocket note-book.</p>
+<p>Though it looked more to Ralston, all that Smith
+had said was, &#8220;It might bring me luck.&#8221; And
+Dora had smiled at his superstition.</p>
+<p>Ralston would have turned back had it not been
+too late: his horse&#8217;s feet among the rocks had
+caused them to look up. As he passed Dora replied
+to some commonplace, with heightened color,
+and Smith stared in silent triumph.</p>
+<p>Ralston cursed himself and the mischance which
+had taken him to that spot.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;ll think I was spying upon her, like some
+ignorant, jealous fool!&#8221; he told himself savagely.
+&#8220;Why, why, is it that I must always blunder
+upon such scenes, to make me miserable for days!
+Can it be&mdash;can it possibly be,&#8221; he asked himself&mdash;&#8220;that
+she cares for the man; that she encourages
+him; that she has a foolish, Quixotic notion that
+she can raise him to her own level?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Was there really good in the man which he,
+Ralston, was unable to see? Was he too much
+in love with Dora himself to be just to Smith,
+he wondered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no!&#8221; he reiterated vehemently. &#8220;No man
+who would abuse a horse is fit for a good woman
+to marry. I&#8217;m right about him&mdash;I know I am.
+But can I prove it in time to save her?&mdash;not for
+myself, for I guess I&#8217;ve no show; but from him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>With a heartache which seemed to have become
+chronic of late, Ralston followed the Indians&#8217; lead
+up hill and down, through sand coulees and between
+cut-banks, at a leisurely pace. They seemed
+in no hurry, nor did they make any apparent effort
+to conceal themselves. They rode through several
+herds of cattle, and passed on, drifting gradually
+toward the creek bottom close to the reservation
+line, where both Bar C and I.&nbsp;D. cattle came to
+drink.</p>
+<p>Ralston wondered if they would attempt to stand
+him off; but his heart was too heavy for the possibility
+of a coming fight to quicken his pulse to
+any great extent. He believed that he would be
+rather glad than otherwise if they should make a
+stand. The thought that the tedious waiting game
+which he had played so long might be ended did
+not elate him. The ambition seemed to have gone
+out of him. He had little heart in his work, and
+small interest in the glory resulting from success.</p>
+<p>He thought only of Dora as he lay full length
+on the ground, plucking disconsolately at spears
+of bunch-grass within reach, while he waited for
+the sound of a shot in the creek bottom, or the
+reappearance of the Indians.</p>
+<p>He had not long to wait before a shot, a bellow,
+and another shot told him that the time for action
+had come. He pulled his rifle from its scabbard,
+and laid it in front of him on his saddle. It was
+curious, he thought, as he rode closer, that one
+Indian was not on guard. Still, it was probable
+that they had grown careless through past successes.
+He was within a hundred yards of the
+butchers before they saw him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hello!&#8221; Yellow Bird&#8217;s voice was friendly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hello!&#8221; Ralston answered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fat cow. Fine beef,&#8221; vouchsafed the Indian.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fine beef,&#8221; agreed Ralston. &#8220;Can I help
+you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The MacDonald brand stood out boldly on the
+cow&#8217;s flank!</p>
+<p>Ralston watched them until they had loaded their
+meat upon the pack-horses and started homeward.
+One thing was certain: if Running Rabbit had
+butchered the Bar C cattle, he had done so under a
+white man&#8217;s supervision. In this instance, with an
+Indian&#8217;s usual economy in the matter of meat, he
+had left little but the horns and hoofs. The Bar
+C cattle had been butchered with the white man&#8217;s
+indifference to waste.</p>
+<p>Any one of the bunk-house crowd, except
+McArthur, Ralston believed to be quite capable of
+stealing cattle for beef purposes. But if they had
+been stealing systematically, as it would appear,
+why had they killed MacDonald cattle to-day?
+Ralston still regarded the affair of the fresh hide
+as too suspicious a circumstance to be overlooked,
+and he meant to learn which of the white grub-liners
+had been absent. He reasoned that the
+Indians had a wholesome fear of Colonel Tolman,
+and that it was unlikely they would venture upon
+his range for such a purpose without a white man&#8217;s
+moral support.</p>
+<p>Smith had been missing frequently of late and
+for so long as two days at a time, but this could
+not be regarded as peculiar, since the habits of all
+the grub-liners were more or less erratic. They
+disappeared and reappeared, with no explanation
+of their absence.</p>
+<p>In his present frame of mind, Ralston had no
+desire to return immediately to the ranch. He
+wanted to be alone; to harden his heart against
+Dora; to prepare his mind for more shocks such
+as he had had of late. It was not an easy task
+he had set himself.</p>
+<p>After a time he dismounted, and, throwing down
+his bridle-reins, dropped to the ground to rest,
+while his horse nibbled contentedly at the sparse
+bunch-grass. As he lay in the sunshine, his hands
+clasped behind his head, the stillness acted like a
+sedative, and something of the tranquillity about
+him crept into his soul.</p>
+<p>Upon one thing he was determined, and that was,
+come what might, to be a <i>man</i>&mdash;a gentleman. If
+in his conceit and eagerness he had misunderstood
+the softness of Dora&#8217;s eyes, her shy tremulousness,
+as he now believed he had, he could take his medicine
+like a man, and go when the time came, without
+whimpering, without protest or reproach. He
+wanted to go away feeling that he had her respect,
+at least; go knowing that there was not a single
+word or action of his upon which she could look
+back with contempt. Yes, he wanted greatly her
+respect. She inspired in him this desire.</p>
+<p>Ralston felt very humble, very conscious of his
+own shortcomings, as he lay there while the afternoon
+waned; but, humble as he was, resigned as
+he believed himself to be, he could not think of
+Smith with anything but resentment and contempt.
+It hurt his pride, his self-respect, to regard Smith
+in the light of a rival&mdash;a successful rival.</p>
+<p>&#8220;By Gad!&#8221; he cried aloud, and with a heat which
+belied his self-abnegation. &#8220;If he were only a <i>decent</i>
+white man! But to be let down and out by
+the only woman I ever gave a whoop for in all my
+life, for a fellow like that! Say, it&#8217;s tough!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston&#8217;s newly acquired serenity, the depth of
+which he had reason to doubt, was further disturbed
+by a distant clatter of hoofs. He sat up
+and watched the oncoming of the angriest-looking
+Indian that ever quirted a cayuse over a reservation.
+It was Bear Chief, whom he knew slightly.
+Seeing Ralston&#8217;s saddled horse, the Indian pulled
+up a little, which was as well, since the white man
+was immediately in his path.</p>
+<p>As the Indian came back, Ralston, who had
+rolled over to let him pass, remarked dryly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;The country is getting so crowded, it&#8217;s hardly
+safe for a man to sit around like this. What&#8217;s the
+excitement, Bear Chief?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Horse-thief steal Indian horses!&#8221; he cried,
+pointing toward the Bad Lands.</p>
+<p>Ralston was instantly alert.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Him ridin&#8217; my race-pony&mdash;fastest pony on de
+reservation. Got big bunch. Runnin&#8217; &#8217;em off!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Fast moving specks that rose and fell among
+the hills of the Bad Lands bore out the Indian&#8217;s
+words.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you see him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston was slipping the bit back in his horse&#8217;s
+mouth and tightening the cinch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yas, I see him. Long way off, but I see him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you know him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yas, I know him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who was it?&#8221; Ralston was in the saddle
+now.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little white man&mdash;what you call him &#8216;bug-hunter&#8217;&mdash;at
+de MacDonald ranch.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;McArthur!&#8221; Their horses were gathering
+speed as they turned them toward the Bad Lands.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yas. Little; hair on face&mdash;so; wear what
+you call dem sawed-off pants.&#8221;</p>
+<p>From the description, Ralston recognized
+McArthur&#8217;s English riding-breeches, which had
+added zest to life for the bunk-house crowd when
+he had appeared in them. The deputy-sheriff was
+bewildered. It seemed incredible, yet there, still in
+sight, was the flying band of horses, and Bear
+Chief&#8217;s positiveness seemed to leave no room for
+doubt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, him one heap good thief,&#8221; panted Bear
+Chief, in unwilling admiration, as their horses ran
+side by side. &#8220;He work fast. No &#8217;fraid. Cut &#8217;em
+out&mdash;head &#8217;em off&mdash;turn &#8217;em&mdash;ride through big
+brush&mdash;jump de gulch&mdash;yell and swing de quirt,
+and do him all &#8217;lone! Dat no easy work&mdash;cut out
+horses all &#8217;lone. Him heap good horse-thief!&#8221;</p>
+<p>What did it mean, anyhow? Ralston asked himself
+the question again and again. Was it possible
+that he had been deceived in McArthur? That,
+after all, he was a criminal of an extraordinary
+type? He found no answer to his questions, but
+both he and Bear Chief soon realized that they
+were exhausting their horses in a useless pursuit.
+It was growing dark; the thief had too much start,
+and, with the experience of an old hand, he drove the
+horses over rocks, where they left no blabbing tracks
+behind. Once well into the Bad Lands, he was
+as effectually lost as if the earth had opened and
+swallowed him.</p>
+<p>So they turned their tired horses back, reaching
+the ranch long after sundown. Ralston was still
+unconvinced that it was not a case of mistaken
+identity, and, hoping against hope, he asked some
+one loafing about while he and Bear Chief unsaddled
+if McArthur had returned.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s been off prowlin&#8217; all day, and ain&#8217;t in
+yet,&#8221; was the answer; and Bear Chief grunted at
+this confirmation of his accusation.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman was waiting in the doorway
+when they came up the path.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You see Susie?&#8221; There was uneasiness in her
+voice.</p>
+<p>It was an unheard-of thing for Susie not to return
+from her rides and visits before dark.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not since morning,&#8221; Ralston replied. &#8220;Has
+any one gone to look for her? Is Smith here?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith no come home for supper.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;There seems to have been a general exodus to-day,&#8221;
+Ralston observed. &#8220;Are you feeling worried
+about Susie?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I no like. Yas, I feel worry for Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was the first evidence of maternal interest
+that Ralston ever had seen the stoical woman show.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If Ling will give me a bite to eat, I&#8217;ll saddle
+another horse and ride down below. She may be
+spending the night with some of her friends.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;She no do that without tell me,&#8221; declared the
+woman positively. &#8220;Susie no do that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She brought the food from the kitchen herself,
+and padded uneasily from window to window while
+they ate.</p>
+<p>What was in the wind, Ralston asked himself,
+that Susie, McArthur, and Smith should disappear
+in this fashion on the same day? It was a singular
+coincidence. Like her mother, Ralston had no
+notion that Susie was stopping the night at any
+ranch or lodge below. He, too, shared the Indian
+woman&#8217;s misgivings.</p>
+<p>He had finished and was reaching for his hat
+when footsteps were heard on the hard-beaten dooryard.
+They were slow, lagging, unfamiliar to the
+listeners, who looked at each other inquiringly.
+Then the Indian woman threw open the door, and
+Susie, like the ghost of herself, staggered from the
+darkness outside into the light.</p>
+<p>No ordinary fatigue could make her look as she
+looked now. Every step showed complete and utter
+exhaustion. Her dishevelled hair was hanging in
+strands over her face, her eyes were dark-circled,
+she was streaked with dust and grime, and her thin
+shoulders drooped wearily.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where you been, Susie?&#8221; her mother asked
+sharply.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Teacher said,&#8221; she made a pitiful attempt to
+laugh, to speak lightly&mdash;&#8220;Teacher said ridin&#8217;
+horseback would keep you from gettin&#8217; fat. I&mdash;I&#8217;ve
+been reducin&#8217; my hips.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you do dis no more!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t worry&mdash;I shan&#8217;t!&#8221; And as if her
+mother&#8217;s reproach was the last straw, Susie covered
+her face with the crook of her elbow and cried
+hysterically.</p>
+<p>Ralston was convinced that the day had held
+something out of the ordinary for Susie. He knew
+that it would take an extraordinary ride so completely
+to exhaust a girl who was all but born in
+the saddle. But it was evident from her reply that
+she did not mean to tell where she had been or
+what she had been doing.</p>
+<p>Although Ralston soon retired, he was awake
+long after his numerous room-mates were snoring
+in their bunks. There was much to be done on
+the morrow, yet he could not sleep. He was not
+able to rid himself of the thought that there was
+something peculiar in the absence of Smith just at
+this time, nor could he entirely abandon the belief
+that McArthur would yet come straggling in, with
+an explanation of the whole affair. He could not
+think of any that would be satisfactory, but an
+underlying faith in the little scientist&#8217;s honesty
+persisted.</p>
+<p>Toward morning he slept, and day was breaking
+when a step on the door-sill of the bunk-house
+awakened him. He raised himself slightly on his
+elbow and stared at McArthur, looming large in
+the gray dawn, with a skull carried carefully in
+both hands.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, I&#8217;m glad to find you awake!&#8221; He tiptoed
+across the floor.</p>
+<p>His clothing was wrinkled with the damp, night
+air, and his face looked haggard in the cold light,
+but the fire of enthusiasm burned undimmed behind
+his spectacles.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Congratulate me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do&mdash;what for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My dear sir, if I can prove to the satisfaction
+of scientific sceptics that this cranium is not
+pathological, I shall have bounded in a single day&mdash;night&mdash;bounded
+from comparative obscurity to
+the pinnacle of fame! Undoubtedly&mdash;beyond
+question&mdash;a race of giants existed in North
+America&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me,&#8221; Ralston interrupted his husky
+eloquence; &#8220;but where have you been all night?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, where have I <i>not</i> been? Walking&mdash;walking
+under the stars! Under the stimulus of success,
+I have covered miles with no feeling of fatigue.
+Have you ever experienced, my dear sir, the sensation
+which comes from the realization of a life-dream?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not yet,&#8221; Ralston replied prosaically. &#8220;Where
+was your horse?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, yes, my horse. Where <i>is</i> my horse? I
+asked myself that question each time that I stopped
+to remove one of the poisonous spines of the cactus
+from my feet. Whether my horse lost me or I lost
+my horse, I am unable to say. I left him grazing
+in a gulch, and was not again able to locate the
+gulch. I wandered all night&mdash;or until Fate guided
+me into a barbed wire fence, where, as you will
+observe, I tore my trousers. I followed the fence,
+and here I am&mdash;I and my companion&#8221;&mdash;McArthur
+patted the skull lovingly&mdash;&#8220;this giant&mdash;the slayer
+of mastodons&mdash;whose history lies concealed in &#8216;the
+dark backward and abysm of time&#8217;!&#8221;</p>
+<p>As he looked into Ralston&#8217;s non-committal eyes
+with his own burning orbs, he realized that great
+joy, like great sorrow, is something which cannot
+well be shared.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Forgive me,&#8221; he said with hurt dignity; &#8220;I
+have again forgotten that you have no interest
+in such things.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are mistaken. I wanted to hear.&#8221;</p>
+<p>After McArthur had retired to his pneumatic
+mattress, Ralston lay wide-eyed, more mystified than
+before. Had Bear Chief&#8217;s eyes deceived him, or
+was McArthur the cleverest of rogues?</p>
+<p>Breakfast was done when Ralston said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you be good enough to step into the
+bunk-house, Mr. McArthur?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Something in his voice chilled the sensitive man.
+Ralston, whom he greatly admired, always had been
+most friendly. He followed him now in wonder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are sure this is the man, Bear Chief?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Indian had stepped forward at their entrance.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yas, I know him,&#8221; he reiterated.</p>
+<p>McArthur looked from one to the other.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bear Chief accuses you of stealing his horses,
+Mr. McArthur,&#8221; explained Ralston bluntly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You slick little horse-thief, but I see you good.
+Where you cache my race-pony?&#8221; The Indian&#8217;s
+demand was a threat.</p>
+<p>For reply, McArthur walked over and sat down
+on the edge of a bunk, as if his legs of a sudden
+were too weak to support him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bear Chief swears he saw you, McArthur.&#8221;
+Ralston&#8217;s tone was not unfriendly now, for something
+within him pleaded the bug-hunter&#8217;s cause
+with irritating persistence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Me a horse-thief? Running off race-ponies?&#8221;
+McArthur found himself able to exclaim at last:
+&#8220;But I had no horse of my own!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you any credentials&mdash;anything at all by
+which we can identify you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not with me; but certainly I can furnish them.
+The name of McArthur is not unknown in Connecticut,&#8221;
+he answered with a tinge of pride.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where are your riding-breeches? Bear Chief
+says you were wearing them yesterday. Can you
+produce them now?&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur, with hauteur, walked to the nails
+where his wardrobe hung and fumbled among the
+clothing.</p>
+<p>They were gone!</p>
+<p>His jaw dropped, and a slight pallor overspread
+his face.</p>
+<p>Susie, who had been listening from the doorway,
+flung a flour-sack at his feet.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Search my trunk, pardner,&#8221; she said with her
+old-time impish grin.</p>
+<p>McArthur mechanically did as she bade him, and
+his riding-breeches dropped from the sack.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope you&#8217;ll &#8217;scuse me for makin&#8217; so free with
+your clothes, like,&#8221; she said, &#8220;but I just naturally
+had to have them yesterday.&#8221;</p>
+<p>A light broke in upon Ralston.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yep, I did it, me&mdash;Susie.&#8221; Her tone and
+manner were a ludicrous imitation of Smith&#8217;s. She
+added: &#8220;I saw you all pikin&#8217; in here, so I tagged.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But why&#8221;&mdash;Ralston stared at her in incredulity&mdash;&#8220;why
+should <i>you</i> steal horses?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s this way,&#8221; Susie explained, in a loud, confidential
+whisper: &#8220;I&#8217;ve been playin&#8217; a little game
+of my own. When the right time came, I meant
+to let Mr. Ralston in on it, but when Bear Chief
+saw me, I knew I&#8217;d have to tell, to keep my pardner
+here from gettin&#8217; the blame.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the beard,&#8221;&mdash;Ralston still looked sceptical.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shucks! That&#8217;s easy. I saw Bear Chief before
+he saw me, and I just took the black silk
+hankerchief from my neck and tied it hold-up
+fashion around the lower part of my face. Bear
+Chief was excited when he saw his running horse
+travelling out of the country at the gait we was
+goin&#8217; then.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see yet, Susie?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She turned upon Ralston in good-natured contempt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Goodness, but you&#8217;re slow! Don&#8217;t you understand?
+Smith&#8217;s my pal; we&#8217;re workin&#8217; together.
+He cooked this up&mdash;him takin&#8217; the safe and easy
+end of it himself. He sprung it on me that day
+I had a sull on. Don&#8217;t you see his game? He
+thinks if he can get me mixed up in something
+crooked, he can manage me. He&#8217;s noticed, maybe,
+that I&#8217;m not halter-broke. So I pretended to fall
+right in with his plans, once I had promised, meanin&#8217;
+all the time to turn state&#8217;s evidence, or whatever
+you call it, and send him over the road. I wanted
+to show Mother and everybody else what kind of
+a man he is. I don&#8217;t want no step-papa named
+Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The three men stared in amazement at the intrepid
+little creature with her canny Scotch eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And do you mean to say,&#8221; Ralston asked, &#8220;that
+you&#8217;ve held your tongue and played your part
+so well that Smith has no suspicions?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hatin&#8217; makes you smart,&#8221; she answered, &#8220;and
+I hate Smith so hard I can&#8217;t sleep nights. No,
+I don&#8217;t think he is suspicious; because I&#8217;m to
+pack grub to him this morning, and if he was
+afraid of me, he&#8217;d never let me know where he
+was camped. He&#8217;s holdin&#8217; the horses over there in
+a blind canyon, and when I go over I&#8217;m to help
+him blotch the brands.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;We want to get the drop on him when he&#8217;s
+using the branding-iron.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you want to see that he shoves up his
+hands and keeps them there,&#8221; suggested Susie
+further, &#8220;for he&#8217;ll take big chances rather than
+have the Schoolmarm see him ridin&#8217; to the Agency
+with his wrists tied to the saddle-horn.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know.&#8221; Ralston knew even better than Susie
+that Smith would fight like a rat in a corner to
+avoid this possibility.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My!&#8221; and Susie gave an explosive sigh, &#8220;but
+it&#8217;s an awful relief not to have that secret to
+pack around any longer, and to feel that I&#8217;ve got
+somebody to back me up.&#8221;</p>
+<p>A lump rose in Ralston&#8217;s throat, and, taking her
+brown little paws in both of his, he said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;To the limit, Susie&mdash;to the end of the road.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And my pardner&#8217;s in on it, too, if he wants
+to be,&#8221; she declared loyally, slipping her arm
+through McArthur&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>&#8220;To be sure,&#8221; Ralston seconded cordially. &#8220;It
+will be an adventure for your diary.&#8221; He added,
+laying his hand upon McArthur&#8217;s shoulder: &#8220;I&#8217;m
+more than sorry about the mistake this morning,
+old man. Will you forgive Bear Chief and me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>In all McArthur&#8217;s studious, lonely life, no person
+ever had put his hand upon his shoulder and called
+him &#8220;old man.&#8221; The quick tears filled his eyes,
+and a glow, tingling in its warmth, rushed over
+him. The simple, manly act made him Ralston&#8217;s
+slave for life, but he answered in his quiet voice:</p>
+<p>&#8220;The mistake was natural, my dear sir.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith will be gettin&#8217; restless,&#8221; Susie suggested,
+&#8220;for his breakfast must have been pretty slim.
+We&#8217;d better be startin&#8217;.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, I&#8217;ll take straight across the hills in a
+bee-line, and the rest of you keep me in sight, but
+follow the draws. When I drop into the canyon,
+you cache yourselves until I come up and swing
+my hat. I&#8217;ll do my best to separate Smith from
+his gun, but if I can&#8217;t, I&#8217;ll throw you the sign
+to jump him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall arm myself with a pistol, and, if the
+occasion demands, I shall not hesitate to use it,&#8221;
+said McArthur, closing his lips with great firmness.</p>
+<p>Bear Chief was given a rifle, and then there was
+a scurrying about for cartridges. When they were
+saddled, each rode in a different direction, to meet
+again when out of sight of the ranch. With varied
+emotions, they soon were following Susie&#8217;s lead, and
+it was no easy task to keep the flying figure in
+sight.</p>
+<p>McArthur, panting, perspiring, choking his
+saddle-horn to death, wondered if any person of his
+acquaintance ever had participated in such a reckless
+ride. The instructor in Dead Languages, it
+is true, frequently had thrilled his colleagues with
+his recital of a night spent in a sapling, owing to
+the proximity of a she-bear, and McArthur always
+had mildly envied him the adventure, but now, he
+felt, if he lived to tell the tale, he had no further
+cause for envy.</p>
+<p>Bear Chief&#8217;s eyes were gleaming with the fires
+of other days, while the faded overalls and flannel
+shirt of civilization seemed to take on a look of
+savagery.</p>
+<p>Only Ralston&#8217;s eyes were sombre. He had no
+thought of weakening, but he had no feeling of
+elation; though, for the sake of his own self-respect,
+he was glad to know that his suspicions
+of Smith were not inspired by jealousy or malice.
+Now that the opportunity for which he had hoped
+and waited had come, his strongest feeling was one
+of sorrow for Dora. With the tenderness of real
+love, he shrank from hurting her, from mortifying
+her by the exposé of Smith.</p>
+<p>In no other way were the natures of the two
+men more strongly contrasted than in this. When
+Smith flamed with jealousy he wanted to hurt Dora
+and Ralston alike, and when he had the advantage
+he shoved the hot iron home. Ralston could be
+just, generous even, and, though he believed she
+had unreservedly given her preference to Smith, he
+still yearned to shield her, to spare her pain and
+humiliation.</p>
+<p>Susie finally disappeared, and when she did not
+come in sight again they knew she had reached
+the rendezvous. Dismounting, they tied their
+horses in a deep draw, and crawled to the top,
+where they could watch for her signal.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;ll give him plenty of time,&#8221; said Ralston.</p>
+<p>He had barely finished speaking when they saw
+Susie at the top of the canyon wall waving her
+hat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Something&#8217;s gone wrong,&#8221; said Ralston
+quickly.</p>
+<p>With rifles ready for action, the three of them
+ran toward Susie.</p>
+<p>Ralston and Bear Chief reached her together.
+Without a word she pointed into the empty canyon,
+where a dying camp-fire told the story. Smith had
+been gone for hours.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XV_WHERE_A_MAN_GETS_A_THIRST' id='XV_WHERE_A_MAN_GETS_A_THIRST'></a>
+<h2>XV</h2>
+<h3>WHERE A MAN GETS A THIRST</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>While the four stood staring blankly at the
+trampled earth and the thin thread of smoke rising
+from a smouldering stick on a bed of ashes, Smith,
+miles away, was watching the skyline in the
+direction from which he had come, and gulping
+coffee from a tin can. He had slept&mdash;the print
+of his body was still in the sand&mdash;but his sleep had
+been broken and brief. He had ridden fast and all
+night long, but he was not yet far enough away
+to feel secure. There was always a danger, too,
+that the horses would break for their home range,
+although he kept the mare who led the band on
+the picket rope when they were not travelling. His
+own horse, always saddled, was picketed close.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll never make a turn like this alone again,&#8221;
+he muttered discontentedly. &#8220;It&#8217;s too much like
+work to suit me, and I ain&#8217;t in shape to make a hard
+ride. I&#8217;ve got soft layin&#8217; around the ranch.&#8221; He
+stretched his stiff muscles and made a wry face.
+Then he smiled. &#8220;I&#8217;d like to see that brat&#8217;s face
+when she comes with my grub this mornin&#8217;.&#8221; He
+looked off again to the skyline.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ketched her eyein&#8217; me once or twice in a
+way that didn&#8217;t look good to me; and I had that
+notorious strong feelin&#8217; take holt of me that she
+wasn&#8217;t on the square. I&#8217;d better be sure nor sorry;&mdash;that&#8217;s
+no josh. I takes no chances, me&mdash;Smith;
+I tips my hand to no petticoat.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He noted with relief that the wind was rising.
+He was glad, for it would obliterate every print
+and make tracking impossible. He had kept to the
+rocks, as the unshod and now foot-sore horses bore
+evidence, but, even so, there was always a chance
+of tell-tale prints.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can take it easy after I get to water,&#8221; he
+told himself. &#8220;This water business is ser&#8217;ous&#8221;&mdash;he
+looked uneasily at the stretch of desolation ahead
+of him&mdash;&#8220;but unless the Injuns lied, they&#8217;s <i>some</i>.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope the boys are to home,&#8221; he went on,
+&#8220;for if they are it won&#8217;t take us long to work
+these brands over. When they take &#8217;em off my
+hands and I gets my wad, I&#8217;ll soak it away, me&mdash;Smith.
+I&#8217;ll hand it in at the bank, and I&#8217;ll say to
+the dude at the winder, &#8217;Feller,&#8217; I&#8217;ll say, &#8216;me
+and a little Schoolmarm are goin&#8217; to housekeepin&#8217;
+after while, so just hang on to that till I calls.&#8217;&#8221;
+Smith grinned appreciatively at the picture.</p>
+<p>&#8220;His eyes will stick out till you could snare &#8217;em
+with a log-chain, for I ain&#8217;t known as a marryin&#8217;
+man.&#8221; His face sobered. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got to get to
+work and get a wad&mdash;she shot that into me
+straight; and she&#8217;s right. I couldn&#8217;t ask no woman
+like her to hang out her own wash in front of a
+two-roomed shack. I got to get the <i>dinero</i>, and
+between man and man, Smith, like you and me, I&#8217;m
+nowise particular how I gets it, so long as she
+don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;ll take any old chance, me&mdash;Smith.
+And dead men&#8217;s eyes hasn&#8217;t got the habit of follerin&#8217;
+me around in the dark, like some I&#8217;ve knowed.
+She&#8217;d think I was a horrible feller if&mdash;but shucks!
+What&#8217;s done&#8217;s done.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He lifted his arms and stretched them toward
+the skyline, and his voice vibrated:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I love you, girl! I love you, and I couldn&#8217;t
+hurt you no more nor a baby!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Before he coiled the picket-ropes and started the
+horses moving, he got down on his knees and took
+a mouthful of water from a lukewarm pool. He
+spat it upon the ground in disgust.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s worse nor pizen,&#8221; he declared with a
+grimace. &#8220;You bet I&#8217;ve got to strike water to-day
+somehow. The horses won&#8217;t hardly touch this,
+and they&#8217;re all ga&#8217;nted up for the want of it. There
+ought to be water over there in some of them
+gulches, seems-like&#8221;&mdash;he looked anxiously at the
+expanse stretching interminably to the northeast&mdash;&#8220;and
+I&#8217;ll have to haze &#8217;em along until we hit it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His tired horse seemed to sag beneath his weight
+as he landed heavily in the saddle; and the band
+of foot-sore horses, the hair of their necks and
+legs stiff with sweat and dust, bore little resemblance
+to the spirited animals that Susie had driven
+from the reservation. It was now no effort to
+keep up with them, and Smith herded them in front
+of him like a flock of sheep. He wondered what
+another day, perhaps two days more, of constant
+travel would do, if fifty miles or so had used them
+up. There was not now the fear of capture to
+urge him forward, but the need of reaching water
+was an equally great incentive to haste.</p>
+<p>Smith travelled until late in the afternoon without
+an audible complaint at the intense discomforts
+of the day. He found no water, and he ate only
+a handful of sugar as he rode. He journeyed constantly
+toward the northeast, in which direction,
+he thought, must be the ranch which was his destination.
+At each intervening gulch a hope arose
+that it might contain water, but always he was
+disappointed. Between the alkali dust and the
+heat of the midday sun, which was unusually
+hot for the time of year, his lips were cracked and
+his throat dry.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t this hell!&#8221; he finally muttered fretfully.
+&#8220;And no more jump in this horse nor a cow. I
+can do without grub, but water! Oh, Lord! I
+could lap up a gallon.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The slight motion of his lips started them bleeding.
+He wiped the blood away on the back of
+his hand and continued:</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is a reg&#8217;lar stretch of Bad Lands. If
+them blamed Injuns hadn&#8217;t lied, I could have packed
+water easy enough. They don&#8217;t seem to be no
+end to it, and I must have come forty mile. You&#8217;re
+in for it, Smith. It&#8217;s goin&#8217; to be worse before
+it&#8217;s better. If I could only lay in a crick&mdash;roll in
+it&mdash;douse my face in it&mdash;soak my clothes in it!
+God! I&#8217;m dry!&#8221;</p>
+<p>He spurred his horse, but there was no response
+from it. It was dead on its feet, between the
+hard travel of the previous day and night and
+another day without water. He cursed the horses
+ahead as they lagged and necessitated extra steps.</p>
+<p>He rode for awhile longer, until he realized that
+at the snail&#8217;s pace they were moving he was making
+little headway. A rest would pay better in the
+long run, although there was some two hours of
+daylight left.</p>
+<p>The dull-eyed horses stood with drooping heads,
+too thirsty and too tired to hunt for the straggling
+spears of grass and salt sage which grew sparsely
+in the alkali soil.</p>
+<p>After Smith had unsaddled, he opened the grain-sack
+which contained his provisions. Spreading
+them out, he stood and eyed them with contempt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I calls myself a prairie man,&#8221; he said
+aloud, in self-disgust. &#8220;Swine-buzzom&mdash;when I&#8217;m
+perishin&#8217; of thirst! If only I&#8217;d put in a couple
+of air-tights. Pears is better nor anything; they
+ain&#8217;t so blamed sweet, they&#8217;re kind of cool, and they
+has juice you can drink. And tomaters&mdash;if only
+I had tomaters! This here dude-food, this strawberry
+jam, is goin&#8217; to make me thirstier than ever.
+No water to mix the flour with, nothing to cook
+in but salt grease. Smith, you&#8217;re up against it,
+you are.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He built a little sage-brush fire, over which he
+cooked his bacon, and with it he ate a dry biscuit,
+but his thirst was so great that it overshadowed
+his hunger. Chewing grains of coffee stimulated
+him somewhat, but the bacon and glucose jam
+increased his thirst tenfold, if such a thing
+were possible. His thoughts of Dora, and his
+dreams of the future, which had helped him through
+the afternoon, were no longer potent. He could
+now think only of his thirst&mdash;of his overpowering
+desire for water. It filled his whole mental horizon.
+Water! Water! Water! Was there anything in
+the world to be compared with it!</p>
+<p>His face was deep-lined with distress as he sat
+by the camp-fire, trying in vain to moisten his
+lips with his dry tongue. One picture after another
+arose before him: streams of crystal water which
+he had forded; icy mountain springs at which he
+had knelt and drank; deep wells from which he
+had thrown whole bucketfuls away after he had
+quenched what he then called thirst. Thirst! He
+never had known thirst. What he had called thirst
+was laughable in comparison with this awful longing,
+this madness, this desire beside which all else
+paled.</p>
+<p>In any other than an alkali country, the lack
+of water for the same length of time would have
+meant little more than discomfort, but the parching,
+drying effect of the deadly white dust entailed
+untold suffering upon the traveller caught unprepared
+as was Smith.</p>
+<p>He rolled and smoked innumerable cigarettes,
+rising at intervals to pace restlessly to and fro.
+His lips and tongue were so parched that both
+taste and feeling seemed deadened. Had he not
+seen the smoke, it is doubtful if he could have
+been sure he was smoking.</p>
+<p>He wandered away from the fire after a time,
+walking aimlessly, having no objective point. He
+desired only to be moving. Something like a half-mile
+from his camp he came into a shallow cut
+which appeared to have been made during bygone
+rainy seasons, but which now bore no evidence of
+having carried water for many years. He followed
+it mechanically, stumbling awkwardly in his high-heeled
+cowboy boots over the rocks which had
+washed into its bed from the alkali-coated sides.
+Suddenly he cried aloud, with a shrill, penetrating
+cry that was peculiar to him when surprised or
+startled. He had inadvertently kicked up a rock
+which showed moisture beneath it!</p>
+<p>He began to run, with his mouth open, his
+bloodshot eyes wide and staring. There was a
+bare chance that it might come from one of those
+desert springs which appear and disappear at
+irregular intervals in the sand. As he ran, he saw
+hoof-tracks in what had once been mud, and his
+heart beat higher with hope. He had a thought
+in his half-crazed brain that the water might
+disappear before he could reach it, and he ran
+like one frenzied with fear. The world was swimming
+around him, his heart was pounding in his
+breast, yet still he stumbled on at top speed.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<a name='linki_3' id='linki_3'></a>
+<img src='images/img-197.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 320px; height: 481px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 320px;'>
+IT MEANT DEATH&mdash;BUT IT WAS WET!&mdash;IT WAS WATER!<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The cut grew deeper, and indications of moisture
+increased. He saw a growth of large sage-brush,
+then a clump or two of rank, saw-edged
+grass. These things meant water! He turned a
+bend and there, beneath a high bank, was a pool
+crusted to the edge with alkali!</p>
+<p>Smith knew that it was strongly alkali; that
+it meant certain illness&mdash;enough of it, death.
+But it was wet!&mdash;it was water!&mdash;and he must
+drink. He fell, rather than knelt, in it. When
+taste came back he realized that it was flat and
+lukewarm, but he continued to gulp it down. At
+any other time it would have nauseated him, but
+now he drank to his capacity. When he could
+drink no more, he sat up&mdash;realizing what he had
+done. He had swallowed liquid poison&mdash;nothing
+less. The result was inevitable. He was going
+to be ill&mdash;excruciatingly, terribly ill, alone in the
+Bad Lands! This was as certain as was the fact
+that night had come.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was so dry,&#8221; he whimpered, &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t help
+it! I was so dry!&#8221; He scrambled to his feet.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I gotta get back to camp. This water&#8217;s goin&#8217;
+to raise thunder when it begins to get in its work.
+I gotta get back to my blankets and lay down.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Before he reached the heap of ashes which he
+called camp, the first symptoms of his coming
+agony began to show themselves. He felt slightly
+nauseated; then a quick, griping pain which was
+a forerunner of others which were to make him
+sweat blood.</p>
+<p>Many of these springs and stagnant pools carry
+arsenic in large quantities, and of such was the
+water of which Smith had drunk. In his exhaustion,
+the poison and accompanying impurities took
+hold of him with a fierceness which it might not
+have done had he been in perfect physical condition;
+but his stomach, already disordered from
+irregular and improper food, absorbed the poison
+with avidity, and the result was an agony indescribable.</p>
+<p>As he writhed on his saddle-blankets under the
+stars, he groaned and cursed that unknown God
+above him. His face and hands were covered with
+a cold sweat; his forehead and finger-tips were
+icy. The night air was chill, but he was burning
+with an inward fever, and his thirst now was
+akin to madness. With all his strength of will,
+he fought against his desire to return to the pool.</p>
+<p>Smith did not expect to die. He felt that if
+he could keep his senses and not crawl back to
+drink again, he would pull through somehow. The
+living hell he now endured would pass.</p>
+<p>He wallowed and threshed about like a suffering
+animal, beating the earth with his clenched fists,
+during the paroxysms of cutting, wrenching pain.
+His suffering was supreme. All else in the world
+shrank into insignificance beside it. No thoughts
+of Dora fortified him; no mother&#8217;s face came to
+comfort him; nor that of any human being he
+had ever known. He was just Smith&mdash;self-centred&mdash;alone;
+just Smith, fighting and suffering and
+struggling for his life. His anguish found expression
+in the single sentence:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sick! I&#8217;m sick! Oh, God! I&#8217;m sick!&#8221;
+He repeated it in every key with every inflection,
+and his moans lost themselves in the silence of the
+desert.</p>
+<p>Yet underneath it all, when his agony was at
+its height, he still believed in himself. In a kind
+of subconscious arrogance, he believed that he was
+stronger than Fate, more powerful than Death.
+He would not die; he would live because he wanted
+to live. Death was not for him&mdash;Smith. For
+others, but not for him.</p>
+<p>At last the paroxysms became less frequent and
+lost their violence. When they ceased altogether,
+he lay limp and half-conscious. He was content
+to remain motionless until the flies and insects of
+the sand roused him to the fact that another day
+had come.</p>
+<p>He was incredibly weak, and it took all his remaining
+strength to throw his forty-pound cow-saddle
+upon his horse&#8217;s back. His knees shook
+under him, and he had to rest before he could lift
+his foot to the stirrup and pull himself into the
+seat.</p>
+<p>Before he rode away he turned and looked at
+the hollow in the sand where his blankets had
+been.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That was a close squeak, Smith,&#8221; was all he
+said.</p>
+<p>He had no desire for breakfast; in fact, he
+could not have eaten, for his tongue was swollen,
+and his throat felt too dry to swallow. His skin
+was the color of his saddle-leather, and his inflamed
+eye-balls had the redness of live coals. Smith was
+far from handsome that morning.</p>
+<p>His own recent sufferings had in nowise made
+him more merciful: he spurred his stiff and lifeless
+horse without pity, but he spurred uselessly.
+It stumbled under him as he drove the spiritless
+band toward the hopeless waste ahead of him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Unless I&#8217;m turned around, we ought to get
+out of this to-day,&#8221; he thought. The effort of
+speaking aloud was too great to be made. &#8220;Unless
+I&#8217;m lost, or fall off my horse, we ought to
+make it sure.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Distance had meant nothing to him during the
+first evening and night of his ride. He had fixed
+his eye upon the furthermost object within his
+range of vision and ridden for it&mdash;buoyant, confident,
+as his horse&#8217;s flying feet ate up the intervening
+miles. Now he shrank from looking ahead.
+He dreaded to lift his eyes to the interminable
+desolation stretching before him. The minutes
+seemed hours long; time was protracted as though
+he had been eating hasheesh. He felt as if he
+had ridden for a week, before his horse&#8217;s shadow
+told him that noon had come. The jar of his
+horse hurt him, and it all seemed unreal at times,
+like a torturing nightmare from which he must soon
+awake. He rode long distances with closed eyes
+as the day wore on. The world, red and wavering,
+swung around him, and he gripped his saddle-horn
+hard. The only real thing, the agony of
+which was too great to be mistaken for anything
+else, was his thirst. This was superlatively intense.
+There were moments when he had a desire
+to slide easily from his horse into the sand and
+lie still&mdash;just to be rid for a time of that jar that
+hurt him so. He viewed the distance to the ground
+contemplatively. It was not great. He would
+merely crumple up like a drunken person and go
+to sleep.</p>
+<p>But these moments soon passed: the instinct of
+self-preservation was quick to assert itself. Each
+time, he took a fresh grip on the slack reins and
+kept his horse plodding onward, ever onward,
+through the heavy sand and blistering alkali dust,
+and always to the northeast, where somewhere there
+was relief which somehow he must reach.</p>
+<p>Mile after mile crept under his horse&#8217;s lagging
+feet. The midday sun beat down upon him, drying
+the very blood in his veins, scorching him, shrivelling
+him, and yet there seemed no end to the waterless
+gulches, to the sand, the cactuses, the stunted sage-brush.
+His horse was stumbling oftener, but he
+felt no pity&mdash;only irritation that it had not more
+stamina. A sort of numbness, the lethargy of
+great weakness, was creeping over him; his heart
+was sagging with a dull despair. He believed that
+he must be lost, yet he was past cursing or complaining
+aloud. Only an occasional gasp or a
+fretful, inarticulate sound came when his horse
+stumbled badly.</p>
+<p>He thought he saw a barbed wire fence. A
+barbed wire fence meant civilization! He swung
+his horse and rode toward it. The dark spots
+he had thought were posts were only sage-brush.
+The smarting of his eye-balls and eyelids aroused
+him to an astonishing fact: he was crying in his
+weakness, crying of disappointment like a child!
+But he was astonished most that he had tears to
+shed&mdash;that they had not dried up like his blood.</p>
+<p>Tears! He remembered his last tears, and they
+kept on sliding down his cheek now as he recalled
+the occasion. His father had given him a colt
+back there where they slept between sheets. He
+had broken it himself, and taught it tricks. It
+whinnied to him when he passed the stable. The
+other boys envied him his colt, and he meant to
+show it at the fair. He came home one day and
+the colt was gone. His father handed him a silver
+dollar. He had thrown the money at his father
+and struck him in the face, and while the tears
+streamed from his eyes he had cursed his father
+with the oaths with which his father had so frequently
+cursed him; and he had kept on cursing
+until he was beaten into unconsciousness. There
+had been no love between them, ever, but he had
+not expected that. Since then there had been no
+time or inclination for tears, for it was then he
+had &#8220;quit the flat.&#8221; The rage of his boyhood
+came back to Smith as he thought of it now. He
+swore, though it hurt him to speak.</p>
+<p>His eyes were still smarting when he raised them
+to see a horseman on a distant ridge. The sight
+roused him like a stimulant. Was he friend or
+foe? He reined his horse, and, drawing his rifle
+from its scabbard, waited; for the stranger had
+seen him and was riding toward him down the
+ridge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If he ain&#8217;t my kind, I&#8217;ll have to stop him,&#8221;
+Smith muttered.</p>
+<p>The strength of excitement came to him, and
+once more he sat erect in the saddle, fingering the
+trigger as the horseman came steadily on.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He rides like a Texican,&#8221; Smith thought.
+There was something familiar in the stranger&#8217;s
+outlines, the way he threw his weight in one stirrup,
+but Smith was taking no chances. He put
+out a hand in warning, and the other man stopped.</p>
+<p>The swarthy face of the stranger wore a comprehending
+grin. No honest man drove horses
+across the Bad Lands. He threw the Indian sign
+of friendship to Smith, and they each advanced.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How far to water, Clayt?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, dog-gone me! Smith!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;How far to water?&#8221; Smith yelled the words
+in hoarse ferocity.</p>
+<p>The stranger glanced at the barebacked horses,
+and then at the shimmering heat waves of the
+desert.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just around the ridge,&#8221; he answered. &#8220;My
+God, man, didn&#8217;t you pack water?&#8221;</p>
+<p>But Smith was already out of hearing.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XVI_TINHORN_FRANK_SMELLS_MONEY' id='XVI_TINHORN_FRANK_SMELLS_MONEY'></a>
+<h2>XVI</h2>
+<h3>TINHORN FRANK SMELLS MONEY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Smith did not care for money in itself; that
+is, he did not care for it enough to work for it,
+or to hoard it when he had it. Yet perhaps even
+more than most persons he loved the feel of it in
+his fingers, the sensation of having it in his pocket.
+Smith was vain, in his way, and money satisfied
+his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention
+he craved. He could call any flashy talker&#8217;s
+bluff when his pockets were full of money. It
+imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge
+his propensity for resenting slights, either
+real or fancied. Money would buy him out of
+trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He
+took a roll of banknotes from the belt pocket of
+his leather chaps and counted them for the third
+time.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll buy a few drinks, flash this wad on them
+pinheads in town, and then I&#8217;ll soak it away.&#8221;
+He returned the roll to his pocket with an expression
+of satisfaction upon his face.</p>
+<p>He had done well with the horses. The &#8220;boys&#8221;
+had paid him a third more than he had expected;
+they had done so, he knew, as an incentive to
+further transactions. And Smith had outlined a
+plan to them which had made their eyes sparkle.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s risky, but if you can do it&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; they had
+said.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure, I can do it, and I&#8217;ll start as soon as
+it&#8217;s safe after I get back to the ranch. I gotta
+get to work and make a stake&mdash;<i>me</i>,&#8221; he had declared.</p>
+<p>They had looked at him quizzically.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The fact is, I&#8217;m tired of livin&#8217; under my hat.
+I aims to settle down.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And reform?&#8221; They had laughed uproariously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not to notice.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith sincerely believed that nothing stood between
+him and Dora but his lack of money. Once
+she saw it, the actual money, when he could go
+to her and throw it in her lap, a hatful, and say,
+&#8220;Come on, girl&#8221;&mdash;well, women were like that, he
+told himself.</p>
+<p>Ahead of Smith, on the dusty flat, was the
+little cow-town, looking, in the distance, like a
+scattered herd of dingy sheep. He was glad his
+ride was ended for the day. He was thirsty, hot,
+and a bit tired.</p>
+<p>Tinhorn Frank, resting the small of his back
+against a monument of elk and buffalo horns in
+front of his log saloon, was the first to spy Smith
+ambling leisurely into town.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s Smithy!&#8221; he exclaimed to the man
+who loafed beside him, &#8220;and he&#8217;s got a roll!&#8221;</p>
+<p>His fellow lounger looked at him curiously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tinhorn, I b&#8217;lieve you kin <i>smell</i> money; and
+I swear they&#8217;s kind of a scum comes over your
+eyes when you see it. How do you know he&#8217;s
+carryin&#8217; a roll?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tinhorn Frank laughed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know Smithy as well as if I had made him.
+I kin tell by the way he rides. I always could.
+When he&#8217;s broke he&#8217;s slouchy-like. He don&#8217;t take
+no pride in coilin&#8217; his rope, and he jams his hat
+over his eyes&mdash;tough. Look at him now&mdash;settin&#8217;
+square in the saddle, his rope coiled like a top
+Californy cowboy on a Fourth of July. That&#8217;s
+how I know. Hello, Smithy! Fall off and
+arrigate.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hullo!&#8221; Smith answered deliberately.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How&#8217;s she comin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Slow.&#8221; He swung his leg over the cantle of
+the saddle.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;ll you have?&#8221; Tinhorn slapped Smith&#8217;s
+back so hard that the dust rose.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Get me out somethin&#8217; stimulating, somethin&#8217;
+fur-reachin&#8217;, somethin&#8217; that you can tell where it
+stops. I want a drink that feels like a yard of
+barb-wire goin&#8217; down.&#8221; Smith was tying his horse.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s somethin&#8217; special,&#8221; said Tinhorn, when
+Smith went inside. &#8220;I keeps it for my friends.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith swallowed nearly a tumblerful.</p>
+<p>&#8220;When I drinks, I drinks, and I likes somethin&#8217;
+I can notice.&#8221; He wiped the tears out of his eyes
+with the back of his hand.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I guarantee you kin notice that in about five
+minutes. It&#8217;s a never failing remedy for man and
+beast&mdash;not meaning to claim that its horse liniment
+at all. Put it back, Smithy; your money
+ain&#8217;t good here!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tinhorn Frank&#8217;s dark eyes gleamed with an
+avaricious light at sight of the roll of yellow banknotes
+which Smith flung carelessly upon the bar,
+but he had earned his living by his wits too long
+to betray eagerness. He masked the adamantine
+hardness of his grasping nature beneath an air of
+generous and bluff good-fellowship.</p>
+<p>He was a dark man, with a skin of oily sallowness;
+thickset, with something of the slow ungainliness
+of a toad. His head was set low between
+stooped shoulders, and his crafty eyes had in them
+a look of scheming, scheming always for his own
+interests. Smith knew his record as well as he
+knew his own: a dance-hall hanger-on in his youth,
+despised of men; a blackmailer; the keeper of a
+notorious road-house; a petty grafter in a small
+political office in the little cow-town. Smith understood
+perfectly the source of his present interest,
+yet it flattered him almost as much as if it had
+been sincere, it pleased him as if he had been the
+object of a gentleman&#8217;s attentions. When he had
+money, Smith demanded satellites, sycophants who
+would laugh boisterously at his jokes, praise him
+in broad compliments, and follow him like a paid
+retinue from saloon to saloon. This was enjoying
+life! And upon this weakness, the least clever, the
+most insignificant and unimportant person could
+play if he understood Smith.</p>
+<p>The word had gone down the line that Smith
+was in town with money. They rallied around him
+with loud protestations of joy at the sight of him.
+Smith held the centre of the stage, he was the
+conspicuous figure, the magnet which drew them
+all. He gloried in it, revelled in his popularity;
+and the &#8220;special brand&#8221; was beginning to sizzle
+in his veins.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m feelin&#8217; lucky to-day, me&mdash;Smith!&#8221; he cried
+exultantly. &#8220;I has a notorious idea that I can
+buck the wheel and win!&#8221;</p>
+<p>He had not meant to gamble&mdash;he had told himself
+that he would not; but his admiring friends
+urged him on, his blood was running fast and hot,
+his heart beat high with confidence and hope. Big
+prospects loomed ahead of him; success looked
+easy. He flung his money recklessly upon the red
+and black, and with throbbing pulses watched the
+wheel go round.</p>
+<p>Again and again he won. It seemed as if he
+could not lose.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I told you!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;I&#8217;m feelin&#8217; lucky!&#8221;</p>
+<p>When he finally stopped, his winnings were the
+envy of many eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Set &#8217;em up, Tinhorn! Everybody drink!
+Bring in the horses!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bedlam reigned. It was &#8220;Smithy this&#8221; and
+&#8220;Smithy that,&#8221; and it was all as the breath of
+life to Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tinhorn&#8221;&mdash;he leaned heavily on the bar&mdash;&#8220;when
+I feels lucky like this, I makes it a rule
+to crowd my luck. Are you game for stud?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The film which the lounger had mentioned
+seemed to cover Tinhorn&#8217;s eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m locoed to set agin such luck as yours, but
+I like to be sociable, and you don&#8217;t come often.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I likes a swift game,&#8221; said Smith, as he pulled
+a chair from the pine table. &#8220;Draw is good
+enough for kids and dudes, but stud&#8217;s the only
+play for men.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you&#8217;ve talked!&#8221; declared the admiring
+throng.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Keep &#8217;em movin&#8217;, Tinhorn! Deal &#8217;em out fast.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smithy, you&#8217;re a cyclone!&#8221;</p>
+<p>A hundred of Smith&#8217;s money went for chips.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dough is jest like mud to some fellers,&#8221; said
+a voice enviously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I likes a game where you make or break on
+a hand. I&#8217;ve lost thousands while you could spit,
+me&mdash;Smith!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like a chinook in winter just to see you
+in town agin, Smithy.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The &#8220;hole&#8221; card was not promising&mdash;it was
+only a six-spot; but, backing his luck, Smith bet
+high on it. Tinhorn came back at him strong.
+He wanted Smith&#8217;s money, and he wanted it quick.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s next card was a jack, and he bet three
+times its value. When Tinhorn dealt him another
+jack he bought more chips and backed his pair,
+for Tinhorn, as yet, had none in sight. The next
+turn showed up a queen for Tinhorn and a three-spot
+for Smith. And they bet and raised, and
+raised again. On the last turn Smith drew another
+three and Tinhorn another queen. With two pairs
+in sight, Smith had him beaten. When Smith bet,
+Tinhorn raised him. Was Tinhorn bluffing or did
+he have another queen in the &#8220;hole&#8221;? Smith believed
+he was bluffing, but there was an equal chance
+that he was not. While he hesitated, the other
+watched him like a hungry mountain lion.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you gettin&#8217; cold feet, Smithy?&#8221; There
+was the suspicion of a sneer in the satellite&#8217;s voice.
+&#8220;Did you say you liked to make or break on a
+hand?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought you liked a swift game,&#8221; gibed Tinhorn.</p>
+<p>The taunt settled it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can play as swift as most&mdash;and then, some.&#8221;
+He shoved a pile of chips into the centre of the
+table with both hands. &#8220;Come again!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tinhorn did come again; and again, and again,
+and again. He bet with the confidence of knowledge&mdash;with
+a confidence that put the fear in Smith&#8217;s
+heart. But he could not, and he would not, quit
+now. His jaw was set as he pulled off banknote
+after banknote in the tense silence which had fallen.</p>
+<p>When the last of them fluttered to the table he
+asked:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What you got?&#8221;</p>
+<p>For answer, Tinhorn turned over a third queen.
+Encircling the pile of money and chips with his
+arm, he swept them toward him.</p>
+<p>Smith rose and kicked the chair out of his way.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the end of my rope,&#8221; he said, with a
+hard laugh. &#8220;I&#8217;m done.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have a drink,&#8221; urged Tinhorn.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not to-day,&#8221; he answered shortly.</p>
+<p>The crowd parted to let him pass. Untying his
+horse, he sprang into the saddle, and not much
+more than an hour from the time he had arrived
+he rode down the main street, past the bank where
+he was to leave his roll, flat broke.</p>
+<p>At the end of the street he turned in his saddle
+and looked behind him. His satellites stood in
+the bar-room door, loungers loafed on the curbstone,
+a woman or two drifted into the General
+Merchandise Store. The Postmaster was eying him
+idly through his fly-specked window, and a group
+of boys, who had been drawing pictures with their
+bare toes in the deep white dust of the street,
+scowled after him because his horse&#8217;s feet had
+spoiled their work. His advent had left no more
+impression than the tiny whirlwind in its erratic
+and momentary flurry. The money for which he
+had sweat blood was gone. Mechanically he
+jambed his hands into his empty pockets.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hell!&#8221; he said bitterly. &#8220;Hell!&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XVII_SUSIE_HUMBLES_HERSELF_TO_SMITH' id='XVII_SUSIE_HUMBLES_HERSELF_TO_SMITH'></a>
+<h2>XVII</h2>
+<h3>SUSIE HUMBLES HERSELF TO SMITH</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Smith&#8217;s return to the ranch was awaited with
+keen interest by several persons, though for different
+reasons.</p>
+<p>Bear Chief wanted to learn the whereabouts of
+his race-horse, and seemed to find small comfort
+in Ralston&#8217;s assurance that the proper authorities
+had been notified and that every effort would be
+made to locate the stolen ponies.</p>
+<p>Dora was troubled that Smith&#8217;s educational
+progress should have come to such an abrupt stop;
+and she felt not a little hurt that he should disappear
+for such a length of time without having
+told her of his going, and disappointed in him,
+also, that he would permit anything to interfere
+with the improvement of his mind.</p>
+<p>Susie&#8217;s impatience for his return increased daily.
+Her chagrin over being outwitted by Smith was
+almost comical. She considered it a reflection upon
+her own intelligence, and tears of mortification
+came to her eyes each time she discussed it with
+Ralston. He urged her to be patient, and tried to
+comfort her by saying:</p>
+<p>&#8220;We have only to wait, Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I thought that before, and look what
+happened.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The situation is different now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But maybe he&#8217;ll reform and we&#8217;ll never get
+another crack at him,&#8221; she said dolefully.</p>
+<p>Ralston shook his head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t let that disturb you. Take certain
+natures under given circumstances, and you can
+come pretty near foretelling results. Smith will do
+the same thing again, only on a bigger scale; that
+is, unless he learns that he has been found out. He
+won&#8217;t be afraid of you, because he will think that
+you are as deep in the mire as he is; but if he
+thought I suspected him, or the Indians, it would
+make him cautious.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s charmed, or got such a
+stout medicine that nobody can catch him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston could not refrain from smiling at the
+Indian superstition which cropped out at times in
+Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not for a moment,&#8221; he answered positively.
+&#8220;He appears to have been fortunate&mdash;lucky&mdash;but
+in a case like this, I don&#8217;t believe there&#8217;s any luck
+can win, in the long run, against vigilance, patience,
+and determination; and the greatest of these is
+patience.&#8221; Ralston, waxing philosophical went on:
+&#8220;It&#8217;s a great thing to be able to wait, Susie&mdash;coolly,
+smilingly, to wait&mdash;providing, as the phrase
+goes, you hustle while you wait. One victory for
+your enemy doesn&#8217;t mean defeat for yourself. It&#8217;s
+usually the last trick that counts, and sometimes
+games are long in the playing. Wait for your
+enemy&#8217;s head, and when it comes up, <i>whack it</i>!
+Neither you nor I, Susie, have been reared to believe
+that when we are swatted on one cheek we
+should turn the other.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;No;&#8221; Susie shook her head gravely. &#8220;That
+ain&#8217;t sense.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The person who took Smith&#8217;s absence most deeply
+to heart was the Indian woman. She missed him,
+and, besides, she was tormented with jealous suspicions.
+She knew nothing of his life beyond what
+she had seen at the ranch. There might be another
+woman. She suffered from the ever-present fear
+that he might not come back; that he would go
+as scores of grub-liners had gone, without a word
+at parting.</p>
+<p>In the house she was restless, and her moccasined
+feet padded often from her bench in the corner to
+the window overlooking the road down which he
+might come. She sat for hours at a time upon an
+elevation which commanded a view of the surrounding
+country. Heavy-featured, moody-eyed, she was
+the personification of dog-like fidelity and patience.
+Naturally, it was she who first saw Smith jogging
+leisurely down the road on his jaded horse.</p>
+<p>The long roof of the MacDonald ranch, which
+was visible through the cool willows, looked good
+to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and inviting;
+yet Smith knew that the whole Indian
+police force might be there to greet him. He had
+been gone many days, and much might have happened
+in the interim. It was characteristic of
+Smith that he did not slacken his horse&#8217;s pace&mdash;he
+could squirm out somehow.</p>
+<p>It gave him no concern that he had not a dollar
+to divide with Susie, as he had promised, and
+his chagrin over the loss of the money had vanished
+as he rode. His temperament was sanguine, and
+soon he was telling himself that so long as there
+were cattle and horses on the range there was
+always a stake for him. Following up this cheerful
+vein of thought, he soon felt as comfortable as
+if the money were already in his pocket.</p>
+<p>Smith threw up his hand in friendly greeting
+as the Indian woman came down the path to meet
+him.</p>
+<p>There was no response, and he scowled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The old woman&#8217;s got her sull on,&#8221; he muttered,
+but his voice was pleasant enough when he asked:
+&#8220;Ain&#8217;t you glad to see me, Prairie Flower?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman&#8217;s face did not relax.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where you been?&#8221; she demanded.</p>
+<p>He stopped unsaddling and looked at her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never had no boss, me&mdash;Smith,&#8221; he answered
+with significance.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You got a woman!&#8221; she burst out fiercely.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s brow cleared.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure I got a woman.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You lie to me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I call her Prairie Flower&mdash;my woman.&#8221; He
+reached and took her clenched hand.</p>
+<p>The tense muscles gradually relaxed, and the
+darkness lifted from her face like a cloud that has
+obscured the sun. She smiled and her eyelids
+dropped shyly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why you go and no tell me?&#8221; she asked plaintively.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was a business trip, Prairie Flower, and I
+like to talk to you of love, not business,&#8221; he replied
+evasively.</p>
+<p>She looked puzzled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I not know you have business.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes; I do a rushin&#8217; business&mdash;by spells.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She persisted, unsatisfied:</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what kind of business?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith laughed outright.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; he answered humorously, &#8220;I travels a
+good deal&mdash;in the dark of the moon.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She was keener than he had thought, for she
+drew her right hand slyly under her left arm in the
+expressive Indian sign signifying theft. He did
+not answer, so she said in a tone of mingled fear
+and reproach:</p>
+<p>&#8220;You steal Indian horses!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221;</p>
+<p>She grasped his coat-sleeve.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t do dat no more! De Indians&#8217; hearts
+are stirred. Dey mad. Dis time maybe dey not
+ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more
+brave and you steal from white man. You steal
+two, t&#8217;ree cow, maybe all right, but when you
+steal de white man&#8217;s horses de rope is on your neck.
+I know&mdash;I have seen. Some time de thief he swing
+in de wind, and de magpie pick at him, and de
+coyote jump at him. Yes, I have seen it like
+dat.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith shivered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t talk about them things,&#8221; he said impatiently.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve been near lynchin&#8217; twice, and I
+hates the looks of a slip-noose yet; but I gotta
+have money.&#8221;</p>
+<p>As he stood above her, looking down upon her
+anxious face, a thought came to him, a plan so
+simple that he was amazed that it had not occurred
+to him before. Undoubtedly she had money in
+the bank, this infatuated, love-sick-woman&mdash;the
+Scotchman would have taught her how to save and
+care for it; but if she had not, she had resources
+which amounted to the same: the best of security
+upon which she could borrow money. He was sure
+that her cattle and horses were free of mortgages,
+and there was the coming crop of hay. She had
+promised him the proceeds from that, if he would
+stay, but the sale of it was still months away.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I had a stake, Prairie Flower,&#8221; he said
+mournfully, &#8220;I&#8217;d cut out this crooked work and
+quit takin&#8217; chances. But a feller like me has got
+pride: he can&#8217;t go around without two bits in his
+pocket, and feel like a man. If I had the price,
+I&#8217;d buy me a good bunch of cattle, get a permit,
+and range &#8217;em on the reserve.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When we get tied right,&#8221; said the woman
+eagerly, &#8220;I give you de stake <i>quick</i>.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith shook his head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you think I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to have the whole
+country sayin&#8217; I just married you for what you
+got? I&#8217;ve got some feelin&#8217;s, me&mdash;Smith, and before
+I marry a rich woman, I want to have a
+little somethin&#8217; of my own.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She looked pleased, for Susie&#8217;s words had
+rankled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How big bunch cattle you like buy? How
+much money you want?&#8221;</p>
+<p>He shook his head dejectedly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;More money nor I can raise, Prairie Flower.
+Five&mdash;ten thousand dollars&mdash;maybe more.&#8221; He
+watched the effect of his words narrowly. She did
+not seem startled by the size of the sums he mentioned.
+He added: &#8220;There&#8217;s nothin&#8217; in monkeyin&#8217;
+with just a few.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I got de money, and I gift it to you. My
+heart is right to you, white man!&#8221; she said passionately.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean it, Prairie Flower?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yas, but don&#8217;t tell Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He watched her going up the path, her hips
+wobbling, her step heavy, and he hated her. Her
+love irritated him; her devotion was ridiculous.
+He saw in her only a means to an end, and he was
+without scruples or pity.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She ain&#8217;t no more to me nor a dumb brute,&#8221;
+he said contemptuously.</p>
+<p>Smith felt that he was able to foretell with considerable
+accuracy the nature of his interview with
+Susie upon their meeting, and her opening words
+did not fall short of his expectations.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re all right, you are!&#8221; she said in her
+high voice. &#8220;I&#8217;d stick to a pal like you through
+thick and thin, I would! What did you pull out
+like that for anyhow?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith chuckled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir, Susie, it fair broke my heart to
+start off without seein&#8217; your pretty face and hearin&#8217;
+your sweet voice again, but the fact is, I got
+so lonesome awaitin&#8217; for you that I just naturally
+had to be travellin&#8217;. I ups and hits the breeze, and
+I has no pencil or paper to leave a note behind.
+It wasn&#8217;t perlite, Susie, I admits,&#8221; he said mockingly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dig up that money you&#8217;re goin&#8217; to divide.&#8221;
+Susie looked like a young wildcat that has been
+poked with a stick.</p>
+<p>Smith drew an exaggerated sigh and shook his
+head lugubriously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Child, I&#8217;m the only son of Trouble. I gets
+in a game and I loses every one of our honest,
+hard-earned dollars. The tears has been pilin&#8217; out
+of my eyes and down my cheeks for forty miles,
+thinkin&#8217; how I&#8217;d have to break the news to you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith, you&#8217;re just a common, <i>common</i> thief!&#8221;
+All the scorn of which she was capable was in her
+voice. &#8220;To steal from your own pal!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thief?&#8221; Smith put his fingers in his ears.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t use that word, Susie. It sounds horrid,
+comin&#8217; from a child you love as if she was your
+own step-daughter.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The muscles of Susie&#8217;s throat contracted so it
+hurt her; her face drew up in an unbecoming
+grimace; she cried with a child&#8217;s abandon, indifferent
+to the fact that her tears made her ludicrously
+ugly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith,&#8221; she sobbed, &#8220;don&#8217;t you ever feel sorry
+for anybody? Couldn&#8217;t you ever pity anybody?
+Couldn&#8217;t you pity me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith made no reply, so she went on brokenly;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t you remember that you was a kid once,
+too, and didn&#8217;t know how, and couldn&#8217;t, fight grown
+up people that was mean to you?&mdash;and how you
+felt? I know you don&#8217;t <i>have</i> to do anything for
+me&mdash;you don&#8217;t <i>have</i> to&mdash;but won&#8217;t you? Won&#8217;t
+you do somethin&#8217; good when you&#8217;ve got a chance&mdash;just
+this once, Smith? Won&#8217;t you go away from
+here? You don&#8217;t care anything at all for Mother,
+Smith, and she&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve got!&#8221; She stretched her
+hands toward him appealing, while the hot tears
+wet her cheeks. She was the picture of childish
+humiliation and misery.</p>
+<p>Smith looked at her and listened without derision
+or triumph. He looked at her in simple curiosity,
+as he would have looked at a suffering animal
+biting itself in pain. The unexpected outbreak interested
+him.</p>
+<p>Through a blur of tears, Susie read something
+of this in his face, and her hands dropped limply
+to her sides. Her appeal was useless.</p>
+<p>It was not that Smith did not understand her
+feelings. He did&mdash;perfectly. He knew how deep
+a child&#8217;s hurt is. He had been hurt himself, and
+the scar was still there. It was only that he did
+not care. He had lived through his hurt, and so
+would she. It was to his interest to stay, and
+first and always he considered Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t say anything,&#8221; Susie said slowly,
+and there was no more supplication in her voice.
+&#8220;I thought I knew you before, Smith, but I know
+you better now. When a white man is onery, he&#8217;s
+meaner than an Injun, and that&#8217;s the kind of a
+white man you are. I&#8217;ll never forget this. I&#8217;ll
+never forget that I&#8217;ve crawled to you, and you
+listened like a stone.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith answered in a voice that was not unkind&mdash;as
+he would have warned her of a sink-hole or
+a bad crossing:</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t buck me, Susie, and you&#8217;d better
+not try. You&#8217;re game, but you&#8217;re just a kid.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Kids grow up sometimes;&#8221; and she turned
+away.</p>
+<p>McArthur, strolling, while he enjoyed his pipe,
+came upon Susie lying face downward, her head
+pillowed on her arm, on a sand dune not far from
+the house. He thought she was asleep until she
+sat up and looked at him. Then he saw her
+swollen eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, Susie, are you ill?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I&#8217;m sick here.&#8221; She laid her hand upon
+her heart.</p>
+<p>He sat down beside her and stroked the streaked
+brown hair timidly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry,&#8221; he said gently.</p>
+<p>She felt the sympathy in his touch, and was
+quick to respond to it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, pardner,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I just feel awful!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, Susie,&#8221; he said again.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did <i>your</i> mother ever go back on you, pardner?&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur shook his head gravely.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, Susie.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s terrible. I can&#8217;t tell you hardly how it
+is; but it&#8217;s like everybody that you ever cared
+for in the world had died. It&#8217;s like standin&#8217; over
+a quicksand and feelin&#8217; yourself goin&#8217; down. It&#8217;s
+like the dreams when you wake up screamin&#8217; and
+you have to tell yourself over and over it isn&#8217;t
+so&mdash;except that I have to tell myself over and
+over it <i>is</i> so.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Susie, I think you&#8217;re wrong.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She shook her head sadly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish I was wrong, but I&#8217;m not.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;She worries when you are late getting home,
+or are not well.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, she&#8217;s like that,&#8221; she nodded. &#8220;Mother
+would fight for me like a bear with cubs if anybody
+would hurt me so she could see it, but the
+worst hurt&mdash;the kind that doesn&#8217;t show&mdash;I guess
+she don&#8217;t understand. Before now I could tell
+anybody that come on the ranch and wasn&#8217;t nice
+to me to &#8217;git,&#8217; and mother would back me up.
+Even yet I could tell you or Tubbs or Mr. Ralston
+to leave, and they&#8217;d have to go. But Smith?&mdash;no!
+He&#8217;s come back to stay. And she&#8217;ll let him
+stay, if she knows it will drive me away from home.
+Mother&#8217;s Injun, and she can only read a little and
+write a little that my Dad taught her, and she
+wears blankets and moccasins, but I never was
+&#8217;shamed of Mother before. If she marries Smith,
+what can I do? Where can I go? I could take
+my pack outfit and start out to hunt Dad&#8217;s folks,
+but if Mother marries Smith, she&#8217;ll need me after
+a while. Yet how can I stay? I feel sometimes
+like they was two of me&mdash;one was good and one
+was bad; and if Mother lets Smith turn me out,
+maybe all the bad in me would come to the top.
+But there&#8217;s one thing I couldn&#8217;t forget. Dad used
+to say to me lots of times when we were alone&mdash;oh,
+often he said it: &#8216;Susie, girl, never forget
+you&#8217;re a MacDonald!&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur turned quickly and looked at her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did your father say that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Just like that?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; he always straightened himself and said
+it just like that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur was studying her face with a peculiar
+intentness, as if he were seeing her for the first
+time.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was his first name, Susie?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Donald.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Donald MacDonald?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; there was lots of MacDonalds up there
+in the north country.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you a picture, Susie?&#8221;</p>
+<p>A rifle-shot broke the stillness of the droning
+afternoon. Susie was on her feet the instant.
+There was another&mdash;then a fusillade!</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the Indians after Smith!&#8221; she cried.
+&#8220;They promised me they wouldn&#8217;t! Come&mdash;stand
+up here where you can see.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur took a place beside her on a knoll
+and watched the scene with horrified eyes. The
+Indians were grouped, with Bear Chief in advance.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re shootin&#8217; into the stable! They&#8217;ve got
+him cornered,&#8221; Susie explained excitedly. &#8220;No&mdash;look!
+He&#8217;s comin&#8217; out! He&#8217;s goin&#8217; to make a
+run for it! He&#8217;s headed for the house. He can
+run like a scared wolf!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do they mean to kill him?&#8221; McArthur asked
+in a shocked voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think
+that&#8217;s target practice? But look where the dust
+flies up&mdash;they&#8217;re striking all around him&mdash;behind
+him&mdash;beside him&mdash;everywhere but in him! They&#8217;re
+so anxious that they&#8217;re shootin&#8217; wild. Runnin&#8217;
+Rabbit ought to get him&mdash;he&#8217;s a good shot! He
+<i>did</i>! No, he stumbled. He&#8217;s charmed&mdash;that Smith.
+He&#8217;s got a strong medicine.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s not too brave to run,&#8221; said McArthur,
+but added: &#8220;I ran, myself, when they were after
+me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;d better run,&#8221; Susie replied. &#8220;But he&#8217;s
+after his gun; he means to fight.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll make it!&#8221; McArthur cried.</p>
+<p>Susie&#8217;s voice suddenly rang out in an ascending,
+staccato-like shriek.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!&#8221; but the cracking
+rifles drowned Susie&#8217;s shrill cry of entreaty.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman, with her hands high above
+her head, the palms open as if to stop the singing
+bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only
+when she had passed Smith and stood between him
+and danger. She stood erect, unflinching, and
+while the Indians&#8217; fire wavered Smith gained the
+doorway.</p>
+<p>Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn
+back from his protruding teeth in the snarl of
+a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the
+deer-horn gun-rack above the door.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman was directly in line between
+him and his enemies.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Get out of the way!&#8221; he yelled, but she did
+not hear him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The fool!&#8221; he snarled. &#8220;The fool! I&#8217;ll have
+to crease her.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in
+the fleshy part of her arm near the shoulder.
+She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XVIII_A_BAD__HOMBRE' id='XVIII_A_BAD__HOMBRE'></a>
+<h2>XVIII</h2>
+<h3>A BAD HOMBRE</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Indians ceased firing when the woman
+fell, and when Susie reached her mother Smith
+was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith
+who led her into the house and ripped her sleeve.</p>
+<p>It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the
+bullet had gone a few inches higher it would have
+shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told
+Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of
+aim.</p>
+<p>He always carried a small roll of bandages in
+his hip-pocket, and with these he dressed the
+woman&#8217;s arm with surprising skill.</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you needs a bandage, you generally
+needs it bad,&#8221; he explained.</p>
+<p>He wondered if she knew that it was his shot
+which had struck her. If she did know, she said
+nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed
+his every movement.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like somebody&#8217;s squeaked,&#8221; Smith said
+meaningly to Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nobody&#8217;s squeaked,&#8221; she lied glibly. &#8220;They&#8217;re
+mad, and they&#8217;re suspicious, but they didn&#8217;t see
+you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If they&#8217;d go after me like that on suspicion,&#8221;
+said Smith dryly, &#8220;looks like they&#8217;d be plumb
+hos-tile if they was sure. Is this here war goin&#8217;
+to keep up, or has they had satisfaction?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Through Susie, a kind of armistice was arranged
+between Smith and the Indians. It took much
+argument to induce them to defer their vengeance
+and let the law take its course.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll only get in trouble,&#8221; she urged, &#8220;and
+Mr. Ralston will see that Smith gets all that&#8217;s
+comin&#8217; to him when he has enough proof. He&#8217;s
+stole more than horses from me,&#8221; she said bitterly,
+&#8220;and if I can wait and trust the white man to
+handle him as he thinks best, you can, too.&#8221;</p>
+<p>So the Indians reluctantly withdrew, but both
+Smith and Susie knew that their smouldering resentment
+was ready to break out again upon the slightest
+provocation.</p>
+<p>Susie&#8217;s assurance that the attack of the Indians
+was due only to suspicion did not convince Smith.
+He noticed that, with the exception of Yellow
+Bird, there was not a single Indian stopping at
+the ranch, and Yellow Bird not only refused to
+be drawn into friendly conversation, but distinctly
+avoided him.</p>
+<p>Smith knew that he was now upon dangerous
+ground, yet, with his unfaltering faith in himself
+and his luck, he continued to walk with a firm
+tread. If he could make one good turn and get
+the Indian woman&#8217;s stake, he told himself, then
+he and Dora could look for a more healthful
+clime.</p>
+<p>The Schoolmarm never had appeared more trim,
+more self-respecting, more desirable, than when in
+her clean, white shirt-waist and well-cut skirt she
+stepped forward to greet him with a friendly, outstretched
+hand. His heart beat wildly as he took it.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was afraid you had gone &#8216;for keeps,&#8217;&#8221; she
+said.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Were you <i>afraid</i>?&#8221; he asked eagerly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not exactly afraid, to be more explicit, but I
+should have been sorry.&#8221; She smiled up into his
+face with her frank, ingenuous smile.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You were getting along so well with your
+lessons. Besides, I should have thought it unfriendly
+of you to go without saying good-by.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Unfriendly?&#8221; Smith laughed shortly. &#8220;Me
+unfriendly! Why, girl, you&#8217;re like a mountain to
+me. When I&#8217;m tired and hot and all give out, I
+raises my eyes and sees you there above me&mdash;quiet
+and cool and comfortable, like&mdash;and I takes a fresh
+grip.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad I help you,&#8221; Dora replied gently.
+&#8220;I want to.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in the way of makin&#8217; a stake now,&#8221; Smith
+went on, &#8220;and when I gets it&#8221;&mdash;he hesitated&mdash;&#8220;well,
+when I gets it I aims to let you know.&#8221;</p>
+<p>When Dora went into the house, to her own
+room, Smith stepped into the living-room, where
+the Indian woman sat by the window.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You like dat white woman better den me?&#8221;
+she burst out as he entered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Prairie Flower,&#8221; he replied wearily, &#8220;if I had
+a dollar for every time I&#8217;ve answered that question,
+I wouldn&#8217;t be lookin&#8217; for no stake to buy cattle
+with.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;De white woman couldn&#8217;t give you no stake.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He made no reply to her taunt. He was thinking.
+The words of a cowpuncher came back to
+him as he sat and regarded with unseeing eyes the
+Indian woman. The cowpuncher had said: &#8220;When
+a feller rides the range month in and month out,
+and don&#8217;t see nobody but other punchers and Injuns,
+some Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes begins
+to look kind of good to him when he rides
+into camp and she smiles as if she was glad he
+had come. He gits used to seein&#8217; her sittin&#8217; on
+an antelope hide, beadin&#8217; moccasins, and the country
+where they wear pointed-toed shoes and sit in
+chairs gits farther and farther away. And after
+awhile he tells himself that he don&#8217;t mind smoke
+and the smell of buckskin, and a tepee is a better
+home nor none, and that he thinks as much of this
+here Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes as he could
+think of any woman, and he wonders when the
+priest could come. And while he&#8217;s studyin&#8217; it over,
+some white girl cuts across his trail, and, with the
+sight of her, Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes
+looks like a dirty two-spot in a clean deck.&#8221; The
+cowpuncher&#8217;s words came back to Smith as though
+they had been said only yesterday.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you say what you think?&#8221; the
+woman asked, uneasy under his long stare.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Smith, rousing himself; &#8220;the
+Schoolmarm couldn&#8217;t give me no stake; and money
+talks.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you want your money?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Quick.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;How much you want?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;How much you got?&#8221; he asked bluntly. He
+was sure of her, and he was in no mood to finesse.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Eight&mdash;nine thousand.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to do anything with cattle this
+year, I want to get at it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I give you de little paper MacDonald call
+check. I know how to write check,&#8221; she said
+with pride.</p>
+<p>Smith shook his head. A check was evidence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s better for you to go to the bank and get
+the cash yourself. Meeteetse can hitch up and take
+you. It won&#8217;t bother your arm none, for you ain&#8217;t
+bad hurt. Nine thousand is quite a wad to get
+without givin&#8217; notice, and I doubt if you gets it,
+but draw all you can. Take a flour-sack along
+and put the stuff in it; then when you gets home,
+pass it over to me first chance. Don&#8217;t let &#8217;em
+load you down with silver&mdash;I hates to pack silver
+on horseback.&#8221;</p>
+<p>To all of which instructions the woman agreed.</p>
+<p>That she might avoid Susie&#8217;s questions, she did
+not start the next morning until Susie was well
+on her way to school. Then, dressed in her gaudiest
+skirt, her widest brass-studded belt, her best and
+hottest blanket, she was ready for the long drive.</p>
+<p>Smith put a fresh bandage on her arm, and
+praised the scrawling signature on the check which
+she had filled out after laborious and oft-repeated
+efforts. He made sure that she had the flour-sack,
+and that the check was pinned securely inside
+her capacious pocket, before he helped her in the
+wagon. He had been all attention that morning,
+and her eyes were liquid with gratitude and devotion
+as she and Meeteetse drove away. She turned
+before they were out of sight, and her face brightened
+when she saw Smith still looking after them.
+She thought comfortably of the fast approaching
+day when she would be envied by the women who
+had married only &#8220;bloods&#8221; or &#8220;breeds.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith, as it happened, was remarking contemptuously
+to Tubbs, as he nodded after the disappearing
+wagon:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t that look like a reg&#8217;lar Injun outfit?
+One old white horse and a spotted buzzard-head;
+harness wired up with Mormon beeswax; a lopsided
+spring seat; one side-board gone and no
+paint on the wagon.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d think Meeteetse&#8217;d think more of hisself
+than to go ridin&#8217; around with a blanket-squaw.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He <i>said</i> he was out of tobacer, but he probably
+aims to get drunk.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;More&#8217;n likely,&#8221; Tubbs agreed. &#8220;Meeteetse&#8217;s
+gittin&#8217; to be a reg&#8217;lar squawman anyhow, hangin&#8217;
+around Injuns so much and runnin&#8217; with &#8217;em. He
+believes in signs and dreams, and he ain&#8217;t washed
+his neck for six weeks.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Associatin&#8217; too much with Injuns will spile a
+good man. Tubbs,&#8221; Smith went on solemnly, &#8220;you
+ain&#8217;t the feller you was when you come.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I knows it,&#8221; Tubbs agreed plaintively. &#8220;I
+hain&#8217;t half the gumption I had.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It hurts me to see a bright mind like yours
+goin&#8217; to seed, and there&#8217;s nothin&#8217;ll do harm to a
+feller quicker nor associatin&#8217; with them as ain&#8217;t his
+equal. Tubbs, like you was my own brother, I says
+that bug-hunter ain&#8217;t no man for you to run with.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He ain&#8217;t vicious and the likes o&#8217; that,&#8221; said
+Tubbs, in mild defense of his employer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s &#8217;vicious&#8217; anyhow?&#8221; demanded Smith.
+&#8220;Who&#8217;s goin&#8217; to say what&#8217;s vicious and what ain&#8217;t?
+I says it&#8217;s vicious to lie like he does about them
+idjot skulls and ham-bones he digs out and brings
+home, makin&#8217; out that they might be pieces of
+fellers what could use one of them cotton-woods for
+a walkin&#8217; stick and et animals the size of that
+meat-house at a meal.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He never said jest that.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He might as well. What I&#8217;m aimin&#8217; at is that
+it&#8217;s demoralizin&#8217; to get interested in things like
+that and spend your life diggin&#8217; up the dead. It&#8217;s
+too tame for a feller of any spirit.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s nowise dang&#8217;rous,&#8221; Tubbs admitted.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I thought you was my kind, Tubbs, I&#8217;d
+give you a chance. I&#8217;d let you in on a deal that&#8217;d
+be the makin&#8217; of you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;All I needs is a chanct,&#8221; Tubbs declared
+eagerly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I believe you,&#8221; Smith replied, with flattering
+emphasis.</p>
+<p>A disturbing thought made Tubbs inquire
+anxiously:</p>
+<p>&#8220;This here chanct your speakin&#8217; of&mdash;it ain&#8217;t
+work, is it?&mdash;real right-down work?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not degradin&#8217; work, like pitchin&#8217; hay or
+plowin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hates low-down work, where you gits out
+and sweats.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I see where you&#8217;re right. There&#8217;s no call for
+a man of your sand and <i>sabe</i> to do day&#8217;s work.
+Let them as hasn&#8217;t neither and is afraid to take
+chances pitch hay and do plowin&#8217; for wages.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs looked a little startled.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What kind of chances?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith looked at Tubbs before he lowered his
+voice and asked:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wasn&#8217;t you ever on the rustle none?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs reflected.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Onct back east, in I-ó-wa, I rustled me a set
+of underwear off&#8217;n a clothes-line.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith eyed Tubbs in genuine disgust. He had
+all the contempt for a petty-larceny thief that the
+skilled safe-breaker has for the common purse-snatcher.
+The line between pilfering and legitimate
+stealing was very clear in his mind. He said
+merely,</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tubbs, I believe you&#8217;re a bad <i>hombre</i>.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;They <i>is</i> worse, I s&#8217;pose,&#8221; said Tubbs modestly,
+&#8220;but I&#8217;ve been pretty rank in my time.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can you ride? Can you rope? Can you cut
+out a steer and burn a brand? Would you get
+buck-ague in a pinch and quit me if it came to a
+show-down? Are you a stayer?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Try me,&#8221; said Tubbs, swelling.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shake,&#8221; said Smith. &#8220;I wisht we&#8217;d got
+acquainted sooner.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And mebby I kin tell you somethin&#8217; about
+brands,&#8221; Tubbs went on boastfully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;More&#8217;n likely.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I kin take a wet blanket and a piece of copper
+wire and put an addition to an old brand so it&#8217;ll
+last till you kin git the stock off&#8217;n your hands.
+I&#8217;ve never done it, but I&#8217;ve see it done.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve heard tell of somethin&#8217; like that,&#8221; Smith
+replied dryly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Er you kin draw out a brand so you never
+would know nothin&#8217; was there. You take a chunk
+of green cottonwood, and saw it off square; then
+you bile it and bile it, and when it&#8217;s hot through,
+you slaps it on the brand, and when you lifts it
+up after while the brand is drawed out.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you dream that, Tubbs?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I b&#8217;leeve it&#8217;ll work,&#8221; declared Tubbs stoutly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe it would work in I-ó-wa,&#8221; said Smith,
+&#8220;but I doubts if it would work here. Any way,&#8221;
+he added conciliatingly, &#8220;we&#8217;ll give it a try.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;And this chanct&mdash;it&#8217;s tolable safe?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Same as if you was home in bed. When I says
+&#8217;ready,&#8217; will you come?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Watch my smoke,&#8221; answered Tubbs.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s eyes followed Tubbs&#8217;s hulking figure as
+he shambled off, and his face was full of derision.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say&#8221;&mdash;he addressed the world in general&mdash;&#8220;you
+show me a man from I-ó-wa or Nebrasky and
+I&#8217;ll show you a son-of-a-gun.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Tubbs was putty in the hands of Smith, who
+could play upon his vanity and ignorance to any
+degree&mdash;though he believed that beyond a certain
+point Tubbs was an arrant coward. But Smith
+had a theory regarding the management of cowards.
+He believed that on the same principle that
+one uses a whip on a scared horse&mdash;to make it
+more afraid of that which is behind than of that
+which is ahead&mdash;he could by threats and intimidations
+force Tubbs to do his bidding if the occasion
+arose. Tubbs&#8217;s mental calibre was 22-short; but
+Smith needed help, and Tubbs seemed the most
+pliable material at hand. That Tubbs had pledged
+himself to something the nature of which he knew
+only vaguely, was in itself sufficient to receive
+Smith&#8217;s contempt. He had learned from observation
+that little dependence can be placed upon
+those who accept responsibilities too readily and
+lightly, but he was confident that he could utilize
+Tubbs as long as he should need him, and after
+that&mdash;Smith shrugged his shoulders&mdash;what was an
+I-ó-wan more or less?</p>
+<p>Altogether, he felt well satisfied with what he
+had accomplished in the short while since his
+return.</p>
+<p>When Susie came home from school, Smith was
+looking through the corral-fence at a few ponies
+which Ralston had bought and driven in, to give
+color to his story.</p>
+<p>&#8220;See anything there you&#8217;d like?&#8221; she inquired,
+with significant emphasis.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d buy the bunch if I was goin&#8217; to set me
+some bear-traps.&#8221; Smith could see nothing to
+praise in anything which belonged to Ralston.</p>
+<p>Susie missed her mother immediately upon going
+into the house, and in their sleeping-room she saw
+every sign of a hurried departure.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s mother gone?&#8221; she asked Ling.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Town.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;To town? To see a doctor about her arm?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Beads.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Beads?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Blue beads, gleen beads. She no have enough
+beads for finish moccasin.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When&#8217;s she comin&#8217; home?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;She come &#8217;night.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Forty miles over a rough road, with her bandaged
+arm, for beads! It did not sound reasonable
+to Susie, but since Smith was accounted for, and
+her mother would return that night, there seemed
+no cause for worry. Susie could not remember
+ever before having come home without finding her
+mother somewhere in the house, and now, as she
+fidgeted about, she realized how much she would
+miss her if that which she most feared should
+transpire to separate them.</p>
+<p>She walked to the door, and while she stood idly
+kicking her heel against the door-sill she saw
+Ralston, who was passing, stoop and pick up a
+scrap of paper which had been caught between
+two small stones. She observed that he examined
+it with interest, but while he stood with his lips
+pursed in a half-whistle a puff of wind flirted it
+from his fingers. He pursued it as though it had
+value, and Susie, who was not above curiosity,
+joined in the chase.</p>
+<p>It lodged in one of the giant sage-brushes which
+grew some little distance away on the outer edge
+of the dooryard, and into this brush Ralston
+reached and carefully drew it forth. He looked
+at it again, lest his eyes had deceived him, then he
+passed it to Susie, who stared blankly from the
+scrap of paper to him.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XIX_WHEN_THE_CLOUDS_PLAYED_WOLF' id='XIX_WHEN_THE_CLOUDS_PLAYED_WOLF'></a>
+<h2>XIX</h2>
+<h3>WHEN THE CLOUDS PLAYED WOLF</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Indian woman was restless; she had been
+so from the time they had lost sight of the town,
+but her restlessness had increased as the daylight
+faded and night fell.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re goin&#8217; to bust this seat in if you don&#8217;t
+quit jammin&#8217; around,&#8221; Meeteetse Ed warned her
+peevishly.</p>
+<p>Meeteetse was irritable, a state due largely to
+the waning exhilaration of a short and unsatisfactory
+spree.</p>
+<p>The woman clucked at the horses, and, to the
+great annoyance of her driver, reached for the
+reins and slapped them on the back.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re about played out,&#8221; he growled.
+&#8220;Forty miles is a awful trip for these buzzard-heads
+to make in a day. We orter have put up
+some&#8217;eres overnight.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could have stayed with Little Coyote&#8217;s
+woman.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;We orter have done it, too. Look at them
+cayuses stumblin&#8217; along! Say, we won&#8217;t git in before
+&#8217;leven or twelve at this gait, and I&#8217;m so
+hungry I don&#8217;t know where I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to sleep
+to-night.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little Coyote&#8217;s woman gifted me some sa&#8217;vis
+berries.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw, sa&#8217;vis berries! I can&#8217;t go sa&#8217;vis berries,&#8221;
+growled Meeteetse. &#8220;They&#8217;re too sweet. The only
+way they&#8217;re fit to eat is to dry &#8217;em and pound &#8217;em
+up with jerked elk&mdash;then they ain&#8217;t bad eatin&#8217;.
+I&#8217;ve et &#8217;most ev&#8217;ry thing in my day. I&#8217;ve et wolf,
+and dog, and old mountain billy-goat, and bull-snakes,
+and grasshoppers, so you kin see I ain&#8217;t
+finnicky, but I can&#8217;t stummick sa&#8217;vis berries.&#8221; He
+asked querulously: &#8220;What&#8217;s ailin&#8217; of you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Indian woman, who had been studying the
+black clouds as they drifted across the sky to dim
+the starlight, said in a half-whisper:</p>
+<p>&#8220;The clouds no look good to me. They look
+like enemies playin&#8217; wolf. I feel as if somethin&#8217;
+goin&#8217; happen.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The bare suggestion of the supernatural was
+sufficient to alarm Meeteetse. He asked in a
+startled voice:</p>
+<p>&#8220;How do you feel?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I feel sad. My heart drags down to de ground,
+and it seem like de dark hide somethin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Meeteetse elongated his neck and peered fearfully
+into the darkness.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you think it hides?&#8221; he asked in a
+husky whisper.</p>
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, but I have de bad feelin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I forgot to sleep with my feet crossed last
+night,&#8221; said Meeteetse, &#8220;and I dreamed horrible
+dreams all night long. Maybe they was warnin&#8217;s.
+I can&#8217;t think of anything much that could happen
+to us though,&#8221; he went on, having forgotten some
+of his ill-nature in his alarm for his personal
+safety. &#8220;These here horses ain&#8217;t goin&#8217; to run
+away&mdash;I wisht they would, fer &#8217;t would git us
+quite a piece on our road. We ain&#8217;t no enemies
+worth mentionin&#8217;, and we ain&#8217;t worth stealin&#8217;, so
+I don&#8217;t hardly think your feelin&#8217; means any wrong
+for us. More&#8217;n likely it&#8217;s jest somebody dead.&#8221;</p>
+<p>This thought, slightly consoling to Meeteetse,
+did not seem to comfort the Indian woman, who
+continued to squirm on the rickety seat and to
+strain her eyes into the darkness.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If anybody ud come along and want to mix
+with me&mdash;say, do you see that fist? If ever I hit
+anybody with that fist, they&#8217;ll have to have it dug
+out of &#8217;em. I don&#8217;t row often, but when I does&mdash;oh,
+lordy! lordy! I jest raves and caves. I was
+home on a visit onct, and my old-maid aunt gits
+a notion of pickin&#8217; on me. Say, I ups and runs
+her all over the house with an axe! I&#8217;m more er
+less a dang&#8217;rous character when I&#8217;m on the peck.
+Is that feelin&#8217; workin off of you any?&#8221; he inquired
+anxiously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It comes stronger,&#8221; she answered, and her grip
+tightened on the flour-sack she held under her
+blanket.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wisht I knowed what it was. I&#8217;m gittin&#8217; all
+strung up myself.&#8221; His popping eyes ached from
+trying to see into the darkness around them. &#8220;If
+we kin git past them gulches onct! That ud be
+a dum bad place to roll off the side. We&#8217;d go
+kerplunk into the crick-bottom. Gosh! what was
+that?&#8221; He stopped the weary horses with a terrific
+jerk.</p>
+<p>It was only a little night prowler which had
+scurried under the horses&#8217; feet and rustled into the
+brush.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You see how on aidge I am! I&#8217;ll tell you,&#8221;
+he went on garrulously&mdash;the sound of his own voice
+was always pleasant to Meeteetse: &#8220;I take more
+stock in signs and feelin&#8217;s than most people, for I&#8217;ve
+seen &#8217;em work out. Down there in Hermosy there
+was a feller made a stake out&#8217;n a silver prospect,
+and he takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky
+and hunt up his wife, that he&#8217;d run off and left
+some time prev&#8217;ous. As the date gits clost for
+him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He&#8217;d
+skerce crack a smile. The night before the stage
+was comin&#8217; to git him, he was settin&#8217; in a &#8217;dobe
+with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of
+his chair, with his hands in his pockets.</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Boys,&#8217; he says, &#8216;I&#8217;ll never git back to
+Genevieve. I feels it; I knows it; I&#8217;ll bet you
+any amount I&#8217;m goin&#8217; to cash in between here
+and Nebrasky. I&#8217;ve seen myself in my coffin four
+times hand-runnin&#8217;, when I was wide awake.&#8217;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Everybody had their mouths open to let out
+a holler and laff when jest then one of the biggest
+terrantuler that I ever see dropped down out&#8217;n
+the dirt and straw and lands on his bald head. It
+hangs on and bites &#8217;fore anybody kin bresh it off,
+and, &#8217;fore Gawd, he ups and dies while the medicine
+shark is comin&#8217; from the next town!&#8221;</p>
+<p>His companion did not find Meeteetse&#8217;s reminiscence
+specially interesting, possibly because she had
+heard it before, so at its conclusion she made no
+comment, but continued to watch with anxious eyes
+the clouds and the road ahead.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now if that ud been me,&#8221; Meeteetse started
+to say, in nowise disconcerted by the unresponsiveness
+of his listener&mdash;&#8220;if that ud&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Throw up your hands!&#8221; The curt command
+came out of the night with the startling distinctness
+of a gun-shot. The horses were thrown back
+on their haunches by a figure at their head.</p>
+<p>Meeteetse not only threw up his hands, but his
+feet. He threw them up so high and so hard
+that he lost his equilibrium, and, as a result, the
+ill-balanced seat went over, carrying with it
+Meeteetse and the Indian woman.</p>
+<p>The latter&#8217;s mind acted quickly. She knew that
+her errand to the bank had become known. Undoubtedly
+they had been followed from town. As
+soon as she could disentangle herself from
+Meeteetse&#8217;s convulsive embrace, she threw the flour-sack
+from her with all her strength, hoping it
+would drop out of sight in the sage-brush. It was
+caught in mid-air by a tall figure at the wagon-side.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, madam,&#8221; said a hollow voice,
+&#8220;Good-night.&#8221;</p>
+<p>It was all done so quickly and neatly that
+Meeteetse and the Indian woman were still in the
+bottom of the wagon when two dark figures clattered
+past and vanishing hoof-beats told them the
+thieves were on their way to town.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir!&#8221; Meeteetse found his feet, also his
+tongue, at last.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir!&#8221; He adjusted the seat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir!&#8221; He picked up the reins and
+clucked to the horses.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir! I know &#8217;em. Them&#8217;s the fellers
+that held up the Great Northern!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Indian woman said not a word. Her heart
+was filled with despair. What would Smith say?
+was her thought. What would he do? She felt
+intuitively how great would be his disappointment.
+How could she tell him?</p>
+<p>She drew the blanket tighter about her shoulders
+and across her face, crouching on the seat like a
+culprit.</p>
+<p>The ranch-house was dark when they drove into
+the yard, for which she was thankful. She left
+Meeteetse to unharness, and, without striking a
+light or speaking to Susie, crept between her
+blankets like a frightened child.</p>
+<p>Smith, in his dreams, had heard the rumble of
+the wagon as it crossed the ford, and he awoke
+the next morning with a sensation of pleasurable
+anticipation. In his mind&#8217;s eye, he saw the banknotes
+in a heap before him. There were all kinds
+in the picture&mdash;greasy ones, crisp ones, tattered
+bills pasted together with white strips of paper.
+He rather liked these best, because the care with
+which they had been preserved conveyed an idea
+of value. They had been treasured, coveted by
+others, counted often.</p>
+<p>Eager, animated, his eyes bright, his lips curving
+in a smile, Smith hurried into his clothes and
+to the ranch-house, to seek the Indian woman. He
+heard her heavy step as she crossed the floor of
+the living-room, and he waited outside the door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Prairie Flower!&#8221; he whispered as she stood
+before him.</p>
+<p>She avoided his eyes, and her fingers fumbled
+nervously with the buckle of her wide belt.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Could you get it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Most of it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where is it?&#8221; His eyes gleamed with the
+light of avarice.</p>
+<p>She drew in her breath hard.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It was stole.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His face went blood-red; the cords of his neck
+swelled as if he were straining at a weight. She
+shrank from the snarling ferocity of his mouth.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You lie!&#8221; The voice was not human.</p>
+<p>He clenched his huge fist and knocked her down.</p>
+<p>She was on the ground when Susie came out.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman blinked up at her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I slip. I gettin&#8217; too fat,&#8221; she said, and
+struggled to her feet.</p>
+<p>Elsewhere, with great minuteness of detail,
+Meeteetse was describing the exciting incident of
+the night, and what would have happened if only
+he could have laid hold of his gun.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe they wouldn&#8217;t &#8217;a&#8217; split the wind if I
+could have jest drawed my automatic in time! As
+&#8217;twas, I put up the best fight I could, with a
+woman screamin&#8217; and hangin&#8217; to me for pertection.
+I rastled the big feller around in the road there
+for some time, neither of us able to git a good
+holt. He was glad enough to break away, I kin
+tell you. They&#8217;s no manner o&#8217; doubt in my mind
+but them was the Great Northern hold-ups.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what would they tackle <i>you</i> for?&#8221; demanded
+Old Man Rulison. &#8220;Everybody knows <i>you</i>
+ain&#8217;t got nothin&#8217;, and you say all they took from
+the old woman was a flour-sack full of dried sa&#8217;vis
+berries. It&#8217;s some of a come-down, looks to me,
+from robbing trains to stealin&#8217; stewin&#8217;-fruit.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, there you are.&#8221; Meeteetse shrugged his
+shoulders. &#8220;That&#8217;s your mystery. All I knows
+is, that I pulled ha&#8217;r every jump in the road to
+save them berries.&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XX_THE_LOVE_MEDICINE_OF_THE_SIOUX' id='XX_THE_LOVE_MEDICINE_OF_THE_SIOUX'></a>
+<h2>XX</h2>
+<h3>THE LOVE MEDICINE OF THE SIOUX</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Still breathing hard, Smith hunted Tubbs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tubbs, will you be ready for business, to-day?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The sooner, the quicker,&#8221; Tubbs answered,
+with his vacuous wit.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know the gulch where they found that
+dead Injun?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yep.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Saddle up and meet me over there as quick
+as you can.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Right.&#8221; Tubbs winked knowingly, and immediately
+after breakfast started to do as he was
+bid.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s face was not good to look upon as he
+sat at the table. He took no part in the conversation,
+and scarcely touched the food before
+him. His disappointment was so deep that it
+actually sickened him, and his unreasoning anger
+toward the woman was so great that he wanted to
+get out of her sight and her presence. She was
+like a dog which after a whipping tries to curry
+favor with its master. She was ready to go to
+him at the first sign of relenting. She felt no
+resentment because of his injustice and brutality.
+She felt nothing but that he was angry at her,
+that he kept his eyes averted and repelled her
+timid advances. Her heart ached, and she would
+have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her.
+In her desperation, she made up her mind to try
+on him the love-charm of the Sioux women. It
+might soften his heart toward her. She would
+have sacrificed anything and all to bring him back.</p>
+<p>Smith was glad to get away into the hills for
+a time. He was filled with a feverish impatience
+to bring about that which he so much desired. The
+picture of the ranch-house with the white curtains
+at the windows became more and more attractive
+to him as he dwelt upon it. He looked upon it
+as a certainty, one which could not be too quickly
+realized to please him. Then, too, the atmosphere
+of the MacDonald ranch had grown distasteful to
+him. With that sudden revulsion of feeling which
+was characteristic, he had grown tired of the place,
+he wanted a change, to be on the move again;
+but, of more importance than these things, he
+sensed hostility in the air. There was something
+significant in the absence of the Indians at the
+ranch. There was an ominous quiet hanging over
+the place that chilled him. He had a feeling that
+he was being followed, without being able to detect
+so much as a shadow. He felt as if the world
+were full of eyes&mdash;glued upon him. Sudden sounds
+startled him, and he had found himself peering into
+dark stable corners and stooping to look where the
+shadows lay black in the thick creek-brush.</p>
+<p>He told himself that the trip through the Bad
+Lands had unnerved him, but the explanation was
+not satisfying. Through it all, he had an underlying
+feeling that something was wrong; yet he
+had no thought of altering his plans. He wanted
+money, and he wanted Dora. The combination was
+sufficient to nerve him to take chances.</p>
+<p>Tubbs was waiting in the gulch. Smith looked
+at the spot where White Antelope&#8217;s body had lain,
+and reflected that it was curious how long the black
+stain of blood would stay on sand and gravel.
+He had been lucky to get out of that scrape so
+easily, he told himself as he rode by.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I guess you know what you&#8217;re up against,
+feller,&#8221; he said bluntly, as he and Tubbs met.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I inclines to the opinion that it&#8217;s a little cattle
+deal,&#8221; Tubbs replied facetiously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You inclines right. Now, here&#8217;s our play&mdash;listen.
+The Bar C outfit is workin&#8217; up in the mountains,
+so they won&#8217;t interfere with us none, and
+about three or three and a half days&#8217; drive from
+here there&#8217;s some fellers what&#8217;ll take &#8217;em off our
+hands. We gets our wad and divvies.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for a hand do I take?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;By rights, maybe, we ought to do our work
+at night, but I&#8217;ve rode over the country, and it
+looks safe enough to drive &#8217;em into the gulch to-day.
+They isn&#8217;t a human in sight, and if one
+shows up, I reckon you know what to do.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It sounds easy enough, if it works,&#8221; said
+Tubbs dubiously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If it works? Feller, if you&#8217;ve got a yeller
+streak, you better quit right here.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I merely means,&#8221; Tubbs hastened to explain,
+&#8220;that it sounds so easy that it makes me sore
+we wasn&#8217;t doin&#8217; it before.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The reply appeared to pacify Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hates to fool with cattle,&#8221; he admitted,
+&#8220;&#8217;specially these here Texas brutes that spread
+out, leavin&#8217; tracks all over the flat, and they can&#8217;t
+make time just off green grass. Gimme horses&mdash;but
+horses ain&#8217;t safe right now, with the Injuns
+riled up. Now, you start out and gather up what
+you can, and hold &#8217;em here till I get back. I&#8217;ll
+go to the ranch and get a little grub together and
+get here as quick as it&#8217;s safe.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith galloped back to the ranch, to learn that
+Dora had ridden to the Agency to spend the day.
+He was keenly disappointed that he had missed the
+opportunity of saying good-by. She had chided
+him before for not telling her of his contemplated
+absence, and he had promised not to neglect to
+do so again; for she was in the habit of arranging
+the table for her night-school and waiting
+until he came. Then it occurred to Smith that
+he might write. He was delighted with the idea,
+and undoubtedly Dora would be equally delighted
+to receive a letter from him. It would
+show her that he remembered his promise, and also
+give her a chance to note his progress. Since Smith
+had learned that a capital letter is used to designate
+the personal pronoun, and that a period is
+placed at such points as one&#8217;s breath gives out,
+he had begun to think himself something of a
+scholar.</p>
+<p>His enthusiasm grew as he thought of it, and
+he decided that while he was about it he would
+write a genuine love-letter.</p>
+<p>Borrowing paper, an erratic pen, and ink pale
+from frequent watering, from a shelf in the living-room,
+he repaired to the dining-room table and
+gave himself up to the throes of composition.</p>
+<p>Bearing in mind that the superlative of dear
+is dearest, he wrote:</p>
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Dearest Girl</span>.</p>
+<p>I have got to go away on bizness. I had
+ought to hav said good-by but I cant wate till
+you gets back so I thort I wold write. I love
+you. I hates everyboddy else when I think of
+you. I dont love no other woman but you. Nor
+never did. If ever I go away and dont come back
+dont forget what I say because I will be ded, I
+mean it. I will hav a stak perty quick then I
+will show you this aint no josh. You no the
+rest, good-by for this time.</p>
+<div class='ra'>
+<p><span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Smith</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<p>The perspiration stood out on his forehead, and
+he wiped it away with his ink-stained fingers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Writin&#8217; is harder work nor shoein&#8217; a horse,&#8221;
+he observed to Ling, and added for the Indian
+woman&#8217;s benefit, &#8220;I&#8217;m sendin&#8217; off to get me a pair
+of them Angory saddle-pockets.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His explanation did not deceive the person for
+whom it was intended. With the intuition of a
+jealous woman, she knew that he was writing a
+letter which he would not have her see. She meant
+to know, if possible, to whom he was writing, and
+what. Although she did not raise her eyes from
+her work when he replaced the pen and ink, she
+did not let him out of her sight. She believed
+that he had written to Dora, and she was sure of
+it when, thinking himself unobserved, he crept to
+Dora&#8217;s open window, outside of the house, and
+dropped the letter into the top drawer of her
+bureau, which stood close.</p>
+<p>As soon as Smith was out of sight, she too crept
+stealthily to the open window. A red spot burned
+on either swarthy cheek, and her aching heart beat
+fast. She took the letter from the drawer, and,
+going toward the creek, plunged into the willows,
+with the instinct of the wounded animal seeking
+cover.</p>
+<p>The woman could read a little&mdash;not much, but
+better than she could write. She had been to the
+Mission when she was younger, and MacDonald
+had labored patiently to teach her more. Now,
+concealed among the willows, sitting cross-legged
+on the ground, she spelled out Smith&#8217;s letter word
+by word,</p>
+<p>I love you. I hates everyboddy else when I
+think of you. I don&#8217;t love no other woman but
+you. Nor never did.</p>
+<p>She read it slowly, carefully, each word sinking
+deep. Then she stroked her hair with long,
+deliberate strokes, and read it again.</p>
+<p>I don&#8217;t love no other woman but you. Nor
+never did.</p>
+<p>She laid the letter on the ground, and, folding
+her arms, rocked her body to and fro, as though
+in physical agony. When she shut her lips they
+trembled as they touched each other, but she made
+no sound. The wound in her arm was beginning
+to heal. It itched, and she scratched it hard,
+for the pain served as a kind of counter-irritant.
+A third time she read the letter, stroking her
+hair incessantly with the long, deliberate strokes.
+Then she folded it, and, reaching for a pointed
+stick, dug a hole in the soft dirt. In the bottom
+of the hole she laid the letter and covered it with
+earth, patting and smoothing it until it was level.
+Before she left she sprinkled a few leaves over
+the spot.</p>
+<p>She looked old and ugly when she went into
+the house, seeming, for the first time, the woman
+of middle-age that she was. Quietly, purposefully,
+she drew out a chair, and, standing upon it, took
+down from the rafters the plant which Little
+Coyote&#8217;s woman, the Mandan, had given her. It
+had hung there a long time, and the leaves crumpled
+and dropped off at her touch. She filled a basin
+with water and put the plant and root to soak,
+while she searched for a sharp knife. Turning her
+back to the room and facing the corner, like a
+child in mischief, she peeled the outer bark from
+the root with the greatest care. The inner bark
+was blood-red, and this too she peeled away carefully,
+very, very carefully saving the smallest
+particles, and laid it upon a paper. When she
+had it all, she burned the plant; but the red inner
+bark she put in a tin cup and covered it with
+boiling water, to steep.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t touch dat,&#8221; she warned Ling.</p>
+<p>The afternoon was waning when she went again
+to the willows, but the air was still hot, for the
+rocks and sand held the heat until well after nightfall.
+In the willows she cut a stick&mdash;a forked stick,
+which she trimmed so that it left a crotch with a
+long handle. Hiding the stick under her blanket,
+she stepped out of the willows, and seemed to be
+wandering aimlessly until she was out of sight of
+the house and the bunk-house. Then she walked
+rapidly, with a purpose. Her objective point was
+a hill covered so thickly with rocks that scarcely
+a spear of grass grew upon it. The climb left
+her short of breath, she wiped the perspiration
+from her face with her blanket, but she did not
+falter. Stepping softly, listening, she crept over
+the rocks with the utmost caution, peering here
+and there as if in search of something which she
+did not wish to alarm. A long, sibilant sound
+stopped her. She located it as coming from under
+a rock only a few feet away, and a little gleam
+of satisfaction in her sombre eyes showed that she
+had found that for which she searched. The angry
+rattlesnake was coiled to strike, but she approached
+without hesitancy. Calculating how far
+it could throw itself, she stood a little beyond its
+range and for a moment stood watching the glitter
+of its wicked little eyes, the lightning-like action
+of its tongue. When she moved, its head followed
+her, but she dexterously pinned it to the rock with
+her forked stick and placed the heel of her moccasin
+upon its writhing body. Then, stooping, she
+severed its head from its body with her knife.</p>
+<p>She put the head in a square of cloth and continued
+her search. After a time, she found another,
+and when she went down the hill there were three
+heads in the blood-soaked square of cloth. She
+hid them in the willows, and went into the house
+to stir the contents of the tin cup. She noted
+with evident satisfaction that it had thickened somewhat.
+Little Coyote&#8217;s woman had told her it would
+do so. She found a bottle which had contained
+lemon extract, and this she rinsed. She measured
+a teaspoonful of the thick, reddish-brown liquid
+and poured it into the bottle, filling it afterward
+with water. The cup she took with her into the
+willows. Laying the heads of the snakes upon a
+flat stone, she cut them through the jaws, and,
+extracting the poison sac, stirred the fluid into the
+tin cup. While she stirred, she remembered that
+she had heard an owl hoot the night before. It
+was an ill-omen, and it had sounded close. The
+hooting of an owl meant harm to some one. She
+wondered now if an owl feather would not make
+the medicine stronger. She set down her cup and
+looked carefully under the trees, but could find no
+feathers. Ah, well, it was stout enough medicine
+without it!</p>
+<p>She had brought a long, keen-bladed hunting-knife
+into the willows, and she dipped the point
+of it into the concoction&mdash;blowing upon it until it
+dried, then repeating the process. When the point
+of the blade was well discolored, she muttered:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dat&#8217;s de strong medicine!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her eyes glittered like the eyes of the snakes
+among the rocks, and they seemed smaller. Their
+roundness and the liquid softness of them was gone.
+She looked &#8220;pure Injun,&#8221; as Smith would have
+phrased it, with murder in her heart. Deliberately,
+malevolently, she spat upon the earth beneath which
+the letter lay, before she returned to the house.</p>
+<p>She heard Susie&#8217;s voice in the Schoolmarm&#8217;s
+room, and quickly hid the knife behind a mirror
+in the living-room, where she hid everything which
+she wished to conceal, imagining, for some unknown
+reason, that no one but herself would ever think
+of looking there. Susie often had thought laughingly
+that it looked like a pack-rat&#8217;s nest.</p>
+<p>The woman poured the liquid which remained
+in the tin cup into another bottle, frowning when
+she spilled a few precious drops upon her hand.
+This bottle she also hid behind the mirror.</p>
+<p>In Dora Marshall&#8217;s room, Susie was examining
+the teacher&#8217;s toilette articles, which held an unfailing
+interest for her. She meant to have an exact
+duplicate of the manicure set and of the hairbrush
+with the heavy silver back. To Susie, these
+things, along with side-combs and petticoats that
+rustled, were symbols of that elegance which she
+longed to attain.</p>
+<p>As she stood by the bureau, fumbling with the
+various articles, she caught sight of a box through
+the crack of the half-open drawer. She had seen
+that battered box before. It was the grasshopper
+box&mdash;for there was the slit in the top.</p>
+<p>Susie was not widely experienced in matters of
+sentiment, but she had her feminine intuitions, besides
+remarkably well-developed reasoning powers
+for her years.</p>
+<p>Why, she asked herself as she continued to stare
+through the crack, why should Teacher be cherishing
+that old bait-box? Why should she have it
+there among her handkerchiefs and smelly silk
+things, and the soft lace things she wore at her
+throat? Why&mdash;unless she attached value to it?
+Why&mdash;unless it was a romantic and sacred keepsake?</p>
+<p>Susie rather prided herself on being in touch
+with all that went on, and now she had an uneasy
+feeling that she might have missed something. She
+remembered the day of their fishing trip well, and
+at the time had thought she had scented a budding
+romance. Had they quarrelled, she wondered?</p>
+<p>She sat on the edge of the bed and swung her
+feet.</p>
+<p>&#8220;My, but won&#8217;t it seem lonesome here without
+Mr. Ralston?&#8221; Susie sighed deeply.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is he going away?&#8221; Dora asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll be goin&#8217; pretty soon now, because he&#8217;s
+found most of his strays and bought all the ponies
+he wants.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose he will be glad to get back among
+his friends.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie thought Teacher looked a little pale.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maybe he&#8217;ll go back and get married.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did he say so?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie was <i>sure</i> she was paler.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; she replied nonchalantly. &#8220;I just
+thought so, because anybody that&#8217;s as good-looking
+as he is, gets gobbled up quick. Don&#8217;t you think
+he is good-looking?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, he does very well.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gee whiz, I wish he&#8217;d ask me to marry him!&#8221;
+said Susie unblushingly. &#8220;You couldn&#8217;t see me
+for dust, the way I&#8217;d travel. But there&#8217;s no
+danger. Look at them there skinny arms!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Susie! What grammar!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Those there skinny arms.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Those.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Those skinny arms; those hair; those eyes&mdash;soft
+and gentle like a couple of augers, Meeteetse
+says.&#8221; Susie shook her head in mock despondency.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve tried to be beautiful, too. Once I cut a
+piece out of a newspaper that told how you could
+get rosy cheeks. It gave all the different things
+to put in, so I sent off and got &#8217;em. I mixed &#8217;em
+like it said and rubbed it on my face. There
+wasn&#8217;t any mistake about my rosy cheeks, but you
+ought to have seen the blisters on my cheek-bones&mdash;big
+as dollars!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure you will not be so thin when you
+are older,&#8221; Dora said consolingly, &#8220;and your hair
+would be a very pretty color if only you would
+wear a hat and take a little care of it.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie shook her head and sighed again.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, it will be too late then, for he will be
+snapped up by some of those stylish town girls.
+You see.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora put buttons in her shirt-waist sleeves in
+silence.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think he liked to stay here until you quarrelled
+with him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I quarrelled with him?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, didn&#8217;t you?&#8221; Susie was innocence itself.
+&#8220;You treat him so polite, I thought you must have
+quarrelled&mdash;such a chilly polite,&#8221; she explained.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think <i>he</i> has observed it,&#8221; Dora answered
+coldly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, he has.&#8221; Susie waited discreetly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How do you know?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;When you come to the table and say, Good-morning,
+and look at him without seeing him, I
+know he&#8217;d a lot rather you cuffed him.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a dreadful word, Susie, and what an
+absurd idea!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie noted that Teacher&#8217;s eyes brightened.</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>You&#8217;ll</i> be goin&#8217; away, too, pretty soon, and I
+s&#8217;pose you&#8217;ll be glad you will never see him again.
+But,&#8221; she added dolefully, &#8220;ain&#8217;t it awful the way
+people just meets and parts?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora was a long time finding that for which
+she was searching among the clothes hanging on a
+row of nails, and Susie, rolling her eyes in that
+direction, was sure, very sure, that she saw Teacher
+dab at her lashes with the frilly ruffle of a petticoat
+before she turned around.</p>
+<p>&#8220;When did he say he was going?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;He didn&#8217;t say; but to-day or to-morrow, I
+should think.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If he cared so much because I am cool to him,
+he certainly would have asked me why I treated
+him so. But he didn&#8217;t care enough to ask.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Teacher&#8217;s voice sounded queer even to herself,
+and she seemed intensely interested in buttoning her
+boots.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pooh! I know why. It&#8217;s because he thinks
+you like that Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The jangle of Ling&#8217;s triangle interrupted the
+fascinating conversation.</p>
+<p>&#8220;How perfectly foolish!&#8221; gasped Dora.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not to Smith,&#8221; Susie replied dryly, &#8220;nor to
+Mr. Ralston.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie looked at the unoccupied chairs at the
+table as she and Dora seated themselves. Ralston&#8217;s,
+Tubbs&#8217;s, Smith&#8217;s, and McArthur&#8217;s chairs were
+vacant.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Looks like you&#8217;re losin&#8217; your boarders fast,
+Ling,&#8221; she remarked.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good thing,&#8221; Ling answered candidly.</p>
+<p>The Indian woman gulped her coffee, but refused
+the food which was passed to her. A strange
+faintness, accompanied by nausea, was creeping
+upon her. Her vision was blurred, and she saw
+Meeteetse Ed, at the opposite end of the table,
+as through a fog. She pushed back her chair
+and went into the living-room, swaying a little as
+she walked. A faint moan caught Susie&#8217;s ear, and
+she hastened to her mother.</p>
+<p>The woman was lying on the floor by the bench
+where she sewed, her head pillowed on her rag-rug.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother! Why, what&#8217;s the matter with your
+hand? It&#8217;s swelled!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I heap sick, Susie!&#8221; she moaned. &#8220;My arm
+aches me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look!&#8221; cried Susie, who had turned back her
+sleeve. &#8220;Her arm is black&mdash;a purple black, and
+it&#8217;s swellin&#8217; up!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I heap sick!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What did you do to your arm, Mother? Did
+you have the bandage off?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, it come off, and I pin him up,&#8221; said
+Ling, who was standing by.</p>
+<p>A paroxysm of pain seized the woman, and she
+writhed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It looks exactly like a rattlesnake bite! I saw
+a fellow once that was bit in the ankle, and it
+swelled up and turned a color like that,&#8221; declared
+Susie in horror. &#8220;Mother, you haven&#8217;t been foolin&#8217;
+with snakes, or been bit?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The woman shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I no been bit,&#8221; she groaned, and her eyes had
+in them the appealing look of a sick spaniel.</p>
+<p>Dora and Susie helped her to her room, and
+though they tried every simple remedy of which
+they had ever heard, to reduce the rapidly swelling
+arm, all seemed equally unavailing. The woman&#8217;s
+convulsions hourly became more violent and frequent,
+while her arm was frightful to behold&mdash;black,
+as it was, from hand to shoulder with coagulated
+blood.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If only we had an idea of the cause!&#8221; cried
+Dora, distracted.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother, can&#8217;t you imagine anything that
+would make your arm bad like this? Try to think.&#8221;</p>
+<p>But though drops of perspiration stood on the
+woman&#8217;s forehead, and her grip tore the pillow,
+she obstinately shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I be better pretty soon,&#8221; was all she would
+say, and tried to smile at Susie.</p>
+<p>&#8220;If only some one would come!&#8221; Dora went
+to the open window often and listened for Ralston&#8217;s
+voice or McArthur&#8217;s&mdash;the latter having gone for
+his mail.</p>
+<p>The strain of watching the woman&#8217;s suffering
+told on both of the girls, and the night by her
+bedside seemed centuries long. Toward morning
+the paroxysms appeared to reach a climax and
+then to subside. They were of shorter duration,
+and the intervals between were longer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s better, I&#8217;m sure,&#8221; Dora said hopefully,
+but Susie shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think so; she&#8217;s worse. There&#8217;s that
+look behind, back of her eyes&mdash;that dead look&mdash;can&#8217;t
+you see it? And it&#8217;s in her face, too. I
+don&#8217;t know how to say what I mean, but it&#8217;s there,
+and it makes me shiver like cold.&#8221; The girl looked
+in mingled awe and horror at the first human
+being she ever had seen die.</p>
+<p>Unable to endure the strain any longer, Dora
+went into the fresh air, and Susie dropped on her
+knees by the bedside and took her mother&#8217;s limp
+hand in both of hers.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Mother,&#8221; she begged pitifully, &#8220;say
+something. Don&#8217;t go away without sayin&#8217; something
+to Susie!&#8221;</p>
+<p>With an effort of will, the woman slowly opened
+her dull eyes and fixed them upon the child&#8217;s face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yas,&#8221; she breathed; &#8220;I <i>want</i> to say something.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The words came slowly and thickly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I no&mdash;get well.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Mother!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Unheeding the wail, perhaps not hearing it, she
+went on, stopping often between words:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I steal&mdash;from you&mdash;my little girl. I bad
+woman, Susie. It is right I die. I take de money&mdash;out
+of de bank dat MacDonald leave us&mdash;to give
+to Smith. De hold-ups steal de money on&mdash;de
+road. I have de bad heart&mdash;Susie&mdash;to do dat. I
+know now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mustn&#8217;t talk like that, Mother!&#8221; cried
+Susie, gripping her hand convulsively. &#8220;You
+thought you&#8217;d get it again and put it back. You
+didn&#8217;t mean to steal from me. I know all about
+it. And I&#8217;ve got the money. Mr. Ralston found
+a check you had thrown away&mdash;you&#8217;d signed your
+name on it in the wrong place. When we saw
+the date, and what a lot of money it was, and
+found you had gone to town, we guessed the rest.
+It was easy to see Smith in that. So we held
+you up, and got it back. We knew there was
+no danger to anybody, but, of course, we felt bad
+to worry and frighten you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad,&#8221; said the woman simply. She had
+no strength or breath or time to spare. &#8220;Dey&#8217;s
+more. I tell you&mdash;I kill Smith&mdash;if he lie. He lie.
+He bull-dog white man. I make de strong medicine
+to kill him&mdash;and I get de poison in my arm when
+de bandage slip. Get de bottles and de knife
+behind de lookin&#8217;-glass&mdash;I show you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie quickly did as she was bid.</p>
+<p>&#8220;De lemon bottle is de love-charm of de Sioux.
+One teaspoonful&mdash;no more, Little Coyote&#8217;s woman
+say. De other bottle is de bad medicine. Be
+careful. Smith&mdash;make fool&mdash;of me&mdash;Susie.&#8221;
+What else she would have said ended in a gurgle.
+Her jaw dropped, and she died with her glazing
+eyes upon Susie&#8217;s face.</p>
+<p>Susie pulled the gay Indian blanket gently over
+her mother&#8217;s shoulders, as if afraid she would be
+cold. Then she slipped a needle and some beads
+and buckskin, to complete an unfinished moccasin,
+underneath the blanket. Her mother was going on
+a long journey, and would want occupation. There
+were no tears in Susie&#8217;s eyes when she replaced the
+bottles and the skinning knife with the discolored
+blade behind the mirror.</p>
+<p>The wan little creature seemed to have no tears
+to shed. She was unresponsive to Dora&#8217;s broken
+words of sympathy, and the grub-liners&#8217; awkward
+condolences&mdash;they seemed not to reach her heart at
+all. She heard them without hearing, for her mind
+was chaos as she moved silently from room to
+room, or huddled, a forlorn figure, on the bench
+where her mother always had sat.</p>
+<p>Breakfast was long since over and the forenoon
+well advanced when she finally left the silent house
+and crept like the ghost of her spirited self down
+the path to the stable and into the roomy stall
+where her stout little cow-pony stood munching
+hay.</p>
+<p>In her sorrow, the dumb animal was the one
+thing to which she turned. He lifted his head
+when she went in, and threw his cropped ears
+forward, while his eyes grew limpid as a horse&#8217;s
+eyes will at the approach of some one it knows
+well and looks to for food and affection.</p>
+<p>They had almost grown up together, and the
+time Susie had spent on his back, or with him in
+the corral or stall, formerly had been half her
+waking hours. They had no fear of each other;
+only deep love and mutual understanding.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Croppy! Croppy!&#8221; her childish voice
+quavered. &#8220;Oh, Croppy, you&#8217;re all I&#8217;ve got left!&#8221;
+She slipped her arms around his thick neck and hid
+her face in his mane.</p>
+<p>He stopped eating and stood motionless while
+she clung to him, his ears alert at the sound of
+the familiar voice.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What <i>shall</i> I do!&#8221; she wailed in an abandonment
+of grief.</p>
+<p>In her inexperience, it seemed to Susie, that with
+her mother&#8217;s death all the world had come to an
+end for her. Undemonstrative as they were, and
+meagre as had been any spoken words of affection,
+the bond of natural love between them had seemed
+strong and unbreakable until Smith&#8217;s coming.
+They had been all in all to each other in their
+unemotional way; and now this unexpected tragedy
+seemed to crush the child, because it was something
+which never had entered her thoughts. It
+was a crisis with which she did not know how to
+cope or to bear. The world could never be blacker
+for her than it was when she clung sobbing to the
+little sorrel pony&#8217;s thick neck that morning. The
+future looked utterly cheerless and impossible to endure.
+She had not learned that no tragedy is so
+blighting that there is not a way out&mdash;a way which
+the sufferer makes himself, which comes to him, or
+into which he is forced. Nothing stays as it is. But
+it appeared to Susie that life could never be different,
+except to be worse.</p>
+<p>She had talked much to McArthur of the outside
+world, and questioned him, and a doubt had
+sprung up as to the feasibility of searching for
+her kinsfolk, as she had planned. There were
+many, many trails and wire fences to bewilder one,
+and people&mdash;hundreds of people&mdash;people who were
+not always kind. His answers filled her with vague
+fears. To be only sixteen, and alone, is cause
+enough for tears, and Susie shed them now.</p>
+<p>McArthur, with a radiant face, was riding
+toward the ranch to which he had become singularly
+attached. His saddle-pockets bulged with mail,
+and his elbows flapped joyously as he urged his
+horse to greater speed. He looked up eagerly at
+the house as he crossed the ford, and his kind eyes
+shone with happiness when he rode into the stable-yard
+and swung out of the saddle.</p>
+<p>He heard a sound, the unmistakable sound of
+sobbing, as he was unsaddling. Listening, he
+knew it came from somewhere in the stable, so he
+left his horse and went inside.</p>
+<p>It was Susie, as he had thought. She lifted her
+tear-stained face from the pony&#8217;s mane when he
+spoke, and he knew that she was glad to see him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, pardner, I thought you&#8217;d <i>never</i> come!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The mail was late, and I stayed with the
+Major to wait for it. What has gone wrong?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother&#8217;s dead,&#8221; she said. &#8220;She was poisoned
+accidentally.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Susie! And there was no one here?&#8221; The
+news seemed incredible.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Only Teacher and me&mdash;no one that knew what
+to do. We sent Meeteetse for a doctor, but he
+hasn&#8217;t come yet. He probably got drunk and
+forgot what he went for. It&#8217;s been a terrible
+night, pardner, and a terrible day!&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur looked at her with troubled eyes, and
+once more he stroked her hair with his gentle,
+timid touch.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Everything just looks awful to me, with Dad
+and mother both gone, and me here alone on this
+big ranch, with only Ling and grub-liners. And
+to think of it all the rest of my life like this&mdash;with
+nobody that I belong to, or that belongs to
+me!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Something was recalled to McArthur with a start
+by Susie&#8217;s words. He had forgotten!</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, Susie, come with me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>She followed him outside, where he unbuckled
+his saddle-pocket and took a daguerreotype from
+a wooden box which had come in the mail. The
+gilt frame was tarnished, the purple velvet lining
+faded, and when he handed the case to Susie she
+had to hold it slanting in the light to see the
+picture.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dad!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She looked at McArthur with eyes wide in
+wonder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Donald MacDonald, my aunt Harriet&#8217;s brother,
+who went north to buy furs for the Hudson Bay
+Company!&#8221; McArthur&#8217;s eyes were smiling
+through the moisture in them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got one just like it!&#8221; Susie cried,
+still half unable to believe her eyes and ears.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was sure that day you mimicked your father
+when he said, &#8216;Never forget you are a MacDonald!&#8217;
+for I have heard my aunt say that a
+thousand times, and in just that way. But I
+wanted to be surer before I said anything to you,
+so I sent for this.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, pardner!&#8221; and with a sudden impulse
+which was neither Scotch nor Indian, but entirely
+of herself, Susie threw her arms about his neck
+and all but choked him in the only hug which
+Peter McArthur, A.M., Ph.D., could remember ever
+having had.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXI_THE_MURDERER_OF_WHITE_ANTELOPE' id='XXI_THE_MURDERER_OF_WHITE_ANTELOPE'></a>
+<h2>XXI</h2>
+<h3>THE MURDERER OF WHITE ANTELOPE</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was nearly dusk, and Ralston was only a few
+hundred yards from the Bar C gate, when he met
+Babe, highly perfumed and with his hair suspiciously
+slick, coming out. Babe&#8217;s look of disappointment
+upon seeing him was not flattering, but
+Ralston ignored it in his own delight at the meeting.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was your rush? I was just goin&#8217; over
+to see you,&#8221; was Babe&#8217;s glum greeting.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I&#8217;m here to see you,&#8221; Ralston returned,
+&#8220;but I forgot to perfume myself and tallow my
+hair.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw-w-w,&#8221; rumbled Babe, sheepishly. &#8220;What&#8217;d
+you want?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know what I&#8217;m in the country for?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Babe nodded.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve located my man, and he&#8217;s going to drive
+off a big bunch to-night. There&#8217;s two of them
+in fact, and I&#8217;ll need help. Are you game for
+it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, mamma!&#8221; Babe rolled his eyes in ecstasy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He has a horror of doing time,&#8221; Ralston went
+on, &#8220;and if he has any show at all, he&#8217;s going
+to put up a hard fight. I&#8217;d like the satisfaction of
+bringing them both in, single-handed, but it isn&#8217;t
+fair to the Colonel to take any chances of their
+getting away.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is it?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That bastard with his teeth stickin&#8217; out?&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston laughed assent.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pickin&#8217;s!&#8221; cried Babe, with gusto. &#8220;I&#8217;d like
+to kill that feller every mornin&#8217; before breakfast.
+Will I go? Will I? <i>Will</i> I?&#8221; Babe&#8217;s crescendo
+ended in a joyous whoop of exultation. &#8220;Wait
+till I ride back and tell the Colonel, and git my
+ca&#8217;tridge belt. I take it off of an evenin&#8217; these
+tranquil times.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston turned his horse and started back, so
+engrossed in thoughts of the work ahead of him
+that it was not until Babe overtook him that he
+remembered he had forgotten to ask Babe&#8217;s business
+with him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I guess the old Colonel was tickled
+when he heard you&#8217;d spotted the rustlers,&#8221; said
+Babe, as he reined in beside him. &#8220;He wanted to
+come along&mdash;did for a fact, and him nearly seventy.
+He&#8217;d push the lid off his coffin and climb out at
+his own funeral if somebody&#8217;d happen to mention
+that thieves was brandin&#8217; his calves.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You said you had started to the ranch to see
+me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes&mdash;I forgot. Your father sent word to
+the Colonel that he was sellin&#8217; off his cattle and
+goin&#8217; into sheep, and wanted the Colonel to let
+you know.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The poor old Governor! It&#8217;ll about break his
+heart, I know; and I should be there. At his
+time of life it&#8217;s a pretty hard and galling thing
+to quit cattle&mdash;to be forced out of the business
+into sheep. It&#8217;s like bein&#8217; made to change your
+politics or religion against your will.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Fore I&#8217;d wrangle woolers,&#8221; declared Babe,
+&#8220;I&#8217;d hold up trains or rob dudes or do &#8217;most
+any old thing. Say, I&#8217;ve rid by sheep-wagons when
+I was durn near starvin&#8217; ruther than eat with a
+sheep-herder or owe one a favor. Where do you
+find a man like the Colonel in sheep?&#8221; demanded
+Babe. &#8220;You don&#8217;t find &#8217;em. Nothin&#8217; but a lot
+of upstart sheep-herders, that&#8217;s got rich in five
+years and don&#8217;t know how to act.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re prejudiced, Babe. Not all sheepmen
+are muckers any more than all cattlemen are
+gentlemen.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not prejudiced a-<i>tall</i>!&#8221; declared Babe excitedly.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m perfectly fair and square. Woolers is
+demoralizin&#8217;. Associate with woolers, and it takes
+the spirit out of a feller quicker&#8217;n cookin.&#8217; In
+five years you won&#8217;t be half the man you are now
+if you go into sheep. I&#8217;ll sure hate to see it!&#8221;
+His voice was all but pathetic as he contemplated
+Ralston&#8217;s downfall.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think you will, though, Babe, if I get out
+of this with a whole hide.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll be so well fixed you can git married
+then?&#8221; There was some constraint in Babe&#8217;s tone,
+which he meant to be casual.</p>
+<p>Ralston&#8217;s heart gave him a twinge of pain.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I s&#8217;pose you&#8217;ve had every chance to git
+acquainted with the Schoolmarm,&#8221; he observed,
+since Ralston did not reply.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She doesn&#8217;t like me, Babe.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>What</i>!&#8221; yelled Babe, screwing up his face in
+a grimace of surprise and unbelief.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She would rather talk to Ling than to me&mdash;at
+least, she seems far more friendly to any one
+else than to me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say, she must be loony not to like you!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston could not help laughing outright at
+Babe&#8217;s vigorous loyalty.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not necessarily a sign of insanity to dislike
+me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;She doesn&#8217;t go that far, does she?&#8221; demanded
+Babe.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sometimes I think so.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t care a-tall, do you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Ralston replied quietly; &#8220;I care a
+great deal. It hurts me more than I ever was
+hurt before; because, you see, Babe, I never loved
+a woman before.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw-w-w,&#8221; replied Babe, in deepest sympathy.</p>
+<p>Smith had congratulated himself often during
+the day upon the fact that he could not have
+chosen a more propitious time for the execution
+of his plans&mdash;at least, so far as the Bar C outfit
+was concerned. His uneasiness passed as the protecting
+darkness fell without their having seen a
+single person the entire day.</p>
+<p>When the last glimmer of daylight had faded,
+Tubbs and Smith started on the drive, heading the
+cattle direct for their destination. They were
+fatter than Smith had supposed, so they could not
+travel as rapidly as he had calculated, but he and
+Tubbs pushed them along as fast as they could
+without overheating them.</p>
+<p>The darkness, which gave Smith courage, made
+Tubbs nervous. He swore at the cattle, he swore
+at his horse, he swore at the rocks over which his
+horse stumbled; and he constantly strained his roving
+eyes to penetrate the darkness for pursuers.
+Every gulch and gully held for him a fresh terror.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gee! I wisht I was out of this onct!&#8221; burst
+from him when the howl of a wolf set his nerves
+jangling.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;d you say?&#8221; Smith stopped in the
+middle of a song he was singing.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I said I wisht I was down where the monkeys
+are throwin&#8217; nuts! I&#8217;m chilly,&#8221; declared Tubbs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Chilly? It&#8217;s hot!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith was light-hearted, sanguine. He told himself
+that perhaps it was as well, after all, that
+the hold-ups had got off with the &#8220;old woman&#8217;s&#8221;
+money. She might have made trouble when she
+found that he meant to go or had gone with Dora.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t tell about women,&#8221; Smith said to
+himself. &#8220;They&#8217;re like ducks: no two fly alike.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He felt secure, yet from force of habit his hand
+frequently sought his cartridge-belt, his rifle in
+its scabbard, his six-shooter in the holster under
+his arm. And while he serenely hummed the songs
+of the dance-halls and round-up camps, two silent
+figures, so close that they heard the clacking of
+the cattle&#8217;s split hoofs, Tubbs&#8217;s vacuous oaths,
+Smith&#8217;s contented voice, were following with the
+business-like persistency of the law.</p>
+<p>The four mounted men rode all night, speaking
+seldom, each thinking his own thoughts, dreaming
+his own dreams. Not until the faintest light
+grayed the east did the pursuers fall behind.</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not more&#8217;n a mile to water now&#8221;&mdash;Smith
+had made sure of his country this time&mdash;&#8220;and
+we&#8217;ll hold the cattle in the brush and take
+turns watchin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a go with me,&#8221; answered Tubbs, yawning
+until his jaws cracked. &#8220;I&#8217;m asleep now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ralston and Babe knew that Smith would camp
+for several hours in the creek-bottom, so they
+dropped into a gulch and waited.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll picket their horses first, then one of
+them will keep watch while the other sleeps. Very
+likely Tubbs will be the first guard, and, unless
+I&#8217;m mistaken, Tubbs will be dead to the world in
+fifteen minutes&mdash;though, maybe, he&#8217;s too scared to
+sleep.&#8221; Ralston&#8217;s surmise proved to be correct
+in every particular.</p>
+<p>After they had picketed their horses, Smith told
+Tubbs to keep watch for a couple of hours, while
+he slept.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Couldn&#8217;t we jest switch that programme
+around?&#8221; inquired Tubbs plaintively. &#8220;I can&#8217;t
+hardly keep my eyes open.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do as I tell you,&#8221; Smith returned sharply.</p>
+<p>Tubbs eyed him with envy as he spread down
+his own and Tubbs&#8217;s saddle-blankets.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t what you&#8217;d call &#8216;crazy with the heat.&#8217;&#8221;
+Tubbs shivered. &#8220;Couldn&#8217;t I crawl under one of
+them blankets with you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;You bet you can&#8217;t. I&#8217;d jest as lief sleep with
+a bull-snake as a man,&#8221; snorted Smith in disgust,
+and, pulling the blankets about his ears, was lost
+in oblivion.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I kin look back upon times when I&#8217;ve enj&#8217;yed
+myself more,&#8221; muttered Tubbs disconsolately, as
+he paced to and fro, or at intervals climbed wearily
+out of the creek-bottom to look and listen.</p>
+<p>Ralston and Babe had concealed themselves behind
+a cut-bank which in the rainy season was a
+tributary of the creek. They were waiting for
+daylight, and for the guard to grow sleepy and
+careless. With little more emotion than hunters
+waiting in a blind for the birds to go over, the
+two men examined their rifles and six-shooters.
+They talked in undertones, laughing a little at
+some droll observation or reminiscence. Only by a
+sparkle of deviltry in Babe&#8217;s blue eyes, and an
+added gravity of expression upon Ralston&#8217;s face,
+at moments, would the closest observer have known
+that anything unusual was about to take place.
+Yet each realized to the fullest extent the possible
+dangers ahead of them. Smith, they knew to be
+resourceful, he would be desperate, and Tubbs, ignorant
+and weak of will as he was, might be
+frightened into a kind of frenzied courage. The
+best laid plans did not always work out according
+to schedule, and if by any chance they were discovered,
+and the thieves reached their guns, the
+odds were equal. But it was not their way to talk
+of danger to themselves. That there was danger
+was a fact, too obvious to discuss, but that it was
+no hindrance to the carrying out of their plans
+was also accepted as being too evident to waste
+words upon.</p>
+<p>While the east grew pink, they talked of mutual
+acquaintances, of horses they had owned, of guns
+and big game, of dinners they had eaten, of socks
+and saddle blankets that had been stolen from
+them in cow outfits&mdash;the important and trivial
+were of like interest to these old friends waiting for
+what, as each well knew, might be their last sunrise.</p>
+<p>Ralston finally crawled to the top of the cut-bank
+and looked cautiously about.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s time,&#8221; he said briefly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i>Bueno</i>.&#8221; Babe gave an extra twitch to the
+silk handkerchief knotted about his neck, which,
+with him, signified a readiness for action.</p>
+<p>He joined Ralston at the top of the cut-bank.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not a sign!&#8221; he whispered. &#8220;Looks like you
+and me owned the world, Dick.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll lead the horses a little closer, in case we
+need them quick. Then, we&#8217;ll keep that bunch of
+brush between us and them, till we get close enough.
+You take Tubbs, and I&#8217;ll cover Smith&mdash;I want that
+satisfaction,&#8221; he added grimly.</p>
+<p>It was a typical desert morning, redolent with
+sage, which the night&#8217;s dew brought out strongly.
+The pink light changing rapidly to crimson was
+seeking out the draws and coulees where the purple
+shadows of night still lay. The only sound was
+the cry of the mourning doves, answering each
+other&#8217;s plaintive calls. And across the panorama
+of yellow sand, green sage-brush, burning cactus
+flowers, distant peaks of purple, all bathed alike
+in the gorgeous crimson light of morning, two
+dark figures crept with the stealthiness of Indians.</p>
+<p>From behind the bush which had been their objective-point
+they could hear and see the cattle
+moving in the brush below; then a horse on picket
+snorted, and as they slid quietly down the bank
+they heard a sound which made Babe snicker.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is that a cow chokin&#8217; to death,&#8221; he whispered,
+&#8220;or one of them cherubs merely sleepin&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+<p>In sight of the prone figures, they halted.</p>
+<p>Smith, with his hat on, his head pillowed on his
+saddle, was rolled in an old army blanket; while
+Tubbs, from a sitting position against a tree, had
+fallen over on the ground with his knees drawn
+to his chin. His mouth, from which frightful
+sounds of strangulation were issuing, was wide
+open, and he showed a little of the whites of his
+eyes as he slumbered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ain&#8217;t he a dream?&#8221; breathed Babe in Ralston&#8217;s
+ear. &#8220;How I&#8217;d like a picture of that face to keep
+in the back of my watch!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s rifle was under the edge of his blanket,
+and his six-shooter in its holster lay by his head;
+but Tubbs, with the carelessness of a green hand
+and the over-confidence which had succeeded his
+nervousness, had leaned his rifle against a tree and
+laid his six-shooter and cartridge-belt in a crotch.</p>
+<p>Ralston nodded to Babe, and simultaneously they
+raised their rifles and viewed the prostrate forms
+along the barrels.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Put up your hands, men!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The quick command, sharp, stern, penetrated the
+senses of the men inert in heavy sleep. Instantly
+Smith&#8217;s hand was upon his gun. He had reached
+for it instinctively even before he sat up.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Drop it!&#8221; There was no mistaking the intention
+expressed in Ralston&#8217;s voice, and the gun
+fell from Smith&#8217;s hand.</p>
+<p>The red of Smith&#8217;s skin changed to a curious
+yellow, not unlike the yellow of the slicker rolled
+on the back of his saddle. Panic-stricken for the
+moment, he grinned, almost foolishly; then his
+hands shot above his head.</p>
+<p>A line of sunlight dropped into the creek-bottom,
+and a ray was caught by the deputy&#8217;s badge
+which shone on Ralston&#8217;s breast. The glitter of
+it seemed to fascinate Smith.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8221;&mdash;he drawled a vile name. &#8220;I orter
+have known!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Still dazed with sleep, and not yet comprehending
+anything beyond the fact that he had been
+advised to put up his hands, and that a stranger
+had drawn an uncommonly fine bead on the head
+which he was in honor bound to preserve from
+mutilation, Tubbs blinked at Babe and inquired
+peevishly:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter with you?&#8221; He had forgotten
+that he was a thief.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shove up your hands!&#8221; yelled Babe.</p>
+<p>With an expression of annoyance, Tubbs did as
+he was bid, but dropped them again upon seeing
+Ralston.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, hello!&#8221; he called cheerfully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Put them hands back!&#8221; Babe waved his rifle-barrel
+significantly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter with you, feller?&#8221; inquired
+Tubbs crossly. Though he now recollected the
+circumstances under which they were found,
+Ralston&#8217;s presence robbed the situation of any
+seriousness for him. It did not occur to Tubbs
+that any one who knew him could possibly do him
+harm.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Keep your hands up, Tubbs,&#8221; said Ralston
+curtly, &#8220;and, Babe, take the guns.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;What for a josh is this anyhow?&#8221;&mdash;in an
+aggrieved tone. &#8220;Ain&#8217;t we all friends?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shut up, you idjot!&#8221; snapped Smith irritably.
+His glance was full of malevolence as Babe took
+his guns. The yellow of his skin was now the only
+sign by which he betrayed his feelings. To all
+other appearances, he was himself again&mdash;insolent,
+defiant.</p>
+<p>When it thoroughly dawned upon Tubbs that
+they were cornered and under arrest, he promptly
+went to pieces. He thrust his hands so high above
+his head that they lifted him to tiptoe, and they
+shook as with palsy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Stack the guns and get our horses, Babe,&#8221;
+said Ralston.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mine&#8217;s hard for a stranger to ketch,&#8221; said
+Smith surlily. &#8220;I&#8217;ll get him, for I don&#8217;t aim to
+walk.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;All right; but don&#8217;t make any break, Smith,&#8221;
+Ralston warned.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a fool,&#8221; Smith answered gruffly.</p>
+<p>Ralston&#8217;s face relaxed as Smith sauntered toward
+his horse. He was glad that they had been taken
+without bloodshed, and, now the prisoners&#8217; guns
+had been removed, that possibility was passed.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s horse was a newly broken bronco, and
+he was a wild beggar, as Smith had said; but he
+talked to him reassuringly as the horse jumped to
+the end of his picket-rope and stood snorting and
+trembling in fright, and finally laid his hand upon
+his neck and back. The fingers of one hand were
+entwined in the horse&#8217;s mane, and suddenly, with
+a cat-like spring made possible only by his desperation,
+Smith landed on the bronco&#8217;s back.
+With a yell of defiance which Ralston and Babe
+remembered for many a day, he kicked the animal
+in the ribs, and, as it reared in fright, it pulled
+loose from the picket-stake. Smith reached for
+the trailing rope, and they were gone!</p>
+<p>Ralston shot to cripple the horse, but almost
+with the flash they were around the bend of the
+creek and out of sight. The breathless, speechless
+seconds seemed minutes long before he heard
+Babe coming.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aw-w-w!&#8221; roared that person in consternation
+and chagrin, as he literally dragged the horses
+behind him.</p>
+<p>Ralston ran to meet him, and a glance of understanding
+passed between them as he leaped into
+the saddle and swept around the bend like a whirlwind,
+less than thirty seconds behind Smith.</p>
+<p>Babe knew that he must secure Tubbs before he
+joined in the pursuit, and he was pulling the rawhide
+riata from his saddle when Tubbs, inspired
+by Smith&#8217;s example and imbued with the hysterical
+courage which sometimes comes to men of his type
+in desperate straits, made a dash for his rifle, and
+reached it. He threw it to his shoulder, but, quick
+as he was, Babe was quicker.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<a name='linki_4' id='linki_4'></a>
+<img src='images/img-284.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 324px; height: 485px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 324px;'>
+SMITH REACHED FOR THE TRAILING ROPE AND THEY WERE GONE!<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>With the lightning-like gesture which had made
+his name a byword where Babe himself was unknown,
+he pulled his six-shooter from its holster
+and shot Tubbs through the head. He fell his
+length, like a bundle of blankets, and, even as he
+dropped, Babe was in the saddle and away.</p>
+<p>It was a desperate race that was on, between
+desperate men; for if Smith was desperate, Ralston
+was not less so. Every fibre of his being was
+concentrated in the determination to recapture the
+man who had twice outwitted him. The deputy
+sheriff&#8217;s reputation was at stake; his pride and
+self-respect as well; and the blood-thirst was rising
+in him with each jump of his horse. Every other
+emotion paled, every other interest faded, beside
+the intensity of his desire to stop the man ahead of
+him.</p>
+<p>Smith knew that he had only a chance in a
+thousand. He had seen Ralston with a six-shooter
+explode a cartridge placed on a rock as far away
+as he could see it, and he was riding the little
+brown mare whose swiftness Smith had reason to
+remember.</p>
+<p>But he had the start, his bronco was young,
+its wind of the best, and it might have speed.
+The country was rough, Ralston&#8217;s horse might fall
+with him. So long as Smith was at liberty there
+was a fighting chance, and as always, he took it.</p>
+<p>The young horse, mad with fright, kept to the
+serpentine course of the creek-bottom, and Ralston,
+on the little mare, sure-footed and swift as a jack-rabbit,
+followed its lead.</p>
+<p>The race was like a steeple-chase, with boulders
+and brush and fallen logs to be hurdled, and
+gullies and washouts to complicate the course. And
+at every outward curve the <i>pin-n-gg!</i> of a bullet
+told Smith of his pursuer&#8217;s nearness. Lying flat
+on the barebacked horse, he hung well to the side
+until he was again out of sight. The lead plowed
+up the dirt ahead of him and behind him, and
+flattened itself against rocks; and at each futile
+shot Smith looked over his shoulder and grinned
+in derision, though his skin had still the curious
+yellowness of fear.</p>
+<p>The race was lasting longer than Smith had
+dared hope. It began to look as if it were to
+narrow to a test of endurance, for although
+Ralston&#8217;s shots missed by only a hair&#8217;s breadth at
+times, still, they missed. If Smith ever had prayed,
+he would have prayed then; but he had neither
+words nor faith, so he only hoped and rode.</p>
+<p>A flat came into sight ahead and a yell burst
+from Ralston&mdash;a yell that was unexpected to himself.
+A wave of exultation which seemed to come
+from without swept over him. He touched the
+mare with the spur, and she skimmed the rocks as
+if his weight on her back were nothing. It was
+smoother, and he was close enough now to use his
+best weapon. He thrust the empty rifle into its
+scabbard, and shot at Smith&#8217;s horse with his six-shooter.
+It stumbled; then its knees doubled under
+it, and Smith turned in the air. The game was
+up; Smith was afoot.</p>
+<p>He picked up his hat and dusted his coat-sleeve
+while he waited, and his face was yellow and evil.</p>
+<p>&#8220;That was a dum good horse,&#8221; was Babe&#8217;s
+single comment as he rode up.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Get back to camp!&#8221; said Ralston peremptorily,
+and Smith, in his high-heeled, narrow-soled boots,
+stumbled ahead of them without a word.</p>
+<p>He looked at Tubbs&#8217;s body without surprise.
+Sullen and surly, he felt no regret that Tubbs,
+braggart and fool though he was, was dead. Smith
+had no conscience to remind him that he himself
+was responsible.</p>
+<p>Babe shook out Smith&#8217;s blue army blanket and
+rolled Tubbs in it. Smith had bought it from a
+drunken soldier, and he had owned it a long time.
+It was light and almost water-proof; he liked it,
+and he eyed Babe&#8217;s action with disfavor.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reckon this gent will have to spend the day
+in a tree,&#8221; said Babe prosaically.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Couldn&#8217;t you use no other blanket nor that?&#8221;
+demanded Smith.</p>
+<p>It was the first time he had spoken.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t take on so,&#8221; Babe replied comfortingly.
+&#8220;They furnish blankets where you&#8217;re goin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He went on with his work of throwing a hitch
+around Tubbs with his picket-rope.</p>
+<p>Ralston divided the scanty rations which Smith
+and Tubbs, and he and Babe, had brought with
+them. He made coffee, and handed a cup to Smith
+first. The latter arose and changed his seat.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never could eat with a corp&#8217; settin&#8217; around,&#8221;
+he said disagreeably.</p>
+<p>Smith&#8217;s fastidiousness made Babe&#8217;s jaw drop,
+and a piece of biscuit which had made his cheek
+bulge inadvertently rolled out, but was skillfully
+intercepted before it reached the ground.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope you&#8217;ll excuse us, Mr. Smith,&#8221; said Babe,
+bowing as well as he could sitting cross-legged
+on the ground. &#8220;I hope you&#8217;ll overlook our forgittin&#8217;
+the napkins and toothpicks.&#8221;</p>
+<p>When they had finished, they slung Tubbs&#8217;s
+body into a tree, beyond the reach of coyotes.
+The cattle they left to drift back to their range.
+Tubbs&#8217;s horse was saddled for Smith, and, with
+Ralston holding the lead rope and Babe in the
+rear, the procession started back to the ranch.</p>
+<p>Smith had much time to think on the homeward
+ride. He based his hopes upon the Indian woman.
+He knew that he could conciliate her with a look.
+She was resourceful, she had unlimited influence
+with the Indians, and she had proven that she was
+careless of her own life where he was concerned.
+She was a powerful ally. The situation was not
+so bad as it had seemed. He had been in tighter
+places, he told himself, and his spirits rose as he
+rode. Without the plodding cattle, they retraced
+their steps in half the time it had taken them to
+come, and it was not much after midday when
+they were sighted from the MacDonald ranch.</p>
+<p>The Indians that Smith had missed were at the
+ford to meet them: Bear Chief, Yellow Bird, Running
+Rabbit, and others, who were strangers to
+him. They followed as Ralston and Babe rode
+with their prisoner up the path to put him under
+guard in the bunk-house.</p>
+<p>Susie, McArthur, and Dora were at the door
+of the ranch-house, and Susie stepped out and
+stopped them when they would have passed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t take him there; that place is
+for our <i>friends</i>. There&#8217;s the harness-house below.
+The dogs sleep there. There&#8217;ll be room for one
+more.&#8221;</p>
+<p>The insult stung Smith to the quick.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What <i>you</i> got to say about it? Where&#8217;s your
+mother?&#8221;</p>
+<p>With narrowed eyes she looked for a moment
+into his ugly visage, then she laid her hand upon
+the rope and led his horse close to the open
+window of the bedroom.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There,&#8221; and she pointed to the still figure on
+its improvised bier. &#8220;There&#8217;s my mother!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith looked in silence, and once more showed
+by his yellowing skin the fear within him. The
+avenue of escape upon which he had counted almost
+with certainty, was closed to him. At that moment
+the harsh, high walls of the penitentiary loomed
+close; the doors looked wide open to receive him;
+but, after an instant&#8217;s hesitation, he only shrugged
+his shoulders and said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hell! I sleeps good anywhere.&#8221;</p>
+<p>In deference to Susie&#8217;s wishes, Ralston and Babe
+had swung their horses to go back down the path
+when Smith turned in his saddle and looked at
+Dora. She was regarding him sorrowfully, her
+eyes misty with disappointment in him; and Smith
+misunderstood. A rush of feeling swept over him,
+and he burst out impulsively:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t go back on me! I done it for you, girl!
+I done it to make <i>our stake</i>!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora stood speechless, bewildered, confused
+under the astonished eyes upon her. She was appalled
+by the light in which he had placed her; and
+while the others followed to the harness-house below,
+she sank limply upon the door-sill, her face
+in her hands.</p>
+<p>Smith sat on a wagon-tongue, swinging his legs,
+while they cleaned out the harness-house a bit for
+his occupancy.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Throw down some straw and rustle up a
+blanket or two,&#8221; said Babe; and McArthur pulled
+his saddle-blankets apart to contribute the cleanest
+toward Smith&#8217;s bed.</p>
+<p>Something in the alacrity the &#8220;bug-hunter&#8221;
+displayed angered Smith. He always had despised
+the little man in a general way. He uncinched his
+saddle on the wrong side; he clucked at his horse;
+he removed his hat when he talked to women; he
+was a weak and innocent fool to Smith, who lost
+no occasion to belittle him. Now, when the
+prisoner saw him moving about, free to go and
+come as he pleased, while he, Smith, was tied like
+an unruly pup, it, of a sudden, made his gorge
+rise; and, with one of his swift, characteristic
+transitions of mood, Smith turned to the Indians
+who guarded him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You never could find out who killed White
+Antelope&mdash;you smart-Alec Injuns!&#8221; he sneered
+contemptuously. &#8220;And you&#8217;ve always wanted to
+know, haven&#8217;t you?&#8221; He eyed them one by one.
+&#8220;Why, you don&#8217;t know straight up, you women
+warriors! I&#8217;ve a notion to tell you who killed
+White Antelope&mdash;just for fun&mdash;just because I
+want to laugh, me&mdash;Smith!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Indians drew closer.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You think you&#8217;re scouts,&#8221; he went on tauntingly,
+&#8220;and you never saw White Antelope&#8217;s
+blanket right under your nose! Put it back, feller&#8221;&mdash;he
+nodded at McArthur. &#8220;I don&#8217;t aim to sleep
+on dead men&#8217;s clothes!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The Indians looked at the blanket, and at
+McArthur, whom they had grown to like and
+trust. They recognized it now, and in the corner
+they saw the stiff and dingy stain, the jagged tell-tale
+holes.</p>
+<p>McArthur mechanically held it up to view. He
+had not the faintest recollection where it had been
+purchased, or of whom obtained. Tubbs always
+had attended to such things.</p>
+<p>No one spoke in the grave silence, and Smith
+leered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I likes company,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m sociable inclined.
+Put him in the dog-house with me.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie had listened with the Indians; she had
+looked at the blanket, the stain, the holes; she
+saw the blank consternation in McArthur&#8217;s face,
+the gathering storm in the Indians&#8217; eyes. She
+stepped out a little from the rest.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mister <i>Smith</i>!&#8221; she said. &#8220;<i>Mister</i> Smith&#8221;&mdash;with
+oily, sarcastic emphasis&mdash;&#8220;how did you know
+that was White Antelope&#8217;s blanket, when you never
+<i>saw</i> White Antelope?&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXII_A_MONGOLIAN_CUPID' id='XXII_A_MONGOLIAN_CUPID'></a>
+<h2>XXII</h2>
+<h3>A MONGOLIAN CUPID</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>With his hands thrust deep in his trousers
+pockets, Ralston leaned against the corner of the
+bunk-house, from which point of vantage he could
+catch a glimpse of the Schoolmarm&#8217;s white-curtained
+window. He now had no feeling of elation
+over his success. Smith was a victorious captive.
+Ralston&#8217;s heart ached miserably, and he wished
+that the day was ended and the morning come,
+that he might go, never to return.</p>
+<p>He too had seen the mist in Dora&#8217;s eyes; and,
+with Smith&#8217;s words, the air-castles which had persistently
+built themselves without volition on his
+part, crumbled. There was nothing for him to
+do but to efface himself as quickly and as completely
+as possible. The sight of him could only
+be painful to Dora, and he wished to spare her all
+of that within his power.</p>
+<p>He looked at the foothills, the red butte rising
+in their midst, the tinted Bad Lands, the winding,
+willow-fringed creek. It was all beautiful in its
+bizarre colorings; but the spirit of the picture,
+the warm, glowing heart of it, had gone from it
+for him. The world looked a dull and lifeless
+place. His love for Dora was greater than he had
+known, far mightier than he had realized until the
+end, the positive end, had come.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Dora!&#8221; he whispered in utter wretchedness.
+&#8220;Dear little Schoolmarm!&#8221;</p>
+<p>In the room behind the white-curtained window
+the Schoolmarm walked the floor with her cheeks
+aflame and as close to hysteria as ever she had
+been in her life.</p>
+<p>&#8220;What <i>will</i> he think of me!&#8221; she asked herself
+over and over again, clasping and unclasping her
+cold hands. &#8220;What <i>can</i> he think but one thing?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The more overwrought she became, the worse the
+situation seemed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And how he looked at me! How they all
+looked at me! Oh, it was too dreadful!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She covered her burning face with her hands.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There isn&#8217;t the slightest doubt,&#8221; she went on,
+&#8220;but that he thinks I knew all about it. Perhaps&#8221;&mdash;she
+paused in front of the mirror and stared into
+her own horrified eyes&mdash;&#8220;perhaps he thinks I belong
+to a gang of robbers! Maybe he thinks I
+am Smith&#8217;s tool, or that Smith is my tool, or
+something like that! Oh, whatever made him say
+such a thing! &#8216;Our stake&mdash;<i>our</i> stake&#8217;&mdash;and&mdash;&#8216;I
+done it for you!&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+<p>Another thought, still more terrifying occurred
+to her excited mind:</p>
+<p>&#8220;What if he should have to arrest me as an
+accomplice!&#8221;</p>
+<p>She sat down weakly on the edge of the bed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; and she rocked to and fro in misery,
+&#8220;if only I never had tried to improve Smith&#8217;s
+mind!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The tears slipped from under the Schoolmarm&#8217;s
+lashes, and her chin quivered.</p>
+<p>Worn out by the all night&#8217;s vigil at her mother&#8217;s
+bedside, and the exciting events of the morning,
+Susie finally succumbed to the strain and slept the
+sleep of exhaustion. It was almost supper-time
+when she awakened. Passing the Schoolmarm&#8217;s
+door, she heard a sound at which she stopped and
+frankly listened. Teacher was crying!</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ling, this is an awful world. Everything
+seems to be upside down and inside out!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Plenty tlouble,&#8221; agreed Ling, stepping briskly
+about as he collected ingredients for his biscuits.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t seem to make much difference whether
+you love people or hate &#8217;em; it all ends the same
+way&mdash;in tears.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Plitty bad thing&mdash;love.&#8221; Ling solemnly measured
+baking-powder. &#8220;Make people cly.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie surmised correctly that Ling&#8217;s ears also
+had been close to a nearby keyhole.</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;d &#8217;a&#8217; been fewer tears on this ranch if
+it hadn&#8217;t been for Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Many devils&mdash;Smith.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie sat on the corner of his work-table, and
+there was silence while he deftly mixed, rolled,
+and cut his dough.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Ralston intends to go away in the morning,&#8221;
+said Susie, as the biscuits were slammed in
+the oven.</p>
+<p>Ling wagged his head dolorously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And they&#8217;ll never see each other again.&#8221;</p>
+<p>His head continued to wag.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ling,&#8221; Susie whispered, &#8220;we&#8217;ve got to <i>do</i>
+something.&#8221; She stepped lightly to the open door
+and closed it.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+
+<p>There were few at the supper-table that night,
+and there was none of the noisy banter which
+usually prevailed. The grub-liners came in softly
+and spoke in hushed tones, out of a kind of respect
+for two empty chairs which had been the recognized
+seats of Tubbs and the Indian woman.</p>
+<p>Ralston bowed gravely as Dora entered&mdash;pale,
+her eyes showing traces of recent tears. Susie
+was absent, having no heart for food or company,
+and preferring to sit beside her mother for the
+brief time which remained to her. Even Meeteetse
+Ed shared in the general depression, and therefore
+it was in no spirit of flippancy that he observed
+as he replaced his cup violently in its saucer:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Gosh A&#8217;mighty, Ling, you must have biled a
+gum-boot in this here tea!&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora, who had drank nearly half of hers, was
+unable to account for the peculiar tang which
+destroyed its flavor, and Ralston eyed the contents
+of his cup doubtfully after each swallow.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Like as not the water&#8217;s gittin&#8217; alkali,&#8221; ventured
+Old Man Rulison.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Alkali nothin&#8217;. That&#8217;s gum-boot, or else a
+plug of Battle Ax fell in.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Ling bore Meeteetse&#8217;s criticisms with surprising
+equanimity.</p>
+<p>A moment later the lights blurred for Dora.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I feel faint,&#8221; she whispered, striving to
+rise.</p>
+<p>Ralston, who had already noted her increasing
+pallor, hastened around the table and helped her
+into the air. Ling&#8217;s immobile face was a study
+as he saw them leave the room together, but satisfaction
+was the most marked of its many expressions.
+He watched them from the pantry window
+as they walked to the cottonwood log which
+served as a garden-seat for all.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wonder if it was that queer tea?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It has been a hard day for you,&#8221; Ralston
+replied gently.</p>
+<p>Dora was silent, and they remained so for some
+minutes. Ralston spoke at last and with an effort.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry&mdash;sorrier than I can tell you&mdash;that
+it has been necessary for me to hurt you. I should
+rather, far, far rather, hurt myself than you, Miss
+Marshall&mdash;I wish I could make you know that.
+What I have done has been because it was my
+duty. I am employed by men who trust me, and I
+was in honor bound to follow the course I have;
+but if I had known what I know now&mdash;if I had
+been sure&mdash;I might in some way have made it
+easier for you. I am going away to-morrow, and
+perhaps it will do no harm to tell you that I had
+hoped&#8221;&mdash;he stopped to steady his voice, and went
+on&mdash;&#8220;I had hoped that our friendship might end
+differently.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall be gone in the morning before you are
+awake, so I will say good-night&mdash;and good-by.&#8221;
+He arose and put out his hand. &#8220;Shall I send
+Susie to you?&#8221;</p>
+<p>The lump in Dora&#8217;s throat hurt her.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wait a minute,&#8221; she whispered in a strained
+voice. &#8220;I want to say something, too, before you
+go. I don&#8217;t want you to go away thinking that
+I knew anything of Smith&#8217;s plans; that I knew
+he was going to steal cattle; that he was trying
+to make a &#8217;stake&#8217; for us&mdash;for <i>me</i>. It is all a
+misunderstanding.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Dora was looking straight ahead of her, and
+did not see the change which came over Ralston&#8217;s
+face.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never thought of Smith in any way except
+to help him,&#8221; she went on. &#8220;He seemed different
+from most that stopped here, and I thought if
+I could just start him right, if only I could show
+him what he might do if he tried, he might be
+better for my efforts. And, after all, my time and
+good intentions were wasted. He deceived me in
+making me think that he too wanted to make
+more of his life, and that he was trying. And
+then to make such a speech before you all!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t think about it&mdash;or Smith,&#8221; Ralston answered.
+&#8220;He has come to his inevitable end.
+When there&#8217;s bad blood, mistaken ideals, and wrong
+standards of living, you can&#8217;t do much&mdash;you can&#8217;t
+do anything. There is only one thing which controls
+men of his type, and that is fear&mdash;fear of
+the law. His love for you is undoubtedly the best,
+the whitest, thing that ever came into his life, but
+it couldn&#8217;t keep him straight, and never would.
+Don&#8217;t worry. Your efforts haven&#8217;t hurt him, or
+you. You are wiser, and maybe he is better.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s awfully good of you to comfort me,&#8221; said
+Dora gratefully.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good of me?&#8221; he laughed softly. &#8220;Little
+Schoolmarm&#8221;&mdash;he laid a hand upon each shoulder
+and looked into her eyes&mdash;&#8220;I love you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Her pupils dilated, and she breathed in wonder.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You <i>love</i> me?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I do.&#8221; He brushed back a wisp of hair which
+had blown across her cheek, and, stooping, kissed
+her deliberately upon the mouth.</p>
+<p>Inside the house a radiant Mongolian rushed
+from the pantry window into the room where Susie
+sat. He carried a nearly empty bottle which had
+once contained lemon extract, and his almond eyes
+danced as he handed it to her, whispering gleefully:</p>
+<p>&#8220;All light! Good medicine!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The big kerosene lamp screwed to the wall in
+the living-room had long since been lighted, but
+Susie still sat on the floor, leaning her cheek against
+the blanket which covered the Indian woman. The
+house was quiet save for Ling in the kitchen&mdash;and
+lonely&mdash;but she had a fancy that her mother would
+like to have her there beside her; so, although
+she was cramped from sitting, and the house was
+close after a hot day, she refused all offers to
+relieve her.</p>
+<p>She was glad to see McArthur when he tapped
+on the door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought you&#8217;d like to read the letter that
+came with the picture,&#8221; he said, as he pulled up
+a chair beside her. &#8220;I want you to know how
+welcome you will be.&#8221;</p>
+<p>He handed her the letter, with its neat, old-fashioned
+penmanship, its primness a little tremulous
+from the excitement of the writer at the time
+she had penned it. Susie read it carefully, and
+when she had finished she looked up at him with
+softened, grateful eyes.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t she good!&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The kindest of gentlewomen&mdash;your Aunt
+Harriet.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;My Aunt Harriet!&#8221; Susie said it to herself
+rapturously.</p>
+<p>&#8220;She hasn&#8217;t much in her life now&mdash;<i>she&#8217;s</i> lonely,
+too&mdash;and if you can be spoiled, Susie, you soon
+will be well on the way&mdash;between Aunt Harriet
+and me.&#8221; He stroked her hair fondly.</p>
+<p>&#8220;And I&#8217;m to go to school back there and live
+with her. I can&#8217;t believe it yet!&#8221; Susie declared.
+&#8220;So much has happened in the last twenty-four
+hours that I don&#8217;t know what to think about first.
+More things have happened in this little time than
+in all my life put together.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the way life seems to be,&#8221; McArthur
+said musingly&mdash;&#8220;a few hours at a tension, and
+long, dull stretches in between.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does she know&mdash;does Aunt Harriet know&mdash;how
+<i>green</i> I am?&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur laughed at her anxiety.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sure,&#8221; he replied reassuringly, &#8220;that she
+isn&#8217;t expecting a young lady of fashion.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ve got clothes,&#8221; said Susie. &#8220;Mother
+made me a dress that will be just the thing to wear
+in that&mdash;what do you call it?&mdash;train. She made it
+out of two shawls that she bought at the Agency.&#8221;</p>
+<p>McArthur looked startled at the frock of red,
+green, and black plaids which Susie took from a
+nail behind the door.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The colors seem a little&mdash;a little&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If that black was yellow, it <i>would</i> look better,&#8221;
+Susie admitted. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got a new Stetson, too.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;It will take some little time to arrange your
+affairs out here, and in the meantime I&#8217;ll write
+Aunt Harriet to choose a wardrobe for you and
+send it. It will give her the greatest pleasure.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can I take Croppy and Daisy May?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Daisy May?&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;The pet badger,&#8221; she explained. &#8220;I named her
+after a Schoolmarm we had&mdash;she looks so solemn
+and important. I can keep her on a chain, and
+she needn&#8217;t eat until we get there,&#8221; Susie pleaded.</p>
+<p>Trying not to smile at the mental picture of
+himself arriving in the staid college town, with
+a tawny-skinned child in a red, green, and black
+frock, a crop-eared cayuse, and a badger on a
+chain, McArthur ventured it as his opinion that
+the climate would be detrimental to Daisy May&#8217;s
+health.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You undoubtedly will prefer to spend your
+summers here, and it will be pleasant to have
+Croppy and Daisy May home to welcome you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Susie&#8217;s face sobered.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, I must come back when school is
+over. I wouldn&#8217;t feel it was right to go away
+for always and leave Dad and Mother here. Besides,
+I guess I&#8217;d <i>want</i> to come back; because,
+after all, you know, I&#8217;m half Injun.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish you&#8217;d try and sleep, and let me sit
+here,&#8221; urged McArthur kindly.</p>
+<p>Susie shook her head.</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; Ling will stay after awhile, and I&#8217;m not
+sleepy or tired now.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, good-night, little sister.&#8221; He patted her
+head, while all the kindliness of his gentle nature
+shone from his eyes.</p>
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='XXIII_IN_THEIR_OWN_WAY' id='XXIII_IN_THEIR_OWN_WAY'></a>
+<h2>XXIII</h2>
+<h3>IN THEIR OWN WAY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Through the chinks in the logs, where the
+daubing had dropped out, Smith watched the lights
+in the ranch-house. He relieved the tedium of the
+hours by trying to imagine what was going on
+inside, and in each picture Dora was the central
+figure. Now, he told himself, she was wiping the
+dishes for Ling, and teaching him English, as
+she often did; and when she had finished she would
+bring her portfolio into the dining-room and write
+home the exciting events of the day. He wondered
+what had &#8220;ailed&#8221; the Indian woman, that
+she should die so suddenly; but it was immaterial,
+since she <i>was</i> dead. He knew that Susie would sit
+by her mother; probably in the chair with the
+cushion of goose-feathers. It was his favorite
+chair, though it went over backwards when he
+rocked too hard. Ralston&mdash;curse him!&mdash;was sitting
+on one of the benches outside the bunk-house, telling
+the grub-liners of Smith&#8217;s capture, and the
+bug-hunter was making notes of the story in his
+journal. But, alas! as is usual with the pictures
+one conjures, nothing at all took place as Smith
+fancied.</p>
+<p>When all the lights, save the one in the living-room,
+had gone out, there was nothing to divert
+his thoughts. Babe, who was on guard outside,
+refused to converse with him, and he finally lay
+down, only to toss restlessly upon the blankets.
+The night seemed unusually still and the stillness
+made him nervous; even the sound of Babe&#8217;s back
+rubbing against the door when he shifted his
+position was company. Smith&#8217;s uneasiness was unlike
+him, and he wondered at it, while unable to
+conquer it. It must have been nearly midnight
+when, staring into the darkness with sleepless eyes,
+he felt, rather than heard, something move outside.
+It came from the rear, and Babe was at
+the door for only a moment before he had struck
+a match on a log to light a cigarette. The sound
+was so slight that only a trained ear like Smith&#8217;s
+would have detected it.</p>
+<p>It had sounded like the scraping of the leg of
+an overall against a sage-brush, and yet it was
+so trifling, so indistinct, that a field mouse might
+have made it. But somehow Smith knew, he was
+sure, that something human had caused it; and as
+he listened for a recurrence of the sound, the conviction
+grew upon him that there was movement and
+life outside. He was convinced that something was
+going to happen.</p>
+<p>His judgment told him that the prowlers were
+more likely to be enemies than friends&mdash;he was in
+the enemies&#8217; country. But, on the other hand,
+there was always the chance that unexpected help
+had arrived. Smith still believed in his luck. The
+grub-liners might come to his rescue, or &#8220;the
+boys,&#8221; who had been waiting at the rendezvous,
+might have learned in some unexpected way what
+had befallen him. Even if they were his enemies,
+they would first be obliged to overpower Babe, and,
+he told himself, in the &#8220;ruckus&#8221; he might somehow
+escape.</p>
+<p>But even as he argued the question pro and
+con, unable to decide whether or not to warn Babe,
+a stifled exclamation and the thud of a heavy body
+against the door told him that it had been answered
+for him. Wide-eyed, breathless, his nerves at a
+tension, his heart pounding in his breast, he interpreted
+the sounds which followed as correctly
+as if he had been an eye-witness to the scene.</p>
+<p>He could hear Babe&#8217;s heels strike the ground as
+he kicked and threshed, and the inarticulate epithets
+told Smith that his guard was gagged. He
+knew, too, that the attack was made by more than
+two men, for Babe was a young Hercules in
+strength.</p>
+<p>Were they friends or foes? Were they Bar C
+cowpunchers come to take the law into their own
+hands, or were they his hoped-for rescuers? The
+suspense sent the perspiration out in beads on
+Smith&#8217;s forehead, and he wiped his moist face with
+his shirt-sleeve. Then he heard the shoulders
+against the door, the heavy breathing, the strain
+of muscles, and the creaking timber. It crashed
+in, and for a second Smith&#8217;s heart ceased to beat.
+He sniffed&mdash;and he knew! He smelled buckskin
+and the smoke of tepees. He spoke a word or
+two in their own tongue. They laughed softly,
+without answering. From instinct, he backed into
+a corner, and they groped for him in the darkness.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The rat is hiding. Shall we get the cat?&#8221;
+The voice was Bear Chief&#8217;s.</p>
+<p>Running Rabbit spoke as he struck a match.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come out, white man. It is too hot in here
+for you.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Smith recovered himself, and said as he stepped
+forward:</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am ready, friends.&#8221;</p>
+<p>They tied his hands and pushed him into the
+open air. Babe squirmed in impotent rage as he
+passed. Dark shadows were gliding in and out of
+the stable and corrals, and when they led him to a
+saddled horse they motioned him to mount. He
+did so, and they tied his feet under the horse&#8217;s
+belly, his wrists to the saddle-horn. Seeing the
+thickness of the rope, he jested:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Friends, I am not an ox.&#8221;</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you were,&#8221; Yellow Bird answered, &#8220;there
+would be fresh meat to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+<p>There were other Indians waiting on their horses,
+deep in the gloom of the willows, and when the
+three whom Smith recognized were in the saddle
+they led the way to the creek, and the others fell
+in behind. They followed the stream for some distance,
+that they might leave no tracks, and there
+was no sound but the splashing and floundering of
+the horses as they slipped on the moss-covered
+rocks of the creek-bed.</p>
+<p>Smith showed no fear or curiosity&mdash;he knew
+Indians too well to do either. His stoicism was
+theirs under similar circumstances. Had they been
+of his own race, his hope would have lain in throwing
+himself upon their mercy; for twice the instinctive
+sympathy of the white man for the under
+dog, for the individual who fights against overwhelming
+odds, had saved his life; but no such
+tactics would avail him now.</p>
+<p>His hope lay in playing upon their superstitions
+and weaknesses; in winning their admiration,
+if possible; and in devising means by which to
+gain time. He knew that as soon as his absence
+was discovered an effort would be made to rescue
+him. He found some little comfort, too, in telling
+himself that these reservation Indians, broken
+in spirit by the white man&#8217;s laws and restrictions,
+were not the Indians of the old days on the Big
+Muddy and the Yellowstone. The fear of the
+white man&#8217;s vengeance would keep them from going
+too far. And so, as he rode, his hopes rose gradually;
+his confidence, to a degree, returned; and
+he even began to have a kind of curiosity as to
+what form their attempted revenge would take.</p>
+<p>The slowness of their progress down the creek-bed
+had given him satisfaction, but once they left
+the water, there was no cause for congratulation
+as they quirted their horses at a breakneck speed
+over rocks and gullies in the direction of the Bad
+Lands. He could see that they had some definite
+destination, for when the horses veered somewhat
+to the south, Running Rabbit motioned them northward.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He was there yesterday; Running Rabbit
+knows,&#8221; said Bear Chief, in answer to an Indian&#8217;s
+question; and Smith, listening, wondered where
+&#8220;there&#8221; might be, and what it was that Running
+Rabbit knew.</p>
+<p>He asked himself if it could be that they were
+taking him to some desert spring, where they
+meant to tie him to die of thirst in sight of water.
+The alkali plain held many forms of torture, as
+he knew.</p>
+<p>His captors did not taunt or insult him. They
+rode too hard, they were too much in earnest, to
+take the time for byplay. It was evident to Smith
+that they feared pursuit, and were anxious to reach
+their objective point before the sun rose. He knew
+this from the manner in which they watched the east.</p>
+<p>Somehow, as the miles sped under their horses&#8217;
+feet, the ride became more and more unreal to Smith.
+The moon, big, glorious, and late in rising, silvered
+the desert with its white light until they looked to
+be riding into an ocean. It made Smith think of
+the Big Water, by moonlight, over there on the
+Sundown slope. Even the lean, dark figures riding
+beside him seemed a part of a dream; and Dora,
+when he thought of her, was shadowy, unreal. He
+had a strange feeling that he was galloping, galloping
+out of her life.</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<a name='linki_5' id='linki_5'></a>
+<img src='images/img-308.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 366px; height: 552px;' /><br />
+<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 366px;'>
+THEY QUIRTED THEIR HORSES AT BREAKNECK SPEED IN THE DIRECTION OF THE BAD LANDS.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There were times when he felt as if he were
+floating. His sensations were like the hallucinations
+of fever, and then he would find himself called back
+to a realization of facts by the swish of leather
+thongs on a horse&#8217;s flank, or some smothered, half-uttered
+imprecation when a horse stumbled. The
+air of the coming morning fanned his cheeks, its
+coolness stimulated him, and something of the fairy-like
+beauty of the white world around him impressed
+even Smith.</p>
+<p>They had left the flatter country behind them,
+and were riding among hills and limestone cliffs,
+Running Rabbit winding in and out with the certainty
+of one on familiar ground. The way was
+rough, and they slackened their pace, riding one
+behind the other, Indian file.</p>
+<p>Running Rabbit reined in where the moonlight
+turned a limestone hill to silver, and threw up
+his hand to halt.</p>
+<p>He untied the rope which bound Smith&#8217;s hands
+and feet.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t coil a rope no more nor a gopher,&#8221;
+said Smith, watching him.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The white man does many things better than
+the Indian.&#8221; Running Rabbit went on coiling the
+rope.</p>
+<p>He motioned Smith to follow, and led the way
+on foot.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I dotes on these moonlight picnics,&#8221; said Smith
+sardonically, as he panted up the steep hills, his
+high-heeled boots clattering among the rocks in
+contrast to the silent footsteps of the Indian&#8217;s
+moccasined feet.</p>
+<p>Running Rabbit stopped where the limestone hill
+had cracked, leaving a crevice wide at the top and
+shallowing at the bottom.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is a good place for a white man who
+coils a rope so well, to rest,&#8221; he said, and seated
+himself near the edge of the crevice, motioning
+Smith to be seated also.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Or for white men who shoot old Indians in
+the back to think about what they have done.&#8221;
+Yellow Bird joined them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Or for smart thieves to tell where they left
+their stolen horses.&#8221; Bear Chief dropped cross-legged
+near them.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Or for those whose forked tongue talks love
+to two women at once to use it for himself.&#8221; The
+voice was sneering.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Smith, you&#8217;re up against it!&#8221; the prisoner
+said to himself.</p>
+<p>As the others came up the hill, they enlarged
+the half-circle which now faced him. Recovering
+himself, he eyed them indifferently, one by one.</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have enemies, friends,&#8221; he said.</p>
+<p>&#8220;White Antelope had no enemies,&#8221; Yellow Bird
+replied.</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Indian woman had no enemies,&#8221; said Running
+Rabbit.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is our friends who steal our horses&#8221;&mdash;Bear
+Chief&#8217;s voice was even and unemotional.</p>
+<p>Their behavior puzzled Smith. They seemed now
+to be in no hurry. Without gibes or jeers, they sat
+as if waiting for something or somebody. What
+was it? He asked himself the question over and
+over again. They listened with interest to the
+stories of his prowess and adventures. He flattered
+them collectively and individually, and they
+responded sometimes in praise as fulsome as has
+own. All the knowledge, the tact, the wit, of which
+he was possessed, he used to gain time. If only he
+could hold them until the sun rose. But why had
+they brought him there? With all his adroitness
+and subtlety, he could get no inkling of their intentions.
+The suspense got on Smith&#8217;s nerves,
+though he gave no outward sign. The first gray
+light of morning came, and still they waited. The
+east flamed.</p>
+<p>&#8220;It will be hot to-day,&#8221; said Running Rabbit.
+&#8220;The sky is red.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Then the sun showed itself, glowing like a red-hot
+stove-lid shoved above the horizon.</p>
+<p>In silence they watched the coming day.</p>
+<p>&#8220;This limestone draws the heat,&#8221; said Smith,
+and he laid aside his coat. &#8220;But it suits me. I
+hates to be chilly.&#8221;</p>
+<p>Bear Chief stood up, and they all arose.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are like us&mdash;you like the sun. It is warm;
+it is good. Look at it. Look long time, white
+man!&#8221;</p>
+<p>There was something ominous in his tone, and
+Smith moistened his short upper lip with the tip
+of his tongue.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Over there is the ranch where the white woman
+lives. Look&mdash;look long time, white man!&#8221; He
+swung his gaunt arm to the west.</p>
+<p>&#8220;You make the big talk, Injun,&#8221; sneered Smith,
+but his mouth was dry.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Up there is the sky where the clouds send
+messages, where the sun shines to warm us and the
+moon to light us. There&#8217;s antelope over there in
+the foothills, and elk in the mountains, and sheep
+on the peaks. You like to hunt, white man, same
+as us. Look long time on all&mdash;for you will never
+see it again!&#8221;</p>
+<p>The sun rose higher and hotter while the Indian
+talked. He had not finished speaking when Smith
+said:</p>
+<p>&#8220;God!&#8221;</p>
+<p>A look of indescribable horror was on his face.
+His skin had yellowed, and he stared into the crevice
+at his feet. Now he understood! He knew why
+they waited on the limestone hill! An odor, scarcely
+perceptible as yet, but which, faint as it was, sickened
+him, told him his fate. It was the unmistakable
+odor of rattlesnakes!</p>
+<p>The crevice below was a breeding-place, a rattlesnakes&#8217;
+den. Smith had seen such places often, and
+the stench which came from them when the sun
+was hot was like nothing else in the world. The
+recollection alone was almost enough to nauseate
+him, and he always had ridden a wide circle at
+the first whiff.</p>
+<p>His aversion for snakes was like a pre-natal
+mark. He avoided cowpunchers who wore rattlesnake
+bands on their hats or stretched the skin over
+the edge of the cantle of their saddles. He always
+slept with a hair rope around his blankets when he
+spent a night in the open. He would not sit in a
+room where snake-rattles decorated the parlor
+mantel or the organ. A curiosity as to how they
+had learned his peculiarity crept through the paralyzing
+horror which numbed him, and as if in answer
+the scene in the dining-room of the ranch rose before
+him. &#8220;I hates snakes and mouse-traps goin&#8217;
+off,&#8221; he had said. Yes, he remembered.</p>
+<p>The Indians looked at his yellow skin and at
+his eyes in which the horror stayed, and laughed.
+He did not struggle when they stood him, mute,
+upon his feet and bound him, for Smith knew Indians.
+His lips and chin trembled; his throat,
+dry and contracted, made a clicking sound when
+he swallowed. His knees shook, and he had no
+power to control the twitching muscles of his arms
+and legs.</p>
+<p>&#8220;He dances,&#8221; said Yellow Bird.</p>
+<p>As the sun rose higher and streamed into the
+crevice, the overpowering odor increased with the
+heat. The yellow of Smith&#8217;s skin took on a greenish
+tinge.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ugh!&#8221; An Indian laid his hand upon his
+stomach. &#8220;Me sick!&#8221;</p>
+<p>A bit of limestone fell into the crevice and
+bounded from one shelf of rock to the other. Upon
+each ledge a nest of rattlesnakes basked in the
+sun, and a chorus of hisses followed the fall of
+the stone.</p>
+<p>&#8220;They sing! Their voices are strong to-day,&#8221;
+said Running Rabbit.</p>
+<p>The Indians threw Smith upon the edge of the
+crevice, face downward, so that he could look below.
+With his staring, bloodshot eyes he saw them
+all&mdash;dozens of them&mdash;a hundred or more! Crawling
+on the shelves and in the bottom, writhing, wriggling,
+hissing, coiled to strike! Every marking,
+every shading, every size&mdash;Smith saw them all with
+his bulging, fascinated eyes. The Indians stoned
+them until a forked tongue darted from every
+mouth and every wicked eye flamed red.</p>
+<p>The thick rope was tied under Smith&#8217;s arms, and
+a noose thrown over a huge rock. They shoved him
+over the edge&mdash;slowly&mdash;looking at him and each
+other, laughing a little at the sound of reptile fury
+from below. It was the end. Smith&#8217;s eyes opened
+before they let him drop, and his lips drew back
+from his white, slightly protruding teeth. They
+thought he meant to beg at last, and, rejoicing,
+waited. He looked like a coyote, a coyote when its
+ribs are crushed, its legs broken; when its eyes
+are blurred with the death film, and its mouth drips
+blood. He gathered himself&mdash;he was all but fainting&mdash;and
+threw back his head, looking at Bear
+Chief. He snarled&mdash;there was no tenderness in his
+voice when he gave the message:</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell <i>her</i>, you damned Injuns&mdash;tell the Schoolmarm
+I died game, me&mdash;Smith!&#8221;</p>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p>TITLES SELECTED FROM</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.4em;'>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP&#8217;S LIST</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset &amp; Dunlap&#8217;s list.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE SECOND WIFE</span>. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated
+by W. W. Fawcett. Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four
+colors and gold.</p>
+<p>An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in
+a wealthy New York family involving the happiness of a
+beautiful young girl.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY</span>. By Grace Miller White.
+Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.</p>
+<p>An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New
+York college town, with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes
+a great sacrifice for love.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING</span>. By Grace Miller
+White.
+Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws.</p>
+<p>Another story of &#8220;the storm country.&#8221; Two beautiful children
+are kidnapped from a wealthy home and appear many years
+after showing the effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind
+their disappearance.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE LIGHTED MATCH</span>. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated
+by R. F. Schahelitz.</p>
+<p>A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and
+falls in love with an American man. There are ties that bind her
+to someone in her own home, and the great plot revolves round
+her efforts to work her way out.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>MAUD BAXTER</span>. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will
+Grefe.</p>
+<p>A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American
+girl and a young man who had been impressed into English
+service during the Revolution.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE HIGHWAYMAN</span>. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by
+Will Grefe.</p>
+<p>A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love
+of an Englishman of title. Developments of a startling character
+and a clever untangling of affairs hold the reader&#8217;s interest.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE PURPLE STOCKINGS</span>. By Edward Salisbury Field.
+Illustrated in colors; marginal illustrations.</p>
+<p>A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart,
+his sentimental stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all
+mixed up in a misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the
+way of comedy in years. A story with a laugh on every page.</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>Ask for a complete free list of G. &amp; D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.</p>
+<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>Grosset &amp; Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:1.6em;'>The Master&#8217;s Violin</p>
+<p>By MYRTLE REED</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='figleft'>
+<img src='images/illus-ad1.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 120px; height: 159px;' /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>A Love Story with a musical atmosphere.
+A picturesque, old
+German virtuoso is the reverent
+possessor of a genuine Cremona.
+He consents to take as
+his pupil a handsome youth who
+proves to have an aptitude for
+technique, but not the soul of
+the artist. The youth has led the
+happy, careless life of a modern,
+well-to-do young American, and
+he cannot, with his meagre past,
+express the love, the longing, the passion and the tragedies
+of life and its happy phases as can the master who
+has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into
+his existence, a beautiful bit of human driftwood that
+his aunt had taken into her heart and home; and through
+his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life
+has to give&mdash;and his soul awakens.</p>
+<p>Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not
+often recognized or discussed.</p>
+<hr class='mini' />
+
+<p>If you have not read <span style='font-variant: small-caps'>&#8220;Lavender and Old Lace</span>&#8221; by the
+same author, you have a double pleasure in store&mdash;for
+these two books show Myrtle Reed in her most delightful,
+fascinating vein&mdash;indeed they may be considered as masterpieces
+of compelling interest.</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>Ask for a complete free list of G. &amp; D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.</p>
+<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>Grosset &amp; Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:1.6em;'>The Prodigal Judge</p>
+<p>By VAUGHAN KESTER</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This great novel&mdash;probably the most popular book in
+this country to-day&mdash;is as human as a story from the pen
+of that great master of &#8220;immortal laughter and immortal
+tears,&#8221; Charles Dickens.</p>
+<p>The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on,
+a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn
+is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive
+politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the
+American man. He has his own code of morals&mdash;very
+exalted ones&mdash;but honors them in the breach rather than
+in the observance.</p>
+<p>Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon
+Mahaffy&mdash;fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with
+a sublime capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps,
+clings little Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage
+nothing is known until the end of the story. Hannibal
+is charmed into tolerance of the Judge&#8217;s picturesque
+vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed
+into placing all her affairs, both material and sentimental,
+in the hands of this delightful old vagabond.</p>
+<p>The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of
+fictional characters as surely as David Harum or Col.
+Sellers. He is a source of infinite delight, while this story
+of Mr. Kester&#8217;s is one of the finest examples of American
+literary craftmanship.</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>Ask for a complete free list of G. &amp; D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.</p>
+<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>Grosset &amp; Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p>A FEW OF</p>
+<p>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP&#8217;S</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.6em;'>Great Books at Little Prices</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker.</p>
+<p>A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that
+a visit is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas
+about things quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her
+nephew is a shining light. The way in which matters are temporarily
+adjusted forms the motif of the story.</p>
+<p>A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of &#8220;Seven Days&#8221;</p>
+<p>THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA
+CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips. Illustrated.</p>
+<p>A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in
+political and social life in Washington. He attains power in politics,
+and a young woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking
+his education in social amenities.</p>
+<p>&#8220;DOC.&#8221; GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated
+by Frank T. Merrill.</p>
+<p>Against the familiar background of American town life, the
+author portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery.
+&#8220;Doc.&#8221; Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his
+assistant, a beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter
+are all involved in the plot. A novel of great interest.</p>
+<p>HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli.</p>
+<p>A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with
+society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers
+and others, each presenting vital problems to this man &#8220;in
+holy orders&#8221;&mdash;problems that we are now struggling with in America.</p>
+<p>KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece.</p>
+<p>Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly
+birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice.</p>
+<p>The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer&#8217;s career,
+and the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one.</p>
+<p>THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell
+Illustrated by T. de Thulstrup.</p>
+<p>A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi,
+a glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third
+rate Parisian theatre. A story as dainty as a Watteau painting.</p>
+<p>SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illustrated
+by C. W. Relyea.</p>
+<p>The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St.
+Petersburg in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans.</p>
+<p>The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who
+hesitates&mdash;but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates
+may be lost and yet saved.</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>Grosset &amp; Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p>TITLES SELECTED FROM</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.6em;'>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP&#8217;S LIST</p>
+<div style='margin-top:1em'></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset &amp; Dunlap&#8217;s list.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>A CERTAIN RICH MAN</span>. By William Allen White.</p>
+<p>A vivid, startling portrayal of one man&#8217;s financial greed, its
+wide spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on
+the three women most intimately in his life. A splendid, entertaining
+American novel.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>IN OUR TOWN</span>. By William Allen White. Illustrated by F.
+R. Gruger and W. Glackens.</p>
+<p>Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor,
+involving the town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the
+bohemian set, and many others. All humorously related and sure
+to hold the attention.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>NATHAN BURKE</span>. By Mary S. Watts.</p>
+<p>The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose
+to prominence. Everyday humor of American rustic life permeates
+the book.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE HIGH HAND</span>. By Jacques Futrelle. Illustrated by Will
+Grefe.</p>
+<p>A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the
+soil on the one side, and a &#8220;kid glove&#8221; politician on the other.
+A pretty girl, interested in both men, is the chief figure.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE BACKWOODSMEN</span>. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated.</p>
+<p>Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage
+beauty of the wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst
+is well protrayed.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS</span>. By Herbert Quick.</p>
+<p>A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever
+folks take a trip through the National Park, and tell stories around
+camp fire at night. Brilliantly clever and original.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE PROFESSOR&#8217;S MYSTERY</span>. By Wells Hastings and
+Brian Hooker. Illustrated by Hanson Booth.</p>
+<p>A young college professor, missing his steamer for Europe,
+has a romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and
+is enveloped in a big mystery.</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>Ask for a complete free list of G. &amp; D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.</p>
+<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>Grosset &amp; Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:1.6em;'>B. M. Bower&#8217;s Novels</p>
+<p style='font-size:1.2em;'>Thrilling Western Romances</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>CHIP, OF THE FLYING U</span></p>
+<p>A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and
+Delia Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip&#8217;s
+jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue
+eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of
+the American Cow-puncher.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE HAPPY FAMILY</span></p>
+<p>A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of
+eighteen jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst
+them, we find Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative
+powers cause many lively and exciting adventures.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT</span></p>
+<p>A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners
+who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness
+of a Montana ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the
+fascinating Beatrice, and the effusive Sir Redmond, become living,
+breathing personalities.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE RANGE DWELLERS</span></p>
+<p>Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist.
+Spirited action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo
+and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story,
+without a dull page.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS</span></p>
+<p>A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author,
+among the cowboys of the West, in search of &#8220;local color&#8221; for a
+new novel. &#8220;Bud&#8221; Thurston learns many a lesson while following
+&#8220;the lure of the dim trails&#8221; but the hardest, and probably the most
+welcome, is that of love.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE LONESOME TRAIL</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Weary&#8221; Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional
+city life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush,
+pungent with the atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of
+a pair of large brown eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome
+love story.</p>
+<p><span style='text-decoration:underline'>THE LONG SHADOW</span></p>
+<p>A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor,
+life of a mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play
+the game of life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from
+start to finish.</p>
+<hr class='minor' />
+
+<div class='ce'>
+<p style='font-size:0.8em;'>Ask for a complete free list of G. &amp; D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.</p>
+<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>Grosset &amp; Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- generated by ppgen.rb version: 2.58 -->
+<!-- timestamp: Sun Dec 07 17:42:35 -0700 2008 -->
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Me-Smith', by Caroline Lockhart
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'ME-SMITH' ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27438-h.htm or 27438-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Me-Smith', by Caroline Lockhart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'Me-Smith'
+
+Author: Caroline Lockhart
+
+Illustrator: Gayle Hoskins
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #27438]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'ME-SMITH' ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES--THAT LOOK AS IF YOU HADN'T
+NOTHIN' TO HIDE--IS IT TRUE?" Page 59]
+
+
+
+
+"ME-SMITH"
+
+BY
+
+CAROLINE LOCKHART
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+GAYLE HOSKINS
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1911
+By J. B. Lippincott Company
+
+Published February 15, 1911
+Second printing, February 25, 1911
+Third printing, March 5, 1911
+Fourth printing, March 20, 1911
+Fifth Printing, June 5, 1911
+Sixth Printing, July 1, 1911
+Seventh Printing, August 17, 1911
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+     I.  "Me--Smith"                                 11
+    II.  On the Alkali Hill                          18
+   III.  The Empty Chair                             29
+    IV.  A Swap in Saddle Blankets                   48
+     V.  Smith Makes Medicine with the Schoolmarm    58
+    VI.  The Great Secret                            79
+   VII.  Cupid "Wings" a Deputy Sheriff              95
+  VIII.  The Bug-hunter Elucidates                  110
+    IX.  Speaking Of Grasshoppers----               123
+     X.  Mother Love and Savage Passion Conflict    130
+    XI.  The Best Horse                             142
+   XII.  Smith Gets "Hunks"                         156
+  XIII.  Susie's Indian Blood                       162
+   XIV.  The Slayer of Mastodons                    169
+    XV.  Where a Man Gets a Thirst                  190
+   XVI.  Tinhorn Frank Smells Money                 205
+  XVII.  Susie Humbles Herself to Smith             213
+ XVIII.  A Bad "Hombre"                             228
+   XIX.  When The Clouds Played Wolf                240
+    XX.  The Love Medicine of the Sioux             248
+   XXI.  The Murderer of White Antelope             272
+  XXII.  A Mongolian Cupid                          293
+ XXIII.  In Their Own Way                           303
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                         PAGE
+
+"That Look in Your Eyes--That Look as if You
+Hadn't Nothin' to Hide--is it True?"             Frontispiece
+
+"She's a Game Kid, All Right," Said Smith
+to Himself at the Top of the Hill.                         22
+
+It Meant Death--but it was Wet!--it was Water!            196
+
+Smith Reached for the Trailing Rope and They
+Were Gone!                                                284
+
+They Quirted Their Horses at Breakneck Speed
+In the Direction of the Bad Lands.                        308
+
+
+
+
+"ME--SMITH"
+
+I
+
+"ME--SMITH"
+
+
+A man on a tired gray horse reined in where a dim cattle-trail dropped
+into a gulch, and looked behind him. Nothing was in sight. He half closed
+his eyes and searched the horizon. No, there was nothing--just the same
+old sand and sage-brush, hills, more sand and sage-brush, and then to the
+west and north the spur of the Rockies, whose jagged peaks were white with
+a fresh fall of snow. The wind was chill. He shivered, and looked to the
+eastward. For the last few hours he had felt snow in the air, and now he
+could see it in the dim, gray mist--still far off, but creeping toward
+him.
+
+For the thousandth time, he wondered where he was. He knew vaguely that he
+was "over the line"--that Montana was behind him--but he was riding an
+unfamiliar range, and the peaks and hills which are the guide-boards of
+the West meant nothing to him. So far as he knew, he was the only human
+being within a hundred miles. His lips drew back in a half-grin and
+exposed a row of upper teeth unusually white and slightly protruding. He
+was thinking of the meeting with the last person to whom he had spoken
+within twenty-four hours. He closed one eye and looked up at the sun. Yes,
+it was just about the same time yesterday that a dude from the English
+ranch, a dude in knee breeches and shiny-topped riding boots, had galloped
+confidently toward him. He had dismounted and pretended to be cinching his
+saddle. When the dude was close enough Smith had thrown down on him with
+his gun.
+
+"Feller," he had said, "I guess I'll have to trade horses with you. And
+fall off quick, for I'm in kind of a hurry."
+
+The grin widened as he thought of the dude's surprised eyes and the dude's
+face as he dropped out of the saddle without a word. Smith had stood his
+victim with his hands above his head while he pulled the saddle from his
+horse and threw it upon his own. The dude rode a saddle with a double
+cinch, and the fact had awakened in the Westerner a kind of interest. He
+had even felt a certain friendliness for the man he was robbing.
+
+"Feller," he had asked, "do you come from the Manana country?"
+
+"From Chepstow, Monmouth County, Wales," the dude had replied, in a
+shaking voice.
+
+"Where did you get that double-rigged saddle, then?"
+
+"Texas."
+
+The answer had pleased Smith.
+
+"You ain't losin' none on this deal," he had then volunteered. "This horse
+that you just traded for is a looker when he is rested, and he can run
+like hell. You can go your pile on him. Just burn out that lazy S brand
+and run on your own. You can hold him easy, then. I like a feller that
+rides a double-rigged saddle in a single-rigged country. S'long, and keep
+your hands up till I'm out of range."
+
+"Thank you," the dude had replied feebly.
+
+When Smith had ridden for a half a mile he had turned to look behind him.
+The dude was still standing with his hands high above his head.
+
+"I wonder if he's there yet?" The man on horseback grinned.
+
+He reached in the pocket of his mackinaw coat and took out a handful of
+sugar.
+
+"You can travel longer on it nor anything," he muttered.
+
+He congratulated himself that he had filled his pocket from the
+booze-clerk's sugar-bowl before the mix came. The act was characteristic
+of him, as was the forethought which had sent him to the door to pick the
+best saddle-horse at the hitching-post, before the lead began to fly.
+
+The man suddenly realized that the mist in the east was denser, and
+spreading. He jabbed the spurs into his horse and sent the jaded animal
+sliding on its fetlocks down the steep and rocky trail that led into the
+dry bed of a creek which in the spring flowed bank high. In the bottom he
+pulled his horse to its haunches and leaned from his saddle to look at a
+foot-print in a little patch of smooth sand no larger than his two hands.
+The print had been made by a moccasined foot, and recently; otherwise the
+wind would have wiped it out.
+
+He threw his leg over the cantle of the saddle and stepped softly to the
+ground. Dropping the reins, he looked up and down the gulch. Then he drew
+his rifle from the scabbard and began to hunt for more tracks. As he
+searched, his movements were no longer those of a white man. His
+pantomime, stealthy, cautious, was the pantomime of the Indian. He crept
+up the gulch to a point where it turned sharply. His stealth became the
+stealth of the coyote. In spite of the leather soles and exaggerated high
+heels of the boots he wore his movements were absolutely noiseless.
+
+An Indian of middle age, in blue overalls, moccasins, a limp felt hat
+coming far down over his braided hair, a gaily striped blanket drawn about
+his shoulders, stood in an attitude of listening, carelessly holding a
+cheap, single-barrelled shotgun. He had heard the horse sliding down the
+trail and was waiting for it to appear on the bench above.
+
+The stranger took in the details of the Indian's costume, but his eye
+rested longest upon the gay blanket. He might need a blanket with that
+snow in the air. It looked like a good blanket. It seemed to be thick and
+was undoubtedly warm.
+
+The Indian saw him the instant he rose from his hiding-place behind a huge
+sage-brush. Startled, the red man instinctively half raised his gun. The
+stranger gave the sign of attention, then, touching his breast and lifting
+his hand slightly, told him in the sign language used by all tribes that
+"his heart was right"--he was a friend.
+
+The Indian hesitated and lowered his gun, but did not advance. The
+stranger then asked him where he would find the nearest house, and whether
+it was that of a white or a red man. In swift pantomime, the Indian told
+him that the nearest house was the home of a "full-blood," a woman, a fat
+woman, who lived five miles to the southeast, in a log cabin, on running
+water.
+
+Before he turned to go, the stranger again touched his breast and raised
+his hand above his heart to reiterate his friendship. He took a half-dozen
+steps, then whirled on his heel. As he did so, he brought his rifle on a
+line with the Indian's back, which was toward him. Simultaneously with the
+report, the Indian fell on his back on the side of the gulch. He drew up
+his leg, and the stranger, thinking he had raised it for a gun-rest,
+riddled him with bullets.
+
+The white man's bright blue eyes gleamed; the pupils were like pin-points.
+The grin which disclosed his protruding teeth was like the snarl of a dog
+before it snaps. The expression of the man's face was that of animal
+ferocity, pure and simple. He edged up cautiously, but there was no
+further movement from the Indian. He had been dead when he fell. The white
+man gave a short laugh when he realized that the raising of the leg had
+been only a muscular contraction. To save the blanket from the blood which
+was soiling it, he tore it from the limp, unresisting shoulders, and
+rubbed it in the dirt to obliterate the stain. He cursed when he saw that
+a bullet had torn in it two jagged, tell-tale holes.
+
+He glanced at the Indian's moccasins, then, stooping, ripped one off. He
+examined it with interest. It was a Cree moccasin. The Indian was far from
+home. He examined the centre seam: yes, it was sewed with deer-sinew.
+
+"The Crees can tan to beat the world," he muttered, "but I hates the shape
+of the Cree moccasin. The Piegans make better." He tossed it from him
+contemptuously and picked up the shotgun.
+
+"No good." He threw it down and straightened the Indian's head with the
+toe of his boot. "I despises to lie cramped up, myself."
+
+Returning to his horse, he removed his saddle, and folded the Indian's
+blanket inside of his own. Then he recinched his saddle, and turned his
+horse's head to the southeast, where "the full-blood--the woman, the fat
+woman--lived in a log cabin by running water."
+
+He glanced over his shoulder as he spurred his horse to a gallop.
+
+"I'm a killer, me--Smith," he said, and grinned.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ON THE ALKALI HILL
+
+
+There was at least an hour and a half of daylight left when Smith struck a
+wagon-road. He looked each way doubtfully. The woman's house was quite as
+likely to be to the right as to the left; there was no way of telling.
+While he hesitated, his horse lifted its ears. Smith also thought he heard
+voices. Swinging his horse to the right, he rode to the edge of the bench
+where the road made a steep and sudden drop.
+
+At the bottom of the hill he saw a driver on the spring-seat of a round-up
+wagon urging two lean-necked and narrow-chested horses up the hill. They
+were smooth-shod, and, the weight of the wagon being out of all proportion
+to their strength, they fell often in their futile struggles. At the side
+of the road near the top of the hill the water oozed from an alkali
+spring, which kept the road perpetually muddy. The horses were straining
+every nerve and muscle, their eyes bulging and nostrils distended, and
+still the driver, loudmouthed and vacuously profane, lashed them
+mercilessly with the stinging thongs of his leather whip. Smith, from the
+top of the hill, watched him with a sneer on his face.
+
+"He drives like a Missourian," he muttered.
+
+He could have helped the troubled driver, knowing perfectly well what to
+do, but it would have entailed an effort which he did not care to make. It
+was nothing to him whether the round-up wagon got up the hill that
+night--or never.
+
+Smith thought the driver was alone until he began to back the team to rush
+the hill once more. Then he heard angry exclamations coming from the rear
+of the wagon--exclamations which sounded not unlike the buzzing of an
+enraged bumble-bee. He stretched his neck and saw that which suggested an
+overgrown hoop-snake rolling down the hill. At the bottom a little
+mud-coated man stood up. The part of his face that was visible above his
+beard was pale with anger. His brown eyes gleamed behind mud-splashed
+spectacles.
+
+"Oscar Tubbs," he demanded, "why did you not tell me that you were about
+to back the wagon?"
+
+"I would have did it if I had knowed myself that the team were goin' to
+back," replied Tubbs, in the conciliatory tone of one who addresses the
+man who pays him his wages.
+
+The man in spectacles groaned. "Three inexcusable errors in one sentence.
+Oscar Tubbs, you are hopeless!"
+
+"Yep," replied that person resignedly; "nobody never could learn me
+nothin'. Onct I knowed----"
+
+"Stop! We have no time for a reminiscence. Have you any reason to believe
+that we can get up this hill to-night?"
+
+"No chanst of it. These buzzard-heads has drawed every poun' they kin
+pull. But I has some reason to believe that if you don't hist your hoofs
+out'n that mud-hole, you'll bog down. You're up to your pant-leg now. Onct
+I knowed----"
+
+The little man threw out his hand in a restraining gesture, and Tubbs,
+foiled again, closed his lips and watched his employer stand back on one
+leg while he pulled the other out of the mud with a long, sucking sound.
+
+"What for an outfit is that, anyhow?" mused Smith, watching the
+proceedings with some interest. "He looks like one of them bug-hunters.
+He's got a pair of shoulders on him like a drink of water, and his legs
+look like the runnin'-gears of a katydid."
+
+So intently were they all engaged in watching the man's struggles that no
+one observed a girl on a galloping horse until she was almost upon them.
+She sat her sturdy, spirited pony like a cowboy. She was about sixteen,
+with a suggestion of boyishness in her appearance. Her brown hair, worn in
+a single braid, was bleached to a lighter shade on top, as if she rode
+always with bared head. Her eyes were gray, in curious contrast to a tawny
+skin. She was slight to scrawniness, and, one might have thought,
+insufficiently clad for the time of year.
+
+"Bogged down, pardner?" she inquired in a friendly voice, as she rode up
+behind and drew rein. "I've been in that soap-hole myself. Here, ketch to
+my pommel, and I'll snake you out."
+
+Smiling dubiously he gripped the pommel. The pony had sunk to its knees,
+and as it leaped to free itself the little man's legs fairly snapped in
+the air.
+
+"I thank you, Miss," he said, removing his plaid travelling cap as he
+dropped on solid ground. "That was really quite an adventure."
+
+"This mud is like grease," said the girl.
+
+"Onct I knowed some mud----" began the driver, but the little man,
+ignoring him, said:
+
+"We are in a dilemma, Miss. Our horses seem unable to pull our wagon up
+the hill. Night is almost upon us, and our next camping spot is several
+miles beyond."
+
+"This is the worst grade in the country," replied the girl. "A team that
+can haul a load up here can go anywhere. What's the matter with that
+fellow up there? Why don't he help?"--pointing to Smith.
+
+"He has made no offer of assistance."
+
+"He must be some Scissor-Bill from Missouri. They all act like that when
+they first come out."
+
+"Onct some Missourians I knowed----"
+
+"Oscar Tubbs, if you attempt to relate another reminiscence while in my
+employ, I shall make a deduction from your wages. I warn you--I warn you
+in the presence of this witness. My overwrought nerves can endure no more.
+Between your inexpiable English and your inopportune reminiscences, I am a
+nervous wreck!" The little man's voice ended on high C.
+
+"All right, Doc, suit yourself," replied Tubbs, temporarily subdued.
+
+"And in Heaven's name, I entreat, I implore, do not call me 'Doc'!"
+
+"Sorry I spoke, Cap."
+
+The little man threw up both hands in exasperation.
+
+"Say, Mister," said the girl curtly to Tubbs, "if you'll take that hundred
+and seventy pounds of yourn off the wagon and get some rocks and block the
+wheels, I guess my cayuse can help some." As she spoke, she began
+uncoiling the rawhide riata which was tied to her saddle.
+
+"I appreciate the kindness of your intentions, Miss, but I cannot permit
+you to put yourself in peril." The little man was watching her
+preparations with troubled eyes.
+
+"No peril at all. It's easy. Croppy can pull like the devil. Wait till you
+see him lay down on the rope. That yap up there at the top of the hill
+could have done this for you long ago. Here, Windy"--addressing
+Tubbs--"tie this rope to the X, and make a knot that will hold."
+
+[Illustration: "SHE'S A GAME KID, ALL RIGHT," SAID SMITH TO HIMSELF AT
+THE TOP OF THE HILL.]
+
+The girl's words and manner inspired confidence. Interest and relief were
+in the face of the little man standing at the side of the road.
+
+"Now, Windy, hand me the rope. I'll take three turns around my
+saddle-horn, and when I say 'go' you see that your team get down in their
+collars."
+
+"She's a game kid, all right," said Smith to himself at the top of the
+hill.
+
+When the sorrel pony at the head of the team felt the rope grow taut on
+the saddle-horn, it lay down to its work. The grit and muscle of a dozen
+horses seemed concentrated in the little cayuse. It pulled until every
+vein and cord in its body appeared to stand out beneath its skin. It lay
+down on the rope until its chest almost touched the ground. There was a
+look of determination that was almost human in its bright, excited eyes as
+it strained and struggled on the slippery hillside with no word of urging
+from the girl. She was standing in one stirrup, one hand on the cantle,
+the other on the pommel, watching everything with keen eyes. She issued
+orders to Tubbs like a general, telling him when to block the wheels, when
+to urge the exhausted team to greater efforts, when to relax. Nothing
+escaped her. She and the little sorrel knew their work. As the man at the
+roadside watched the gallant little brute struggle, literally inch by
+inch, up the terrible grade he felt himself choking with excitement and
+making inarticulate sounds. At last the rear wheels of the wagon lurched
+over the hill and stood on level ground, while the horses, with spreading
+legs and heaving sides, gasped for breath.
+
+"Awful tired, ain't you, Mister?" the girl asked dryly, of the stranger on
+horseback, as she recoiled her rope with supple wrist and tied it again to
+the saddle by the buckskin thongs.
+
+"Plumb worn to a frazzle," Smith replied with cool impudence, as he looked
+her over in much the same manner as he would have eyed a heifer on the
+range. "I was whipped for working when I was a boy, and I've always
+remembered."
+
+"It must be quite a ride--from the brush back there in Missouri where you
+was drug up."
+
+"I ranges on the Sundown slope," he replied shortly.
+
+"They have sheep-camps over there, then?"
+
+Again the slurring insinuation pricked him.
+
+"Oh, I can twist a rope and ride a horse fast enough to keep warm."
+
+"So?"--the inflection was tantalizing. "Was that horse gentled for your
+grandmother?"
+
+He eyed her angrily, but checked the reply on his tongue.
+
+"Say, girl, can you tell me where I can find that fat Injun woman's tepee
+who lives around here?"
+
+"You mean my mother?"
+
+He looked at her with new interest.
+
+"Does she live in a log cabin on a crick?"
+
+"She did about an hour ago."
+
+"Is your mother a widder?"
+
+"Lookin' for widders?"
+
+"I likes widders. It happens frequent that widders are sociable
+inclined--especially if they are hard up," he added insolently.
+
+"Oh, you're ridin' the grub-line?" Her insolence equalled his own.
+
+"Not yet;" and he took from his pocket a thick roll of banknotes.
+
+"Blood money? Some sheep-herder's month's pay, I guess."
+
+"You're a good guesser."
+
+"Not very--you're easy."
+
+The girl's dislike for Smith was as unreasoning and violent as was her
+liking for the excitable little man whom she had helped up the hill, and
+whose wagon was now rumbling close at her horse's heels.
+
+They all travelled together in silence until, after a mile and a half on
+the flat, the road sloped gradually toward a creek shadowed by willows. On
+the opposite side of the creek were a ranch-house, stables, and corrals,
+the extent of which brought a glint of surprise to Smith's eyes.
+
+"That's where the widder lives who might be sociable inclined if she was
+hard up," said the girl, with a sneer which made Smith's fingers itch to
+choke her. "Couldn't coax you to stop, could I?"
+
+"I aims to stay," Smith replied coolly.
+
+"Sure--it won't cost you nothin'."
+
+The girl waited for the wagon, and, with a change of manner in marked
+contrast to her impudent attitude toward Smith, invited the little man to
+spend the night at the ranch.
+
+"We should not be intruders?" he asked doubtfully.
+
+"You won't feel lonesome," she answered with a laugh. "We keep a kind of
+free hotel."
+
+"Colonel, I cakalate we better lay over here," broke in Tubbs.
+
+His employer winced at this new title, but nodded assent; so they all
+forded the shallow stream and entered the dooryard together.
+
+"Mother!" called the girl.
+
+One of the heavy plank doors of the long log-house opened, and a short
+woman, large-hipped, full-busted--in appearance a typical blanket
+squaw--stood in the doorway. Her thick hair was braided Indian fashion,
+her fingers adorned with many rings. The wide girdle about her waist was
+studded with brass nail-heads, while gaily-beaded moccasins covered her
+short, broad feet. Her eyes were soft and luminous, like an animal's when
+it is content; but there was savage passion too in their dark depths.
+
+"This is my mother," said the girl briefly. "I am Susie MacDonald."
+
+"My name is Peter McArthur, madam."
+
+The little man concealed his surprise as best he could, and bowed.
+
+The girl, quick to note his puzzled expression, explained laconically:
+
+"I'm a breed. My father was a white man. You're on the reservation when
+you cross the crick."
+
+Recovering himself, the stranger said politely:
+
+"Ah, MacDonald--that good Scotch name is a very familiar one to me. I had
+an uncle----"
+
+"I go show dem where to turn de horses," interrupted the Indian woman, to
+whom the conversation was uninteresting. So, without ceremony, she padded
+away in her moccasins, drawing her blanket squaw-fashion across her face
+as she waddled down the path.
+
+At the mission the woman had obtained the rudiments of an education.
+There, too, she had learned to cut and make a dress, after a crude,
+laborious fashion, and had acquired the ways of the white people's
+housekeeping. She was noted for the acumen which she displayed in
+disposing of the crop from her extensive hay-ranch to the neighboring
+white cattlemen; and MacDonald, the big, silent Scotch MacDonald who had
+come down from the north country and married her before the reservation
+priest, was given the credit for having instilled into her some of his own
+shrewdness and thrift.
+
+In the corral the Indian woman came upon Smith. He turned his head slowly
+and looked at her. For a second, two, three seconds, or more, they looked
+into each other's eyes. His gaze was confident, masterful, compelling;
+hers was wondering, until finally she dropped her eyes in the submissive,
+modest, half-shy way of Indian women.
+
+Smith moistened his short upper lip with the tip of his tongue, while the
+shadow of a smile lurked at the corner of his mouth. He turned to his
+saddle, again, and without speaking, she watched him until he had gone
+into the barn. His saddle lay on the ground, half covering his blankets.
+Something in this heap caught the woman's eyes and held them. Swooping
+forward, she caught a protruding corner between her thumb and finger and
+pulled a gay, striped blanket from the rest. Lifting it to her nose, she
+smelled it. Smith saw the act as he came out of the door, but there was
+neither consternation nor fear in his face. Smith knew Indian women.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE EMPTY CHAIR
+
+
+Peter McArthur came into the big living-room of the ranch-house bearing
+tenderly in his arms a long brown sack. He set it upon a chair, and, as he
+patted it affectionately, he said to the Indian woman in explanation:
+
+"These are some specimens which I have been fortunate enough to find in a
+limestone formation in the country through which we have just passed. No
+doubt you will be amused, madam, but the wealth of Croesus could not buy
+from me the contents of this canvas sack."
+
+"I broke a horse for that son-of-a-gun onct. He owes me a dollar and six
+bits for the job yet," remarked Tubbs.
+
+The fire of enthusiasm died in McArthur's eyes as they rested upon his
+man.
+
+"What for a prospect do you aim to open up in a limestone formation?"
+
+Smith, tipped on the rear legs of his chair, with his head resting
+comfortably against the unbleached muslin sheeting which lined the walls,
+winked at Tubbs as he asked the question.
+
+"'What for a prospect'?" repeated McArthur.
+
+"Yes, 'prospect'--that's what I said. You say you've got your war-bag full
+of spec'mens."
+
+McArthur laughed heartily.
+
+"Ah, my dear sir, I understand. You are referring to mines--to mineral
+specimens. These are the specimens of which I am speaking."
+
+Opening the sack, McArthur held up for inspection what looked to be a lump
+of dried mud.
+
+"This is a magnificent specimen of the crustacean period," he declared.
+
+The Indian woman looked from the prized object to his animated face; then,
+with puzzled eyes, she looked at Smith, who touched his forehead with his
+finger, making a spiral, upward gesture which in the sign language says
+"crazy."
+
+The woman promptly gathered up the rag rug she was braiding and moved to a
+bench in the farthermost corner of the room.
+
+"I can get you a wagon-load of chunks like that."
+
+"Oh, my dear sir----"
+
+"Smith's my name."
+
+"But, Mr. Smith----"
+
+"I trusts no man that 'Misters' me," Smith scowled. "Every time I've ever
+been beat in a deal, it's been by some feller that's called me 'Mister.'
+Jest Smith suits me better."
+
+"Certainly, if you prefer," amicably replied McArthur, although
+unenlightened by the explanation.
+
+He replaced his specimen and tied the sack, convinced that it would be
+useless to explain to this person that fossils like this were not found
+by the wagon-load; that perhaps in the entire world there was not one in
+which the branchiocardiac grooves were so clearly defined, in which the
+emostigite and the ambulatory legs were so perfectly preserved.
+
+He seemed a singular person, this Smith. McArthur was not sure that he
+fancied him.
+
+"Say, Guv'ner, what business do you follow, anyhow?" Tubbs asked the
+question in the tone of one who really wanted to get at the bottom of a
+matter which had troubled him. "Air you a bug-hunter by trade, or what?
+I've hauled you around fer more'n a month now, and ain't figgered it out
+what you're after. We've dug up ant-hills and busted open most of the
+rocks between here and the North Fork of Powder River, but I've never seen
+you git anything yet that anybuddy'd want."
+
+In the beginning of their tour, Tubbs's questions and caustic comment
+would have given McArthur offense, but a longer acquaintance had taught
+him that none was intended; that his words were merely those of a man
+entirely without knowledge upon any subject save those which had come
+under his direct observation. While Tubbs frequently exasperated him
+beyond expression, he found at the same time a certain fascination in the
+man's incredible ignorance. In many respects his mind was like that of a
+child, and his horizon as narrow as McArthur's own, though his companion
+did not suspect it. The little scientist saw life from the viewpoint of a
+small college and a New England village; Tubbs knew only the sage-brush
+plains.
+
+McArthur now replied dryly, but without irritation:
+
+"My real trade--'job,' if you prefer--is anthropology. Strictly speaking,
+I might, I think, be called an anthropologist."
+
+"Gawd, feller!" ejaculated Smith in mock dismay. "Don't tip your hand like
+that. I'm a killer myself, but I plays a lone game. I opens up to no man
+or woman livin'."
+
+Tubbs looked slightly ashamed of his employer.
+
+"Pardon me?"
+
+"I say, never give nobody the cinch on you. Many a good man's tongue has
+hung him."
+
+McArthur studied Smith's unsmiling face in perplexity, not at all sure
+that he was not in earnest.
+
+They sat in silence after this, even Tubbs being too hungry to indulge in
+reminiscence.
+
+The odor of frying steak filled the room, and the warmth from the round
+sheet-iron stove gave Smith, in particular, a delicious sense of comfort.
+He felt as a cat on a comfortable cushion must feel after days and nights
+of prowling for food and shelter. The other two men, occupied with their
+own thoughts, closed their eyes; but not so Smith. Nothing, to the
+smallest detail, escaped him. He appraised everything with as perfect an
+appreciation of its value as an auctioneer.
+
+Through the dining-room door which opened into the kitchen, he could see
+the kitchen range--a big one--the largest made for private houses. Smith
+liked that. He liked things on a big scale. Besides, it denoted
+generosity, and he had come to regard a woman's kitchen as an index to her
+character. He distinctly approved of the big meat-platter upon which the
+Chinese cook was piling steak. He eyed the mongrel dog lying at the Indian
+woman's feet, and noted that its sides were distended with food. He was
+prejudiced against, suspicious of, a woman who kept lean dogs.
+
+In the same impersonal way in which he eyed her belongings, he looked at
+the woman who owned it all. She was far too stout to please his taste, but
+he liked her square shoulders and the thickness of them; also her hair,
+which was long for an Indian woman's. She was too short in the body. He
+wondered if she rode. He had a peculiar aversion for women short in the
+body who rode on horseback. This woman could love--all Indian women can do
+that, as Smith well knew--love to the end, faithfully, like dogs.
+
+In the general analysis of his surroundings, Smith looked at Tubbs, openly
+sneering as he eyed him. He was like a sheep-dog that never had been
+trained. And McArthur? Innocent as a yearling calf, and honest as some
+sky-pilots.
+
+"Glub's piled!" yelled the cook from the kitchen door. "Come an' git it."
+
+Tubbs all but fell off his chair.
+
+At the back door the cook hammered on a huge iron triangle with a poker,
+in response to which sound a motley half-dozen men filed from a nearby
+bunk-house at a gait very nearly resembling a trot.
+
+The long dining-table was covered with a red table-cloth, and at each end
+piles of bread and fried steak rose like monuments. At each place there
+was a platter, and beside it a steel knife, a fork, and a tin spoon.
+
+The bunk-house crowd wasted no time in ceremony. Poising their forks above
+the meat-platter in a candid search for the most desirable piece, they
+alternately stabbed chunks of steak and bread.
+
+Their platters once loaded with a generous sample of all the food in
+sight, they fell upon it with unconcealed relish. Eating, McArthur
+observed, was a business; there was no time for the amenities of social
+intercourse until the first pangs of hunger were appeased. The Chinese
+cook, too, interested him as he watched him shuffling over the hewn plank
+floor in his straw sandals. A very different type, this swaggering
+Celestial, from the furtive-eyed Chinamen of the east. His tightly coiled
+cue was as smooth and shining as a king-snake, his loose blouse was
+immaculate, and the flippant voice in which he demanded in each person's
+ear, "Coffee? Milk?" was like a challenge. Whatever the individual's
+choice might be, he got it in a torrent in his stone-china cup.
+
+There was no attempt at conversation, and only the clatter and rattle of
+knives, forks, and dishes was heard until a laugh from an adjoining room
+broke the silence--a laugh that was mirthless, shrill, and horrible.
+
+McArthur sent a startled glance of inquiry about the table. The laugh was
+repeated, and the sound was even more wild and maniacal. The little man
+was shocked at the grin which he noted upon each face.
+
+"She ought to take a feather and ile her voice," observed a guest known as
+"Meeteetse Ed."
+
+McArthur could not resist saying indignantly:
+
+"The unfortunate are to be pitied, my dear sir."
+
+"This is jest a mild spasm she's havin' now. You ought to hear her when
+she's warmed up."
+
+McArthur was about to administer a sharper rebuke when the door opened and
+Susie came out.
+
+"How's that for a screech?" she demanded triumphantly.
+
+"You'd sure make a bunch of coyotes take fer home," Meeteetse Ed replied
+flatteringly.
+
+"You have come in my way not once or twice, but thrice; and now you die!
+Ha! Ha!" Reaching for a spoon, Susie stabbed Meeteetse Ed on the second
+china button of his flannel shirt.
+
+"I'd rather die than have you laff in my ear like that," declared
+Meeteetse.
+
+"Next time I'm goin' to learn a comical piece."
+
+"Any of 'em's comical enough," replied a husky voice from the far end of
+the table. "I broke somethin' inside of me laffin' at that one about your
+dyin' child."
+
+"I don't care," Susie answered, unabashed by criticism. "Teacher says I've
+got quite a strain of pathos in me."
+
+"You ought to do somethin' for it," suggested a new voice. "Why don't you
+bile up some Oregon grape-root? That'll take most anything out of your
+blood."
+
+"Or go to Warm Springs and get your head examined." This voice was
+Smith's.
+
+"Could they help _you_ any?" The girl's eyes narrowed and there was
+nothing of the previous good-natured banter in her shrill tones.
+
+Smith flushed under the shout of mocking laughter which followed. He tried
+to join in it, but the glitter of his blue eyes betrayed his anger.
+
+The incident sobered the table-full, and silence fell once more, until
+McArthur, feeling that an effort toward conversation was a duty he owed
+his hostess, cleared his throat and inquired pleasantly:
+
+"Have any fragments ever been found in that red formation which I observed
+to the left of us, which would indicate that this vicinity was once the
+home of the mammoth dinosaur?"
+
+Too late he realized that the question was ill-advised. As might be
+expected, it was Tubbs who broke the awkward silence.
+
+"Didn't look to me, as I rid along, that it ever were the home of
+anybuddy. A homestid's no good if you can't git water on it."
+
+McArthur hesitated, then explained: "The dinosaur was a prehistoric
+reptile," adding modestly, "I once had the pleasure of helping to restore
+an armored dinosaur."
+
+"If ever I gits a rope on one of them things, I'll box him up and ship him
+on to you," said Tubbs generously. Then he inquired as an afterthought:
+"Would he snap or chaw me up a-tall?"
+
+"What's a prehysteric reptile?" interrupted Susie.
+
+"This particular reptile was a big snake, with feet, that lived here when
+this country was a marsh," McArthur explained simply, for Susie's
+benefit.
+
+The guests exchanged incredulous glances, but it was Meeteetse Ed who
+laughed explosively and said:
+
+"Why, Mister, they ain't been a sixteenth of an inch of standin' water on
+this hull reserve in twenty year."
+
+"Better haul in your horns, feller, when you're talkin' to a real prairie
+man." Smith's contemptuous tone nettled McArthur, but Susie retorted for
+him.
+
+"Feller," mocked Susie, "looks like you're mixed. You mean when he's
+talkin' to a Yellow-back. No real prairie man packs a chip on his shoulder
+all the time. That buttermilk you was raised on back there in Missoury has
+soured you some."
+
+Again an angry flush betrayed Smith's feeling.
+
+"A Yellow-back," Susie explained with gusto in response to McArthur's
+puzzled look, "is one of these ducks that reads books with
+buckskin-colored covers, until he gets to thinkin' that he's a Bad Man
+himself. This here country is all tunnelled over with the graves of
+Yellow-backs what couldn't make their bluffs stick; fellers that just knew
+enough to start rows and couldn't see 'em through."
+
+"Generally," said Smith evenly, as he stared unblinkingly into Susie's
+eyes, "when I starts rows, I sees 'em through."
+
+"And any time," Susie answered, staring back at him, "that you start a row
+on _this_ ranch, you've _got_ to see it through."
+
+The grub-liners raised their eyes in surprise, for there was unmistakable
+ill-feeling in her voice. It was unlike her, this antagonistic attitude
+toward a stranger, for, as they all knew, her hospitality was unlimited,
+and every passer-by whose horse fed at the big hayrack was regarded and
+treated as a welcome friend.
+
+There was rarely malice behind the sharp personalities which she flung at
+random about the table. Knowing no social distinctions, Susie was no
+respecter of persons. She chaffed and flouted the man who wintered a
+thousand head of cattle with the same impartiality with which she gibed
+his blushing cowpuncher. Her good-nature was a byword, as were her
+generosity and boyish daring. Susie MacDonald was a local celebrity in her
+way, and on the big hay-ranch her lightest word was law.
+
+But the mere presence of this new-comer seemed to fill her with
+resentment, making of her an irrepressible young shrew who gloated openly
+in his angry confusion.
+
+"Speakin' of Yellow-backs," said Meeteetse, with the candid intent of
+being tactful, "reminds me of a song a pardner of mine wrote up about 'em
+once. Comical? _T'--t'--t'--!_" He wagged his head as if he had no words
+in which to describe its incomparable humor. "He had another song that was
+a reg'lar tear-starter: 'Whar the Silver Colorady Wends Its Way.' Ever
+hear it? It's about a feller that buried his wife by the silver Colorady,
+and turned outlaw. This pardner of mine used to beller every time he sung
+it. He cried like he was a Mormon, and he hadn't no more wife than a jack
+rabbit."
+
+"Some songs is touchin'," agreed Arkansaw Red.
+
+"This was," declared Meeteetse. "How she faded day by day, till a pale,
+white corp' she lay! If I hadn't got this cold on me----"
+
+"I hate to see you sufferin', Meeteetse, but if it keeps you from
+warblin'----"
+
+He ignored Susie's implication, and went on serenely:
+
+"Looks like it's settled on me for life, and it all comes of tryin' not to
+be a hog."
+
+"I hope it'll be a lesson to you," said Susie soberly.
+
+"That there Bar C cowpuncher, Babe, comes over the other night, and, the
+bunk-house bein' full, I offers him half my blankets. I never put in such
+a night since I froze to death on South Pass. For fair, I'd ruther sleep
+with a two-year-ole steer--couldn't kick no worse than that Babe. Why them
+blankets was in the air more'n half the time, with him pullin' his way,
+and me snatchin' of 'em back. Finally I gits a corner of a soogan in my
+teeth, and that way I manages a little sleep. I vows I'd ruther be a hog
+and git a night's rest than take in such a turrible bed-feller as him."
+
+Apropos of the restless Babe, one James Padden observed: "They say he's
+licked more'n half the Bar C outfit."
+
+"Lick 'em!" exclaimed Meeteetse, with enthusiasm. "Why, he could eat 'em!
+He jest tapped me an easy one and nigh busted my jaw. If he ever reely
+hit you with that fist of his'n, it ud sink in up to the elbow. I ast him
+once: 'Babe,' I says, 'how big are you anyhow?' 'Big?' he says surprised.
+'I ain't big. I'm the runt of the family. Pa was thirty-two inches between
+the eyes, and they fed him with a shovel.'"
+
+Susie giggled at some thought, and then inquired:
+
+"Did anybody ever see that horse he's huntin'? He says it's a two-year-old
+filly that he thinks the world of. It's brown, with a star in its
+forehead, and one hip is knocked down. He never hunts anywhere except on
+that road past the school-house, and he stops at the pump each way--goin'
+and comin'. I never saw anybody with such a thirst. He looks in the window
+while he's drinkin', and swallows a gallon of water at a time, and don't
+know it."
+
+"Love is a turrible disease." Tubbs spoke with the emphasis of conviction.
+"It's worse'n lump-jaw er blackleg. It's dum nigh as bad as glanders. It's
+ketchin', too, and I holds that anybody that's got it bad ought to be
+dipped and quarantined. I knowed a feller over in Judith Basin what
+suffered agonies with it for two months, then shot hisself. There was
+seven of 'em tyin' their horses to the same Schoolmarm's hitchin'-post."
+
+"Take a long-geared Schoolmarm in a woolly Tam-o'-shanter, and she's a
+reg'lar storm-centre," vouchsafed the husky voice of "Banjo" Johnson.
+
+"They is! They is!" declared Meeteetse, with more feeling than the
+occasion seemed to warrant.
+
+The knob of a door adjoining the dining-room turned, and the grub-liners
+straightened in their chairs. Susie's eyes danced with mischief as she
+leaned toward Meeteetse and asked innocently:
+
+"They is _what_?"
+
+But with the opening of the door the voluble Meeteetse seemed to be
+stricken dumb.
+
+As a young woman came out, Smith stared, and instinctively McArthur half
+rose from his chair. Believing his employer contemplated flight, Tubbs
+laid a restraining hand upon his coat-tail, while inadvertently he turned
+his knife in his mouth with painful results.
+
+The young woman who seated herself in one of the two unoccupied chairs was
+not of the far West. Her complexion alone testified to this fact, for the
+fineness and whiteness of it were conspicuous in a country where the
+winter's wind and burning suns of summer tan the skins of men and women
+alike until they resemble leather in color and in texture. Had this young
+woman possessed no other good feature, her markedly fine complexion alone
+would have saved her from plainness. But her thick brown hair, glossy, and
+growing prettily about her temples, was equally attractive to the men who
+had been used to seeing only the straight, black hair of the Indian women,
+and Susie's sun-bleached pigtail, which, as Meeteetse took frequent
+occasion to remind her, looked like a hair-cinch. Her eyes, set rather too
+far apart for beauty, were round, with pupils which dilated until they all
+but covered the blue iris; the eyes of an emotional nature, an imaginative
+mind. Her other features, though delicate, were not exceptional, but the
+_tout ensemble_ was such that her looks would have been considered above
+the average even in a country where pretty girls were plentiful. In her
+present surroundings, and by contrast with the womenfolk about her, she
+was regarded as the most beautiful of her sex. Her manner, reserved to the
+point of stiffness, and paralyzing, as it did, the glibbest masculine
+tongue among them, was also looked upon as the acme of perfection and all
+that was desirable in young ladyhood; each individual humbly admitting
+that while he never before had met a real lady, he knew one when he saw
+her.
+
+The young woman returned McArthur's bow with a friendly smile, his action
+having at once placed him as being "different." Noting the fact, the
+grub-liners resolved not to be outdone in future in a mere matter of
+bows.
+
+While nearly every arm was outstretched with an offer of food, Susie
+leaned forward and whispered ostentatiously behind her hand to Smith:
+
+"Don't you make any cracks. That's the Schoolmarm."
+
+"I've been around the world some," Smith replied curtly.
+
+"The south side of Billings ain't the world."
+
+It was only a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town
+save by hearsay, but it made a bull's-eye. Susie knew it by the startled
+look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled her as
+she snickered.
+
+"Mister McArthur and Mister Tubbs, I'll make you acquainted with Miss
+Marshall."
+
+With elaborate formality of tone and manner, Susie pointed at each
+individual with her fork while mentioning them by name.
+
+"Miss Marshall," McArthur murmured, again half rising.
+
+"Much obliged to meet you," said Tubbs heartily as, bowing in imitation of
+his employer, he caught the edge of his plate on the band of his trousers
+and upset it.
+
+Everybody stopped eating during this important ceremony, and now all
+looked at Smith to see what form his acknowledgment of the coveted
+introduction to the Schoolmarm would take.
+
+Smith in turn looked expectantly at Susie, who met his eyes with a mocking
+grin.
+
+"Anything I can reach for you, Mister Smith?" she inquired. "Looks like
+you're waitin' for something."
+
+Smith's face and the red table-cloth were much the same shade as he
+looked annihilation at the little half-breed imp.
+
+Each time that Dora Marshall raised her eyes, they met those of Smith.
+There was nothing of impertinence in his stare; it was more of awe--a kind
+of fascinated wonder--and she found herself speculating as to who and what
+he was. He was not a regular "grub-liner," she was sure of that, for he
+was as different in his way as McArthur. He had a personality, not exactly
+pleasant, but unique. Though he was not uncommonly tall, his shoulders
+were thick and broad, giving the impression of great strength. His jaw was
+square, but it evidenced brutality rather than determination. His nose, in
+contrast to the intelligence denoted by his high, broad forehead, was
+mediocre, inconsequential, the kind of a nose seldom seen on the person
+who achieves. The two features were those of the man who conceives big
+things, yet lacks the force to execute them.
+
+His eyes were unpleasantly bloodshot, but whether from drink or the alkali
+dust of the desert, it was impossible to determine; and when Susie prodded
+him they had in them all the vicious meanness of an outlaw bronco. His
+expression then held nothing but sullen vindictiveness, while every trait
+of a surly nature was suggested by his voice and manner.
+
+During the Schoolmarm's covert study of him, he laughed unexpectedly at
+one of Meeteetse Ed's sallies. The effect was little short of marvellous;
+it completely transformed him. An unlooked-for dimple deepened in one
+cheek, his eyes sparkled, his entire countenance radiated for a moment a
+kind of boyish good-nature which was indescribably winning. In the brief
+space, whatever virtues he possessed were as vividly depicted upon his
+face as were his unpleasant characteristics when he was displeased. So
+marked, indeed, was his changed expression, that Susie burst out with her
+usual candor as she eyed him:
+
+"Mister, you ought to laugh all the time."
+
+Contributing but little toward the conversation, and that little chiefly
+in the nature of flings at Susie, Smith was yet the dominant figure at the
+table. While he antagonized, he interested, and although his insolence was
+no match for Susie's self-assured impudence, he still impressed his
+individuality upon every person present.
+
+He was studied by other eyes than Dora's and Susie's. Not one of the looks
+which he had given the former had escaped the Indian woman. With the
+Schoolmarm's coming, she had seen herself ignored, and her face had grown
+as sullen as Smith's own, while the smouldering glow in her dark eyes
+betrayed jealous resentment.
+
+"Have a cookie?" urged Susie hospitably, thrusting a plate toward Tubbs.
+"Ling makes these 'specially for White Antelope."
+
+"No, thanks, I've et hearty," declared Tubbs, while McArthur shuddered.
+"I've had thousands."
+
+"Why, where is White Antelope?" Susie looked in surprise at the vacant
+chair, and asked the question of her mother.
+
+Involuntarily Smith's eyes and those of the Indian woman met. He read
+correctly all that they contained, but he did not remove his own until her
+eyelids slowly dropped, and with a peculiar doggedness she drawled:
+
+"He go way for l'il visit; 'bout two, t'ree sleeps maybe."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A SWAP IN SADDLE BLANKETS
+
+
+"Madam," said McArthur, intercepting the Indian woman the next morning
+while she was on her way from the spring with a heavy pail, "I cannot
+permit you to carry water when I am here to do it for you."
+
+In spite of her surprised protest, he gently took the bucket from her
+hand.
+
+"Look at that dude," said Smith contemptuously, viewing the incident
+through the living-room window. "Queerin' hisself right along. No more
+_sabe_ than a cotton-tail rabbit. That's the worse thing he could do.
+Feller"--turning to Tubbs--"if you want to make a winnin' with a woman,
+you never want to fetch and carry for her."
+
+"I knows it," acquiesced Tubbs. "Onct I was a reg'lar doormat fer one, and
+I only got stomped on fer it."
+
+"I can wrangle Injuns to a fare-ye-well," Smith continued. "Over on the
+Blackfoot I was the most notorious Injun wrangler that ever jumped up;
+and, feller, on the square, I never run an errant for one in my life."
+
+"It's wrong," agreed Tubbs.
+
+"There's that dude tryin' to make a stand-in, and spilin' his own game
+all the time by talkin'. You can't say he talks, neither; he just opens
+his mouth and lets it say what it damn pleases. Is them real words he gets
+off, or does he make 'em up as he goes along?"
+
+"Search me."
+
+"I'll tip you off, feller: if ever you want to make a strong play at an
+Injun woman, you don't want to shoot off your mouth none. Keep still and
+move around just so, and pretty soon she'll throw you the sign. Did you
+ever notice a dog trottin' down the street, passin' everybody up till all
+to once it takes a sniff, turns around, and follers some feller off?
+That's an Injun woman."
+
+"I never had no luck with squaws, and the likes o' that," Tubbs confessed.
+"They're turrible hands to git off together and poke fun at you."
+
+As McArthur and the Indian woman came in from the kitchen, he was saying
+earnestly to her:
+
+"I feel sure that here, madam, I should entirely recover my health.
+Besides, this locality seems to me such a fertile field for research that
+if you could possibly accommodate my man and me with board, you may not be
+conferring a favor only upon me, but indirectly, perhaps, upon the world
+of science. I have with me my own bath-tub and pneumatic mattress."
+
+Tubbs, seeing the Indian woman's puzzled expression, explained:
+
+"He means we'll sleep ourselves if you will eat us."
+
+The woman nodded.
+
+"Oh, you can stay. I no care."
+
+Smith frowned; but McArthur, much pleased by her assent, told Tubbs to
+saddle a horse at once, that he might lose no time in beginning his
+investigations.
+
+"If it were my good fortune to unearth a cranium of the Homo primogenus, I
+should be the happiest man in the world," declared McArthur, clasping his
+fingers in ecstasy at the thought of such unparalleled bliss.
+
+"What did I tell you?" said Smith, accompanying Tubbs to the corral. "He's
+tryin' to win himself a home."
+
+"Looks that way," Tubbs agreed. "These here bug-hunters is deep."
+
+The saddle blanket which Tubbs pulled from their wagon and threw upon the
+ground, with McArthur's saddle, caught Smith's eye instantly, because of
+the similarity in color and markings to that which he had folded so
+carefully inside his own. This was newer, it had no disfiguring holes, or
+black stain in the corner.
+
+"What's the use of takin' chances?" he asked himself as he looked it
+over.
+
+While Tubbs was catching the horse in the corral, Smith deftly exchanged
+blankets, and Tubbs, to whom most saddle blankets looked alike, did not
+detect the difference.
+
+Upon returning to the house, Smith found the Indian woman wiping breakfast
+dishes for the cook. She came into the living-room when he beckoned to
+her, with the towel in her hand. Taking it from her, he wadded it up and
+threw it back into the kitchen.
+
+"Don't you know any better not to spoil a cook like that, woman?" he
+asked, smiling down upon her. "You never want to touch a dish for a cook.
+Row with 'em, work 'em over, keep 'em down--but don't humor 'em. You can't
+treat a cook like a real man. Ev'ry reg'lar cook has a screw loose or he
+wouldn't be a cook. Cookin' ain't no man's job. I never had no use for
+reg'lar cooks--me, Smith.
+
+"All you women need ribbing up once in awhile," he added, as, laying his
+hand lightly on her arm, he let it slide its length until it touched her
+fingers. He gave them a gentle pressure and resumed his seat against the
+wall.
+
+The woman's eyes glowed as she looked at him. His authoritative attitude
+appealed to her whose ancestors had dressed game, tanned hides, and
+dragged wood for their masters for countless generations. The growing
+passion in her eyes did not escape Smith.
+
+In the long silence which followed he looked at her steadily; finally he
+said:
+
+"Well, I guess I'll saddle up. You look 'just so' to me, woman--but I got
+to go."
+
+She laid down the rags of her mat and "threw him the sign" for which he
+had waited. It said:
+
+"My heart is high; it is good toward you. Talk to me--talk straight."
+
+He shook his head sadly.
+
+"No, no, Singing Bird; I am headed for the Mexican border--many, many
+sleeps from here."
+
+She arose and walked to his side.
+
+He felt a sudden and violent dislike for her flabby, swaying hips, her
+heavy step, as she moved toward him. He knew that the game was won, and
+won so easily it was a school-boy's play.
+
+"Why you go?" she demanded, and the disappointment in her eyes was so
+intense as to resemble fear. "What you do dere?"
+
+He looked at her through half-closed eyes.
+
+"Did you ever hear of wet horses?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I deals in wet horses--me, Smith."
+
+The woman stared at him uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Down there on the border," he explained, "you buy the horses on the
+Mexico side. You buy 'em when the Mexican boss is asleep in his 'dobe, so
+there's no kick about the price. You swim 'em across the Rio Grande and
+sell 'em to the Americano waitin' on the other side."
+
+"You buy de wet horse?"
+
+"No, by Gawd,--I wet 'em!"
+
+"Why you steal?"
+
+He looked at her contemptuously.
+
+"Why does anybody steal? I need the dinero--me, Smith."
+
+"You want money?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I always want money. I never had enough but once in my life, and then I
+had too much. Gold is hell to pack," he added reminiscently.
+
+"I have de fine hay-ranch, white man, de best on de reservation. Two, four
+t'ousand dollars I have when de hay is sold. De ranch is big"--her arms
+swept the horizon to show its extent. "You stay here and make de bargain
+with de cattlemen, and I give you so much"--she measured a third of her
+hand with her forefinger. "If dat is not enough, I give you so much"--she
+measured the half of her hand with her forefinger. "If dat not enough, I
+give you all." She swept the palm of one hand with the other.
+
+Smith dropped his eyelids, that she might not see the triumph shining
+beneath them.
+
+"I must think, Prairie Flower."
+
+"No, white man, you no think. You stay!"
+
+Smith, who had arisen, slipped his arm about her ample waist. She pulled
+aside his Mackinaw coat and laid her head upon his breast.
+
+"The white man's heart is strong," she said softly.
+
+"It beats for you, Little Fawn;" and he ran out his tongue in derision.
+
+All the morning she sat on the floor at his feet, braiding the rags for
+her mat, content to hear him speak occasionally, and to look often into
+his face with dog-like devotion. It was there Susie saw her when she
+returned from school earlier in the afternoon than usual, and was beckoned
+into the kitchen by Ling.
+
+"He's makin' a mash," said Ling laconically, as he jerked his thumb toward
+the open door of the living-room.
+
+All the girlish vivacity seemed to go out of Susie's face in her first
+swift glance. It hardened in mingled shame and anger.
+
+"Mother," she said sharply, "you promised me that you wouldn't sit on the
+floor like an Injun."
+
+"We're gettin' sociable," said Smith mockingly.
+
+The woman glanced at Smith, and hesitated, but finally got up and seated
+herself on the bench.
+
+"Why don't you try bein' 'sociable' with the Schoolmarm?" Susie sneered.
+
+"Maybe I will."
+
+"And _maybe_ you won't get passed up like a white chip!"
+
+"Oh, I dunno. I've made some winnings."
+
+"I can tell that by your eyes. You got 'em bloodshot, I reckon, hangin'
+over the fire in squaw camps. White men can't stand smoke like Injuns."
+
+This needle-tongued girl jabbed the truth into him in a way which
+maddened him, but he said conciliatingly:
+
+"We don't want to quarrel, kid."
+
+"You mean _you_ don't." Susie slammed the door behind her.
+
+The child's taunt reawakened his interest in the Schoolmarm. He thought of
+her riding home alone, and grew restless. Besides, the dulness began to
+bore him.
+
+"I'll saddle up, Prairie Flower, and look over the ranch. When I come back
+I'll let you know if it's worth my while to stay."
+
+Tubbs was sitting on the wagon-tongue, mending harness, when Smith went
+out,
+
+"Aimin' to quit the flat?" inquired Tubbs.
+
+"Feller, didn't that habit of askin' questions ever git you in trouble?"
+
+"Well I guess _so_," Tubbs replied candidly. "See that scar under my
+eye?"
+
+"I'd invite you along to tell me about it," said Smith sardonically,
+"only, the fact is, feller, I'm goin' down the road to make medicine with
+the Schoolmarm."
+
+Tubbs's eyes widened.
+
+"Gosh!" he ejaculated enviously. "I wisht I had your gall."
+
+Before Smith swung into the saddle he pulled out a heavy silver watch
+attached to a hair watch-chain.
+
+"Just the right time," he nodded.
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"I say, if it was only two o'clock, or three, I wouldn't go."
+
+"You wouldn't? I'll tell you about me: I'd go if it was twelve o'clock at
+night and twenty below zero to ride home with that lady."
+
+"Feller," said Smith, in a paternal tone, "you never want to make a break
+at a woman before four o'clock in the afternoon. You might just as well go
+and lay down under a bush in the shade from a little after daylight until
+about this time. You wouldn't hunt deer or elk in the middle of the day,
+would you? No, nor women--all same kind of huntin'. They'll turn you down
+sure; white or red--no difference."
+
+"Is that so?" said Tubbs, in the awed voice of one who sits at the feet of
+a master.
+
+"When the moon's out and the lamps are lit, they'll empty their sack and
+tell you the story of their lives. I don't want to toot my horn none, but
+I've wrangled around some. I've hunted big game and humans. Their habits,
+feller, is much the same."
+
+While Smith was galloping down the road toward the school-house, Susie was
+returning from a survey of the surrounding country, which was to be had
+from a knoll near the house.
+
+"Mother," she said abruptly, "I feel queer here." She laid both hands on
+her flat, childish breast and hunched her shoulders. "I feel like
+something is goin' to happen."
+
+"What happen, you think?" her mother asked listlessly.
+
+"It's something about White Antelope, I know."
+
+The woman looked up quickly.
+
+"He go visit Bear Chief, maybe." There was an odd note in her voice.
+
+"He wouldn't go away and stay like this without telling you or me. He
+never did before. He knows I would worry; besides, he didn't take a horse,
+and he never would walk ten miles when there are horses to ride. His gun
+isn't here, so he must have gone hunting, but he wouldn't stay all night
+hunting rabbits; and he couldn't be lost, when he knows the country as
+well as you or me."
+
+"He go to visit," the Indian woman insisted doggedly.
+
+"If he isn't home to-morrow, I'm goin' to hunt him, but I know something's
+wrong."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SMITH MAKES MEDICINE WITH THE SCHOOLMARM
+
+
+Once out of sight of the house, Smith let his horse take its own gait,
+while he viewed the surrounding country with the thoughtful consideration
+of a prospective purchaser. As he gazed, its possibilities grew upon him.
+If water was to be found somewhere in the Bad Lands the location of the
+ranch was ideal for--certain purposes.
+
+The Bar C cattle-range bounded the reservation on the west; the MacDonald
+ranch, as it was still called, after the astute Scotch squawman who had
+built it, was close to the reservation line; and beyond the sheltering Bad
+Lands to the northeast was a ranch where lived certain friendly persons
+with whom he had had most satisfactory business relations in the past.
+
+A plan began to take definite shape in his active brain, but the head of a
+sleepy white pony appearing above the next rise temporarily changed the
+course of his thoughts, and with his recognition of its rider life took on
+an added zest.
+
+Dora Marshall, engrossed in thought, did not see Smith until he pulled his
+hat-brim in salutation and said:
+
+"You're a thinker, I take it."
+
+"I find my work here absorbing," she replied, coloring under his steady
+look.
+
+He turned his horse and swung it into the road beside her.
+
+"I was just millin' around and thought I'd ride down the road and meet
+you." Further than this brief explanation, he did not seem to feel it
+incumbent upon him to make conversation. Apparently entirely at his ease
+in the silence which followed, he turned his head often and stared at her
+with a frank interest which he made no effort to conceal. Finally he
+shifted his weight to one stirrup and, turning in his saddle so that he
+faced her, he asked bluntly:
+
+"That look in your eyes--that look as if you hadn't nothin' to hide--is it
+true? Is it natural, as you might say, or do you just put it on?"
+
+Her astonished expression led him to explain.
+
+"It's like lookin' down deep into water that's so clear you can see the
+sand shinin' in the bottom; one of these places where there's no mud or
+black spots; nothin' you can't see or understand. _Sabe_ what I mean?"
+
+Since she did not answer, he continued:
+
+"I've met up with women before now that had that same look, but only at
+first. It didn't last; they could put it on and take it off like they did
+their hats."
+
+"I don't know that I am quite sure what you mean," the girl replied,
+embarrassed by the personal nature of his questions and comments; "but if
+you mean to imply that I affect this or that expression, for a purpose,
+you misjudge me."
+
+"I was just askin'," said Smith.
+
+"I think I am always honest of purpose," the girl went on slowly, "and
+when one is that, I think it shows in one's eyes. To be sure, I often fall
+short of my intentions. I mean to do right, and almost as frequently do
+wrong."
+
+"You do?" He eyed her with quick intentness.
+
+"Yes, don't you? Don't all of us?"
+
+"I does what I aims to do," he replied ambiguously.
+
+So she--this girl with eyes like two deep springs--did wrong--frequently.
+He pondered the admission for a long time. Smith's exact ideas of right
+and wrong would have been difficult to define; the dividing line, if there
+were any, was so vague that it had never served as the slightest
+restraint. "To do what you aim to do, and make a clean get-away"--that was
+the successful life.
+
+He had seen things, it is true; there had been incidents and situations
+which had repelled him, but why, he had never asked himself. There was one
+situation in particular to which his mind frequently reverted, as it did
+now. He had known worse women than the one who had figured in it, but for
+some reason this single scene was impressed upon his mind with a vividness
+which seemed never to grow less.
+
+He saw a woman seated at an old-fashioned organ in a country parlor. There
+was a rag-carpet on the floor--he remembered how springy it was with the
+freshly laid straw underneath it. Her husband held a lamp that she might
+see the notes, while his other hand was upon her shoulder, his adoring
+eyes upon her silly face. He, Smith, was rocking in the blue plush chair
+for which the fool with the calloused hands had done extra work that he
+might give it to the woman upon her birthday. Each time that she screeched
+the refrain, "Love, I will love you always," she lifted her chin to sing
+it to the man beaming down upon her, while upstairs her trunk was packed
+to desert him.
+
+Smith always remembered with satisfaction that he had left her in Red
+Lodge with only the price of a telegram to her husband, in her shabby
+purse.
+
+"I like your style, girl." His eyes swept Dora Marshall's figure as he
+spoke.
+
+There was a difference in his tone, a familiarity in his glance, which
+sent the color flying to the Schoolmarm's cheeks.
+
+"I think we could hit it off--you and me--if we got sociable."
+
+He leaned toward her and laid his gloved hand upon hers as it rested on
+the saddle-horn.
+
+The pupils of her eyes dilated until they all but covered the iris as she
+turned them, blazing, upon Smith.
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+
+There was no mistaking the genuineness nor the nature of the emotion which
+made her voice vibrate. But Smith considered. Was she deeper--"slicker,"
+as he phrased it to himself--than he had thought, or had he really
+misunderstood her? Surprising as was the feeling, he hoped some way, that
+it was the latter. He looked at her again before he answered gently:
+
+"I didn't mean to make you hot none, Miss. I'm ignorant in handlin' words.
+I only meant to say that I hoped you and me would be good friends."
+
+His explanation cleared her face instantly.
+
+"I am sorry if I misunderstood you; but one or two unpleasant experiences
+in this country have made me quick--too quick, perhaps--to take offense."
+
+"There's lots just lookin' for game like you. No better nor brutes," said
+Smith virtuously, entirely sincere in his sudden indignation against these
+licentious characters.
+
+Yes, the Schoolmarm had rebuffed him, as Susie had prophesied, but the
+effect of it upon him was such as neither he nor she had reckoned. As they
+rode along a swift, overpowering infatuation for Dora Marshall grew upon
+him. He felt something like a flame rising within him, burning him,
+bewildering him with its intensity. She seemed all at once to possess
+every attribute of the angels, from mere prettiness her face took on a
+radiant beauty which dazzled him, and when she spoke her lightest word
+held him breathless. As the mountain towers above the foothills, so, of a
+sudden, she towered above all other women. He had known sensations--all,
+he had believed, that it was possible to experience; but this one,
+strange, overwhelming, dazed him with its violence.
+
+Love frequently comes like this to people in the wilds, to those who have
+few interests and much time to think. The emotional side of their natures
+has been held in check until a trifle is sometimes sufficient to loose a
+torrent which nothing can then divert or check.
+
+She asked him to loop her latigo, which was trailing, and his hand shook
+as he fumbled with the leather strap.
+
+"Gawd!" he swore in bewilderment as he returned to his own horse, wiping
+his forehead with the back of his gauntlet, "what feelin' is this workin'
+on me? Am I gettin' locoed, me--Smith?"
+
+"I'm glad I've found a friend like you," said the Schoolmarm impulsively.
+"One needs friends in a country like this."
+
+"A friend!" It sounded like a jest to Smith. "A friend!" he repeated with
+an odd laugh. Then he raised his hand, as one takes an oath, and whatever
+of whiteness was left in Smith's soul illumined his face as he added:
+"Yes, to a killin' finish."
+
+If Smith had met Dora among many, the result might have been the same in
+the end, but here, in the isolation, she seemed from the first the centre
+of everything, the alpha and omega of the universe, and his passion for
+her was as great as though it were the growth of many months instead of
+less than twenty-four hours. The depth, the breadth, of it could not
+quickly be determined, nor the lengths to which it would take him. It was
+something new to be reckoned with. To what extent it would control him,
+neither Smith nor any one else could have told. He knew only that it now
+seemed the most real, the most sincere, the best thing which had ever come
+into his life.
+
+Dora Marshall knew nothing of men like Smith, or of natures like those of
+the men of the mountains and ranges, who paid her homage. Her knowledge of
+life and people was drawn from the limited experiences of a small, Middle
+West town, together with a year at a Middle West co-ed college, and as a
+result of the latter the Schoolmarm cherished a fine belief in her worldly
+wisdom, whereas, in a measure, her lack of it was one of her charms.
+Susie, in her way, was wiser.
+
+The Schoolmarm's attitude toward her daily life was the natural outcome of
+a romantic nature and an imaginative mind. She saw herself as the heroine
+of an absorbing story, the living of which story she enjoyed to the
+utmost, while every incident and every person contributed to its interest.
+Quite unconsciously, with unintentional egotism, the Schoolmarm had a way
+of standing off and viewing herself, as it were, through the rosy glow of
+romance. Yet she was not a complex character--this Schoolmarm. She had no
+soaring ambitions, though her ideals for herself and for others were of
+the best. To do her duty, to help those about her, to win and retain the
+liking of her half-savage little pupils, were her chief desires.
+
+She had her share of the vanity of her sex, and of its natural liking for
+admiration and attention, yet in the freedom of her unique environment she
+never overstepped the bounds of the proprieties as she knew them, or
+violated in the slightest degree the conventionalities to which she had
+been accustomed in her rather narrow home life. It was this reserve which
+inspired awe in the men with whom she came in contact, used as they were
+to the greater camaraderie of Western women.
+
+In her unsophistication, her provincial innocence, Dora Marshall was
+exactly the sort to misunderstand and to be misunderstood, a combination
+sometimes quite as dangerous in its results, and as provocative of
+trouble, as the intrigues of a designing woman.
+
+"I reckon you think I'm kind of a mounted bum, a grub-liner, or something
+like that," said Smith after a time.
+
+"To be frank, I _have_ wondered who you are."
+
+"Have you? Have you, honest?" asked Smith delightedly.
+
+"Well--you're different, you know. I can't explain just how, but you are
+not like the others who come and go at the ranch."
+
+"No," Smith replied with some irony; "I'm not like that there Tubbs." He
+added laconically, "I'm no angel, me--Smith."
+
+The Schoolmarm laughed. Smith's denial was so obviously superfluous.
+
+"There was a time when I'd do 'most any old thing," he went on, unmindful
+of her amusement. "It was only a few years ago that there was no law north
+of Cheyenne, and a feller got what he wanted with his gun. I got my share.
+I come from a country where they sleep between sheets, but I got a lickin'
+that wasn't comin' to me, and I quit the flat when I was thirteen. I've
+been out amongst 'em since."
+
+The desire to reform somebody, which lies dormant in every woman's bosom,
+began to stir in the Schoolmarm's.
+
+"But you--you wouldn't 'do any old thing' now, would you?"
+
+Smith hesitated, and a variety of expressions succeeded one another upon
+his face. It was an awkward moment, for, under the uplifting influence of
+the feeling which possessed him, he had an odd desire to tell this girl
+only the truth.
+
+"I wouldn't do some of the things I used to do," he replied evasively.
+
+The Schoolmarm beamed encouragement.
+
+"I'm glad of that."
+
+"I used to kill Injuns for fifty dollars a head, but I wouldn't do it
+now," he said virtuously, adding: "I'd get my neck stretched."
+
+"You've killed people--Indians--for money!" The Schoolmarm looked at him,
+wide-eyed with horror.
+
+"They was clutterin' up the range," Smith explained patiently, "and the
+cattlemen needed it for their stock. I'd 'a' killed 'em for nothin', but
+when 'twas offered, I might as well get the bounty."
+
+The Schoolmarm scarcely knew what to say; his explanation seemed so
+entirely satisfactory to himself.
+
+"I'm glad those dreadful days have gone."
+
+"They're gone all right," Smith answered sourly. "They make dum near as
+much fuss over an Injun as a white man now, and what with jumpin' up
+deputies at every turn in the road, 'tain't safe. Why, I heard a judge say
+a while back that killin' an Injun was pure murder."
+
+"I appreciate your confidence--your telling me of your life," said the
+Schoolmarm, in lieu of something better.
+
+She found him a difficult person with whom to converse. They seemed to
+have no common meeting-ground, yet, while he constantly startled and
+shocked, he also fascinated her. In one of those illuminating flashes to
+which the Schoolmarm was subject, she saw herself as Smith's guiding-star,
+leading him to the triumphant finish of the career which she believed his
+unique but strong personality made possible.
+
+It was Smith's turn to look at her. Did she think he had told her of his
+life? The unexpected dimple deepened in Smith's cheek, and as he laughed
+the Schoolmarm, again noting the effect of it, could not in her heart
+believe that he was as black as he had painted himself.
+
+"I wisht our trails had crossed sooner, but, anyhow, I'm on the square
+with you, girl. And if ever you ketch me 'talkin' crooked,' as the Injuns
+say, I'll give you my whole outfit--horse, saddle, blankets, guns, even my
+dog-gone shirt. Excuse me."
+
+The Schoolmarm glowed. Her woman's influence for good was having its
+effect! This was a step in the right direction--a long step. He would be
+"on the square" with her--she liked the way he phrased it. Already her
+mind was busy with air-castles for Smith, which would have made that
+person stare, had he known of them. An inkling of their nature may be had
+from her question:
+
+"Would you like to study, to learn from books, if you had the
+opportunity?"
+
+"I learned my letters spellin' out the brands on cattle," he said frankly,
+"and that, with bein' able to write my name on the business end of a
+check, and common, everyday words, has always been enough to see me
+through."
+
+"But when one has naturally a good mind, like yours, don't you think it is
+almost wicked not to use it?"
+
+"I got a mind all right," Smith replied complacently. "I'm kind of a
+head-worker in my way, but steady thinkin' makes me sicker nor a pup. I
+got a headache for two days spellin' out a description of myself that the
+sheriff of Choteau County spread around the country on handbills. It was
+plumb insultin', as I figgered it out, callin' attention to my eyes and
+ears and busted thumb. I sent word to him that I felt hos-tile over it.
+Sheriffs'll go too far if you don't tell 'em where to get off at once in
+awhile."
+
+The Schoolmarm ignored the handbill episode and went on:
+
+"Besides, a lack of education is such a handicap in business."
+
+"The worst handicap I has to complain of," said Smith grimly, "is the
+habit people has got into of sending money-orders through the mail,
+instead of the cash. It keeps money out of circulation, besides bein'
+discouragin' and puttin' many a hard-workin' hold-up on the bum."
+
+"But," she persisted, the real meaning of Smith's observations entirely
+escaping her, "even the rudiments of an education would be such a help to
+you, opening up many avenues that now are closed to you. What I want to
+say is this: that if you intend to stop for a time at the ranch, I will be
+glad to teach you. Susie and I have an extra session in the evening, and I
+will be delighted to have you join us."
+
+It had not dawned upon Smith that she had questioned him with this end in
+view. He looked at her fixedly, then, from the depths of his experience,
+he said:
+
+"Girl, you must like me some."
+
+Dora flushed hotly.
+
+"I am interested," she replied.
+
+"That'll do for now;" and Smith wondered if the lump in his throat was
+going to choke him. "Will I join that night-school of yours? _Will_ I?
+Watch me! Say," he burst out with a kind of boyish impulsiveness, "if ever
+you see me doin' anything I oughtn't, like settin' down when I ought to
+stand up, or standin' up when I ought to set down, will you just rope me
+and take a turn around a snubbin'-post and jerk me off my feet?"
+
+"We'll get along famously if you really want to improve yourself!"
+exclaimed the Schoolmarm, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. "If you really
+and truly want to learn."
+
+"Really and truly I do," Smith echoed, feeling at the moment that he
+would have done dressmaking or taken in washing, had she bid him.
+
+Once more the world looked big, alluring, and as full of untried
+possibilities as when he had "quit the flat" at thirteen.
+
+"Have you noticed me doin' anything that isn't manners?" he asked in
+humble anxiety. "Don't be afraid of hurtin' my feelin's," he urged, "for I
+ain't none."
+
+"If you honestly want me to tell you things, I will; but it seems so--so
+queer upon such a very short acquaintance."
+
+"Shucks! What's the use of wastin' time pretendin' to get acquainted, when
+you're acquainted as soon as you look at each other? What's the use of
+sashayin' around the bush when you meet up with somebody you like? You
+just cut loose on me, girl."
+
+"It's only a little thing, in a way, and not in itself important perhaps;
+yet it would be, too, if circumstances should take you into the world. It
+might make a bad impression upon strangers."
+
+Smith looked slightly alarmed. He wondered if she suspected anything about
+White Antelope. At the moment, he could think of nothing else he had done
+within the last twenty-four hours, which might prejudice strangers.
+
+"I noticed at the table," the Schoolmarm went on in some embarrassment,
+"that you held your fork as though you were afraid it would get away from
+you. Like this"--she illustrated with her fist.
+
+"Like a ranch-hand holdin' onto a pitch-fork," Smith suggested, relieved.
+
+"Something," she laughed. "It should be like this. Anyway," she declared
+encouragingly, "you don't eat with your knife."
+
+Smith beamed.
+
+"Did you notice that?"
+
+"Naturally, in a land of sword-swallowers, I would;" the Schoolmarm made a
+wry face.
+
+"Once I run with a high-stepper from Bowlin' Green, Kentucky, and she told
+me better nor that," he explained. "She said nothin' give a feller away
+like his habit of handlin' tools at the table. She was a lady all right,
+but she got the dope habit and threw the lamp at me. The way I quit her
+didn't trouble _me_. None of 'em ever had any holt on me when it come to a
+show-down; but you, girl, _you_----"
+
+"Look!"
+
+Her sharp exclamation interrupted him, and, following her gesture, he saw
+a flying horseman in the distance, riding as for his life, while behind
+him two other riders quirted their horses in hot pursuit.
+
+"Is it a race--for fun?"
+
+"I don't think it," Smith replied dryly, noting the direction from which
+they came. "It looks like business."
+
+He knew that the two behind were Indians. He could tell by the way they
+used their quirts and sat their horses. Neither was there any mistaking
+the bug-hunter on his ewe-necked sorrel, which, displaying unexpected
+bursts of speed, was keeping in the lead and heading straight for the
+ranch-house. With one hand McArthur was clinging to the saddle-horn, and
+with the other was clinging quite as tightly to what at a distance
+appeared to be a carbine.
+
+"He's pulled his gun--why don't he use it?" Smith quickened his horse's
+gait.
+
+He knew that the Indians had learned White Antelope's fate. That was a
+lucky swap Smith had made that morning. He congratulated himself that he
+had not "taken chances." He wondered how effective McArthur's denial would
+prove in the face of the evidence furnished by the saddle-blanket.
+Personally, Smith regarded the bug-hunter's chances as slim.
+
+"They'll get him in the corral," he observed.
+
+"Oh, it's Mr. McArthur!" Dora cried in distress.
+
+Smith looked at her in quick jealousy.
+
+"Well, what of it?" In her excitement, the gruffness of his tone passed
+unobserved.
+
+"Come," she urged. "The Indians are angry, and he may need us."
+
+Hatless, breathless, pale, McArthur rolled out of his saddle and thrust a
+long, bleached bone into Tubbs's hand.
+
+"Keep it!" he gasped. "Protect it! It may be--I don't say it is, but it
+_may_ be--a portion of the paroccipital bone of an Ichthyopterygian!" Then
+he turned and faced his pursuers.
+
+Infuriated, they rode straight at him, but he did not flinch, and the
+horses swerved of their own accord.
+
+Susie had run from the house, and her mother had followed, expectancy upon
+her stolid face, for, like Smith, she had guessed the situation.
+
+The Indians circled, and, returning, pointed accusing fingers at
+McArthur.
+
+"He kill White Antelope!"
+
+By this time, the grub-liners had reached the corral, among them four
+Indians, all friends of the dead man. Their faces darkened.
+
+"White Antelope is dead in a gulch!" cried his accusers. "He is shot to
+pieces--here, there, everywhere!"
+
+A murmur of angry amazement arose. White Antelope, the kindly, peaceable
+Cree, who had not an enemy on the reservation!
+
+"This is dreadful!" declared McArthur. "Believe me"--he turned to them
+all--"I had but found the corpse myself when these men rode up. The Indian
+was cold; he certainly had been dead for hours. Besides," he demanded,
+"what possible motive could I have?"
+
+"Them as likes lettin' blood don't need a motive." The sneering voice was
+Smith's.
+
+"But you, sir, met us on the hill. You know the direction from which we
+came."
+
+"It's easy enough to circle."
+
+"But why should I go back?" cried McArthur.
+
+"They say there's that that draws folks back for another look."
+
+Smith's insinuations, the stand he took, had its effect upon the Indians,
+who, hot for revenge, needed only this to confirm their suspicions. One of
+the Indians on horseback began to uncoil his rawhide saddle-rope. All save
+McArthur understood the significance of the action. They meant to tie him
+hand and foot and take him to the Agency, with blows and insults plentiful
+en route.
+
+They edged closer to him, every savage instinct uppermost, their faces
+dark and menacing. McArthur, his eyes sweeping the circle, felt that he
+had not one friend, not one, in the motley, threatening crowd fast closing
+in upon him; for Tubbs, hearing himself indirectly included in the
+accusation, had discreetly, and with perceptible haste, withdrawn.
+
+The Indian swung from his saddle, rope in hand, and advanced upon McArthur
+with unmistakable purpose; but he did not reach the little scientist, for
+Susie darted from the circle, her flashing gray eyes looking more
+curiously at variance than ever with her tawny skin.
+
+"No, no, Running Rabbit!" She pushed him gently backward with her
+finger-tips upon his chest.
+
+There was a murmur of protest from the crowd, and it seemed to sting her
+like a spur. Susie was not accustomed to disapproval. She turned to where
+the murmurs came loudest--from the white grub-liners, who were eager for
+excitement.
+
+"Who are you," she cried, "that you should be so quick to accuse this
+stranger? You, Arkansaw Red, that skipped from Kansas for killin' a
+nigger! You, Jim Padden, that shot a sheep-herder in cold blood! You,
+Banjo Johnson, that's hidin' out this minute! Don't you all be so darned
+anxious to hang another man, when there's a rope waitin' somewhere for
+your own necks!
+
+"And lemme tell you"--she took a step toward them. "The man that lifts a
+finger to take this bug-hunter to the Agency can take his blankets along
+at the same time, for there'll never be a bunk or a seat at the table for
+him on this ranch as long as he lives. Where's your proof against this
+bug-hunter? You can't drag a man off without something against him--just
+because you want to _hang_ somebody!"
+
+Some sound from Smith attracted her attention; she wheeled upon him, and,
+with her thin arm outstretched as she pointed at him in scorn, she cried
+shrilly:
+
+"Why, I'd sooner think _you_ did it, than him!"
+
+There was not so much as the flicker of an eyelid from Smith.
+
+"I know you'd _sooner_ think I did it than him," he said, playing upon the
+word. "You'd like to see _me_ get my neck stretched."
+
+His bravado, his very insolence, was his protection.
+
+"And maybe I'll have the chanst!" she retorted furiously.
+
+Turning from him to the Indians, her voice dropped, the harsh language
+taking on the soft accent of the squaws as she spoke to them in their own
+tongue. Like many half-breeds, Susie seldom admitted that she either
+understood or could speak the Indian language. She had an amusing fashion
+of referring even to her relatives as "those Injuns"; but now, with hands
+outstretched, she pleaded:
+
+"We are all Indians together in this--friends of White Antelope! Our
+hearts are down; they are heavy--so. You all know that he came from the
+great Cree country with my father, and he has told us many times stories
+of the big north woods, where they hunted and trapped. You know how he
+watched me when I was little, and sat with his hand upon my head when I
+had the big fever. He was like no one else to me except my father. He was
+wise and good.
+
+"I could kill with my own hand the man who killed White Antelope. I want
+his blood as much as you. I'd like to see a stake driven through his
+black heart on White Antelope's grave. But let us not be too quick because
+the hate is hot in us. My heart tells me that the white man talks
+straight. Let us wait--wait until we find the right one, and when we do we
+will punish in our own way. You hear? _In our own way!_"
+
+Smith understood something of her plea, and for the second time he paid
+her courage tribute.
+
+"She's a game kid all right," he said to himself, and a half-formed plan
+for utilizing her gameness began to take definite shape.
+
+That she had won, he knew before Running Rabbit recoiled his rope. After a
+moment's talk among themselves, the Indians went to hitch the horses to
+the wagon, to bring White Antelope's body home.
+
+Smith was well aware that he had only to point to the saddle blanket, the
+barest edge of which showed beneath the leather skirts of McArthur's
+saddle, to make Susie's impassioned defense in vain. Why he did not, he
+was not himself sure. Perhaps it was because he liked the feeling of
+power, of knowing that he held the life of the despised bug-hunter in the
+hollow of his hand; or perhaps it was because it would serve his purpose
+better to make the accusation later. One thing was certain, however, and
+that was that he had not held his tongue through any consideration for
+McArthur.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE GREAT SECRET
+
+
+It was the day they buried White Antelope that Smith approached Yellow
+Bird, a Piegan, who was among the Indians paying visits of indefinite
+length to the MacDonald ranch. "Eddie" Yellow Bird, he was called at the
+Blackfoot mission where he had learned to read and write--though he would
+never have been suspected of these accomplishments, since to all
+appearances he was a "blanket Indian."
+
+Smith spoke the Piegan tongue almost as fluently as his own, so he and
+Yellow Bird quickly became _compadres_, relating to each other stories of
+their prowess, of horses they had run off, of cattle they had stolen, and
+hinting, Indian fashion, with significant intonations and pauses, at
+crimes of greater magnitude.
+
+"How is your heart to-day, friend? Is it strong?"
+
+"Weak," replied Yellow Bird jestingly, touching his breast with a
+fluttering hand.
+
+"It would be stronger if you had red meat in your stomach," Smith
+suggested significantly.
+
+"The bacon is not for Indians," agreed Yellow Bird.
+
+"But the woman would have no cattle left if she killed only her own
+beef."
+
+"Many people stop here--strangers and friends," Yellow Bird admitted.
+
+"There is plenty on the range." Smith looked toward the Bar C ranch.
+
+"He is a dog on the trail, that white man, when his cattle are stolen,"
+Yellow Bird replied doubtfully.
+
+"I've killed dogs--me, Smith--when they got in my way. Yellow Bird, are
+you a woman, that you are afraid?"
+
+"Wolf Robe, who stole only a calf, sits like this"--Yellow Bird looked at
+Smith sullenly through his spread fingers.
+
+"You have talked with the forked tongue, Yellow Bird. You are not a Piegan
+buck of the great Blackfoot nation; you are a woman. Your fathers killed
+men; _you_ are afraid to kill cattle." Smith turned from him
+contemptuously.
+
+"My heart is as strong as yours. I am ready."
+
+It was dusk when Smith returned and held out a blood-stained flour sack to
+the squaw.
+
+"Liver. A two-year ole."
+
+The squaw's eyes sparkled. Ah, this was as it should be! Her man provided
+for her; he brought her meat to eat. He was clever and brave, for it was
+other men's meat he brought her to eat. MacDonald had killed only his own
+cattle, and secretly it had shamed her, for she mistook his honesty for
+lack of courage. To steal was legitimate; it was brave; something to be
+told among friends at night, and laughed over. Susie, she had observed
+with regret, was honest, like her father. She patted the back of Smith's
+hand, and looked at him with dog-like, adoring eyes as they stood in the
+log meat-house, where fresh quarters hung.
+
+"I'd do more nor this for you, Prairie Flower;" and, laying his hand upon
+her shoulder, he pressed it with his finger-tips.
+
+"Say, but that's great liver!" Tubbs reached half the length of the table
+and helped himself a third time. "That'd make a man fight his grandmother.
+Who butchered it?"
+
+"Me," Smith answered.
+
+"It tastes like slow elk," said Susie.
+
+"Maybe you oughtn't to eat it till you're showed the hide," Smith
+suggested.
+
+"Maybe I oughtn't," Susie retorted. "I didn't see any fresh hide a-hangin'
+on the fence. We _always_ hangs _our_ hides."
+
+"I _never_ hangs _my_ hides. I cuts 'em up in strips and braids 'em into
+throw-ropes. It's safer."
+
+The grub-liners laughed at the inference which Smith so coolly implied.
+
+The finding of White Antelope's body, and its subsequent burial, had
+delayed the opening of Dora's night-school, so Smith, for reasons of his
+own, had spent much of his time in the bunk-house, covertly studying the
+grub-liners, who passed the hours exchanging harrowing experiences of
+their varied careers.
+
+A strong friendship had sprung up between Susie and McArthur. While Susie
+liked and greatly admired the Schoolmarm, she never yet had opened her
+heart to her. Beyond their actual school-work, they seemed to have little
+in common; and it was a real disappointment and regret to the Schoolmarm
+that, for some reason which she could not reach, she had never been able
+to break through the curious reserve of the little half-breed, who,
+superficially, seemed so transparently frank. Each time that she made the
+attempt, she found herself repulsed--gently, even tactfully, but
+repulsed.
+
+Dora Marshall did not suspect that these rebuffs were due to an error of
+her own. In the beginning, when Susie had questioned her naively of the
+outside world, she had permitted amusement to show in her face and manner.
+She never fully recognized the fact that while Susie to all appearances,
+intents, and purposes was Anglo-Saxon, an equal quantity of Indian blood
+flowed in her veins, and that this blood, with its accompanying traits and
+characteristics, must be reckoned with.
+
+As a matter of fact, Susie was suspicious, unforgiving, with all the
+Indians' sensitiveness to and fear of ridicule. She meant never again to
+entertain the Schoolmarm by her ignorant questions, although she yearned
+with all a young girl's yearning for some one in whom to confide--some one
+with whom she could discuss the future which she often questioned and
+secretly dreaded.
+
+With real adroitness Susie had tested McArthur, searching his face for the
+glimmer of amusement which would have destroyed irredeemably any chance of
+real comradeship between them. But invariably McArthur had answered her
+questions gravely; and when her tears had fallen fast and hot at White
+Antelope's grave, she had known, with an intuition both savage and
+childish, that his sympathy was sincere. She had felt, too, the
+genuineness of his interest when, later, she had repeated to him many of
+the stories White Antelope had told her of the days when he and her father
+had trapped and hunted together in the big woods to the north.
+
+So to-night, when the living-room was deserted by all save her mother, at
+work on her rugs in the corner, Susie confided to him her Great Secret,
+and McArthur, some way, felt strangely flattered by the confidence. He had
+no desire to laugh; indeed, there were times when the tears were
+perilously close to the surface. He had been a shy, lonely student, and
+quite as lonely as a man, yet through the promptings of a heart
+sympathetic and kind and with the fine instinct of gentle birth, he
+understood the bizarre little half-breed in a way which surprised himself.
+
+There was a settee on one side of the room, made of elk-horns and
+interwoven buckskin thongs, and it was there, in the whisper which makes a
+secret doubly alluring, that Susie told him of her plans; but first she
+brought from some hiding-place outside a long pasteboard box, carefully
+wrapped and tied.
+
+McArthur, puffing on the briar-wood pipe which he was seldom without,
+waited with interest, but without showing curiosity, for he felt that, in
+a way, this was a critical moment in their friendship.
+
+"If you didn't see me here on the reservation, would you know I was
+Injun?" Susie demanded, facing him.
+
+McArthur regarded her critically.
+
+"You have certain characteristics--your rather high cheek-bones, for
+instance--and your skin has a peculiar tint."
+
+"I got an awful complexion on me," Susie agreed, "but I'm goin' to fix
+that."
+
+"Then, your movements and gestures----"
+
+"That's from talkin' signs, maybe. I can talk signs so fast that the
+full-bloods themselves have to ask me to slow up. But, now, if you saw me
+with my hair frizzled--all curled up, like, and pegged down on top of my
+head--and a red silk dress on me with a long skirt, and shiny shoes coming
+to a point, and a white hat with birds and flowers staked out on it, and
+maybe kid gloves on my hands--would you know right off it was me? Would
+you say, 'Why, there's that Susie MacDonald--that breed young un from the
+reservation'?"
+
+"No," declared McArthur firmly; "I certainly never should say, 'Why,
+there's that Susie MacDonald--that breed young un from the reservation.'
+As a matter of fact," he went on gravely, "I should probably say, 'What a
+pity that a young lady so intelligent and high-spirited should frizz her
+hair'!"
+
+"Would you?" insisted Susie delightedly.
+
+"Undoubtedly," McArthur replied, with satisfying emphasis.
+
+"And how long do you think it would take me to stop slingin' the buckskin
+and learn to talk like you?--to say big words without bitin' my tongue and
+gettin' red in the face?"
+
+"Do I use large words frequently?" McArthur asked in real surprise.
+
+"Whoppers!" said Susie.
+
+"I do it unconsciously." McArthur's tone was apologetic.
+
+"Sure, I know it."
+
+"I shrink from appearing pedantic," said McArthur, half to himself.
+
+"So do I," Susie declared mischievously. "I don't know what it is, but I
+shrink from it. Do you think I could learn big words?"
+
+"Of course." McArthur wondered where all these questions led.
+
+"Did you ever notice that I'm kind of polite sometimes?"
+
+"Frequently."
+
+"That I say 'If you please' and 'Thank you,' and did you notice the other
+morning when I asked Old Man Rulison how his ribs was getting along that
+Arkansaw Red kicked in, and said I was sorry the accident happened?"
+
+McArthur nodded.
+
+"Well, I didn't mean it." She giggled. "That was just my manners that I
+was practisin' on him. He was onery, and only got what was comin' to him;
+but if you're goin' to be polite, seems like you dassn't tell the truth.
+But Miss Marshall says that 'Thank you,' 'If you please,' and 'Good
+morning, how's your ribs?' are kind of pass-words out in the world that
+help you along."
+
+"Yes, Susie; that's true."
+
+"So I'm tryin' to catch onto all I can, because"--her eyes dilated, and
+she lowered her voice--"I'm goin' out in the world pretty soon."
+
+"To school?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I'm goin' to hunt up Dad's relations; and when I find 'em, I don't want
+'em to be ashamed of me, and of him for marryin' into the Injuns."
+
+"They need never be ashamed of you, Susie."
+
+"Honest? Honest, don't you think so?" She looked at him wistfully. "I'd
+try awful hard not to make breaks," she went on, "and make 'em feel like
+cachin' me in the cellar when they saw company comin'. It's just plumb
+awful to be lonesome here, like I am sometimes; to be homesick for
+something or somebody--for other kind of folks besides Injuns and
+grub-liners, and Schoolmarms that look at you as if you was a new, queer
+kind of bug, and laugh at you with their eyes.
+
+"Dad's got kin, I know; for lots of times when I would go with him to hunt
+horses, he would say, 'I'll take you back to see them some time, Susie,
+girl.' But he never said where 'back' was, so I've got to find out myself.
+Wouldn't it be awful, though"--and her chin quivered--"if after I'd been
+on the trail for days and days, and my ponies were foot-sore, they wasn't
+glad to see me when I rode up to the house, but hinted around that
+horse-feed was short and grub was scarce, and they couldn't well winter
+me?"
+
+"They wouldn't do that," said McArthur reassuringly. "Nobody named
+MacDonald would do that."
+
+Susie began to untie the pasteboard box which contained her treasures.
+
+"Nearly ever since Dad died, I've been getting ready to go. I don't mean
+that I would leave Mother for keeps--of course not; but after I've found
+'em, maybe I can coax 'em to come and live with us. I used to ask White
+Antelope every question I could think of, but all he knew was that after
+they'd sold their furs to the Hudson Bay Company, they sometimes went to a
+lodge in Canada called Selkirk, where almost everybody there was named
+MacDonald or MacDougal or Mackenzie or Mac something. Lots of his friends
+there married Sioux and went to the Walla Walla valley, and maybe I'll
+have to go there to find somebody who knew him; but first I'll go to
+Selkirk.
+
+"I'll take a good pack-outfit, and Running Rabbit to find trails and
+wrangle horses. See--I've got my trail all marked out on the map."
+
+She unfolded a worn leaf from a school geography.
+
+"It looks as if it was only a sleep or two away, but White Antelope said
+it was the big ride--maybe a hundred sleeps. And lookee"--she unfolded
+fashion plates of several periods. "I've even picked out the clothes I'll
+buy to put on when I get nearly to the ranch where they live. I can make
+camp, you know, and change my clothes, and then go walkin' down the road
+carryin' this here parasol and wearin' this here white hat and holdin' up
+this here long skirt like Teacher on Sunday.
+
+"Won't they be surprised when they open the door and see me standin' on
+the door-step? I'll say, 'How do you do? I'm Susie MacDonald, your
+relation what's come to visit you.' I think this would be better than
+showin' up with Running Rabbit and the pack-outfit, until I'd kind of
+broke the news to 'em. I'd keep Running Rabbit cached in the brush till I
+sent for him.
+
+"You see, I've thought about it so much that it seems like it was as good
+as done; but maybe when I start I won't find it so easy. I might have to
+ride clear to this Minnesota country, or beyond the big waters to the New
+York or Connecticut country, mightn't I?"
+
+"You might," McArthur replied soberly.
+
+"But I'd take a lot of jerked elk, and everybody says grub's easy to get
+if you have money, I'd start with about nine ponies in my string, so it
+looks like I ought to get through?"
+
+She waited anxiously for McArthur to express his opinion.
+
+He wondered how he could disillusionize her, shatter the dream which he
+could see had become a part of her life. Should he explain to her that
+when she had crossed the mountains and left behind her the deserts which
+constituted the only world she knew, and by which, with its people, she
+judged the country she meant to penetrate, she would find herself a
+bewildered little savage in a callous, complex civilization where she had
+no place--wondered at, gibed at, defeated of her purpose?
+
+"Are you sure you have no other clues--no old letters, no photographs?"
+
+She was about to answer when a tapping like the pecking of a snowbird on
+a window-sill was heard on the door.
+
+Susie opened it.
+
+In ludicrous contrast to the timid rap, a huge figure that all but filled
+it was framed in the doorway.
+
+It was "Babe" from the Bar C ranch; "Baby" Britt, curly-haired,
+pink-cheeked, with one innocent blue eye dark from recent impact with a
+fist, which gave its owner the appearance of a dissipated cherub.
+
+"Evenin'," he said tremulously, his eyes roving as though in search of
+some one.
+
+"I lost a horse----" he began.
+
+"Brown?" interrupted Susie, with suspicious interest. "With a star in the
+forehead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"One white stockin'?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"Roached mane?"
+
+"Ye-ah."
+
+"Kind of a rat-tail?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Left hip knocked down?"
+
+"Babe" nodded.
+
+"Saddle-sore?"
+
+"That's it. Where did you see him?"
+
+"I didn't see him."
+
+"Aw-w-w," rumbled "Babe" in disgust.
+
+"Teacher!"
+
+Dora Marshall's door opened in response to Susie's lusty call.
+
+"Have you seen a brown horse with a star in its forehead, roached
+mane----"
+
+"Aw, g'wan, Susie!" In confusion, "Babe" began to remove his spurs,
+thereby serving notice upon the Schoolmarm that he had "come to set a
+spell."
+
+So the Schoolmarm brought her needlework, and while she explained to Mr.
+Britt the exact shadings which she intended to give to each leaf and
+flower, that person sat with his entranced eyes upon her white hands, with
+their slender, tapering fingers--the smallest, the most beautiful hands,
+he firmly believed, in the whole world.
+
+It was not easy to carry on a spirited conversation with Mr. Britt. At
+best, his range of topics was limited, and in his present frame of mind he
+was about as vivacious as a deaf mute. He was quite content to sit with
+the high heels of his cowboy boots--from which a faint odor of the stable
+emanated--hung over the rung of his chair, and to watch the Schoolmarm's
+hand plying the needle on that almost sacred sofa-pillow.
+
+"Your work must be very interesting, Mr. Britt," suggested Dora.
+
+"I dunno as 'tis," replied Mr. Britt.
+
+"It's so--so picturesque."
+
+Mr. Britt considered.
+
+"I shouldn't say it was."
+
+"But you like it?"
+
+"Not by a high-kick!"
+
+If there was one thing upon which Mr. Britt prided himself more than
+another, it was upon knowing how to temper his language to his company.
+
+"Why do you stick to it, then?"
+
+"Don't know how to do anything else."
+
+"You don't get much time to read, do you?"
+
+"Oh, yes; _P'lice Gazette_ comes reg'lar."
+
+"But you have no church or social privileges?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I say, you have no entertainment, no time or opportunity for amusement,
+have you?"
+
+"Oh, my, yes," Mr. Britt declared heartily. "We has a game of stud poker
+nearly every Sunday mornin', and races in the afternoon."
+
+"Ain't he sparklin'?" whispered Susie across the room to Dora, who
+pretended not to hear.
+
+"You are fond of horses?" inquired the Schoolmarm, desperately.
+
+"Oh, I has nothin' agin 'em." He qualified his statement by adding:
+"Leastways, unless they come from the Buffalo Basin country. Then I shore
+hates 'em." At last Mr. Britt was upon a subject upon which he could talk
+fluently and for an indefinite length of time. "You take that there
+Buffalo Basin stock," he went on earnestly, "and they're nothin' but
+inbred cayuse outlaws. They're treach'rous. Oneriest horses that ever
+wore hair. Can't gentle 'em--simply can't be done. They've piled me up
+more times than any horses that run. Sunfishers--the hull of 'em; rare up
+and fall over backwards. 'Tain't pleasant ridin' a horse like that. Wheel
+on you quicker'n a weasel; shy clean acrost the road at nothin';
+kick--stand up and strike at you in the corral. It's irritatin'. Hard
+keepers, too. Maybe you've noticed that blue roan I'm ridin'. Well, sir,
+the way I've throwed feed into that horse is a scandal, and the more he
+eats the worse he looks. Besides, it spoils them Buffalo Basin
+buzzard-heads to eat. Give 'em three square meals, and you can't hardly
+ride 'em. They ain't stayers, neither; no bottom, seems-like. Forty miles,
+and that horse of mine is played out. What for a horse is that? Is that a
+horse? Not by a high-kick! Gimme a buckskin with a black line down his
+back, and zebra stripes on his legs--high back, square chest--say, then
+you got a _horse!_"
+
+It was apparent enough that Mr. Britt had not commenced to exhaust the
+subject of the Buffalo Basin stock. As a matter of fact, he had barely
+started; but the sound of horses coming up the path, and a whoop outside,
+caused a suspension of his conversation.
+
+Something heavy was thrown against the door, and when Susie opened it a
+roll of roped canvas rolled inside, while the lamplight fell upon the
+grinning faces of two Bar C cowpunchers.
+
+"What's that?" The Schoolmarm looked wonderingly at the bundle.
+
+"Aw-w-w!" Mr. Britt replied, in angry confusion. "It's my bed. I'll put a
+crimp in them two for this." He shouldered his blankets sheepishly and
+went out.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CUPID "WINGS" A DEPUTY SHERIFF
+
+
+Riding home next morning with his bed on a borrowed pack-horse, morose,
+his mind occupied with divers plans for punishing the cowpunchers who had
+spoiled his evening and made him ridiculous before the Schoolmarm, "Babe"
+came upon something in a gulch which caused him to rein his horse sharply
+and swing from the saddle.
+
+With an ejaculation of surprise, he pulled a fresh hide from under a pile
+of rock, it having been partially uncovered by coyotes. The brand had been
+cut out, and with the sight of this significant find, the two cowpunchers,
+their obnoxious joke, even the Schoolmarm, were forgotten; for there was a
+new thief on the range, and a new thief meant excitement and adventure.
+
+Colonel Tolman's deep-set eyes glittered when he heard the news. As
+Running Rabbit had said, on the trail of a cattle-thief he was as
+relentless as a bloodhound. He could not eat or sleep in peace until the
+man who had robbed him was behind the bars. The Colonel was an old-time
+Texas cattleman, and his herds had ranged from the Mexican border to the
+Alberta line. He had made and lost fortunes. Disease, droughts, and
+blizzards had cleaned him out at various times, and always he had taken
+his medicine without a whimper; but the loss of so much as a yearling calf
+by theft threw him into a rage that was like hysteria.
+
+His hand shook as he sat down at his desk and wrote a note to the
+Stockmen's Association, asking for the services of their best detective.
+It meant four days of hard riding to deliver the note, but the Colonel put
+it into "Babe's" hand as if he were asking him to drop it in the mail-box
+around the corner.
+
+"Go, and git back," were his laconic instructions, and he turned to pace
+the floor.
+
+When "Babe" returned some eight days later, with the deputy sheriff, he
+found the Colonel striding to and fro, his wrath having in no wise abated.
+The cowboy wondered if his employer had been walking the floor all that
+time.
+
+"My name is Ralston," said the tall young deputy, as he stood before the
+old cattleman.
+
+"Ralston?" The Colonel rose on his toes a trifle to peer into his face.
+
+"Not Dick Ralston's boy?"
+
+The six-foot deputy smiled.
+
+"The same, sir."
+
+The Colonel's hand shot out in greeting.
+
+"Anybody of that name is pretty near like kin to me. Many's the time your
+dad and I have eaten out of the same frying-pan."
+
+"So I've heard him say."
+
+"Does he know you're down here on this job?"
+
+The young man shook his head soberly.
+
+"No."
+
+The Colonel looked at him keenly.
+
+"Had a falling out?"
+
+"No; scarcely that; but we couldn't agree exactly upon some things, so I
+struck out for myself when I came home from college."
+
+"No future for you in this sleuthing business," commented the old man
+tersely. "Why didn't you go into cattle with your dad?"
+
+"That's where we disagreed, sir. I wanted to buy sheep, and he goes
+straight into the air at the very word."
+
+The Colonel laughed.
+
+"I can believe that."
+
+"Over there the range is going fast, and it's fight and scrap and quarrel
+all the time to keep the sheep off what little there is left; and then you
+ship and bottom drops out of the market as soon as your cattle are loaded.
+There's nothing in it; and while I don't like sheep any better than the
+Governor, there's no use in hanging on and going broke in cattle because
+of a prejudice."
+
+"Dick's stubborn,"--the Colonel nodded knowingly--"and I don't believe
+he'll ever give in."
+
+"No; I don't think he will, and I'm sorry for his sake, because he's
+getting too old to worry."
+
+"Worry? Cattle's nothing but worry!--which reminds me of what you are here
+for."
+
+"Have you any suspicions?"
+
+"No. I don't believe I can help you any. The Injuns been good as pie since
+we sent Wolf Robe over the road. Don't hardly think it's Injuns. Don't
+know what to think. Might be some of these Mormon outfits going north.
+Might be some of these nesters off in the hills. Might be anybody!"
+
+"Is he an old hand?"
+
+"Looks like it. Cuts the brand out and buries the hide." The Colonel began
+pacing the floor. "Cattle-thieves are people that's got to be nipped in
+the bud _muy pronto_. There ought to be a lynching on every cattle-range
+once in seven years. It's the only way to hold 'em level. Down there on
+the Rio Grande we rode away and left fourteen of 'em swinging over the
+bluff. It's got to be done in all cattle countries, and since they've
+started in here--well, a hanging is overdue by two years." The Colonel
+ejected his words with the decisive click of a riot-gun.
+
+So Dick Ralston, Jr., rode the range for the purpose of getting the lay of
+the country, and, on one pretext or another, visited the squalid homes of
+the nesters, but nowhere found anybody or anything in the least
+suspicious. He learned of the murder of White Antelope, and of the
+"queer-actin'" bug-hunter and his pal, who had been accused of it. It was
+rather generally believed that McArthur was a desperado of a new and
+original kind. While it was conceded that he seemed to have no way of
+disposing of the meat, and certainly could not kill a cow and eat it
+himself, it was nevertheless declared that he was "worth watching."
+
+While the hangers-on at the MacDonald ranch were all known to have
+records, no particular suspicion had attached to them in this instance,
+because the squaw was known to kill her own beef, and no shadow of doubt
+had ever fallen upon the good name of the ranch.
+
+The trapping of cattle-thieves is not the work of a day or a week, but
+sometimes of months; and when evidence of another stolen beef was found
+upon the range, Ralston realized that his efforts lay in that vicinity for
+some time to come. He decided to ride over to the MacDonald ranch that
+evening and have a look at the bad _hombre_ who masqueraded as a
+bug-hunter--bug-hunter, it should be explained, being a Western term for
+any stranger engaged in scientific pursuits.
+
+While Ralston was riding over the lonely road in the moonlight, Dora was
+arranging the dining-room table for her night-school, which had been in
+session several evenings. Smith was studying grammar, of which branch of
+learning Dora had decided he stood most in need, while Susie groaned over
+compound fractions.
+
+Tubbs, with his chair tilted against the wall, looked on with a tolerant
+smile. In the kitchen, paring a huge pan of potatoes for breakfast, Ling
+listened with such an intensity of interest to what was being said that
+his ears seemed fairly to quiver. From her bench in the living-room, the
+Indian woman braided rags and darted jealous glances at teacher and pupil.
+Smith, his hair looking like a bunch of tumble-weed in a high wind, hung
+over a book with a look of genuine misery upon his face.
+
+"I didn't have any notion there was so much in the world I didn't know,"
+he burst out. "I thought when I'd learnt that if you sprinkle your
+saddle-blanket you can hold the biggest steer that runs, without your
+saddle slippin', I'd learnt about all they was worth knowin'."
+
+"It's tedious," Dora admitted.
+
+"Tedious?" echoed Smith in loud pathos. "It's hell! Say, I can tie a fancy
+knot in a bridle-rein that can't be beat by any puncher in the country,
+but _darn_ me if I can see the difference between a adjective and one of
+these here adverbs! Once I thought I knowed something--me, Smith--but say,
+I don't know enough to make a mark in the road!"
+
+Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he repeated:
+
+"'I have had, you have had, he has had.'"
+
+"If you would have had about six drinks, I think you could git that,"
+observed Tubbs judicially, watching Smith's mental suffering with keen
+interest.
+
+"Don't be discouraged," said Dora cheerfully, seating herself beside him.
+"Let's take a little review. Do you remember what I told you about this?"
+
+She pointed to the letter _a_ marked with the long sound.
+
+Smith ran both hands through his hair, while a wild, panic-stricken look
+came upon his face.
+
+"Dog-gone me! I know it's a _a_, but I plumb forget how you called it."
+
+Tubbs unhooked his toes from the chair-legs and walked around to look over
+Smith's shoulder.
+
+"Smith, you got a great forgitter," he said sarcastically. "Why don't you
+use your head a little? That there is a Bar A. You ought to have knowed
+that. The Bar A stock run all over the Judith Basin."
+
+"Don't you remember I told you that whenever you saw that mark over a
+letter you should give it the long sound?" explained Dora patiently.
+
+"Like the _a_ in 'aig,'" elucidated Tubbs.
+
+"Like the _a_ in 'snake,'" corrected the Schoolmarm.
+
+"Or 'wake,' or 'skate,' or 'break,'" said Smith hopefully.
+
+"Fine!" declared the Schoolmarm.
+
+"I knowed that much myself," said Tubbs enviously.
+
+"If you'll pardon me, Mr. Tubbs," said Dora, in some irritation, "there
+is no such word as 'knowed.'"
+
+"Why don't you talk grammatical, Tubbs?" Smith demanded, with alacrity.
+
+"I talks what I knows," said Tubbs, going back to his chair.
+
+"Have you forgotten all I told you about adjectives?"
+
+"Adjectives is words describin' things. They's two kinds, comparative and
+superlative," Smith replied promptly. He added. "Adjectives kind of stuck
+in my craw."
+
+"Can you give me examples?" Dora felt encouraged.
+
+"You got a horrible pretty hand," Smith replied, without hesitation.
+"'Horrible pretty' is a adjective describin' your hand."
+
+Dora burst out laughing, and Tubbs, without knowing why, joined in
+heartily.
+
+"Tubbs," continued Smith, glaring at that person, "has got the horriblest
+mug I ever seen, and if he opens it and laffs like that at me again, I
+aims to break his head. 'Horriblest' is a superlative adjective describin'
+Tubbs's mug."
+
+To Smith's chagrin and Tubbs's delight, Dora explained that "horrible" was
+a word which could not be used in conjunction with "pretty," and that its
+superlative was not "horriblest."
+
+Smith buried his head in his hands despondently.
+
+"If I was where I could, I'd get drunk!"
+
+"It's nothing to feel so badly about," said Dora comfortingly. "Let's go
+back to prepositions. Can you define a preposition?"
+
+Smith screwed up his face and groped for words, but before he found them
+Tubbs broke in:
+
+"A preposition is what a feller has to sell that nobody wants," he
+explained glibly. "They's copper prepositions, silver-lead prepositions,
+and onct I had a oil preposition up in the Swift Current country."
+
+Smith reached inside his coat and pulled out the carved, ivory-handled
+six-shooter which he wore in a holster under his arm. He laid it on the
+table beside his grammar, and looked at Tubbs.
+
+"Feller," he said, "I hates to make a gun-play before the Schoolmarm, but
+if you jump into this here game again, I aims to try a chunk of lead on
+you."
+
+"If book-learnin' ud ever make me as peevish as it does you," declared
+Tubbs, rising hastily, "I hopes I never knows nothin'."
+
+Tubbs slammed the door behind him as he went to seek more amiable company
+in the bunk-house.
+
+Save for the Indian woman, Smith and Dora were now practically alone; for
+Ling had gone to bed, and Susie was oblivious to everything except
+fractions. Smith continued to struggle with prepositions, adjectives, and
+adverbs, but he found it difficult to concentrate his thoughts on them
+with Dora so close beside him. He knew that his slightest glance, every
+expression which crossed his face, was observed by the Indian woman; and
+although he did his utmost not to betray his feelings, he saw the sullen,
+jealous resentment rising within her.
+
+She read aright the light in his eyes; besides, her intuitions were
+greater than his powers of concealment. When she could no longer endure
+the sight of Smith and the Schoolmarm sitting side by side, she laid down
+her work and slipped out into the star-lit night, closing the door softly
+behind her.
+
+Smith's judgment told him that he should end the lesson and go after her,
+but the spell of love was upon him, overwhelming him, holding him fast in
+delicious thraldom. He had not the strength of will just then to break
+it.
+
+Dora had been reading "Hiawatha" aloud each evening to Susie, Tubbs, and
+Smith, so when she finally closed the grammar, she asked if he would like
+to hear more of the Indian story, as he called it, to which he nodded
+assent.
+
+Dora read well, with intelligence and sympathy; her trained voice was
+flexible. Then, too, she loved this greatest of American legends. It
+appealed to her audience as perhaps no other poem would have done. It was
+real to them, it was "life," their life in a little different environment
+and told in a musical rhythm which held them breathless, enchanted.
+
+Dora had reached the story of "The Famine." She knew the refrain by heart,
+and the wail of old Nokomis was in her voice as she repeated from memory:
+
+                  "Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
+                  Would that I had perished for you!
+                  Would that I were dead as you are!
+                  Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
+
+                  "Then they buried Minnehaha;
+                  In the snow a grave they made her,
+                  In the forest deep and darksome,
+                  Underneath the moaning hemlocks;
+                  Clothed her in her richest garments,
+                  Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
+                  Covered her with snow, like ermine;
+                  So they buried Minnehaha."
+
+The pathos of the lines never failed to touch Dora anew. Her voice broke,
+and, pausing to recover herself, she glanced at Smith. There were tears in
+his eyes. The brutal chin was quivering like that of a tender-hearted
+child.
+
+"The man that wrote that was a _chief_," he said huskily. "It hurts me
+here--in my neck." He rubbed the contracted muscles of his throat. "I'd
+feel like that, girl, if you should die."
+
+He repeated softly, and choked:
+
+                  "All my heart is buried with you,
+                  All my thoughts go onward with you!"
+
+The impression which the poem made upon Smith was deep. It was a constant
+surprise to him also. The thoughts it expressed, the sensations it
+described, he had believed were entirely original with himself. He had not
+conceived it possible that any one else could feel toward a woman as he
+felt toward Dora. Therefore, when the poet put many of his heart-throbs
+into words, they startled him, as though, somehow, his own heart were
+photographed and held up to view.
+
+Susie had finished her lesson, and, cramped from sitting, was walking
+about the living-room to rest herself, while this conversation was taking
+place. Her glance fell upon a gaudy vase on a shelf, and some thought came
+to her which made her laugh mischievously. She emptied the contents of the
+vase into the palm of her hand and, closing the other over it, tiptoed
+into the dining-room and stood behind Smith.
+
+Dora and he, engrossed in conversation, paid no attention to her. She put
+her cupped palms close to Smith's ear and, shaking them vigorously,
+shouted:
+
+"Snakes!"
+
+The result was such as Susie had not anticipated.
+
+With a shriek which was womanish in its shrillness, Smith sprang to his
+feet, all but upsetting the lamp in his violence. Unmixed horror was
+written upon his face.
+
+The girl herself shrank back at what she had done; then, holding out
+several rattles for inspection, she said:
+
+"Looks like you don't care for snakes."
+
+"You--you little----"
+
+Only Susie guessed the unspeakable epithet he meant to use. Her eyes
+warned him, and, too, he remembered Dora in time. He said instead, with a
+slight laugh of confusion:
+
+"Snakes scares me, and rat-traps goin' off."
+
+The color had not yet returned to his face when a knock came upon the
+door.
+
+In response to Susie's call, a tall stranger stepped inside--a stranger
+wide of shoulder, and with a kind of grim strength in his young face.
+
+From the unnatural brightness of the eyes of Susie and of Smith, and their
+still tense attitudes, Ralston sensed the fact that something had
+happened. He returned Smith's unpleasant look with a gaze as steady as his
+own. Then his eyes fell upon Dora and lingered there.
+
+She had sprung to her feet and was still standing. Her cheeks were
+flushed, her eyes luminous, and the soft lamplight burnishing her brown
+hair made the moment one of her best. Smith saw the frank admiration in
+the stranger's look.
+
+"May I stop here to-night?" He addressed Dora.
+
+He had the characteristic Western gravity of manner and expression, the
+distinguishing definiteness of purpose. Though the quality of his voice,
+its modulation, bespoke the man of poise and education, the accent was
+unmistakably of the West.
+
+"There's a bunk-house." It was Smith who answered.
+
+His unuttered epithet still rankled; Susie turned upon him with insulting
+emphasis:
+
+"And you'd better get out to it!"
+
+"Are you the boss here?" The stranger put the question to Smith with cool
+politeness.
+
+"What I say _goes!_"
+
+Smith looked marvellously ugly.
+
+Susie leaned toward him, and her childish face was distorted with anger as
+she shrieked:
+
+"_Not yet, Mister Smith!_"
+
+Involuntarily, Dora and the stranger exchanged glances in the awkward
+silence which followed. Then, more to relieve her embarrassment than for
+any other reason, Ralston said quietly, "Very well, I will do as
+this--gentleman suggests," and withdrew.
+
+"Good-night," said Dora, gathering up her books; but neither Smith nor
+Susie answered.
+
+With both hands deep in his trousers' pockets, Smith was smiling at Susie,
+with a smile which was little short of devilish; and the girl, throwing a
+last look of defiance at him, also left the room, violently slamming
+behind her the door of the bed-chamber occupied by her mother and
+herself.
+
+For a full minute Smith stood as they had left him--motionless, his
+eyelids drooping. Rousing himself, he went to the window and looked into
+the moonlight-flooded world outside. Huddled in a blanket, a squat figure
+sat on a fallen cottonwood tree.
+
+Smith eyed it, then asked himself contemptuously:
+
+"Ain't that pure Injun?"
+
+Taking his hat, he too stepped into the moonlight.
+
+The woman did not look up at his approach, so he stooped until his cheek
+touched hers.
+
+"What's the matter, Prairie Flower?"
+
+"My heart is under my feet." Her voice was harsh.
+
+In the tone one uses to a sulky child, he said:
+
+"Come into the house."
+
+"You no like me, white man. You like de white woman."
+
+Smith reached under the blanket and took her hand.
+
+"Why don't you marry de white woman?"
+
+He pressed her hand tightly against his heart.
+
+"Come into the house, Prairie Flower."
+
+Her face relaxed like that of a child when it smiles through its tears.
+And Smith, in the hour when the first real love of his life was at its
+zenith, when his heart was so full of it that it seemed well nigh
+bursting, walked back to the house with the squaw clinging tightly to his
+fingers.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE BUG-HUNTER ELUCIDATES
+
+
+The same instinct which made Ralston recognize Susie as his friend told
+him that Smith was his enemy; though, verily, that person who would have
+construed as evidences of esteem and budding friendship Smith's black
+looks when Ralston presumed to talk with Dora, even upon the most ordinary
+topics, would have been dull of comprehension indeed.
+
+While no reason for remaining appeared to be necessary at the MacDonald
+ranch, Ralston hinted at hunting stray horses; and casually expressed a
+hope that he might be able to pick up a bunch of good ponies at a
+reasonable figure--which explanation was entirely satisfactory to all save
+Smith. The latter frequently voiced the opinion that Ralston lingered
+solely for the purpose of courting the Schoolmarm, an opinion which the
+grub-liners agreed was logical, since they too, along with the majority of
+unmarried males for fifty miles around, cherished a similar ambition.
+
+Dora had long since ceased to consider as extraordinary the extended
+visits which strangers paid to the ranch; therefore, she saw nothing
+unusual in the fact that Ralston stayed on.
+
+If furtive-eyed and restless passers-by arrived after dark, slept in the
+hay near their unsaddled horses, and departed at dawn, assuredly no person
+at the MacDonald ranch was rude enough to ask reasons for their haste. Its
+hospitality was as boundless, as free, as the range itself; and if upon
+leaving any guest had happened to express gratitude for food and shelter,
+it is doubtful if any incident could more have surprised Susie and her
+mother, unless, mayhap, it might have been an offer of payment for the
+same.
+
+Ralston told himself that, since he could remain without comment, the
+ranch was much better situated for his purpose than Colonel Tolman's home;
+but the really convincing point in its favor, though one which he refused
+to recognize as influencing him in the least, was that he was nearer Dora
+by something like eight miles than he would have been at the Bar C. Then,
+too, though there was nothing tangible to justify his suspicions, Ralston
+believed that his work lay close at hand.
+
+Like Colonel Tolman, he had come to think that it was not the Indians who
+were killing; and the nesters, though a spiritless, shiftless lot, had
+always been honest enough. But the bunk-house on the MacDonald ranch was
+often filled with the material of which horse and cattle thieves are made,
+and Ralston hoped that he might get a clue from some word inadvertently
+dropped there.
+
+He often thought that he never had seen a more heterogeneous gathering
+than that which assembled at times around the table. And with Longfellow
+in the dining-room, ethnological dissertations in one end of the
+bunk-house, and personal reminiscences and experiences in gun-fights and
+affairs of the heart in the other end, there was afforded a sufficient
+variety of mental diversion to suit nearly any taste.
+
+McArthur in the role of desperado seemed preposterous to Ralston; yet he
+remembered that Ben Reed, a graduate of a theological seminary, who could
+talk tears into the eyes of an Apache, was the slickest stock thief west
+of the Mississippi. He was well aware that a pair of mild eyes and gentle,
+ingenuous manners are many a rogue's most valuable asset, and though the
+bug-hunter talked frankly of his pilgrimages into the hills, there was
+always a chance that his pursuit was a pose, his zeal counterfeit.
+
+One evening which was typical of others, Ralston sat on the edge of his
+bunk, rolling an occasional cigarette and listening with huge enjoyment to
+the conversation of a group around the sheet-iron stove, of which McArthur
+was the central figure.
+
+McArthur, riding his hobby enthusiastically, quite forgot the character of
+his listeners, and laid his theories regarding the interchange of
+mammalian life between America and Asia during the early Pleistocene
+period, before Meeteetse Ed, Old Man Rulison, Tubbs, and others, in the
+same language in which he would have argued moot questions with
+colleagues engaged in similar research. The language of learning was as
+natural to McArthur as the vernacular of the West was to Tubbs, and in
+moments of excitement he lapsed into it as a foreigner does into his
+native tongue under stress of feeling.
+
+"I maintain," asserted McArthur, with a gesture of emphasis, "that the
+Paleolithic man of Europe followed the mastodon to North America and here
+remained."
+
+Meeteetse Ed, whose cheeks were flushed, laid his hot hand upon his
+forehead and declared plaintively as he blinked at McArthur:
+
+"Pardner, I'm gittin' a headache from tryin' to see what you're talkin'
+about."
+
+"Air you sayin' anything a-tall," demanded Old Man Rulison, suspiciously,
+"or air you joshin'?"
+
+"Them's words all right," said Tubbs. "Onct I worked under a section boss
+over on the Great Northern what talked words like them. He believed we
+sprung up from tuds and lizards--and the likes o' that. Yes, he did--on
+the square."
+
+"There are many believers in the theory of evolution," observed McArthur.
+
+"That's it--that's the word. That's what he was." Then, in the tone of one
+who hands out a clincher, Tubbs demanded: "Look here, Doc, if that's so
+why ain't all these ponds and cricks around here a-hatchin' out children?"
+
+"Guess that'll hold him for a minute," Meeteetse Ed whispered to his
+neighbor.
+
+But instead of being covered with confusion by this seemingly unanswerable
+argument, McArthur gazed at Tubbs in genuine pity.
+
+"Let me consider how I can make it quite clear to you. Perhaps," he said
+thoughtfully, "I cannot do better than to give you Herbert Spencer's
+definition. Spencer defines evolution, as nearly as I can remember his
+exact words, as an integration of matter and concomita, dissipation of
+motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite heterogeneity to
+a definite, incoherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion
+undergoes a parallel transformation. Materialistic, agnostic, and theistic
+evolution----"
+
+Meeteetse Ed fell off his chair in a mock faint and crashed to the floor.
+
+Susie, who had entered, saw McArthur's embarrassment, and refused to join
+in the shout of laughter, though her eyes danced.
+
+"Don't mind him," she said comfortingly, as she eyed Meeteetse, sprawled
+on his back with his eyes closed. "He's afraid he'll learn something. He
+used to be a sheep-herder, and I don't reckon he's got more'n two hundred
+and fifty words in his whole vocabulary. Why, I'll bet he never _heard_ a
+word of more'n three syllables before. Get up, Meeteetse. Go out in the
+fresh air and build yourself a couple of them sheep-herder's monuments.
+It'll make you feel better."
+
+The prostrate humorist revived. Susie's jeers had the effect of a bucket
+of ice-water, for he had not been aware that this blot upon his
+escutcheon--the disgraceful epoch in his life when he had earned honest
+money herding sheep--was known.
+
+"My enthusiasm runs away with me when I get upon this subject," said
+McArthur, in blushing apology to the group. "I am sorry that I have bored
+you."
+
+"No bore a-tall," declared Old Man Rulison magnanimously. "You cut loose
+whenever you feel like it: we kin stand it as long as you kin."
+
+After McArthur had gone to his pneumatic mattress in the patent tent
+pitched near the bunk-house, Ralston said to Susie:
+
+"You and the bug-hunter are great friends, aren't you?"
+
+"You bet! We're pardners. Anybody that gets funny with him has got me to
+fight."
+
+"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Ralston laughed.
+
+"We've got secrets--the bug-hunter and me."
+
+"You're rather young for secrets, Susie."
+
+"Nobody's too young for secrets," she declared. "Haven't you any?"
+
+"Sure," Ralston nodded.
+
+"I like you," Susie whispered impulsively. "Let's swap secrets."
+
+He looked at her and wished he dared. He would have liked to tell her of
+his mission, to ask her help; for he realized that, if she chose, no one
+could help him more. Like Smith, he recognized that quality in her they
+each called "gameness," and even more than Smith he appreciated the
+commingling of Scotch shrewdness and Indian craft. He believed Susie to be
+honest; but he had believed many things in the past which time had not
+demonstrated to be facts. No, the chance was too great to take; for should
+she prove untrustworthy or indiscreet, his mission would be a failure. So
+he answered jestingly:
+
+"My secrets are not for little girls to know."
+
+Susie gave him a quick glance.
+
+"Oh, you don't look as though you had that kind," and turned away.
+
+Ralston felt somehow that he had lost an opportunity. He could not rid
+himself of the feeling the entire evening; and he made up his mind to
+cultivate Susie's friendship. But it was too late; he had made a mistake
+not unlike Dora's. Susie had felt herself rebuffed, and, like the
+Schoolmarm, Ralston had laughed at her with his eyes. It was a great
+thing--a really sacred thing to Susie--this secret that she had offered
+him. The telling of it to McArthur had been so delightful an experience
+that she yearned to repeat it, but now she meant never to tell any one
+else. Any way, McArthur was her "pardner," and it was enough that he
+should know. So it came about that afterwards, when Ralston sought her
+company and endeavored to learn something of the workings of her mind, he
+found the same barrier of childish reserve which had balked Dora, and no
+amount of tact or patience seemed able to break it down.
+
+The young deputy sheriff's interest in Dora increased in leaps and bounds.
+He experienced an odd but delightful agitation when he saw the sleepy
+white pony plodding down the hill, and the sensation became one easily
+defined each time that he observed Smith's horse ambling in the road
+beside hers. The feeling which inspired Tubbs's disgruntled comment,
+"Smith rides herd on the Schoolmarm like a cow outfit in a bad wolf
+country," found an echo in Ralston's own breast. Truly, Smith guarded the
+Schoolmarm with the vigilance of a sheep-dog.
+
+He saw a possible rival in every new-comer, but most of all he feared
+Ralston; for Smith was not too blinded by prejudice to appreciate the fact
+that Ralston was handsome in a strong, man's way, younger than himself,
+and possessed of the advantages of education which enabled him to talk
+with Dora upon subjects that left him, Smith, dumb. Such times were
+wormwood and gall to Smith; yet in his heart he never doubted but that he
+would have Dora and her love in the end. Smith's faith in himself and his
+ability to get what he really desired was sublime. The chasm between
+himself and Dora--the difference of birth and education--meant nothing to
+him. It is doubtful if he recognized it. He would have considered himself
+a king's equal; indeed, it would have gone hard with royalty, had royalty
+by any chance ordered Smith to saddle his horse. He judged by the
+standards of the plains: namely, gameness, skill, resourcefulness; to him,
+there _were_ no other standards. After all, Dora Marshall was only a
+woman--the superior of other women, to be sure, but a woman; and if he
+wanted her--why not?
+
+He would have been amazed, enraged through wounded vanity, if it had been
+possible for him to see himself from Dora's point of view: a subject for
+reformation; a test for many trite theories; an erring human to be
+reclaimed by a woman's benign influence. Naturally, these thoughts had not
+suggested themselves to Smith.
+
+Ralston looked forward eagerly to the evening meal, since it was almost
+the only time at which he could exchange a word with Dora. Breakfast was a
+hurried affair, while both she and Susie were absent from the midday
+dinner. The shy, fluttering glances which he occasionally surprised from
+her, the look of mutual appreciation which sometimes passed between them
+at a quaint bit of philosophy or naive remark, started his pulses dancing
+and set the whole world singing a wordless song of joy.
+
+Somehow, eating seemed a vulgar function in the Schoolmarm's presence,
+and he wished with all his heart that the abominable grammar lessons which
+filled her evenings might some time end; in which case he would be able to
+converse with her when not engaged in rushing bread and meat to and fro.
+
+His most carefully laid plans to obtain a few minutes alone with her were
+invariably thwarted by Smith. And from the heights to which he had been
+transported by some more than passing friendly glance at the table, he was
+dragged each evening to the depths by the sight of Dora and Smith with
+their heads together over that accursed grammar.
+
+He commenced to feel a distaste for his bunk-house associates, and took
+to wandering out of doors, pausing most frequently in his meanderings
+just outside the circle of light thrown through the window by the
+dining-room lamp. Dora's guilelessness in believing that Smith's interest
+in his lessons was due to a desire for knowledge did not make the
+tableau less tantalizing to Ralston, but it would have been against every
+tenet in his code to suggest to Dora that Smith was not the misguided
+diamond-in-the-rough which she believed him.
+
+Smith, on the contrary, had no such scruples. He lost no opportunity to
+sneer at Ralston. When he discovered Dora wearing one of the first flowers
+of spring, which Ralston had brought her, Smith said darkly:
+
+"That fresh guy is a dead ringer for a feller that quit his wife and five
+kids in Livingston and run off with a biscuit-shooter."
+
+Dora laughed aloud. The clean-cut and youthful Ralston deserting a wife
+and five children for a "biscuit-shooter" was not a convincing picture.
+That she did not receive his insinuation seriously but added fuel to the
+unreasoning jealousy beginning to flame in Smith's breast.
+
+Yet Smith treated Ralston with a consideration which was surprising in
+view of the wanton insults he frequently inflicted upon those whom he
+disliked. Susie guessed the reason for his superficial courtesy, and
+Ralston, perhaps, suspected it also. In his heart, Smith was afraid. First
+and always, he was a judge of men--rather, of certain qualities in men. He
+knew that should he give intentional offense to Ralston, he would be
+obliged either to retract or to back up his insult with a gun. Ralston
+would be the last man to accept an affront with meekness.
+
+Smith did not wish affairs to reach this crisis. He did not want to force
+an issue until he had demonstrated to his own satisfaction that he was the
+better man of the two with words or fists or weapons. But once he found
+the flaw in Ralston's armor, he would speedily become the aggressor. Such
+were Smith's tactics. He was reckless with caution; daring when it was
+safe.
+
+The role he was playing gave him no concern. Though the Indian woman's
+spells of sullenness irritated him, he conciliated her with endearing
+words, caresses, and the promise of a speedy marriage. He appeased her
+jealousy of Dora by telling her that he studied the foolish book-words
+only that he might the better work for her interests; that he was fitting
+himself to cope with the shrewd cattlemen with whom there were constant
+dealings, and that when they were married, the Schoolmarm should live
+elsewhere. Like others of her sex, regardless of race or color, the Indian
+woman believed because she wanted to believe.
+
+Just where his actions were leading him, Smith did not stop to consider.
+He had no fear of results. With an overweening confidence arising from
+past successes, he believed that matters would adjust themselves as they
+always had. Smith wanted a home, and the MacDonald cattle, horses, and
+hay; but more than any of them he wanted Dora Marshall. How he was going
+to obtain them all was not then clear to him, but that when the time came
+he could make a way, he never for a moment doubted.
+
+Smith's confidence in himself was supreme. If he could have expressed his
+belief in words, he might have said that he could control Destiny, shape
+events and his own life as he liked. He had been shot at, pursued by
+posses, all but lynched upon an occasion, and always he had escaped in
+some unlooked-for manner little short of miraculous. As a result, he had
+come to cherish a superstitious belief that he bore a charmed life, that
+no real harm could come to him. So he courted each woman according to her
+nature as he read it, and waited blindly for success.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SPEAKING OF GRASSHOPPERS----
+
+
+It was Saturday, and, there being no school, both Susie and Dora were at
+home. Ralston was considering in which direction he should ride that day
+when Susie came to him and after saying to Smith with elaborate
+politeness, "Excuse me, Mr. Smith, for whispering, but I have something
+very private and confidential to say to Mr. Ralston," she shielded her
+mouth with her hand and said:
+
+"Teacher and I are going fishing. We are going up on the side-hill now to
+catch grasshoppers for bait, and I thought maybe you'd like to help, and
+to fish with us this afternoon." She tittered in his ear.
+
+Susie's action conveyed two things to Ralston's mind: first, that he had
+not been so clever as he had supposed in dissembling his feelings; and
+second, that Susie, recognizing them, was disposed to render him friendly
+aid.
+
+Smith noted Ralston's brightening eye with suspicion, jumping to the very
+natural conclusion that only some pleasing information concerning the
+Schoolmarm would account for it. When, a few minutes later, he saw the
+three starting away together, each with a tin or pasteboard box, he
+realized that his surmise was correct.
+
+Glowering, Smith walked restlessly about the house, ignoring the Indian
+woman's inquiring, wistful eyes, cursing to himself as he wandered through
+the corrals and stables, hating with a personal hatred everything which
+belonged to Ralston: his gentle-eyed brown mare; his expensive Navajo
+saddle-blanket; his single-rigged saddle; his bridle with the wide cheek
+pieces and the hand-forged bit. It would have been a satisfaction to
+destroy them all. He hated particularly the little brown mare which
+Ralston brushed with such care each morning. Smith's mood was black
+indeed.
+
+But Ralston, as he walked between Dora and Susie to the side-hill where
+the first grasshoppers of spring were always found, felt at peace with all
+the world--even Smith--and it was in his heart to hug the elfish
+half-breed child as she skipped beside him. Dora's frequent, bubbling
+laughter made him thrill; he longed to shout aloud like a schoolboy given
+an unexpected holiday.
+
+Each time that his eyes sought Dora's, shadowed by the wide brim of her
+hat, her eyelids drooped, slowly, reluctantly, as though they fell against
+her will, while the color came and went under her clear skin in a fashion
+which filled him with delighted wonder.
+
+It may be said that there are few things in life so absorbing as catching
+grasshoppers. While Ralston previously had recognized this fact, he never
+had supposed that it contained any element of pleasure akin to the
+delights of Paradise. To chase grasshoppers by oneself is one thing; to
+pursue them in the company of a fascinating schoolmarm is another; and
+when one has in his mind the thought that ultimately he and the schoolmarm
+may chance to fall upon the same grasshopper, the chase becomes a sport
+for the gods to envy.
+
+Anent grasshoppers. While the first grasshopper of early spring has not
+the devilish agility of his August descendant, he is sufficiently alert to
+make his capture no mean feat. It must be borne in mind that the
+grasshopper is not a fool, and that he appears to see best from the rear.
+Though he remains motionless while the enemy is slipping stealthily upon
+him, it by no means follows that he is not aware of said enemy's approach.
+The grasshopper has a more highly developed sense of humor than any other
+known insect. It is an established fact that after a person has fallen
+upon his face and clawed at the earth where the grasshopper was but is
+not, the grasshopper will be seen distinctly to laugh from his coign of
+vantage beyond reach.
+
+Furthermore, it is quite impossible to fathom the mind of the grasshopper,
+his intentions or habits; particularly those of the small, gray-pink
+variety. He is as erratic in his flight as a clay pigeon, though it is
+tolerably safe to assume that he will not jump backward. He may not jump
+at all, but, with a deceptive movement, merely sidle under a sage-leaf.
+Where questions concerning his personal safety are concerned, he shows
+rare judgment, appearing to recognize exactly the psychological moment in
+which to fly, jump, or sit still.
+
+No sluggard, be it known, can hope to catch grasshoppers with any degree
+of success. It requires an individual nimble of mind and body, whose
+nerves are keyed to a tension, who is dominated by a mood which refuses to
+recognize the perils of snakes, cactus, and prairie-dog holes; forgetful
+of self and dignity, inured to ridicule. Such a one is justified in making
+the attempt.
+
+The large, brownish-black, grandfatherly-looking grasshopper is the most
+easily captured, though not so satisfactory for bait as the pea-green or
+the gray-pink. It was to the first variety that Dora and Ralston devoted
+themselves, while Susie followed the smaller and more sprightly around the
+hill till she was out of sight.
+
+Ralston became aware that no matter in which direction the grasshopper he
+had marked for his own took him, singularly enough he always ended in
+pursuit of Dora's. As a matter of fact, her grasshopper looked so much
+more desirable than his, that he could not well do otherwise than abandon
+the pursuit of his own for hers.
+
+Her low "Oh, thank you so much!" was so heartfelt and sincere when he
+pushed the insect through the slit in her pasteboard box that he truly
+believed he would have run one all the way to the Middle Fork of Powder
+River only to hear her say it again. And then her womanly aversion to
+inflicting pain, her appealing femininity when she brought a bulky-bodied,
+tobacco-chewing grasshopper for him to pinch its head into insensibility!
+He liked this best of all, for, of necessity, their fingers touched in the
+exchange, and he wondered a little at his strength of will in refraining
+from catching her hand in his and refusing to let go.
+
+Finally a grasshopper of abnormal size went up with a whir. Big he was, in
+comparison with his kind, as the monster steer in the side-show, the
+Cardiff giant, or Jumbo the mammoth.
+
+"Oh!" cried Dora; "we must have him!" and they ran side by side in wild,
+determined pursuit.
+
+The insect sailed far and fast, but they could not lose sight of him, for
+he was like an aeroplane in flight, and when in an ill-advised moment he
+lit to gather himself, they fell upon him tooth and nail--to use a phrase.
+Dora's hand closed over the grasshopper, and Ralston's closed over Dora's,
+holding it tight in one confused moment of delicious, tongue-tied
+silence.
+
+Her shoulder touched his, her hair brushed his cheek. He wished that they
+might go on holding down that grasshopper until the end of time. She was
+panting with the exertion, her nose was moist like a baby's when it
+sleeps, and he noticed in a swift, sidelong glance that the pupils of her
+eyes all but covered the iris.
+
+"He--he's wiggling!" she said tremulously.
+
+"Is he?" Ralston asked fatuously, at a loss for words, but making no move
+to lift his hand.
+
+"And there's a cactus in my finger."
+
+"Let me see it." Immediately his face was full of deep concern.
+
+He held her fingers, turning the small pink palm upward.
+
+"We must get it out," he declared firmly. "They poison some people."
+
+He wondered if it was imagination, or did her hand tremble a little in
+his? His relief was not unmixed with disappointment when the cactus spine
+came out easily.
+
+"They hurt--those needles." He continued to regard the tiny puncture with
+unabated interest.
+
+"Tra! la! la!" sang Susie from the brow of the hill. "Old Smith is
+comin'."
+
+Ralston dropped Dora's hand, and they both reddened, each wondering how
+long Susie had been doing picket duty.
+
+"Out for your failin' health, Mister Smith?" inquired Susie, with
+solicitude.
+
+"I'm huntin' horses, and hopin' to pick up a bunch of ponies cheap," he
+replied with ugly significance as he rode by.
+
+And while the soft light faded from Ralston's eyes, the color leaped to
+his face; unconsciously his fists clenched as he looked after Smith's
+vanishing back. It was the latter's first overt act of hostility; Ralston
+knew, and perhaps Smith intended it so, that the clash between them must
+now come soon.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+MOTHER LOVE AND SAVAGE PASSION CONFLICT
+
+
+It was Sunday, a day later, when Susie came into the living-room and
+noticed her mother sewing muskrat around the top of a moccasin. It was a
+man's moccasin. The woman had made no men's moccasins since her husband's
+death. The sight chilled the girl.
+
+"Mother," she asked abruptly, "what do you let that hold-up hang around
+here for?"
+
+"Who you mean?" the woman asked quickly.
+
+"That Smith!" Susie spat out the word like something offensive.
+
+The Indian woman avoided the girl's eyes.
+
+"I like him," she answered.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"Maybe he stay all time." Her tone was stubborn, as though she expected
+and was prepared to resist an attack.
+
+"You don't--you _can't_--mean it!". Susie's thin face flushed scarlet with
+shame.
+
+"Sa-ah," the woman nodded, "I mean it;" and Susie, staring at her in a
+kind of terror, saw that she did.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother!" she cried passionately, dropping on the floor at the
+woman's feet and clasping her arms convulsively about the Indian woman's
+knees. "Don't--don't say that! We've always been a little different from
+the rest. We've always held our heads up. People like us and respect
+us--both Injuns and white. We've never been talked about--you and me--and
+now you are going to spoil it all!"
+
+"I get tied up to him right," defended the woman sullenly.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" wailed the child.
+
+"We need good white man to run de ranch."
+
+"But _Smith_--do you think _he's_ good? Good! Is a rattlesnake good? Can't
+you see what he is, Mother?--you who are smarter than me in seeing through
+people? He's mean--onery to the marrow--and some day sure--_sure_--he'll
+turn, and strike his fangs into you."
+
+"He no onery," the woman replied, in something like anger.
+
+"It's his nature," Susie went on, without heeding her. "He can't help it.
+All his thoughts and talk and schemes are about something crooked. Can't
+you tell by the things he lets drop that he ought to be in the 'pen'? He's
+treacherous, ungrateful, a born thief. I saw him take Tubbs's halter, and
+there was the regular thief look in his eyes when he cut his own name on
+it. I saw him kick a dog, and he kicked it like a brute. He kicked it in
+the ribs with his toe. Men--decent men--kick a dog with the side of their
+foot. I saw his horse fall with him, and he held it down and beat it on
+the neck with a chain, where it wouldn't show. He'd hold up a bank or rob
+a woman; he'd kill a man or a prairie-dog, and think no more of the one
+than the other.
+
+"I tell you, Mother, as sure as I sit here on the floor at your feet,
+begging you, he's going to bring us trouble; he's going to deal us misery!
+I feel it! I _know_ it!"
+
+"You no like de white man."
+
+"That's right; I don't like the white man. He wants a good place to stay;
+he wants your horses and cattle and hay; and--he wants the Schoolmarm.
+He's making a fool of you, Mother."
+
+"He no make fool of me," she answered complacently. "He make fool of de
+white woman, maybe."
+
+"Look out of the window and see for yourself."
+
+They arose together, and the girl pointed to Smith and Dora, seated side
+by side on the cottonwood log.
+
+"Did he ever look at you like that, Mother?"
+
+"He make fool of de white woman," she reiterated stubbornly, but her face
+clouded.
+
+"He makes a fool of himself, but not of her," declared Susie. "He's crazy
+about her--locoed. Everybody sees it except her. Believe me, Mother,
+listen to Susie just this once."
+
+"He like me. I stick to him;" but she went back to her bench. The
+unfamiliar softness of Smith's face hurt her.
+
+The tears filled Susie's eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mother's
+passion for this hateful stranger was stronger than her mother-love, that
+silent, undemonstrative love in which Susie had believed as she believed
+that the sun would rise each morning over there in the Bad Lands, to warm
+her when she was cold. She buried her face in her mother's lap and sobbed
+aloud.
+
+The woman had not seen Susie cry since she was a tiny child, save when her
+father and White Antelope died, and the numbed maternal instinct stirred
+in her breast. She laid her dark, ringed fingers upon Susie's hair and
+stroked it gently.
+
+"Don't cry," she said slowly. "If he make fool of me, if he lie when he
+say he tie up to me right, if he like de white woman better den me, I kill
+him. I kill him, Susie." She pointed to a bunch of roots and short dried
+stalks which hung from the rafters in one corner of the room. "See--that
+is the love-charm of the Sioux. It was gifted to me by Little Coyote's
+woman--a Mandan. It bring de love, and too much--it kill. If he make fool
+of me, if he not like me better den de white woman, I give him de
+love-charm of de Sioux. I fix him! _I fix him right!_"
+
+Out on the cottonwood log Smith and the Schoolmarm had been speaking of
+many things; for the man could talk fluently in his peculiar vernacular,
+upon any subject which interested him or with which he was familiar.
+
+The best of his nature, whatever of good there was in him, was uppermost
+when with Dora. He really believed at such times that he was what she
+thought him, and he condemned the shortcomings of others like one speaking
+from the lofty pinnacle of unimpeachable virtue.
+
+In her presence, new ambitions, new desires, awakened, and sentiments
+which he never had suspected he possessed revealed themselves. He was
+happy in being near her; content when he felt the touch of her loose cape
+on his arm.
+
+It never before had occurred to Smith that the world through which he had
+gone his tumultuous way was a beautiful place, or that there was joy in
+the simple fact of being strongly alive. When the sage-brush commenced to
+turn green and the many brilliant flowers of the desert bloomed, when the
+air was stimulating like wine and fragrant with the scents of spring, it
+had meant little to Smith beyond the facts that horse-feed would soon be
+plentiful and that he could lay aside his Mackinaw coat. The mountains
+suggested nothing but that they held big game and were awkward places to
+get through on horseback, while the deserts brought no thoughts save of
+thirst and loneliness and choking alkali dust. Upon a time a stranger had
+mentioned the scenery, and Smith had replied ironically that there was
+plenty of it and for him to help himself!
+
+But this spring was different--so different that he asked himself
+wonderingly if other springs had been like it; and to-day, as he sat in
+the sunshine and looked about him, he saw for the first time grandeur in
+the saw-toothed, snow-covered peaks outlined against the dazzling blue of
+the western sky. For the first time he saw the awing vastness of the
+desert, and the soft pastel shades which made their desolation beautiful.
+He breathed deep of the odorous air and stared about him like a blind man
+who suddenly sees.
+
+During a silence, Smith looked at Dora with his curiously intent gaze; his
+characteristic stare which held nothing of impertinence--only interest,
+intense, absorbing interest--and as he looked a thought came to him, a
+thought so unexpected, so startling, that he blinked as if some one had
+struck him in the face. It sent a bright red rushing over him, coloring
+his neck, his ears, his white, broad forehead.
+
+He thought of her as the mother of children--his children--bearing his
+name, miniatures of himself and of her. He never had thought of this
+before. He never had met a woman who inspired in him any such desire. He
+followed the thought further. What if he should have a permanent home--a
+ranch that belonged to him exclusively--"Smith's Ranch"--where there were
+white curtains at the windows, and little ones who came tumbling through
+the door to greet him when he rode into the yard? A place where people
+came to visit, people who reckoned him a person of consequence because he
+stood for something. He must have seen a place like it somewhere, the
+picture was so vivid in his mind.
+
+The thought of living like others never before had entered into the scheme
+of his calculations. Since the time when he had "quit the flat" back in
+the country where they slept between sheets, the world had been lined up
+against him in its own defense. Life had been a constant game of hare and
+hounds, with the pack frequently close at his heels. He had been ever on
+the move, both for reasons of safety and as a matter of taste. His point
+of view was the abnormal one of the professional law-breaker: the world
+was his legitimate prey; the business of his life was to do as he pleased
+and keep his liberty; to outwit sheriffs and make a clean get-away. To be
+known among his kind as "game" and "slick," was the only distinction he
+craved. His chiefest ambition had been to live up to his title of "Bad
+Man." In this he had found glory which satisfied him.
+
+"Well," Dora asked at last, smiling up at him, "what is it?"
+
+Smith hesitated; then he burst out:
+
+"Girl, do I stack up different to you nor anybody else? Have you any
+feelin' for me at all?"
+
+"Why, I think I've shown my interest in trying to teach you," she replied,
+a little abashed by his vehemence.
+
+"What do you want to teach me for?" he demanded.
+
+"Because," Dora declared, "you have possibilities."
+
+"Why don't you teach Meeteetse Ed and Tubbs?"
+
+Dora laughed aloud.
+
+"Candidly, I think it would be a waste of time. They could never hope to
+be much more than we see them here. And they are content as they are."
+
+"So was I, girl, until our trails crossed. I could ride without grub all
+day, and sing. I could sleep on a saddle-blanket like a tired pup, with
+only a rock for a wind-break and my saddle for a pillow. Now I can't sleep
+in a bed. It's horrible--this mixed up feelin'--half the time wantin' to
+holler and laugh and the other half wantin' to cry."
+
+"I don't see why you should feel like that," said Dora gravely. "You are
+getting along. It's slow, but you're learning."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm learnin'," Smith answered grimly--"fast."
+
+He saw her wondering look and went on fiercely.
+
+"Girl, don't you see what I mean? Don't you _sabe_? My feelin' for you is
+more nor friendship. I can't tell you how I feel. It's nothin' I ever had
+before, but I've heard of it a-plenty. It's love--that's what it is! I've
+seen it, too, a-plenty.
+
+"There's two things in the world a feller'll go through hell for--just
+two: love and gold. I don't mean money, but gold--the pure stuff. They'll
+waller through snow-drifts, they'll swim rivers with the ice runnin',
+they'll crawl through canyons and over trails on their hands and knees,
+they'll starve and they'll freeze, they'll work till the blood runs from
+their blistered hands, they'll kill their horses and their pardners, for
+gold! And they'll do it for love. Yes, I've seen it a-plenty, me--Smith.
+
+"Things I've done, I've done, and they don't worry me none," he went on,
+"but lately I've thought of Dutch Joe. I worked him over for singin' a
+love-song, and I wisht I hadn't. He'd held up a stage, and was cached in
+my camp till things simmered down. It was lonesome, and I'd want to talk;
+but he'd sit back in the dark, away from the camp-fire, and sing to
+himself about 'ridin' to Annie.' How the miles wasn't long or the trail
+rough if only he was 'ridin' to Annie.' Sittin' back there in the brush,
+he sounded like a sick coyote a-hollerin'. It hadn't no tune, and I
+thought it was the damnedest fool song I ever heard. After he'd sung it
+more'n five hundred times, I hit him on the head with a six-shooter, and
+we mixed. He quit singin', but he held that gretch against me as long as
+he lived.
+
+"I thought it was because he was Dutch, but it wasn't. 'Twas love. Why,
+girl, I'd ride as long as my horse could stand up under me, and then I'd
+hoof it, just to hear you say, 'Smith, do you think it will rain?'"
+
+"Oh, I never thought of this!" cried Dora, as Smith paused.
+
+Her face was full of distress, and her hands lay tightly clenched in her
+lap.
+
+"Do you mean I haven't any show--no show at all?" The color fading from
+Smith's face left it a peculiar yellow.
+
+"It never occurred to me that you would misunderstand, or think anything
+but that I wanted to help you. I thought that you wanted to learn so that
+you would have a better chance in life."
+
+"Did you--honest? Are you as innocent as that, girl?" he asked in savage
+scepticism. "Did you believe that I'd set and study them damned verbs just
+so I'd have a better chanct in life?"
+
+"You said so."
+
+"Oh, yes, maybe I _said_ so."
+
+"Surely, _surely_, you don't think I would intentionally mislead you?"
+
+"When a woman wants a man to dress or act or talk different, she generally
+cares some."
+
+"And I do 'care some'!" Dora cried impulsively. "I believe that you are
+not making the best of yourself, of your life; that you are better than
+your surroundings; and because I do believe in you, I want to help you.
+Don't you understand?"
+
+Her explanation was not convincing to Smith.
+
+"Is it because I don't talk grammar, and you think you'd have to live in a
+log-house and hang out your own wash?"
+
+Dora considered.
+
+"Even if I cared for you, those things would have weight," she answered
+truthfully. "I am content out here now, and like it because it is novel
+and I know it is temporary; but if I were asked to live here always, as
+you suggest, in a log-house and hang out my own wash, I should have to
+care a great deal."
+
+"It's because I haven't a stake, then," he said bitterly.
+
+"No, not because you haven't a stake. I merely say that extreme poverty
+would be an objection."
+
+"But if I should get the _dinero_--me, Smith--plenty of it? Tell me," he
+demanded fiercely--"it's the time to talk now--is there any one else? It's
+me for the devil straight if you throw me! You'd better take this gun
+here, plant it on my heart, and pull the trigger. Because if I live--I'm
+talkin' straight--what I have done will be just a kid's play to what I'll
+do, if I ever cut loose for fair. Don't throw me, girl! Give me a show--if
+there ain't any one else! If there is, I'm quittin' the flat to-day."
+
+Dora was silent, panic-stricken with the responsibility which he seemed
+to have thrust upon her, almost terrified by the thought that he was
+leaving his future in her hands--a malleable object, to be shaped
+according to her will for good or evil.
+
+A certain self-contained, spectacled youth, whose weekly letters arrived
+with regularity, rose before her mental vision, and as quickly vanished,
+leaving in his stead a man of a different type, a man at once unyielding
+and gentle, both shy and bold; a man who seemed to typify in himself the
+faults and virtues of the raw but vigorous West. Though she hesitated, she
+replied:
+
+"No, there is no one."
+
+And Ralston, fording the stream, lifted his eyes midway and saw Smith
+raise Dora's hand to his lips.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE BEST HORSE
+
+
+There was a subtle change in Ralston, which Dora was quick to feel. He was
+deferential, as always, and as eager to please; but he no longer sought
+her company, and she missed the quick exchange of sympathetic glances at
+the table. It seemed to her, also, that the grimness in his face was
+accentuated of late. She found herself crying one night, and called it
+homesickness, yet the small items of news contained in the latest letter
+from the spectacled youth had irritated her, and she had realized that she
+no longer regarded church fairs, choir practice, and oyster suppers as
+"events."
+
+She wondered how she had offended Ralston, if at all; or was it that he
+thought her bold, a brazen creature, because she had let him keep her hand
+so long upon the memorable occasion of the grasshopper hunt? She blushed
+in the darkness at the thought, and the tears slipped down her cheeks
+again as she decided that this must be so, since there could be no other
+explanation. Before she finally slept, she had fully made up her mind that
+she would show him by added reserve and dignity of manner that she was not
+the forward hoyden he undoubtedly believed her. And as a result of this
+midnight decision, the Schoolmarm's "Good-morning, Mr. Ralston," chilled
+that person like a draught from cold storage.
+
+Susie noticed the absence of their former cordiality toward each other;
+and the obvious lack of warmth filled Smith with keen satisfaction. He had
+no notion of its cause; it was sufficient that it was so.
+
+As their conversation daily became more forced, the estrangement more
+marked, Ralston's wretchedness increased in proportion. He brooded
+miserably over the scene he had witnessed; troubled, aside from his own
+interest in Dora, that she should be misled by a man of Smith's moral
+calibre. While he had delighted in her unworldly, childlike belief in
+people and things, in this instance he deeply regretted it.
+
+Ralston understood perfectly the part which Smith desired to play in her
+eyes. He had heard through Dora the stories Smith had told her of wild
+adventures in which he figured to advantage, of reckless deeds which he
+hinted would be impossible since falling under her influence. He posed as
+a brand snatched from the burning, and conveyed the impression that his
+salvation was a duty which had fallen in her path for her to perform. That
+she applied herself to the task of elevating Smith with such combined
+patience and ardor, was the grievance of which Ralston had most to
+complain.
+
+In his darker moments he told himself that she must have a liking for the
+man far stronger than he had believed, to have permitted the liberty which
+he had witnessed, one which, coming from Smith, seemed little short of
+sacrilege. His unhappiness was not lessened by the instances he recalled
+where women had married beneath them through this mistaken sense of duty,
+pity, or less commendable emotions.
+
+Upon one thing he was determined, and that was never again to force his
+attentions upon her, to take advantage of her helplessness as he had when
+he had held her hand so tightly and, as he now believed, against her
+wishes. Although she did not show it, she must have thought him a bumpkin,
+an oaf, an underbred cur. He groaned as he ransacked his vocabulary for
+fitting words.
+
+If only something would arise to reveal Smith's character to her in its
+true light! But this was too much to hope. In his depression, it seemed to
+Ralston that the sun would never shine for him again, that failure was
+written on him like an I. D. brand, that sorrow everlasting would eat and
+sleep with him. In this mood, after a brief exchange of breakfast
+civilities, far worse than none, he walked slowly to the corral to saddle,
+cursing Smith for the braggart he knew he was and for the scoundrel he
+believed him to be.
+
+Smith, it seemed, was riding that morning also, for when Ralston led his
+brown mare saddled and bridled from the stable, Smith was tightening the
+cinch on his long-legged gray--the horse he had taken from the Englishman.
+The Schoolmarm, in her riding clothes, ran down the trail, calling
+impartially:
+
+"Will one of you please get my horse for me? He broke loose last night and
+is over there in the pasture."
+
+For reply, both Ralston and Smith swung into their saddles.
+
+"I aims to get that horse. There's no call for you to go, feller."
+
+Above all else, it was odious to Ralston to be addressed by Smith
+"feller."
+
+"If you happen to get to him first," he answered curtly. "And I'd like to
+suggest that my name is Ralston."
+
+By way of answer, Smith dug the spurs cruelly into the thin-skinned
+blooded gray. Ralston loosened the reins on his brown mare, and it was a
+run from the jump.
+
+Each realized that the inevitable clash had come, that no pretense of
+friendliness would longer be possible between them, that from now on they
+would be avowed enemies. As for Ralston, he was glad that the crisis had
+arrived; glad of anything which would divert him for ever so short a time
+from his own bitter thoughts; glad of the test which he could meet in the
+open, like a man.
+
+The corral gate was open, and this led into a lane something like
+three-quarters of a mile in length, at the end of which was another gate,
+opening into the pasture where the runaway pony had crawled through the
+loose wire fence.
+
+The brown mare had responded to Ralston's signal like the loyal, honest
+little brute she was. The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat
+of the horses' hoofs on the hard road was like the roll of a drum. They
+were running neck and neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result,
+unless the gray had phenomenal speed.
+
+Ralston knew that whoever reached the gate first must open it. If he could
+get far enough in the lead, he could afford to do so; if not, he meant to
+"pull" his horse and leave it to Smith. The real race would be from the
+gate to the pony.
+
+The gray horse could run--his build showed that, and his stride bore out
+his appearance. Yet Ralston felt no uneasiness, for the mare had still
+several links of speed to let out--"and then some," as he phrased it. The
+pace was furious even to the gate; they ran neck and neck, like a team,
+and the face of each rider was set in lines of determination. Ralston
+quickly saw that in the short stretch he would be unable to get
+sufficiently in the lead to open the gate in safety. So he pulled his
+horse a little, wondering if Smith would do the same. But he did not.
+Instead, he spurred viciously, and, to Ralston's amazement, he went at the
+gate hard. Lifting the gray horse's head, he went over and on without a
+break!
+
+It was a chance, but Smith had taken it! He never had tried the horse, but
+it was from the English ranch, where he knew they were bred and trained to
+jump. His mocking laugh floated back to Ralston while he tore at the
+fastenings of the gate and hurled it from him.
+
+Ralston measured the gap between them and his heart sank. It looked
+hopeless. The only thing in his favor was that it was a long run, and the
+gray might not have the wind or the endurance. The little mare stood
+still, her nose out, her soft eyes shining. As he lifted the reins, he
+patted her neck and cried, breathing hard:
+
+"Molly, old girl, if you win, it's oats and a rest all your life!"
+
+He could have sworn the mare shared his humiliation.
+
+The saddle-leathers creaked beneath him at the leap she gave. She lay down
+to her work like a hound, running low, her neck outstretched, her tail
+lying out on the breeze. Game, graceful, reaching out with her slim legs
+and tiny hoofs, she ate up the distance between herself and the gray in a
+way that made even Ralston gasp. And still she gained--and gained! Her
+muscles seemed like steel springs, and the unfaltering courage in her
+brave heart made Ralston choke with pride and tenderness and gratitude.
+Even if she lost, the race she was making was something to remember
+always. But she was gaining inch by inch. The sage-brush and cactus swam
+under her feet. When Ralston thought she had done her best, given all
+that was in her, she did a little more.
+
+Smith knew, too, that she was gaining, though he would not turn his head
+to look. When her nose was at his horse's rump, he had it in his heart to
+turn and shoot her as she ran. She crept up and up, and both Smith and
+Ralston knew that the straining, pounding gray had done its best. The work
+was too rough for its feet. There was too much thoroughbred in it for
+lava-rock and sage-brush hummocks. Blind rage consumed Smith as he felt
+the increasing effort of each stride and knew that it was going "dead"
+under him. He used his spurs with savage brutality, but the brown mare's
+breath was coming hot on his leg. The gray horse stumbled; its breath came
+and went in sobs. Now they were neck and neck again. Then it was over, the
+little brown mare swept by, and Ralston's rope, cutting the air, dropped
+about the neck of the insignificant, white "digger" that had caused it
+all.
+
+"I guess you're ridin' the best horse to-day," said Smith, as he dropped
+from the saddle to retie his latigo.
+
+He gave the words a peculiar emphasis and inflection which made the other
+man look at him.
+
+"Molly and I have a prejudice against taking dust," Ralston answered
+quietly.
+
+"It happens frequent that a feller has to get over his prejudices out in
+this country."
+
+"That depends a little upon the fellow;" and he turned Molly's head toward
+the ranch, with the pony in tow.
+
+Smith said nothing more, but rode off across the hills with all the evil
+in his nature showing in his lowering countenance.
+
+Dora's eyes were brilliant as they always were under excitement; and when
+Ralston dismounted she stroked Molly's nose, saying in a voice which was
+more natural than it had been for days when addressing him, "It was
+splendid! _She_ is splendid!" and he glowed, feeling that perhaps he was
+included a little in her praise.
+
+"You want to watch out now," said Susie soberly. "Smith'll never rest till
+he's 'hunks.'"
+
+Ralston thought the Schoolmarm hesitated, as if she were waiting for him
+to join them, or were going to ask him to do so; but she did not, and,
+although it was some satisfaction to feel that he had drawn first blood,
+he felt his despondency returning as soon as Dora and Susie had ridden
+away.
+
+He walked aimlessly about, waiting for Molly to cool a bit before he let
+her drink preparatory to starting on his tiresome ride over the range.
+Both he and the Colonel believed that the thieves would soon grow bolder,
+and his strongest hope lay in coming upon them at work. He had noted that
+there were no fresh hides among those which hung on the fence, and he
+sauntered down to have another look at the old ones. With his foot he
+turned over something which lay close against a fence-post, half concealed
+in a sage-brush. Stooping, he unrolled it and shook it out; then he
+whistled softly. It was a fresh hide with the brand cut out!
+
+Ralston nodded his head in mingled satisfaction and regret. So the thief
+was working from the MacDonald ranch! Did the Indian woman know, he
+wondered. Was it possible that Susie was in ignorance? With all his heart,
+he hoped she was. He walked leisurely to the house and leaned against the
+jamb of the kitchen door.
+
+"Have the makings, Ling?" He passed his tobacco-sack and paper to the
+cook.
+
+"Sure!" said Ling jauntily. "I like 'em cigilette."
+
+And as they smoked fraternally together, they talked of food and its
+preparation--subjects from which Ling's thoughts seldom wandered far. When
+the advantages of soda and sour milk over baking powder were thoroughly
+exhausted as a topic, Ralston asked casually:
+
+"Who killed your last beef, Ling? It's hard to beat."
+
+"Yellow Bird," he replied. "Him good butcher."
+
+"Yes," Ralston agreed; "I should say that Yellow Bird was an uncommonly
+good butcher."
+
+So, after all, it was the Indians who were killing. Ralston sauntered on
+to the bunk-house to think it over.
+
+"Tubbs," McArthur was saying, as he eyed that person with an interest
+which he seldom bestowed upon his hireling, "you really have a most
+remarkable skull."
+
+Tubbs, visibly flattered, smirked.
+
+"It's claimed that it's double by people what have tried to work me over.
+Onct I crawled in a winder and et up a batch of 'son-of-a-gun-in-a-sack'
+that the feller who lived there had jest made. He come in upon me suddent,
+and the way he hammered me over the head with the stove-lifter didn't
+trouble _him_, but," declared Tubbs proudly, "he never even knocked me to
+my knees."
+
+"It is of the type of dolichocephalic," mused McArthur.
+
+"A barber told me that same thing the last time I had a hair-cut,"
+observed Tubbs blandly. "'Tubbs,' says he, 'you ought to have a massaj
+every week, and lay the b'ar-ile on a-plenty.'"
+
+"It is remarkably suggestive of the skulls found in the ancient paraderos
+of Patagonia. Very similar in contour--very similar."
+
+"There's no Irish in me," Tubbs declared with a touch of resentment. "I'm
+pure mungrel--English and Dutch."
+
+"It is an extremely curious skull--most peculiar." He felt of Tubbs's head
+with growing interest. "This bump behind the ear, if the system of
+phrenology has any value, would indicate unusual pugnacity."
+
+"That's where a mule kicked me and put his laig out of joint," said Tubbs
+humorously.
+
+"Ah, that renders the skull pathological; but, even so, it is an
+interesting skull to an anthropologist--a really valuable skull, it would
+be to me, illustrating as it does certain features in dispute, for which I
+have stubbornly contended in controversies with the Preparator of
+Anthropology at the Ecole des Haute Etudes in Paris."
+
+"Why don't you sell it to him, Tubbs?" suggested Ralston, who had listened
+in unfeigned amusement.
+
+Tubbs, startled, clasped both hands over the top of his head and backed
+off.
+
+"Why, I need it myself."
+
+"Certainly--we understand that; but supposing you were to die--supposing
+something happened to you, as is liable to happen out here--you wouldn't
+care what became of your skull, once you were good and dead. If it were
+sold, you'd be just that much in, besides making an invaluable
+contribution to science," Ralston urged persuasively.
+
+"It not infrequently happens that paupers, and prisoners sentenced to
+suffer capital punishment, dispose of their bodies for anatomical
+purposes, for which they are paid in advance. As a matter of fact,
+Tubbs," declared McArthur earnestly, "my superficial examination of your
+head has so impressed me that upon the chance of some day adding it to my
+collection I am willing to offer you a reasonable sum for it."
+
+"It's on bi-products that the money is made," declared Ralston soberly,
+"and I advise you not to let this chance pass. You can raise money on the
+rest of your anatomy any time; but selling your head separately like
+this--don't miss it, Tubbs!"
+
+"Don't I git the money till you git my head?" Tubbs demanded
+suspiciously.
+
+"I could make a first payment to you, and the remainder could be paid to
+your heirs."
+
+"My heirs! Say, all that I'll ever git for my head wouldn't be a smell
+amongst my heirs. A round-up of my heirs would take in the hull of North
+Dakoty. Not aimin' to brag, I got mavericks runnin' on that range what
+must be twelve-year-old."
+
+McArthur looked the disgust he felt at Tubbs's ribald humor.
+
+"Your jests are exceedingly distasteful to me, Tubbs."
+
+"That ain't no jest. Onct I----"
+
+"Let's get down to business," interrupted Ralston. "What do you consider
+your skull worth?"
+
+"It's wuth considerable to me. I don't know as I'm so turrible anxious to
+sell. I can eat with it, and it gits me around." Tubbs's tone took on the
+assumed indifference of an astute horse trader. "I've always held my head
+high, as you might say, and it looks to me like it ought to bring a
+hunderd dollars in the open market. No, I couldn't think of lettin' it go
+for less than a hundred--cash."
+
+McArthur considered.
+
+"If you will agree to my conditions, I will give you my check for one
+hundred dollars," he said at last.
+
+"That sounds reasonable," Tubbs assented.
+
+"I should want you to carry constantly upon your person my name, address,
+and written instructions as to the care of and disposal of your skull, in
+the event of your demise. I shall also insist that you do not voluntarily
+place your head where your skull may be injured; because, as you can
+readily see, if it were badly crushed, it would be worthless for my
+purpose, or that of the scientific body to whom I intend to bequeath my
+interest in it, should I die before yourself."
+
+"I wasn't aimin' to lay it in a vise," remarked Tubbs.
+
+While McArthur was drawing up the agreement between them, Tubbs's face
+brightened with a unique thought.
+
+"Say," he suggested, "why don't you leave word in them instructions for me
+to be mounted? I know a taxidermist over there near the Yellowstone Park
+what can put up a b'ar or a timber wolf so natural you wouldn't know 'twas
+dead. Wouldn't it be kinda nice to see me settin' around the house with my
+teeth showin' and an ear of corn in my mouth? I'll tell you what I'll do:
+I'll sell you my hull hide for a hundred more. It might cost two dollars
+to have me tanned, and with a nice felt linin' you could have a good rug
+out of me for a very little money."
+
+McArthur replied ironically:
+
+"I never have regarded you as an ornament, Tubbs."
+
+Tubbs looked at the check McArthur handed him, with satisfaction.
+
+"That's what I call clear velvet!" he declared, and went off chuckling to
+show it to his friends.
+
+"When you think of it, this is a very singular transaction," observed
+McArthur, wiping his fountain-pen carefully.
+
+"Yes," and Ralston, no longer able to contain himself, shouted with
+laughter; "it is."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+SMITH GETS "HUNKS"
+
+
+Smith's ugly mood was still upon him when he picked up his grammar that
+evening. Jealous, humiliated by the loss of the morning's race, full
+of revengeful thoughts and evil feelings, he wanted to hurt
+somebody--something--even Dora. He had a vague, sullen notion that she
+was to blame because Ralston was in love with her. She could have
+discouraged him in the beginning, he told himself; she could have
+stopped it.
+
+Unaccustomed as Smith was to self-restraint, he quickly showed his frame
+of mind to Dora. He had no _savoir faire_ with which to conceal his mood;
+besides, he entertained a feeling of proprietorship over her which
+justified his resentment to himself. Was she not to be his? Would he not
+eventually control her, her actions, choose her friends?
+
+Dora found him a dense and disagreeable pupil, and one who seemingly had
+forgotten everything he had learned during previous lessons. His replies
+at times were so curt as to be uncivil, and a feeling of indignation
+gradually rose within her. She was at a loss to understand his mood,
+unless it was due to the result of the morning's race; yet she could
+scarcely believe that his disappointment, perhaps chagrin, could account
+for his rudeness to her.
+
+When the useless lesson was finished, she closed the book and asked:
+
+"You are not yourself to-night. What is wrong?"
+
+With an expression upon his face which both startled and shocked her he
+snarled:
+
+"I'm sick of seein' that lady-killer hangin' around here!"
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"Ralston!"
+
+Dora had never looked at Smith as she looked at him now.
+
+"I beg to be excused from your criticisms of Mr. Ralston."
+
+Smith had not dreamed that the gentle, girlish voice could take on such a
+quality. It cut him, stung him, until he felt hot and cold by turns.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know he was such a friend," he sneered.
+
+"Yes"--her eyes did not quail before the look that flamed in his--"he is
+_just_ such a friend!"
+
+They had risen; and Smith, looking at her as she stood erect, her head
+high in defiance, could have choked her in his jealous rage.
+
+He stumbled rather than walked toward the door.
+
+"Good-night," he said in a strained, throaty voice.
+
+"Good-night."
+
+She stared at the door as it closed behind him. She had something of the
+feeling of one who, making a pet of a tiger, feels its claws for the first
+time, sees the first indication of its ferocious nature. This new phase of
+Smith's character, while it angered, also filled her with uneasiness.
+
+It was later than usual when Smith came in to say a word to the Indian
+woman, after Dora and Susie had retired. He did not bring with him the
+fumes of tobacco, the smoke of which rose in clouds in the bunk-house,
+making it all but impossible to see the length of the building; he
+brought, rather, an odor of freshness, a feeling of coolness, as though he
+had been long in the night air.
+
+The Indian woman sniffed imperceptibly.
+
+"Where you been?"
+
+His look was evil as he answered:
+
+"Me? I've been payin' my debts, me--Smith."
+
+He took her impassive hand in both of his and pressed it against his
+heart.
+
+"Prairie Flower," he said, "I want you to tell Ralston to go. _I hate
+him_."
+
+The woman looked at him, but did not answer.
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Yes, I tell him."
+
+"When?"
+
+She raised her narrowing eyes to his.
+
+"_When you tell de white woman to go_."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralston had felt that the old Colonel was growing impatient with his
+seeming inactivity, so he decided, the next morning, to ride to the Bar C
+and tell him that he believed he had a clue. It would not be necessary to
+keep Running Rabbit under close surveillance until the beef in the
+meat-house was getting low. Then the deputy sheriff meant not to let him
+out of his sight.
+
+Smith had not spoken to the man whom he had come to regard as his rival
+since he had ridden away from him the morning before. He had ignored
+Ralston's conversation at the table and avoided him in the bunk-house.
+Now, engaged in trimming his horse's fetlocks, Smith did not look up as
+the other man passed, but his eyes followed him with a triumphant gleam as
+he went into the stable to saddle Molly.
+
+Ralston backed the mare to turn her in the stall, and she all but fell
+down. He felt a little surprise at her clumsiness, but did not grasp its
+meaning until he led her to the door, where she stepped painfully over the
+low door-sill and all but fell again. He led her a step or two further,
+and she went almost to her knees. The mare was lame in every leg--she
+could barely stand; yet there was not a mark on her--not ever so slight a
+bruise! Her slender legs were as free from swellings as when they had
+carried her past Smith's gray; her feet looked to be in perfect condition;
+yet, save for the fact that she could stand up, she was as crippled as if
+the bones of every leg were shattered.
+
+It is doubtful if any but steel-colored eyes can take on the look which
+Ralston's contained as they met Smith's. His skin was gray as he
+straightened himself and drew a hand which shook noticeably the length of
+his cheek and across his mouth.
+
+In great anger, anger which precedes some quick and desperate act, almost
+every person has some gesture peculiar to himself, and this was
+Ralston's.
+
+A less guilty man than Smith might have flinched at that moment. The
+half-grin on his face faded, and he waited for a torrent of accusations
+and oaths. But Ralston, in a voice so low that it barely reached him, a
+voice so ominous, so fraught with meaning, that the dullest could not have
+misunderstood, said:
+
+"I'll borrow your horse, Smith."
+
+Smith, like one hypnotized, heard himself saying:
+
+"Sure! Take him."
+
+Ralston knew as well as though he had witnessed the act that Smith had
+hammered the frogs of Molly's feet until they were bruised and sore as
+boils. Her lameness would not be permanent--she would recover in a week or
+two; but the abuse of, the cruelty to, the little mare he loved filled
+Ralston with a hatred for Smith as relentless and deep as Smith's own.
+
+"A man who could do a thing like that," said Ralston through his set
+teeth, "is no common cur! He's wolf--all wolf! He isn't staying here for
+love, alone. There's something else. And I swear before the God that made
+me, I'll find out what it is, and land him, before I quit!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+SUSIE'S INDIAN BLOOD
+
+
+Coming leisurely up the path from the corrals, Smith saw Susie sitting on
+the cottonwood log, wrapped in her mother's blanket. She was huddled in a
+squaw's attitude. He eyed her; he never had seen her like that before.
+But, knowing Indians better, possibly, than he knew his own race, Smith
+understood. He recognized the mood. Her Indian blood was uppermost. It
+rose in most half-breeds upon occasion. Sometimes under the influence of
+liquor it cropped out, sometimes anger brought it to the surface. He had
+seen it often--this heavy, smouldering sullenness.
+
+Smith stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at her. He felt more at
+ease with her than ever before.
+
+"What are you sullin' about, Susie?"
+
+She did not answer. Her pertness, her Anglo-Saxon vivacity, were gone; her
+face was wooden, expressionless; her restless eyes slow-moving and dull;
+her cheek-bones, always noticeably high, looked higher, and her skin was
+murky and dark.
+
+"You look like a squaw with that sull on," he ventured again, and there
+was satisfaction in his face.
+
+It was something to know that, after all, Susie was "Injun"--"pure
+Injun." The scheme which had lain dormant in his brain now took active
+shape. He had wanted Susie's help, but each time that he had tried to
+conciliate her, his overtures had ended in a fresh rupture. Now her
+stinging tongue was dumb, and there was no aggressiveness in her manner.
+
+Smith, laying his hand heavily upon her shoulder, sat down beside her, and
+a flash, a transitory gleam, shone for an instant in her dull eyes; but
+she did not move or change expression.
+
+He said in a low voice:
+
+"What you need is stirrin' up, Susie."
+
+He watched her narrowly, and continued:
+
+"You ought to get into a game that has some ginger in it. This here life
+is too tame for a girl like you."
+
+Without looking at him she asked:
+
+"What kind of a game?" Her voice was lifeless, guttural.
+
+"It's agin my principles to empty my sack to a woman; but you're
+diff'rent--you're game--you are, Susie." His voice dropped to a whisper,
+and the weight of his hand made her shoulder sag. "Let's you and me rustle
+a bunch of horses."
+
+Susie did not betray surprise at the startling proposition by so much as
+the twitching of an eyelid.
+
+"What for?"
+
+Smith replied:
+
+"Just for the hell of it!"
+
+She grunted, but neither in assent nor dissent; so Smith went on in an
+eager, persuasive whisper:
+
+"There's Injun enough in you, girl, to make horse-stealin' all the same as
+breathin'. You jump in with me on this deal and see how easy you lose that
+sull. Don't you ever have a feelin' take holt of you that you want to do
+something onery--steal something, mix with somebody? I do. I've had that
+notorious feelin' workin' on me strong for days now, and I've got to get
+rid of it. If you'll come in on this, we'll have the excitement and make a
+stake, too. Talk up, girl--show your sand! Be game!"
+
+"What horses do you aim to steal?"
+
+"Reservation horses. Say, the way I can burn their brands and fan 'em over
+the line won't trouble _me_. I'll come back with a wad--me, Smith--and
+I'll whack up even. What do you say?"
+
+"What for a hand do I take in it?"
+
+A smile of triumph lifted the corners of Smith's mouth.
+
+"You gather 'em up and run 'em into a coulee, that's all. I'll do the
+rest."
+
+"What do you want _me_ to do it for?"
+
+"Nobody'd think anything of it if they saw you runnin' horses, because
+you're always doin' it; but they'd notice me."
+
+"Where's the coulee?"
+
+"I've picked it. I located my plant long ago. I've found the best spot in
+the State to make a plant."
+
+"Where are you goin' to sell?"
+
+Smith eyed her inscrutable face suspiciously.
+
+"You're askin' lots of questions, girl. I tips my hand too far to no
+petticoat. You trusts me or you don't. Will you come in?"
+
+"All right," said Susie after a silence; "I'll come in--'just for the hell
+of it.'"
+
+"Shake!"
+
+She looked at his extended hand and wrapped her own in her blanket.
+
+"There's no call to shake."
+
+"Is your heart mixed, Susie?" he demanded. "Ain't it right toward me?"
+
+"It'll be right enough when the time comes," she answered.
+
+The reply did not satisfy Smith, but he told himself that, once she was
+committed, he could manage her, for, after all, Susie was little more than
+a child. Smith felt uncommonly pleased with himself for his bold stroke.
+
+The new intimacy between Smith and Susie, the sudden cessation of
+hostilities, caused surprise on the ranch, but the Indian woman was the
+only one to whom it gave pleasure. She viewed the altered relations with
+satisfaction, since it removed the only obstacle, as she believed, to a
+speedy marriage with Smith.
+
+"Didn't I tell you he smart white man?" she asked complacently of Susie.
+
+"Oh, yes, he's awful smart," Susie answered with sarcasm.
+
+Ralston, more than any one else, was puzzled by their apparent friendship.
+He had believed that Susie's antipathy for Smith was as deep as his own,
+and he wondered what could have happened to bring about such a sudden and
+complete revulsion of feeling. He was disappointed in her. He felt that
+she had weakly gone over to the enemy; and it shook his confidence in her
+sturdy honesty more than anything she could have done. He believed that no
+person who understood Smith, as Susie undoubtedly did, could make a friend
+and confidant of him and be "right." But sometimes he caught Susie's eyes
+fixed upon him in a kind of wistful, inquiring scrutiny, which left the
+impression that something was troubling her, something that she longed to
+confide in some one upon whom she could rely; but his past experience had
+taught him the futility of attempting to force her confidence, of trying
+to learn more than she volunteered.
+
+Smith and Susie rode the surrounding country and selected horses from the
+various bands. Three or four bore Bear Chief's brand, there were a pinto
+and a black buckskin in Running Rabbit's herd, and a sorrel or two that
+belonged to Yellow Bird. A couple of bays here were singled out, a brown
+and black there, until they had the pick of the range.
+
+"We don't want to get more nor you can cut out alone and handle," warned
+Smith. "We don't want no slip-up on the start."
+
+"I don't aim to make no slip-up."
+
+"We've got lookers, we have," declared Smith. "And them chunky ones go off
+quickest at a forced sale. I know a horse when I meet up with it,
+me--Smith."
+
+"But where you goin' to cache 'em?" insisted Susie.
+
+"Girl, I ain't been ridin' this range for my health. I'll show you a blind
+canyon where a regiment of soldiers couldn't find a hundred head of horses
+in a year; and over there in the Bad Lands there's a spring breakin' out
+where a man dyin' of thirst would never think of lookin' for it. We're all
+right. You're a head-worker, and so am I." Smith chuckled. "We'll set some
+of these Injuns afoot, and make a clean-get-away."
+
+Smith was more than satisfied with the zest with which Susie now entered
+into the plot, and the shrewdness which she showed in planning details
+that he himself had overlooked.
+
+"You work along with me, kid, and I'll make a dead-game one out of you!"
+he declared with enthusiasm. "When we make a stake, we'll go to Billings
+and rip up the sod!"
+
+"I'll like that," said Susie dryly.
+
+"When the right time comes, I'll know it," Smith went on. "When I wakes up
+some mornin' with a feelin' that it's the day to get action on, I always
+follows that feelin'--if it takes holt of me anyways strong. I has to do
+certain things on certain days. I hates a chilly day worse nor anything. I
+wants to hole up, and I feels mean enough to bite myself. But when the sun
+shines, it thaws me; it draws the frost out of my heart, like. I hates to
+let anybody's blood when the sun shines. I likes to lie out on a rock like
+a lizard, and I feels kind. I'm cur'ous that way, about sun, me--Smith."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE SLAYER OF MASTODONS
+
+
+Dora and Susie had planned to botanize one fine Saturday morning, and
+Susie, dressed for a tramp in the hills, was playing with a pup in the
+dooryard, waiting for Dora, when she saw Smith coming toward her with the
+short, quick step which, she had learned, with him denoted mental
+activity.
+
+"This is the day for it," he said decisively. "I had that notorious
+feelin' take holt of me when I got awake. How's your heart, girl?"
+
+It had given a thump at Smith's approach, and Susie's tawny skin had paled
+under its tan, but by way of reply she gave the suggestive Indian sign of
+strength.
+
+"Good!" he nodded. "You'll need a strong heart for the ridin' you've got
+to do to-day; but I'm not a worryin' that you can't do it, kid, for I've
+watched you close."
+
+"Guess I could ride a flyin' squirrel if I had to," Susie replied shortly,
+"but Teacher wanted me to go with her to get flowers. She doesn't like to
+go alone."
+
+"There's no call for her to go alone. I'll go with her. It's no use for me
+to get to the plant before afternoon. I'll go on this flower-pickin'
+spree, and be at the mouth of the canyon in time to hold the first bunch
+of horses you bring in. They're pretty much scattered, you know. What for
+an outfit you goin' to wear? You don't want no flappin' skirts to
+advertise you."
+
+Susie answered curtly:
+
+"I got some sense."
+
+"You're a sassy side-kicker," he observed good-humoredly.
+
+She pouted.
+
+"I don't care, I wanted to pick flowers."
+
+Smith said mockingly, "So do I, angel child. I jest worships flowers!"
+
+"From pickin' flowers to stealin' horses is some of a jump."
+
+"I holds a record for long jumps." As a final warning Smith said: "Now,
+don't make no mistake in cuttin' out, for we've picked the top horses of
+the range. And remember, once you get 'em strung out, haze 'em along--for
+there'll be hell a-poppin' on the reservation when they're missed."
+
+Susie had disappeared when the Schoolmarm came out with her basket and
+knife, prepared to start, and Smith gave some plausible excuse for her
+change of plan.
+
+"She told me to go in her place," said Smith eagerly, "and I know a gulch
+where there's a barrel of them Mormon lilies, and rock-roses, and a
+reg'lar carpet of these here durn little blue flowers that look so nice
+and smell like a Chinese laundry. I can dig like a badger, too."
+
+Dora laughed, and, looking at him, noticed, as she often had before, the
+wonderful vividness with which his varying moods were reflected in his
+face, completely altering his expression.
+
+He looked boyish, brimming with the buoyant spirits of youth. His skin had
+unwonted clearness, his eyes were bright, his face was animated; he seemed
+to radiate exuberant good-humor. Even his voice was different and his
+laugh was less hard. As he walked away with the Schoolmarm's basket
+swinging on his arm, he was for the time what he should have been always.
+He had long since made ample apology to Dora for his offense and there had
+been no further outbreak from him of which to complain.
+
+The day's work was cut out for Ralston also, when he saw Yellow Bird and
+another Indian ride away, each leading a pack-horse, and learned from Ling
+that they had gone to butcher. They started off over the reservation, in
+the direction in which the MacDonald cattle ranged; with the intention,
+Ralston supposed, of circling and coming out on the Bar C range. He
+thought that by keeping well to the draws and gulches he could remain
+fairly well hidden and yet keep them in sight.
+
+He heard voices, and turned a hill just in time to see Smith take a flower
+gently from Dora's hand and, with some significant word, lay it with care
+between the leaves of a pocket note-book.
+
+Though it looked more to Ralston, all that Smith had said was, "It might
+bring me luck." And Dora had smiled at his superstition.
+
+Ralston would have turned back had it not been too late: his horse's feet
+among the rocks had caused them to look up. As he passed Dora replied to
+some commonplace, with heightened color, and Smith stared in silent
+triumph.
+
+Ralston cursed himself and the mischance which had taken him to that
+spot.
+
+"She'll think I was spying upon her, like some ignorant, jealous fool!" he
+told himself savagely. "Why, why, is it that I must always blunder upon
+such scenes, to make me miserable for days! Can it be--can it possibly
+be," he asked himself--"that she cares for the man; that she encourages
+him; that she has a foolish, Quixotic notion that she can raise him to her
+own level?"
+
+Was there really good in the man which he, Ralston, was unable to see? Was
+he too much in love with Dora himself to be just to Smith, he wondered.
+
+"No, no!" he reiterated vehemently. "No man who would abuse a horse is fit
+for a good woman to marry. I'm right about him--I know I am. But can I
+prove it in time to save her?--not for myself, for I guess I've no show;
+but from him?"
+
+With a heartache which seemed to have become chronic of late, Ralston
+followed the Indians' lead up hill and down, through sand coulees and
+between cut-banks, at a leisurely pace. They seemed in no hurry, nor did
+they make any apparent effort to conceal themselves. They rode through
+several herds of cattle, and passed on, drifting gradually toward the
+creek bottom close to the reservation line, where both Bar C and I. D.
+cattle came to drink.
+
+Ralston wondered if they would attempt to stand him off; but his heart was
+too heavy for the possibility of a coming fight to quicken his pulse to
+any great extent. He believed that he would be rather glad than otherwise
+if they should make a stand. The thought that the tedious waiting game
+which he had played so long might be ended did not elate him. The ambition
+seemed to have gone out of him. He had little heart in his work, and small
+interest in the glory resulting from success.
+
+He thought only of Dora as he lay full length on the ground, plucking
+disconsolately at spears of bunch-grass within reach, while he waited for
+the sound of a shot in the creek bottom, or the reappearance of the
+Indians.
+
+He had not long to wait before a shot, a bellow, and another shot told him
+that the time for action had come. He pulled his rifle from its scabbard,
+and laid it in front of him on his saddle. It was curious, he thought, as
+he rode closer, that one Indian was not on guard. Still, it was probable
+that they had grown careless through past successes. He was within a
+hundred yards of the butchers before they saw him.
+
+"Hello!" Yellow Bird's voice was friendly.
+
+"Hello!" Ralston answered.
+
+"Fat cow. Fine beef," vouchsafed the Indian.
+
+"Fine beef," agreed Ralston. "Can I help you?"
+
+The MacDonald brand stood out boldly on the cow's flank!
+
+Ralston watched them until they had loaded their meat upon the pack-horses
+and started homeward. One thing was certain: if Running Rabbit had
+butchered the Bar C cattle, he had done so under a white man's
+supervision. In this instance, with an Indian's usual economy in the
+matter of meat, he had left little but the horns and hoofs. The Bar C
+cattle had been butchered with the white man's indifference to waste.
+
+Any one of the bunk-house crowd, except McArthur, Ralston believed to be
+quite capable of stealing cattle for beef purposes. But if they had been
+stealing systematically, as it would appear, why had they killed MacDonald
+cattle to-day? Ralston still regarded the affair of the fresh hide as too
+suspicious a circumstance to be overlooked, and he meant to learn which of
+the white grub-liners had been absent. He reasoned that the Indians had a
+wholesome fear of Colonel Tolman, and that it was unlikely they would
+venture upon his range for such a purpose without a white man's moral
+support.
+
+Smith had been missing frequently of late and for so long as two days at
+a time, but this could not be regarded as peculiar, since the habits of
+all the grub-liners were more or less erratic. They disappeared and
+reappeared, with no explanation of their absence.
+
+In his present frame of mind, Ralston had no desire to return immediately
+to the ranch. He wanted to be alone; to harden his heart against Dora; to
+prepare his mind for more shocks such as he had had of late. It was not an
+easy task he had set himself.
+
+After a time he dismounted, and, throwing down his bridle-reins, dropped
+to the ground to rest, while his horse nibbled contentedly at the sparse
+bunch-grass. As he lay in the sunshine, his hands clasped behind his head,
+the stillness acted like a sedative, and something of the tranquillity
+about him crept into his soul.
+
+Upon one thing he was determined, and that was, come what might, to be a
+_man_--a gentleman. If in his conceit and eagerness he had misunderstood
+the softness of Dora's eyes, her shy tremulousness, as he now believed he
+had, he could take his medicine like a man, and go when the time came,
+without whimpering, without protest or reproach. He wanted to go away
+feeling that he had her respect, at least; go knowing that there was not a
+single word or action of his upon which she could look back with contempt.
+Yes, he wanted greatly her respect. She inspired in him this desire.
+
+Ralston felt very humble, very conscious of his own shortcomings, as he
+lay there while the afternoon waned; but, humble as he was, resigned as he
+believed himself to be, he could not think of Smith with anything but
+resentment and contempt. It hurt his pride, his self-respect, to regard
+Smith in the light of a rival--a successful rival.
+
+"By Gad!" he cried aloud, and with a heat which belied his
+self-abnegation. "If he were only a _decent_ white man! But to be let down
+and out by the only woman I ever gave a whoop for in all my life, for a
+fellow like that! Say, it's tough!"
+
+Ralston's newly acquired serenity, the depth of which he had reason to
+doubt, was further disturbed by a distant clatter of hoofs. He sat up and
+watched the oncoming of the angriest-looking Indian that ever quirted a
+cayuse over a reservation. It was Bear Chief, whom he knew slightly.
+Seeing Ralston's saddled horse, the Indian pulled up a little, which was
+as well, since the white man was immediately in his path.
+
+As the Indian came back, Ralston, who had rolled over to let him pass,
+remarked dryly:
+
+"The country is getting so crowded, it's hardly safe for a man to sit
+around like this. What's the excitement, Bear Chief?"
+
+"Horse-thief steal Indian horses!" he cried, pointing toward the Bad
+Lands.
+
+Ralston was instantly alert.
+
+"Him ridin' my race-pony--fastest pony on de reservation. Got big bunch.
+Runnin' 'em off!"
+
+Fast moving specks that rose and fell among the hills of the Bad Lands
+bore out the Indian's words.
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+Ralston was slipping the bit back in his horse's mouth and tightening the
+cinch.
+
+"Yas, I see him. Long way off, but I see him."
+
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Yas, I know him."
+
+"Who was it?" Ralston was in the saddle now.
+
+"Little white man--what you call him 'bug-hunter'--at de MacDonald
+ranch."
+
+"McArthur!" Their horses were gathering speed as they turned them toward
+the Bad Lands.
+
+"Yas. Little; hair on face--so; wear what you call dem sawed-off pants."
+
+From the description, Ralston recognized McArthur's English
+riding-breeches, which had added zest to life for the bunk-house crowd
+when he had appeared in them. The deputy-sheriff was bewildered. It seemed
+incredible, yet there, still in sight, was the flying band of horses, and
+Bear Chief's positiveness seemed to leave no room for doubt.
+
+"Oh, him one heap good thief," panted Bear Chief, in unwilling admiration,
+as their horses ran side by side. "He work fast. No 'fraid. Cut 'em
+out--head 'em off--turn 'em--ride through big brush--jump de gulch--yell
+and swing de quirt, and do him all 'lone! Dat no easy work--cut out horses
+all 'lone. Him heap good horse-thief!"
+
+What did it mean, anyhow? Ralston asked himself the question again and
+again. Was it possible that he had been deceived in McArthur? That, after
+all, he was a criminal of an extraordinary type? He found no answer to his
+questions, but both he and Bear Chief soon realized that they were
+exhausting their horses in a useless pursuit. It was growing dark; the
+thief had too much start, and, with the experience of an old hand, he
+drove the horses over rocks, where they left no blabbing tracks behind.
+Once well into the Bad Lands, he was as effectually lost as if the earth
+had opened and swallowed him.
+
+So they turned their tired horses back, reaching the ranch long after
+sundown. Ralston was still unconvinced that it was not a case of mistaken
+identity, and, hoping against hope, he asked some one loafing about while
+he and Bear Chief unsaddled if McArthur had returned.
+
+"He's been off prowlin' all day, and ain't in yet," was the answer; and
+Bear Chief grunted at this confirmation of his accusation.
+
+The Indian woman was waiting in the doorway when they came up the path.
+
+"You see Susie?" There was uneasiness in her voice.
+
+It was an unheard-of thing for Susie not to return from her rides and
+visits before dark.
+
+"Not since morning," Ralston replied. "Has any one gone to look for her?
+Is Smith here?"
+
+"Smith no come home for supper."
+
+"There seems to have been a general exodus to-day," Ralston observed. "Are
+you feeling worried about Susie?"
+
+"I no like. Yas, I feel worry for Susie."
+
+It was the first evidence of maternal interest that Ralston ever had seen
+the stoical woman show.
+
+"If Ling will give me a bite to eat, I'll saddle another horse and ride
+down below. She may be spending the night with some of her friends."
+
+"She no do that without tell me," declared the woman positively. "Susie no
+do that."
+
+She brought the food from the kitchen herself, and padded uneasily from
+window to window while they ate.
+
+What was in the wind, Ralston asked himself, that Susie, McArthur, and
+Smith should disappear in this fashion on the same day? It was a singular
+coincidence. Like her mother, Ralston had no notion that Susie was
+stopping the night at any ranch or lodge below. He, too, shared the Indian
+woman's misgivings.
+
+He had finished and was reaching for his hat when footsteps were heard on
+the hard-beaten dooryard. They were slow, lagging, unfamiliar to the
+listeners, who looked at each other inquiringly. Then the Indian woman
+threw open the door, and Susie, like the ghost of herself, staggered from
+the darkness outside into the light.
+
+No ordinary fatigue could make her look as she looked now. Every step
+showed complete and utter exhaustion. Her dishevelled hair was hanging in
+strands over her face, her eyes were dark-circled, she was streaked with
+dust and grime, and her thin shoulders drooped wearily.
+
+"Where you been, Susie?" her mother asked sharply.
+
+"Teacher said," she made a pitiful attempt to laugh, to speak
+lightly--"Teacher said ridin' horseback would keep you from gettin' fat.
+I--I've been reducin' my hips."
+
+"Don't you do dis no more!"
+
+"Don't worry--I shan't!" And as if her mother's reproach was the last
+straw, Susie covered her face with the crook of her elbow and cried
+hysterically.
+
+Ralston was convinced that the day had held something out of the ordinary
+for Susie. He knew that it would take an extraordinary ride so completely
+to exhaust a girl who was all but born in the saddle. But it was evident
+from her reply that she did not mean to tell where she had been or what
+she had been doing.
+
+Although Ralston soon retired, he was awake long after his numerous
+room-mates were snoring in their bunks. There was much to be done on the
+morrow, yet he could not sleep. He was not able to rid himself of the
+thought that there was something peculiar in the absence of Smith just at
+this time, nor could he entirely abandon the belief that McArthur would
+yet come straggling in, with an explanation of the whole affair. He could
+not think of any that would be satisfactory, but an underlying faith in
+the little scientist's honesty persisted.
+
+Toward morning he slept, and day was breaking when a step on the door-sill
+of the bunk-house awakened him. He raised himself slightly on his elbow
+and stared at McArthur, looming large in the gray dawn, with a skull
+carried carefully in both hands.
+
+"Ah, I'm glad to find you awake!" He tiptoed across the floor.
+
+His clothing was wrinkled with the damp, night air, and his face looked
+haggard in the cold light, but the fire of enthusiasm burned undimmed
+behind his spectacles.
+
+"Congratulate me!"
+
+"I do--what for?"
+
+"My dear sir, if I can prove to the satisfaction of scientific sceptics
+that this cranium is not pathological, I shall have bounded in a single
+day--night--bounded from comparative obscurity to the pinnacle of fame!
+Undoubtedly--beyond question--a race of giants existed in North
+America----"
+
+"Pardon me," Ralston interrupted his husky eloquence; "but where have you
+been all night?"
+
+"Ah, where have I _not_ been? Walking--walking under the stars! Under the
+stimulus of success, I have covered miles with no feeling of fatigue. Have
+you ever experienced, my dear sir, the sensation which comes from the
+realization of a life-dream?"
+
+"Not yet," Ralston replied prosaically. "Where was your horse?"
+
+"Ah, yes, my horse. Where _is_ my horse? I asked myself that question each
+time that I stopped to remove one of the poisonous spines of the cactus
+from my feet. Whether my horse lost me or I lost my horse, I am unable to
+say. I left him grazing in a gulch, and was not again able to locate the
+gulch. I wandered all night--or until Fate guided me into a barbed wire
+fence, where, as you will observe, I tore my trousers. I followed the
+fence, and here I am--I and my companion"--McArthur patted the skull
+lovingly--"this giant--the slayer of mastodons--whose history lies
+concealed in 'the dark backward and abysm of time'!"
+
+As he looked into Ralston's non-committal eyes with his own burning orbs,
+he realized that great joy, like great sorrow, is something which cannot
+well be shared.
+
+"Forgive me," he said with hurt dignity; "I have again forgotten that you
+have no interest in such things."
+
+"You are mistaken. I wanted to hear."
+
+After McArthur had retired to his pneumatic mattress, Ralston lay
+wide-eyed, more mystified than before. Had Bear Chief's eyes deceived him,
+or was McArthur the cleverest of rogues?
+
+Breakfast was done when Ralston said:
+
+"Will you be good enough to step into the bunk-house, Mr. McArthur?"
+
+Something in his voice chilled the sensitive man. Ralston, whom he greatly
+admired, always had been most friendly. He followed him now in wonder.
+
+"You are sure this is the man, Bear Chief?"
+
+The Indian had stepped forward at their entrance.
+
+"Yas, I know him," he reiterated.
+
+McArthur looked from one to the other.
+
+"Bear Chief accuses you of stealing his horses, Mr. McArthur," explained
+Ralston bluntly.
+
+"What!"
+
+"You slick little horse-thief, but I see you good. Where you cache my
+race-pony?" The Indian's demand was a threat.
+
+For reply, McArthur walked over and sat down on the edge of a bunk, as if
+his legs of a sudden were too weak to support him.
+
+"Bear Chief swears he saw you, McArthur." Ralston's tone was not
+unfriendly now, for something within him pleaded the bug-hunter's cause
+with irritating persistence.
+
+"Me a horse-thief? Running off race-ponies?" McArthur found himself able
+to exclaim at last: "But I had no horse of my own!"
+
+"Have you any credentials--anything at all by which we can identify you?"
+
+"Not with me; but certainly I can furnish them. The name of McArthur is
+not unknown in Connecticut," he answered with a tinge of pride.
+
+"Where are your riding-breeches? Bear Chief says you were wearing them
+yesterday. Can you produce them now?"
+
+McArthur, with hauteur, walked to the nails where his wardrobe hung and
+fumbled among the clothing.
+
+They were gone!
+
+His jaw dropped, and a slight pallor overspread his face.
+
+Susie, who had been listening from the doorway, flung a flour-sack at his
+feet.
+
+"Search my trunk, pardner," she said with her old-time impish grin.
+
+McArthur mechanically did as she bade him, and his riding-breeches dropped
+from the sack.
+
+"I hope you'll 'scuse me for makin' so free with your clothes, like," she
+said, "but I just naturally had to have them yesterday."
+
+A light broke in upon Ralston.
+
+"You!"
+
+"Yep, I did it, me--Susie." Her tone and manner were a ludicrous imitation
+of Smith's. She added: "I saw you all pikin' in here, so I tagged."
+
+"But why"--Ralston stared at her in incredulity--"why should _you_ steal
+horses?"
+
+"It's this way," Susie explained, in a loud, confidential whisper: "I've
+been playin' a little game of my own. When the right time came, I meant to
+let Mr. Ralston in on it, but when Bear Chief saw me, I knew I'd have to
+tell, to keep my pardner here from gettin' the blame."
+
+"But the beard,"--Ralston still looked sceptical.
+
+"Shucks! That's easy. I saw Bear Chief before he saw me, and I just took
+the black silk hankerchief from my neck and tied it hold-up fashion around
+the lower part of my face. Bear Chief was excited when he saw his running
+horse travelling out of the country at the gait we was goin' then."
+
+"I don't see yet, Susie?"
+
+She turned upon Ralston in good-natured contempt.
+
+"Goodness, but you're slow! Don't you understand? Smith's my pal; we're
+workin' together. He cooked this up--him takin' the safe and easy end of
+it himself. He sprung it on me that day I had a sull on. Don't you see his
+game? He thinks if he can get me mixed up in something crooked, he can
+manage me. He's noticed, maybe, that I'm not halter-broke. So I pretended
+to fall right in with his plans, once I had promised, meanin' all the time
+to turn state's evidence, or whatever you call it, and send him over the
+road. I wanted to show Mother and everybody else what kind of a man he
+is. I don't want no step-papa named Smith."
+
+The three men stared in amazement at the intrepid little creature with her
+canny Scotch eyes.
+
+"And do you mean to say," Ralston asked, "that you've held your tongue and
+played your part so well that Smith has no suspicions?"
+
+"Hatin' makes you smart," she answered, "and I hate Smith so hard I can't
+sleep nights. No, I don't think he is suspicious; because I'm to pack grub
+to him this morning, and if he was afraid of me, he'd never let me know
+where he was camped. He's holdin' the horses over there in a blind canyon,
+and when I go over I'm to help him blotch the brands."
+
+"We want to get the drop on him when he's using the branding-iron."
+
+"And you want to see that he shoves up his hands and keeps them there,"
+suggested Susie further, "for he'll take big chances rather than have the
+Schoolmarm see him ridin' to the Agency with his wrists tied to the
+saddle-horn."
+
+"I know." Ralston knew even better than Susie that Smith would fight like
+a rat in a corner to avoid this possibility.
+
+"My!" and Susie gave an explosive sigh, "but it's an awful relief not to
+have that secret to pack around any longer, and to feel that I've got
+somebody to back me up."
+
+A lump rose in Ralston's throat, and, taking her brown little paws in both
+of his, he said:
+
+"To the limit, Susie--to the end of the road."
+
+"And my pardner's in on it, too, if he wants to be," she declared loyally,
+slipping her arm through McArthur's.
+
+"To be sure," Ralston seconded cordially. "It will be an adventure for
+your diary." He added, laying his hand upon McArthur's shoulder: "I'm more
+than sorry about the mistake this morning, old man. Will you forgive Bear
+Chief and me?"
+
+In all McArthur's studious, lonely life, no person ever had put his hand
+upon his shoulder and called him "old man." The quick tears filled his
+eyes, and a glow, tingling in its warmth, rushed over him. The simple,
+manly act made him Ralston's slave for life, but he answered in his quiet
+voice:
+
+"The mistake was natural, my dear sir."
+
+"Smith will be gettin' restless," Susie suggested, "for his breakfast must
+have been pretty slim. We'd better be startin'.
+
+"Now, I'll take straight across the hills in a bee-line, and the rest of
+you keep me in sight, but follow the draws. When I drop into the canyon,
+you cache yourselves until I come up and swing my hat. I'll do my best to
+separate Smith from his gun, but if I can't, I'll throw you the sign to
+jump him."
+
+"I shall arm myself with a pistol, and, if the occasion demands, I shall
+not hesitate to use it," said McArthur, closing his lips with great
+firmness.
+
+Bear Chief was given a rifle, and then there was a scurrying about for
+cartridges. When they were saddled, each rode in a different direction, to
+meet again when out of sight of the ranch. With varied emotions, they soon
+were following Susie's lead, and it was no easy task to keep the flying
+figure in sight.
+
+McArthur, panting, perspiring, choking his saddle-horn to death, wondered
+if any person of his acquaintance ever had participated in such a reckless
+ride. The instructor in Dead Languages, it is true, frequently had
+thrilled his colleagues with his recital of a night spent in a sapling,
+owing to the proximity of a she-bear, and McArthur always had mildly
+envied him the adventure, but now, he felt, if he lived to tell the tale,
+he had no further cause for envy.
+
+Bear Chief's eyes were gleaming with the fires of other days, while the
+faded overalls and flannel shirt of civilization seemed to take on a look
+of savagery.
+
+Only Ralston's eyes were sombre. He had no thought of weakening, but he
+had no feeling of elation; though, for the sake of his own self-respect,
+he was glad to know that his suspicions of Smith were not inspired by
+jealousy or malice. Now that the opportunity for which he had hoped and
+waited had come, his strongest feeling was one of sorrow for Dora. With
+the tenderness of real love, he shrank from hurting her, from mortifying
+her by the expose of Smith.
+
+In no other way were the natures of the two men more strongly contrasted
+than in this. When Smith flamed with jealousy he wanted to hurt Dora and
+Ralston alike, and when he had the advantage he shoved the hot iron home.
+Ralston could be just, generous even, and, though he believed she had
+unreservedly given her preference to Smith, he still yearned to shield
+her, to spare her pain and humiliation.
+
+Susie finally disappeared, and when she did not come in sight again they
+knew she had reached the rendezvous. Dismounting, they tied their horses
+in a deep draw, and crawled to the top, where they could watch for her
+signal.
+
+"She'll give him plenty of time," said Ralston.
+
+He had barely finished speaking when they saw Susie at the top of the
+canyon wall waving her hat.
+
+"Something's gone wrong," said Ralston quickly.
+
+With rifles ready for action, the three of them ran toward Susie.
+
+Ralston and Bear Chief reached her together. Without a word she pointed
+into the empty canyon, where a dying camp-fire told the story. Smith had
+been gone for hours.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+WHERE A MAN GETS A THIRST
+
+
+While the four stood staring blankly at the trampled earth and the thin
+thread of smoke rising from a smouldering stick on a bed of ashes, Smith,
+miles away, was watching the skyline in the direction from which he had
+come, and gulping coffee from a tin can. He had slept--the print of his
+body was still in the sand--but his sleep had been broken and brief. He
+had ridden fast and all night long, but he was not yet far enough away to
+feel secure. There was always a danger, too, that the horses would break
+for their home range, although he kept the mare who led the band on the
+picket rope when they were not travelling. His own horse, always saddled,
+was picketed close.
+
+"I'll never make a turn like this alone again," he muttered
+discontentedly. "It's too much like work to suit me, and I ain't in shape
+to make a hard ride. I've got soft layin' around the ranch." He stretched
+his stiff muscles and made a wry face. Then he smiled. "I'd like to see
+that brat's face when she comes with my grub this mornin'." He looked off
+again to the skyline.
+
+"I ketched her eyein' me once or twice in a way that didn't look good to
+me; and I had that notorious strong feelin' take holt of me that she
+wasn't on the square. I'd better be sure nor sorry;--that's no josh. I
+takes no chances, me--Smith; I tips my hand to no petticoat."
+
+He noted with relief that the wind was rising. He was glad, for it would
+obliterate every print and make tracking impossible. He had kept to the
+rocks, as the unshod and now foot-sore horses bore evidence, but, even so,
+there was always a chance of tell-tale prints.
+
+"I can take it easy after I get to water," he told himself. "This water
+business is ser'ous"--he looked uneasily at the stretch of desolation
+ahead of him--"but unless the Injuns lied, they's _some_.
+
+"I hope the boys are to home," he went on, "for if they are it won't take
+us long to work these brands over. When they take 'em off my hands and I
+gets my wad, I'll soak it away, me--Smith. I'll hand it in at the bank,
+and I'll say to the dude at the winder, 'Feller,' I'll say, 'me and a
+little Schoolmarm are goin' to housekeepin' after while, so just hang on
+to that till I calls.'" Smith grinned appreciatively at the picture.
+
+"His eyes will stick out till you could snare 'em with a log-chain, for I
+ain't known as a marryin' man." His face sobered. "I've got to get to work
+and get a wad--she shot that into me straight; and she's right. I couldn't
+ask no woman like her to hang out her own wash in front of a two-roomed
+shack. I got to get the _dinero_, and between man and man, Smith, like you
+and me, I'm nowise particular how I gets it, so long as she don't know.
+I'll take any old chance, me--Smith. And dead men's eyes hasn't got the
+habit of follerin' me around in the dark, like some I've knowed. She'd
+think I was a horrible feller if--but shucks! What's done's done."
+
+He lifted his arms and stretched them toward the skyline, and his voice
+vibrated:
+
+"I love you, girl! I love you, and I couldn't hurt you no more nor a
+baby!"
+
+Before he coiled the picket-ropes and started the horses moving, he got
+down on his knees and took a mouthful of water from a lukewarm pool. He
+spat it upon the ground in disgust.
+
+"That's worse nor pizen," he declared with a grimace. "You bet I've got to
+strike water to-day somehow. The horses won't hardly touch this, and
+they're all ga'nted up for the want of it. There ought to be water over
+there in some of them gulches, seems-like"--he looked anxiously at the
+expanse stretching interminably to the northeast--"and I'll have to haze
+'em along until we hit it."
+
+His tired horse seemed to sag beneath his weight as he landed heavily in
+the saddle; and the band of foot-sore horses, the hair of their necks and
+legs stiff with sweat and dust, bore little resemblance to the spirited
+animals that Susie had driven from the reservation. It was now no effort
+to keep up with them, and Smith herded them in front of him like a flock
+of sheep. He wondered what another day, perhaps two days more, of
+constant travel would do, if fifty miles or so had used them up. There was
+not now the fear of capture to urge him forward, but the need of reaching
+water was an equally great incentive to haste.
+
+Smith travelled until late in the afternoon without an audible complaint
+at the intense discomforts of the day. He found no water, and he ate only
+a handful of sugar as he rode. He journeyed constantly toward the
+northeast, in which direction, he thought, must be the ranch which was his
+destination. At each intervening gulch a hope arose that it might contain
+water, but always he was disappointed. Between the alkali dust and the
+heat of the midday sun, which was unusually hot for the time of year, his
+lips were cracked and his throat dry.
+
+"Ain't this hell!" he finally muttered fretfully. "And no more jump in
+this horse nor a cow. I can do without grub, but water! Oh, Lord! I could
+lap up a gallon."
+
+The slight motion of his lips started them bleeding. He wiped the blood
+away on the back of his hand and continued:
+
+"This is a reg'lar stretch of Bad Lands. If them blamed Injuns hadn't
+lied, I could have packed water easy enough. They don't seem to be no end
+to it, and I must have come forty mile. You're in for it, Smith. It's
+goin' to be worse before it's better. If I could only lay in a crick--roll
+in it--douse my face in it--soak my clothes in it! God! I'm dry!"
+
+He spurred his horse, but there was no response from it. It was dead on
+its feet, between the hard travel of the previous day and night and
+another day without water. He cursed the horses ahead as they lagged and
+necessitated extra steps.
+
+He rode for awhile longer, until he realized that at the snail's pace they
+were moving he was making little headway. A rest would pay better in the
+long run, although there was some two hours of daylight left.
+
+The dull-eyed horses stood with drooping heads, too thirsty and too tired
+to hunt for the straggling spears of grass and salt sage which grew
+sparsely in the alkali soil.
+
+After Smith had unsaddled, he opened the grain-sack which contained his
+provisions. Spreading them out, he stood and eyed them with contempt.
+
+"And I calls myself a prairie man," he said aloud, in self-disgust.
+"Swine-buzzom--when I'm perishin' of thirst! If only I'd put in a couple
+of air-tights. Pears is better nor anything; they ain't so blamed sweet,
+they're kind of cool, and they has juice you can drink. And tomaters--if
+only I had tomaters! This here dude-food, this strawberry jam, is goin' to
+make me thirstier than ever. No water to mix the flour with, nothing to
+cook in but salt grease. Smith, you're up against it, you are."
+
+He built a little sage-brush fire, over which he cooked his bacon, and
+with it he ate a dry biscuit, but his thirst was so great that it
+overshadowed his hunger. Chewing grains of coffee stimulated him somewhat,
+but the bacon and glucose jam increased his thirst tenfold, if such a
+thing were possible. His thoughts of Dora, and his dreams of the future,
+which had helped him through the afternoon, were no longer potent. He
+could now think only of his thirst--of his overpowering desire for water.
+It filled his whole mental horizon. Water! Water! Water! Was there
+anything in the world to be compared with it!
+
+His face was deep-lined with distress as he sat by the camp-fire, trying
+in vain to moisten his lips with his dry tongue. One picture after another
+arose before him: streams of crystal water which he had forded; icy
+mountain springs at which he had knelt and drank; deep wells from which he
+had thrown whole bucketfuls away after he had quenched what he then called
+thirst. Thirst! He never had known thirst. What he had called thirst was
+laughable in comparison with this awful longing, this madness, this desire
+beside which all else paled.
+
+In any other than an alkali country, the lack of water for the same length
+of time would have meant little more than discomfort, but the parching,
+drying effect of the deadly white dust entailed untold suffering upon the
+traveller caught unprepared as was Smith.
+
+He rolled and smoked innumerable cigarettes, rising at intervals to pace
+restlessly to and fro. His lips and tongue were so parched that both taste
+and feeling seemed deadened. Had he not seen the smoke, it is doubtful if
+he could have been sure he was smoking.
+
+He wandered away from the fire after a time, walking aimlessly, having no
+objective point. He desired only to be moving. Something like a half-mile
+from his camp he came into a shallow cut which appeared to have been made
+during bygone rainy seasons, but which now bore no evidence of having
+carried water for many years. He followed it mechanically, stumbling
+awkwardly in his high-heeled cowboy boots over the rocks which had washed
+into its bed from the alkali-coated sides. Suddenly he cried aloud, with a
+shrill, penetrating cry that was peculiar to him when surprised or
+startled. He had inadvertently kicked up a rock which showed moisture
+beneath it!
+
+He began to run, with his mouth open, his bloodshot eyes wide and staring.
+There was a bare chance that it might come from one of those desert
+springs which appear and disappear at irregular intervals in the sand. As
+he ran, he saw hoof-tracks in what had once been mud, and his heart beat
+higher with hope. He had a thought in his half-crazed brain that the water
+might disappear before he could reach it, and he ran like one frenzied
+with fear. The world was swimming around him, his heart was pounding in
+his breast, yet still he stumbled on at top speed.
+
+[Illustration: IT MEANT DEATH--BUT IT WAS WET!--IT WAS WATER!]
+
+The cut grew deeper, and indications of moisture increased. He saw a
+growth of large sage-brush, then a clump or two of rank, saw-edged grass.
+These things meant water! He turned a bend and there, beneath a high bank,
+was a pool crusted to the edge with alkali!
+
+Smith knew that it was strongly alkali; that it meant certain
+illness--enough of it, death. But it was wet!--it was water!--and he must
+drink. He fell, rather than knelt, in it. When taste came back he realized
+that it was flat and lukewarm, but he continued to gulp it down. At any
+other time it would have nauseated him, but now he drank to his capacity.
+When he could drink no more, he sat up--realizing what he had done. He had
+swallowed liquid poison--nothing less. The result was inevitable. He was
+going to be ill--excruciatingly, terribly ill, alone in the Bad Lands!
+This was as certain as was the fact that night had come.
+
+"I was so dry," he whimpered, "I couldn't help it! I was so dry!" He
+scrambled to his feet.
+
+"I gotta get back to camp. This water's goin' to raise thunder when it
+begins to get in its work. I gotta get back to my blankets and lay down."
+
+Before he reached the heap of ashes which he called camp, the first
+symptoms of his coming agony began to show themselves. He felt slightly
+nauseated; then a quick, griping pain which was a forerunner of others
+which were to make him sweat blood.
+
+Many of these springs and stagnant pools carry arsenic in large
+quantities, and of such was the water of which Smith had drunk. In his
+exhaustion, the poison and accompanying impurities took hold of him with a
+fierceness which it might not have done had he been in perfect physical
+condition; but his stomach, already disordered from irregular and improper
+food, absorbed the poison with avidity, and the result was an agony
+indescribable.
+
+As he writhed on his saddle-blankets under the stars, he groaned and
+cursed that unknown God above him. His face and hands were covered with a
+cold sweat; his forehead and finger-tips were icy. The night air was
+chill, but he was burning with an inward fever, and his thirst now was
+akin to madness. With all his strength of will, he fought against his
+desire to return to the pool.
+
+Smith did not expect to die. He felt that if he could keep his senses and
+not crawl back to drink again, he would pull through somehow. The living
+hell he now endured would pass.
+
+He wallowed and threshed about like a suffering animal, beating the earth
+with his clenched fists, during the paroxysms of cutting, wrenching pain.
+His suffering was supreme. All else in the world shrank into
+insignificance beside it. No thoughts of Dora fortified him; no mother's
+face came to comfort him; nor that of any human being he had ever known.
+He was just Smith--self-centred--alone; just Smith, fighting and suffering
+and struggling for his life. His anguish found expression in the single
+sentence:
+
+"I'm sick! I'm sick! Oh, God! I'm sick!" He repeated it in every key with
+every inflection, and his moans lost themselves in the silence of the
+desert.
+
+Yet underneath it all, when his agony was at its height, he still believed
+in himself. In a kind of subconscious arrogance, he believed that he was
+stronger than Fate, more powerful than Death. He would not die; he would
+live because he wanted to live. Death was not for him--Smith. For others,
+but not for him.
+
+At last the paroxysms became less frequent and lost their violence. When
+they ceased altogether, he lay limp and half-conscious. He was content to
+remain motionless until the flies and insects of the sand roused him to
+the fact that another day had come.
+
+He was incredibly weak, and it took all his remaining strength to throw
+his forty-pound cow-saddle upon his horse's back. His knees shook under
+him, and he had to rest before he could lift his foot to the stirrup and
+pull himself into the seat.
+
+Before he rode away he turned and looked at the hollow in the sand where
+his blankets had been.
+
+"That was a close squeak, Smith," was all he said.
+
+He had no desire for breakfast; in fact, he could not have eaten, for his
+tongue was swollen, and his throat felt too dry to swallow. His skin was
+the color of his saddle-leather, and his inflamed eye-balls had the
+redness of live coals. Smith was far from handsome that morning.
+
+His own recent sufferings had in nowise made him more merciful: he spurred
+his stiff and lifeless horse without pity, but he spurred uselessly. It
+stumbled under him as he drove the spiritless band toward the hopeless
+waste ahead of him.
+
+"Unless I'm turned around, we ought to get out of this to-day," he
+thought. The effort of speaking aloud was too great to be made. "Unless
+I'm lost, or fall off my horse, we ought to make it sure."
+
+Distance had meant nothing to him during the first evening and night of
+his ride. He had fixed his eye upon the furthermost object within his
+range of vision and ridden for it--buoyant, confident, as his horse's
+flying feet ate up the intervening miles. Now he shrank from looking
+ahead. He dreaded to lift his eyes to the interminable desolation
+stretching before him. The minutes seemed hours long; time was protracted
+as though he had been eating hasheesh. He felt as if he had ridden for a
+week, before his horse's shadow told him that noon had come. The jar of
+his horse hurt him, and it all seemed unreal at times, like a torturing
+nightmare from which he must soon awake. He rode long distances with
+closed eyes as the day wore on. The world, red and wavering, swung around
+him, and he gripped his saddle-horn hard. The only real thing, the agony
+of which was too great to be mistaken for anything else, was his thirst.
+This was superlatively intense. There were moments when he had a desire to
+slide easily from his horse into the sand and lie still--just to be rid
+for a time of that jar that hurt him so. He viewed the distance to the
+ground contemplatively. It was not great. He would merely crumple up like
+a drunken person and go to sleep.
+
+But these moments soon passed: the instinct of self-preservation was quick
+to assert itself. Each time, he took a fresh grip on the slack reins and
+kept his horse plodding onward, ever onward, through the heavy sand and
+blistering alkali dust, and always to the northeast, where somewhere there
+was relief which somehow he must reach.
+
+Mile after mile crept under his horse's lagging feet. The midday sun beat
+down upon him, drying the very blood in his veins, scorching him,
+shrivelling him, and yet there seemed no end to the waterless gulches, to
+the sand, the cactuses, the stunted sage-brush. His horse was stumbling
+oftener, but he felt no pity--only irritation that it had not more
+stamina. A sort of numbness, the lethargy of great weakness, was creeping
+over him; his heart was sagging with a dull despair. He believed that he
+must be lost, yet he was past cursing or complaining aloud. Only an
+occasional gasp or a fretful, inarticulate sound came when his horse
+stumbled badly.
+
+He thought he saw a barbed wire fence. A barbed wire fence meant
+civilization! He swung his horse and rode toward it. The dark spots he had
+thought were posts were only sage-brush. The smarting of his eye-balls and
+eyelids aroused him to an astonishing fact: he was crying in his weakness,
+crying of disappointment like a child! But he was astonished most that he
+had tears to shed--that they had not dried up like his blood.
+
+Tears! He remembered his last tears, and they kept on sliding down his
+cheek now as he recalled the occasion. His father had given him a colt
+back there where they slept between sheets. He had broken it himself, and
+taught it tricks. It whinnied to him when he passed the stable. The other
+boys envied him his colt, and he meant to show it at the fair. He came
+home one day and the colt was gone. His father handed him a silver dollar.
+He had thrown the money at his father and struck him in the face, and
+while the tears streamed from his eyes he had cursed his father with the
+oaths with which his father had so frequently cursed him; and he had kept
+on cursing until he was beaten into unconsciousness. There had been no
+love between them, ever, but he had not expected that. Since then there
+had been no time or inclination for tears, for it was then he had "quit
+the flat." The rage of his boyhood came back to Smith as he thought of it
+now. He swore, though it hurt him to speak.
+
+His eyes were still smarting when he raised them to see a horseman on a
+distant ridge. The sight roused him like a stimulant. Was he friend or
+foe? He reined his horse, and, drawing his rifle from its scabbard,
+waited; for the stranger had seen him and was riding toward him down the
+ridge.
+
+"If he ain't my kind, I'll have to stop him," Smith muttered.
+
+The strength of excitement came to him, and once more he sat erect in the
+saddle, fingering the trigger as the horseman came steadily on.
+
+"He rides like a Texican," Smith thought. There was something familiar in
+the stranger's outlines, the way he threw his weight in one stirrup, but
+Smith was taking no chances. He put out a hand in warning, and the other
+man stopped.
+
+The swarthy face of the stranger wore a comprehending grin. No honest man
+drove horses across the Bad Lands. He threw the Indian sign of friendship
+to Smith, and they each advanced.
+
+"How far to water, Clayt?"
+
+"Well, dog-gone me! Smith!"
+
+"How far to water?" Smith yelled the words in hoarse ferocity.
+
+The stranger glanced at the barebacked horses, and then at the shimmering
+heat waves of the desert.
+
+"Just around the ridge," he answered. "My God, man, didn't you pack
+water?"
+
+But Smith was already out of hearing.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+TINHORN FRANK SMELLS MONEY
+
+
+Smith did not care for money in itself; that is, he did not care for it
+enough to work for it, or to hoard it when he had it. Yet perhaps even
+more than most persons he loved the feel of it in his fingers, the
+sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and
+money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he
+craved. He could call any flashy talker's bluff when his pockets were full
+of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his
+propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy
+him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He took a roll of
+banknotes from the belt pocket of his leather chaps and counted them for
+the third time.
+
+"I'll buy a few drinks, flash this wad on them pinheads in town, and then
+I'll soak it away." He returned the roll to his pocket with an expression
+of satisfaction upon his face.
+
+He had done well with the horses. The "boys" had paid him a third more
+than he had expected; they had done so, he knew, as an incentive to
+further transactions. And Smith had outlined a plan to them which had made
+their eyes sparkle.
+
+"It's risky, but if you can do it----" they had said.
+
+"Sure, I can do it, and I'll start as soon as it's safe after I get back
+to the ranch. I gotta get to work and make a stake--_me_," he had
+declared.
+
+They had looked at him quizzically.
+
+"The fact is, I'm tired of livin' under my hat. I aims to settle down."
+
+"And reform?" They had laughed uproariously.
+
+"Not to notice."
+
+Smith sincerely believed that nothing stood between him and Dora but his
+lack of money. Once she saw it, the actual money, when he could go to her
+and throw it in her lap, a hatful, and say, "Come on, girl"--well, women
+were like that, he told himself.
+
+Ahead of Smith, on the dusty flat, was the little cow-town, looking, in
+the distance, like a scattered herd of dingy sheep. He was glad his ride
+was ended for the day. He was thirsty, hot, and a bit tired.
+
+Tinhorn Frank, resting the small of his back against a monument of elk and
+buffalo horns in front of his log saloon, was the first to spy Smith
+ambling leisurely into town.
+
+"There's Smithy!" he exclaimed to the man who loafed beside him, "and he's
+got a roll!"
+
+His fellow lounger looked at him curiously.
+
+"Tinhorn, I b'lieve you kin _smell_ money; and I swear they's kind of a
+scum comes over your eyes when you see it. How do you know he's carryin' a
+roll?"
+
+Tinhorn Frank laughed.
+
+"I know Smithy as well as if I had made him. I kin tell by the way he
+rides. I always could. When he's broke he's slouchy-like. He don't take no
+pride in coilin' his rope, and he jams his hat over his eyes--tough. Look
+at him now--settin' square in the saddle, his rope coiled like a top
+Californy cowboy on a Fourth of July. That's how I know. Hello, Smithy!
+Fall off and arrigate."
+
+"Hullo!" Smith answered deliberately.
+
+"How's she comin'?"
+
+"Slow." He swung his leg over the cantle of the saddle.
+
+"What'll you have?" Tinhorn slapped Smith's back so hard that the dust
+rose.
+
+"Get me out somethin' stimulating, somethin' fur-reachin', somethin' that
+you can tell where it stops. I want a drink that feels like a yard of
+barb-wire goin' down." Smith was tying his horse.
+
+"Here's somethin' special," said Tinhorn, when Smith went inside. "I keeps
+it for my friends."
+
+Smith swallowed nearly a tumblerful.
+
+"When I drinks, I drinks, and I likes somethin' I can notice." He wiped
+the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
+
+"I guarantee you kin notice that in about five minutes. It's a never
+failing remedy for man and beast--not meaning to claim that its horse
+liniment at all. Put it back, Smithy; your money ain't good here!"
+
+Tinhorn Frank's dark eyes gleamed with an avaricious light at sight of the
+roll of yellow banknotes which Smith flung carelessly upon the bar, but he
+had earned his living by his wits too long to betray eagerness. He masked
+the adamantine hardness of his grasping nature beneath an air of generous
+and bluff good-fellowship.
+
+He was a dark man, with a skin of oily sallowness; thickset, with
+something of the slow ungainliness of a toad. His head was set low between
+stooped shoulders, and his crafty eyes had in them a look of scheming,
+scheming always for his own interests. Smith knew his record as well as he
+knew his own: a dance-hall hanger-on in his youth, despised of men; a
+blackmailer; the keeper of a notorious road-house; a petty grafter in a
+small political office in the little cow-town. Smith understood perfectly
+the source of his present interest, yet it flattered him almost as much as
+if it had been sincere, it pleased him as if he had been the object of a
+gentleman's attentions. When he had money, Smith demanded satellites,
+sycophants who would laugh boisterously at his jokes, praise him in broad
+compliments, and follow him like a paid retinue from saloon to saloon.
+This was enjoying life! And upon this weakness, the least clever, the
+most insignificant and unimportant person could play if he understood
+Smith.
+
+The word had gone down the line that Smith was in town with money. They
+rallied around him with loud protestations of joy at the sight of him.
+Smith held the centre of the stage, he was the conspicuous figure, the
+magnet which drew them all. He gloried in it, revelled in his popularity;
+and the "special brand" was beginning to sizzle in his veins.
+
+"I'm feelin' lucky to-day, me--Smith!" he cried exultantly. "I has a
+notorious idea that I can buck the wheel and win!"
+
+He had not meant to gamble--he had told himself that he would not; but his
+admiring friends urged him on, his blood was running fast and hot, his
+heart beat high with confidence and hope. Big prospects loomed ahead of
+him; success looked easy. He flung his money recklessly upon the red and
+black, and with throbbing pulses watched the wheel go round.
+
+Again and again he won. It seemed as if he could not lose.
+
+"I told you!" he cried. "I'm feelin' lucky!"
+
+When he finally stopped, his winnings were the envy of many eyes.
+
+"Set 'em up, Tinhorn! Everybody drink! Bring in the horses!"
+
+Bedlam reigned. It was "Smithy this" and "Smithy that," and it was all as
+the breath of life to Smith.
+
+"Tinhorn"--he leaned heavily on the bar--"when I feels lucky like this, I
+makes it a rule to crowd my luck. Are you game for stud?"
+
+The film which the lounger had mentioned seemed to cover Tinhorn's eyes.
+
+"I'm locoed to set agin such luck as yours, but I like to be sociable, and
+you don't come often."
+
+"I likes a swift game," said Smith, as he pulled a chair from the pine
+table. "Draw is good enough for kids and dudes, but stud's the only play
+for men."
+
+"Now you've talked!" declared the admiring throng.
+
+"Keep 'em movin', Tinhorn! Deal 'em out fast."
+
+"Smithy, you're a cyclone!"
+
+A hundred of Smith's money went for chips.
+
+"Dough is jest like mud to some fellers," said a voice enviously.
+
+"I likes a game where you make or break on a hand. I've lost thousands
+while you could spit, me--Smith!"
+
+"It's like a chinook in winter just to see you in town agin, Smithy."
+
+The "hole" card was not promising--it was only a six-spot; but, backing
+his luck, Smith bet high on it. Tinhorn came back at him strong. He wanted
+Smith's money, and he wanted it quick.
+
+Smith's next card was a jack, and he bet three times its value. When
+Tinhorn dealt him another jack he bought more chips and backed his pair,
+for Tinhorn, as yet, had none in sight. The next turn showed up a queen
+for Tinhorn and a three-spot for Smith. And they bet and raised, and
+raised again. On the last turn Smith drew another three and Tinhorn
+another queen. With two pairs in sight, Smith had him beaten. When Smith
+bet, Tinhorn raised him. Was Tinhorn bluffing or did he have another queen
+in the "hole"? Smith believed he was bluffing, but there was an equal
+chance that he was not. While he hesitated, the other watched him like a
+hungry mountain lion.
+
+"Are you gettin' cold feet, Smithy?" There was the suspicion of a sneer in
+the satellite's voice. "Did you say you liked to make or break on a
+hand?"
+
+"I thought you liked a swift game," gibed Tinhorn.
+
+The taunt settled it.
+
+"I can play as swift as most--and then, some." He shoved a pile of chips
+into the centre of the table with both hands. "Come again!"
+
+Tinhorn did come again; and again, and again, and again. He bet with the
+confidence of knowledge--with a confidence that put the fear in Smith's
+heart. But he could not, and he would not, quit now. His jaw was set as he
+pulled off banknote after banknote in the tense silence which had fallen.
+
+When the last of them fluttered to the table he asked:
+
+"What you got?"
+
+For answer, Tinhorn turned over a third queen. Encircling the pile of
+money and chips with his arm, he swept them toward him.
+
+Smith rose and kicked the chair out of his way.
+
+"That's the end of my rope," he said, with a hard laugh. "I'm done."
+
+"Have a drink," urged Tinhorn.
+
+"Not to-day," he answered shortly.
+
+The crowd parted to let him pass. Untying his horse, he sprang into the
+saddle, and not much more than an hour from the time he had arrived he
+rode down the main street, past the bank where he was to leave his roll,
+flat broke.
+
+At the end of the street he turned in his saddle and looked behind him.
+His satellites stood in the bar-room door, loungers loafed on the
+curbstone, a woman or two drifted into the General Merchandise Store. The
+Postmaster was eying him idly through his fly-specked window, and a group
+of boys, who had been drawing pictures with their bare toes in the deep
+white dust of the street, scowled after him because his horse's feet had
+spoiled their work. His advent had left no more impression than the tiny
+whirlwind in its erratic and momentary flurry. The money for which he had
+sweat blood was gone. Mechanically he jambed his hands into his empty
+pockets.
+
+"Hell!" he said bitterly. "Hell!"
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+SUSIE HUMBLES HERSELF TO SMITH
+
+
+Smith's return to the ranch was awaited with keen interest by several
+persons, though for different reasons.
+
+Bear Chief wanted to learn the whereabouts of his race-horse, and seemed
+to find small comfort in Ralston's assurance that the proper authorities
+had been notified and that every effort would be made to locate the stolen
+ponies.
+
+Dora was troubled that Smith's educational progress should have come to
+such an abrupt stop; and she felt not a little hurt that he should
+disappear for such a length of time without having told her of his going,
+and disappointed in him, also, that he would permit anything to interfere
+with the improvement of his mind.
+
+Susie's impatience for his return increased daily. Her chagrin over being
+outwitted by Smith was almost comical. She considered it a reflection upon
+her own intelligence, and tears of mortification came to her eyes each
+time she discussed it with Ralston. He urged her to be patient, and tried
+to comfort her by saying:
+
+"We have only to wait, Susie."
+
+"Yes, I thought that before, and look what happened."
+
+"The situation is different now."
+
+"But maybe he'll reform and we'll never get another crack at him," she
+said dolefully.
+
+Ralston shook his head.
+
+"Don't let that disturb you. Take certain natures under given
+circumstances, and you can come pretty near foretelling results. Smith
+will do the same thing again, only on a bigger scale; that is, unless he
+learns that he has been found out. He won't be afraid of you, because he
+will think that you are as deep in the mire as he is; but if he thought I
+suspected him, or the Indians, it would make him cautious."
+
+"You don't think he's charmed, or got such a stout medicine that nobody
+can catch him?"
+
+Ralston could not refrain from smiling at the Indian superstition which
+cropped out at times in Susie.
+
+"Not for a moment," he answered positively. "He appears to have been
+fortunate--lucky--but in a case like this, I don't believe there's any
+luck can win, in the long run, against vigilance, patience, and
+determination; and the greatest of these is patience." Ralston, waxing
+philosophical went on: "It's a great thing to be able to wait,
+Susie--coolly, smilingly, to wait--providing, as the phrase goes, you
+hustle while you wait. One victory for your enemy doesn't mean defeat for
+yourself. It's usually the last trick that counts, and sometimes games are
+long in the playing. Wait for your enemy's head, and when it comes up,
+_whack it_! Neither you nor I, Susie, have been reared to believe that
+when we are swatted on one cheek we should turn the other."
+
+"No;" Susie shook her head gravely. "That ain't sense."
+
+The person who took Smith's absence most deeply to heart was the Indian
+woman. She missed him, and, besides, she was tormented with jealous
+suspicions. She knew nothing of his life beyond what she had seen at the
+ranch. There might be another woman. She suffered from the ever-present
+fear that he might not come back; that he would go as scores of
+grub-liners had gone, without a word at parting.
+
+In the house she was restless, and her moccasined feet padded often from
+her bench in the corner to the window overlooking the road down which he
+might come. She sat for hours at a time upon an elevation which commanded
+a view of the surrounding country. Heavy-featured, moody-eyed, she was the
+personification of dog-like fidelity and patience. Naturally, it was she
+who first saw Smith jogging leisurely down the road on his jaded horse.
+
+The long roof of the MacDonald ranch, which was visible through the cool
+willows, looked good to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and
+inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there
+to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in
+the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his
+horse's pace--he could squirm out somehow.
+
+It gave him no concern that he had not a dollar to divide with Susie, as
+he had promised, and his chagrin over the loss of the money had vanished
+as he rode. His temperament was sanguine, and soon he was telling himself
+that so long as there were cattle and horses on the range there was always
+a stake for him. Following up this cheerful vein of thought, he soon felt
+as comfortable as if the money were already in his pocket.
+
+Smith threw up his hand in friendly greeting as the Indian woman came down
+the path to meet him.
+
+There was no response, and he scowled.
+
+"The old woman's got her sull on," he muttered, but his voice was pleasant
+enough when he asked: "Ain't you glad to see me, Prairie Flower?"
+
+The woman's face did not relax.
+
+"Where you been?" she demanded.
+
+He stopped unsaddling and looked at her.
+
+"I never had no boss, me--Smith," he answered with significance.
+
+"You got a woman!" she burst out fiercely.
+
+Smith's brow cleared.
+
+"Sure I got a woman."
+
+"You lie to me!"
+
+"I call her Prairie Flower--my woman." He reached and took her clenched
+hand.
+
+The tense muscles gradually relaxed, and the darkness lifted from her face
+like a cloud that has obscured the sun. She smiled and her eyelids dropped
+shyly.
+
+"Why you go and no tell me?" she asked plaintively.
+
+"It was a business trip, Prairie Flower, and I like to talk to you of
+love, not business," he replied evasively.
+
+She looked puzzled.
+
+"I not know you have business."
+
+"Oh, yes; I do a rushin' business--by spells."
+
+She persisted, unsatisfied:
+
+"But what kind of business?"
+
+Smith laughed outright.
+
+"Well," he answered humorously, "I travels a good deal--in the dark of the
+moon."
+
+"Smith!"
+
+She was keener than he had thought, for she drew her right hand slyly
+under her left arm in the expressive Indian sign signifying theft. He did
+not answer, so she said in a tone of mingled fear and reproach:
+
+"You steal Indian horses!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+She grasped his coat-sleeve.
+
+"Don't do dat no more! De Indians' hearts are stirred. Dey mad. Dis time
+maybe dey not ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more brave and you
+steal from white man. You steal two, t'ree cow, maybe all right, but when
+you steal de white man's horses de rope is on your neck. I know--I have
+seen. Some time de thief he swing in de wind, and de magpie pick at him,
+and de coyote jump at him. Yes, I have seen it like dat."
+
+Smith shivered.
+
+"Don't talk about them things," he said impatiently. "I've been near
+lynchin' twice, and I hates the looks of a slip-noose yet; but I gotta
+have money."
+
+As he stood above her, looking down upon her anxious face, a thought came
+to him, a plan so simple that he was amazed that it had not occurred to
+him before. Undoubtedly she had money in the bank, this infatuated,
+love-sick-woman--the Scotchman would have taught her how to save and care
+for it; but if she had not, she had resources which amounted to the same:
+the best of security upon which she could borrow money. He was sure that
+her cattle and horses were free of mortgages, and there was the coming
+crop of hay. She had promised him the proceeds from that, if he would
+stay, but the sale of it was still months away.
+
+"If I had a stake, Prairie Flower," he said mournfully, "I'd cut out this
+crooked work and quit takin' chances. But a feller like me has got pride:
+he can't go around without two bits in his pocket, and feel like a man. If
+I had the price, I'd buy me a good bunch of cattle, get a permit, and
+range 'em on the reserve."
+
+"When we get tied right," said the woman eagerly, "I give you de stake
+_quick_."
+
+Smith shook his head.
+
+"Do you think I'm goin' to have the whole country sayin' I just married
+you for what you got? I've got some feelin's, me--Smith, and before I
+marry a rich woman, I want to have a little somethin' of my own."
+
+She looked pleased, for Susie's words had rankled.
+
+"How big bunch cattle you like buy? How much money you want?"
+
+He shook his head dejectedly.
+
+"More money nor I can raise, Prairie Flower. Five--ten thousand
+dollars--maybe more." He watched the effect of his words narrowly. She did
+not seem startled by the size of the sums he mentioned. He added: "There's
+nothin' in monkeyin' with just a few."
+
+"I got de money, and I gift it to you. My heart is right to you, white
+man!" she said passionately.
+
+"Do you mean it, Prairie Flower?"
+
+"Yas, but don't tell Susie."
+
+He watched her going up the path, her hips wobbling, her step heavy, and
+he hated her. Her love irritated him; her devotion was ridiculous. He saw
+in her only a means to an end, and he was without scruples or pity.
+
+"She ain't no more to me nor a dumb brute," he said contemptuously.
+
+Smith felt that he was able to foretell with considerable accuracy the
+nature of his interview with Susie upon their meeting, and her opening
+words did not fall short of his expectations.
+
+"You're all right, you are!" she said in her high voice. "I'd stick to a
+pal like you through thick and thin, I would! What did you pull out like
+that for anyhow?"
+
+Smith chuckled.
+
+"Well, sir, Susie, it fair broke my heart to start off without seein' your
+pretty face and hearin' your sweet voice again, but the fact is, I got so
+lonesome awaitin' for you that I just naturally had to be travellin'. I
+ups and hits the breeze, and I has no pencil or paper to leave a note
+behind. It wasn't perlite, Susie, I admits," he said mockingly.
+
+"Dig up that money you're goin' to divide." Susie looked like a young
+wildcat that has been poked with a stick.
+
+Smith drew an exaggerated sigh and shook his head lugubriously.
+
+"Child, I'm the only son of Trouble. I gets in a game and I loses every
+one of our honest, hard-earned dollars. The tears has been pilin' out of
+my eyes and down my cheeks for forty miles, thinkin' how I'd have to break
+the news to you."
+
+"Smith, you're just a common, _common_ thief!" All the scorn of which she
+was capable was in her voice. "To steal from your own pal!"
+
+"Thief?" Smith put his fingers in his ears. "Don't use that word, Susie.
+It sounds horrid, comin' from a child you love as if she was your own
+step-daughter."
+
+The muscles of Susie's throat contracted so it hurt her; her face drew up
+in an unbecoming grimace; she cried with a child's abandon, indifferent to
+the fact that her tears made her ludicrously ugly.
+
+"Smith," she sobbed, "don't you ever feel sorry for anybody? Couldn't you
+ever pity anybody? Couldn't you pity me?"
+
+Smith made no reply, so she went on brokenly;
+
+"Can't you remember that you was a kid once, too, and didn't know how, and
+couldn't, fight grown up people that was mean to you?--and how you felt? I
+know you don't _have_ to do anything for me--you don't _have_ to--but
+won't you? Won't you do somethin' good when you've got a chance--just this
+once, Smith? Won't you go away from here? You don't care anything at all
+for Mother, Smith, and she's all I've got!" She stretched her hands toward
+him appealing, while the hot tears wet her cheeks. She was the picture of
+childish humiliation and misery.
+
+Smith looked at her and listened without derision or triumph. He looked at
+her in simple curiosity, as he would have looked at a suffering animal
+biting itself in pain. The unexpected outbreak interested him.
+
+Through a blur of tears, Susie read something of this in his face, and her
+hands dropped limply to her sides. Her appeal was useless.
+
+It was not that Smith did not understand her feelings. He did--perfectly.
+He knew how deep a child's hurt is. He had been hurt himself, and the scar
+was still there. It was only that he did not care. He had lived through
+his hurt, and so would she. It was to his interest to stay, and first and
+always he considered Smith.
+
+"You needn't say anything," Susie said slowly, and there was no more
+supplication in her voice. "I thought I knew you before, Smith, but I know
+you better now. When a white man is onery, he's meaner than an Injun, and
+that's the kind of a white man you are. I'll never forget this. I'll never
+forget that I've crawled to you, and you listened like a stone."
+
+Smith answered in a voice that was not unkind--as he would have warned her
+of a sink-hole or a bad crossing:
+
+"You can't buck me, Susie, and you'd better not try. You're game, but
+you're just a kid."
+
+"Kids grow up sometimes;" and she turned away.
+
+McArthur, strolling, while he enjoyed his pipe, came upon Susie lying face
+downward, her head pillowed on her arm, on a sand dune not far from the
+house. He thought she was asleep until she sat up and looked at him. Then
+he saw her swollen eyes.
+
+"Why, Susie, are you ill?"
+
+"Yes, I'm sick here." She laid her hand upon her heart.
+
+He sat down beside her and stroked the streaked brown hair timidly.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said gently.
+
+She felt the sympathy in his touch, and was quick to respond to it.
+
+"Oh, pardner," she said, "I just feel awful!"
+
+"I'm sorry, Susie," he said again.
+
+"Did _your_ mother ever go back on you, pardner?"
+
+McArthur shook his head gravely.
+
+"No, Susie."
+
+"It's terrible. I can't tell you hardly how it is; but it's like everybody
+that you ever cared for in the world had died. It's like standin' over a
+quicksand and feelin' yourself goin' down. It's like the dreams when you
+wake up screamin' and you have to tell yourself over and over it isn't
+so--except that I have to tell myself over and over it _is_ so."
+
+"Susie, I think you're wrong."
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+"I wish I was wrong, but I'm not."
+
+"She worries when you are late getting home, or are not well."
+
+"Yes, she's like that," she nodded. "Mother would fight for me like a bear
+with cubs if anybody would hurt me so she could see it, but the worst
+hurt--the kind that doesn't show--I guess she don't understand. Before now
+I could tell anybody that come on the ranch and wasn't nice to me to
+'git,' and mother would back me up. Even yet I could tell you or Tubbs or
+Mr. Ralston to leave, and they'd have to go. But Smith?--no! He's come
+back to stay. And she'll let him stay, if she knows it will drive me away
+from home. Mother's Injun, and she can only read a little and write a
+little that my Dad taught her, and she wears blankets and moccasins, but I
+never was 'shamed of Mother before. If she marries Smith, what can I do?
+Where can I go? I could take my pack outfit and start out to hunt Dad's
+folks, but if Mother marries Smith, she'll need me after a while. Yet how
+can I stay? I feel sometimes like they was two of me--one was good and one
+was bad; and if Mother lets Smith turn me out, maybe all the bad in me
+would come to the top. But there's one thing I couldn't forget. Dad used
+to say to me lots of times when we were alone--oh, often he said it:
+'Susie, girl, never forget you're a MacDonald!'"
+
+McArthur turned quickly and looked at her.
+
+"Did your father say that?"
+
+Susie nodded.
+
+"Just like that?"
+
+"Yes; he always straightened himself and said it just like that."
+
+McArthur was studying her face with a peculiar intentness, as if he were
+seeing her for the first time.
+
+"What was his first name, Susie?"
+
+"Donald."
+
+"Donald MacDonald?"
+
+"Yes; there was lots of MacDonalds up there in the north country."
+
+"Have you a picture, Susie?"
+
+A rifle-shot broke the stillness of the droning afternoon. Susie was on
+her feet the instant. There was another--then a fusillade!
+
+"It's the Indians after Smith!" she cried. "They promised me they
+wouldn't! Come--stand up here where you can see."
+
+McArthur took a place beside her on a knoll and watched the scene with
+horrified eyes. The Indians were grouped, with Bear Chief in advance.
+
+"They're shootin' into the stable! They've got him cornered," Susie
+explained excitedly. "No--look! He's comin' out! He's goin' to make a run
+for it! He's headed for the house. He can run like a scared wolf!"
+
+"Do they mean to kill him?" McArthur asked in a shocked voice.
+
+"Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think that's target practice? But look
+where the dust flies up--they're striking all around him--behind
+him--beside him--everywhere but in him! They're so anxious that they're
+shootin' wild. Runnin' Rabbit ought to get him--he's a good shot! He
+_did_! No, he stumbled. He's charmed--that Smith. He's got a strong
+medicine."
+
+"He's not too brave to run," said McArthur, but added: "I ran, myself,
+when they were after me."
+
+"He'd better run," Susie replied. "But he's after his gun; he means to
+fight."
+
+"He'll make it!" McArthur cried.
+
+Susie's voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!" but the cracking rifles drowned Susie's
+shrill cry of entreaty.
+
+The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if
+to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when
+she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect,
+unflinching, and while the Indians' fire wavered Smith gained the
+doorway.
+
+Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding
+teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the
+deer-horn gun-rack above the door.
+
+The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies.
+
+"Get out of the way!" he yelled, but she did not hear him.
+
+"The fool!" he snarled. "The fool! I'll have to crease her."
+
+He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in the fleshy part of her
+arm near the shoulder. She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A BAD HOMBRE
+
+
+The Indians ceased firing when the woman fell, and when Susie reached her
+mother Smith was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith who led her
+into the house and ripped her sleeve.
+
+It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the bullet had gone a few inches
+higher it would have shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told
+Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of aim.
+
+He always carried a small roll of bandages in his hip-pocket, and with
+these he dressed the woman's arm with surprising skill.
+
+"When you needs a bandage, you generally needs it bad," he explained.
+
+He wondered if she knew that it was his shot which had struck her. If she
+did know, she said nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed
+his every movement.
+
+"Looks like somebody's squeaked," Smith said meaningly to Susie.
+
+"Nobody's squeaked," she lied glibly. "They're mad, and they're
+suspicious, but they didn't see you."
+
+"If they'd go after me like that on suspicion," said Smith dryly, "looks
+like they'd be plumb hos-tile if they was sure. Is this here war goin' to
+keep up, or has they had satisfaction?"
+
+Through Susie, a kind of armistice was arranged between Smith and the
+Indians. It took much argument to induce them to defer their vengeance and
+let the law take its course.
+
+"You'll only get in trouble," she urged, "and Mr. Ralston will see that
+Smith gets all that's comin' to him when he has enough proof. He's stole
+more than horses from me," she said bitterly, "and if I can wait and trust
+the white man to handle him as he thinks best, you can, too."
+
+So the Indians reluctantly withdrew, but both Smith and Susie knew that
+their smouldering resentment was ready to break out again upon the
+slightest provocation.
+
+Susie's assurance that the attack of the Indians was due only to suspicion
+did not convince Smith. He noticed that, with the exception of Yellow
+Bird, there was not a single Indian stopping at the ranch, and Yellow Bird
+not only refused to be drawn into friendly conversation, but distinctly
+avoided him.
+
+Smith knew that he was now upon dangerous ground, yet, with his
+unfaltering faith in himself and his luck, he continued to walk with a
+firm tread. If he could make one good turn and get the Indian woman's
+stake, he told himself, then he and Dora could look for a more healthful
+clime.
+
+The Schoolmarm never had appeared more trim, more self-respecting, more
+desirable, than when in her clean, white shirt-waist and well-cut skirt
+she stepped forward to greet him with a friendly, outstretched hand. His
+heart beat wildly as he took it.
+
+"I was afraid you had gone 'for keeps,'" she said.
+
+"Were you _afraid_?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Not exactly afraid, to be more explicit, but I should have been sorry."
+She smiled up into his face with her frank, ingenuous smile.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You were getting along so well with your lessons. Besides, I should have
+thought it unfriendly of you to go without saying good-by."
+
+"Unfriendly?" Smith laughed shortly. "Me unfriendly! Why, girl, you're
+like a mountain to me. When I'm tired and hot and all give out, I raises
+my eyes and sees you there above me--quiet and cool and comfortable,
+like--and I takes a fresh grip."
+
+"I'm glad I help you," Dora replied gently. "I want to."
+
+"I'm in the way of makin' a stake now," Smith went on, "and when I gets
+it"--he hesitated--"well, when I gets it I aims to let you know."
+
+When Dora went into the house, to her own room, Smith stepped into the
+living-room, where the Indian woman sat by the window.
+
+"You like dat white woman better den me?" she burst out as he entered.
+
+"Prairie Flower," he replied wearily, "if I had a dollar for every time
+I've answered that question, I wouldn't be lookin' for no stake to buy
+cattle with."
+
+"De white woman couldn't give you no stake."
+
+He made no reply to her taunt. He was thinking. The words of a cowpuncher
+came back to him as he sat and regarded with unseeing eyes the Indian
+woman. The cowpuncher had said: "When a feller rides the range month in
+and month out, and don't see nobody but other punchers and Injuns, some
+Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes begins to look kind of good to him when
+he rides into camp and she smiles as if she was glad he had come. He gits
+used to seein' her sittin' on an antelope hide, beadin' moccasins, and the
+country where they wear pointed-toed shoes and sit in chairs gits farther
+and farther away. And after awhile he tells himself that he don't mind
+smoke and the smell of buckskin, and a tepee is a better home nor none,
+and that he thinks as much of this here Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes
+as he could think of any woman, and he wonders when the priest could come.
+And while he's studyin' it over, some white girl cuts across his trail,
+and, with the sight of her, Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes looks like a
+dirty two-spot in a clean deck." The cowpuncher's words came back to
+Smith as though they had been said only yesterday.
+
+"Why don't you say what you think?" the woman asked, uneasy under his long
+stare.
+
+"No," said Smith, rousing himself; "the Schoolmarm couldn't give me no
+stake; and money talks."
+
+"When you want your money?"
+
+"Quick."
+
+"How much you want?"
+
+"How much you got?" he asked bluntly. He was sure of her, and he was in no
+mood to finesse.
+
+"Eight--nine thousand."
+
+"If I'm goin' to do anything with cattle this year, I want to get at it."
+
+"I give you de little paper MacDonald call check. I know how to write
+check," she said with pride.
+
+Smith shook his head. A check was evidence.
+
+"It's better for you to go to the bank and get the cash yourself.
+Meeteetse can hitch up and take you. It won't bother your arm none, for
+you ain't bad hurt. Nine thousand is quite a wad to get without givin'
+notice, and I doubt if you gets it, but draw all you can. Take a
+flour-sack along and put the stuff in it; then when you gets home, pass it
+over to me first chance. Don't let 'em load you down with silver--I hates
+to pack silver on horseback."
+
+To all of which instructions the woman agreed.
+
+That she might avoid Susie's questions, she did not start the next morning
+until Susie was well on her way to school. Then, dressed in her gaudiest
+skirt, her widest brass-studded belt, her best and hottest blanket, she
+was ready for the long drive.
+
+Smith put a fresh bandage on her arm, and praised the scrawling signature
+on the check which she had filled out after laborious and oft-repeated
+efforts. He made sure that she had the flour-sack, and that the check was
+pinned securely inside her capacious pocket, before he helped her in the
+wagon. He had been all attention that morning, and her eyes were liquid
+with gratitude and devotion as she and Meeteetse drove away. She turned
+before they were out of sight, and her face brightened when she saw Smith
+still looking after them. She thought comfortably of the fast approaching
+day when she would be envied by the women who had married only "bloods" or
+"breeds."
+
+Smith, as it happened, was remarking contemptuously to Tubbs, as he nodded
+after the disappearing wagon:
+
+"Don't that look like a reg'lar Injun outfit? One old white horse and a
+spotted buzzard-head; harness wired up with Mormon beeswax; a lopsided
+spring seat; one side-board gone and no paint on the wagon."
+
+"You'd think Meeteetse'd think more of hisself than to go ridin' around
+with a blanket-squaw."
+
+"He _said_ he was out of tobacer, but he probably aims to get drunk."
+
+"More'n likely," Tubbs agreed. "Meeteetse's gittin' to be a reg'lar
+squawman anyhow, hangin' around Injuns so much and runnin' with 'em. He
+believes in signs and dreams, and he ain't washed his neck for six
+weeks."
+
+"Associatin' too much with Injuns will spile a good man. Tubbs," Smith
+went on solemnly, "you ain't the feller you was when you come."
+
+"I knows it," Tubbs agreed plaintively. "I hain't half the gumption I
+had."
+
+"It hurts me to see a bright mind like yours goin' to seed, and there's
+nothin'll do harm to a feller quicker nor associatin' with them as ain't
+his equal. Tubbs, like you was my own brother, I says that bug-hunter
+ain't no man for you to run with."
+
+"He ain't vicious and the likes o' that," said Tubbs, in mild defense of
+his employer.
+
+"What's 'vicious' anyhow?" demanded Smith. "Who's goin' to say what's
+vicious and what ain't? I says it's vicious to lie like he does about them
+idjot skulls and ham-bones he digs out and brings home, makin' out that
+they might be pieces of fellers what could use one of them cotton-woods
+for a walkin' stick and et animals the size of that meat-house at a
+meal."
+
+"He never said jest that."
+
+"He might as well. What I'm aimin' at is that it's demoralizin' to get
+interested in things like that and spend your life diggin' up the dead.
+It's too tame for a feller of any spirit."
+
+"It's nowise dang'rous," Tubbs admitted.
+
+"If I thought you was my kind, Tubbs, I'd give you a chance. I'd let you
+in on a deal that'd be the makin' of you."
+
+"All I needs is a chanct," Tubbs declared eagerly.
+
+"I believe you," Smith replied, with flattering emphasis.
+
+A disturbing thought made Tubbs inquire anxiously:
+
+"This here chanct your speakin' of--it ain't work, is it?--real right-down
+work?"
+
+"Not degradin' work, like pitchin' hay or plowin'."
+
+"I hates low-down work, where you gits out and sweats."
+
+"I see where you're right. There's no call for a man of your sand and
+_sabe_ to do day's work. Let them as hasn't neither and is afraid to take
+chances pitch hay and do plowin' for wages."
+
+Tubbs looked a little startled.
+
+"What kind of chances?"
+
+Smith looked at Tubbs before he lowered his voice and asked:
+
+"Wasn't you ever on the rustle none?"
+
+Tubbs reflected.
+
+"Onct back east, in I-o-wa, I rustled me a set of underwear off'n a
+clothes-line."
+
+Smith eyed Tubbs in genuine disgust. He had all the contempt for a
+petty-larceny thief that the skilled safe-breaker has for the common
+purse-snatcher. The line between pilfering and legitimate stealing was
+very clear in his mind. He said merely,
+
+"Tubbs, I believe you're a bad _hombre_."
+
+"They _is_ worse, I s'pose," said Tubbs modestly, "but I've been pretty
+rank in my time."
+
+"Can you ride? Can you rope? Can you cut out a steer and burn a brand?
+Would you get buck-ague in a pinch and quit me if it came to a show-down?
+Are you a stayer?"
+
+"Try me," said Tubbs, swelling.
+
+"Shake," said Smith. "I wisht we'd got acquainted sooner."
+
+"And mebby I kin tell you somethin' about brands," Tubbs went on
+boastfully.
+
+"More'n likely."
+
+"I kin take a wet blanket and a piece of copper wire and put an addition
+to an old brand so it'll last till you kin git the stock off'n your hands.
+I've never done it, but I've see it done."
+
+"I've heard tell of somethin' like that," Smith replied dryly.
+
+"Er you kin draw out a brand so you never would know nothin' was there.
+You take a chunk of green cottonwood, and saw it off square; then you bile
+it and bile it, and when it's hot through, you slaps it on the brand, and
+when you lifts it up after while the brand is drawed out."
+
+"Did you dream that, Tubbs?"
+
+"I b'leeve it'll work," declared Tubbs stoutly.
+
+"Maybe it would work in I-o-wa," said Smith, "but I doubts if it would
+work here. Any way," he added conciliatingly, "we'll give it a try."
+
+"And this chanct--it's tolable safe?"
+
+"Same as if you was home in bed. When I says 'ready,' will you come?"
+
+"Watch my smoke," answered Tubbs.
+
+Smith's eyes followed Tubbs's hulking figure as he shambled off, and his
+face was full of derision.
+
+"Say"--he addressed the world in general--"you show me a man from I-o-wa
+or Nebrasky and I'll show you a son-of-a-gun."
+
+Tubbs was putty in the hands of Smith, who could play upon his vanity and
+ignorance to any degree--though he believed that beyond a certain point
+Tubbs was an arrant coward. But Smith had a theory regarding the
+management of cowards. He believed that on the same principle that one
+uses a whip on a scared horse--to make it more afraid of that which is
+behind than of that which is ahead--he could by threats and intimidations
+force Tubbs to do his bidding if the occasion arose. Tubbs's mental
+calibre was 22-short; but Smith needed help, and Tubbs seemed the most
+pliable material at hand. That Tubbs had pledged himself to something the
+nature of which he knew only vaguely, was in itself sufficient to receive
+Smith's contempt. He had learned from observation that little dependence
+can be placed upon those who accept responsibilities too readily and
+lightly, but he was confident that he could utilize Tubbs as long as he
+should need him, and after that--Smith shrugged his shoulders--what was an
+I-o-wan more or less?
+
+Altogether, he felt well satisfied with what he had accomplished in the
+short while since his return.
+
+When Susie came home from school, Smith was looking through the
+corral-fence at a few ponies which Ralston had bought and driven in, to
+give color to his story.
+
+"See anything there you'd like?" she inquired, with significant emphasis.
+
+"I'd buy the bunch if I was goin' to set me some bear-traps." Smith could
+see nothing to praise in anything which belonged to Ralston.
+
+Susie missed her mother immediately upon going into the house, and in
+their sleeping-room she saw every sign of a hurried departure.
+
+"Where's mother gone?" she asked Ling.
+
+"Town."
+
+"To town? To see a doctor about her arm?"
+
+"Beads."
+
+"Beads?"
+
+"Blue beads, gleen beads. She no have enough beads for finish moccasin."
+
+"When's she comin' home?"
+
+"She come 'night."
+
+Forty miles over a rough road, with her bandaged arm, for beads! It did
+not sound reasonable to Susie, but since Smith was accounted for, and her
+mother would return that night, there seemed no cause for worry. Susie
+could not remember ever before having come home without finding her mother
+somewhere in the house, and now, as she fidgeted about, she realized how
+much she would miss her if that which she most feared should transpire to
+separate them.
+
+She walked to the door, and while she stood idly kicking her heel against
+the door-sill she saw Ralston, who was passing, stoop and pick up a scrap
+of paper which had been caught between two small stones. She observed that
+he examined it with interest, but while he stood with his lips pursed in a
+half-whistle a puff of wind flirted it from his fingers. He pursued it as
+though it had value, and Susie, who was not above curiosity, joined in the
+chase.
+
+It lodged in one of the giant sage-brushes which grew some little distance
+away on the outer edge of the dooryard, and into this brush Ralston
+reached and carefully drew it forth. He looked at it again, lest his eyes
+had deceived him, then he passed it to Susie, who stared blankly from the
+scrap of paper to him.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+WHEN THE CLOUDS PLAYED WOLF
+
+
+The Indian woman was restless; she had been so from the time they had lost
+sight of the town, but her restlessness had increased as the daylight
+faded and night fell.
+
+"You're goin' to bust this seat in if you don't quit jammin' around,"
+Meeteetse Ed warned her peevishly.
+
+Meeteetse was irritable, a state due largely to the waning exhilaration of
+a short and unsatisfactory spree.
+
+The woman clucked at the horses, and, to the great annoyance of her
+driver, reached for the reins and slapped them on the back.
+
+"They're about played out," he growled. "Forty miles is a awful trip for
+these buzzard-heads to make in a day. We orter have put up some'eres
+overnight."
+
+"I could have stayed with Little Coyote's woman."
+
+"We orter have done it, too. Look at them cayuses stumblin' along! Say, we
+won't git in before 'leven or twelve at this gait, and I'm so hungry I
+don't know where I'm goin' to sleep to-night."
+
+"Little Coyote's woman gifted me some sa'vis berries."
+
+"Aw, sa'vis berries! I can't go sa'vis berries," growled Meeteetse.
+"They're too sweet. The only way they're fit to eat is to dry 'em and
+pound 'em up with jerked elk--then they ain't bad eatin'. I've et 'most
+ev'ry thing in my day. I've et wolf, and dog, and old mountain billy-goat,
+and bull-snakes, and grasshoppers, so you kin see I ain't finnicky, but I
+can't stummick sa'vis berries." He asked querulously: "What's ailin' of
+you?"
+
+The Indian woman, who had been studying the black clouds as they drifted
+across the sky to dim the starlight, said in a half-whisper:
+
+"The clouds no look good to me. They look like enemies playin' wolf. I
+feel as if somethin' goin' happen."
+
+The bare suggestion of the supernatural was sufficient to alarm Meeteetse.
+He asked in a startled voice:
+
+"How do you feel?"
+
+"I feel sad. My heart drags down to de ground, and it seem like de dark
+hide somethin'."
+
+Meeteetse elongated his neck and peered fearfully into the darkness.
+
+"What do you think it hides?" he asked in a husky whisper.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I don't know, but I have de bad feelin'."
+
+"I forgot to sleep with my feet crossed last night," said Meeteetse, "and
+I dreamed horrible dreams all night long. Maybe they was warnin's. I can't
+think of anything much that could happen to us though," he went on, having
+forgotten some of his ill-nature in his alarm for his personal safety.
+"These here horses ain't goin' to run away--I wisht they would, fer 't
+would git us quite a piece on our road. We ain't no enemies worth
+mentionin', and we ain't worth stealin', so I don't hardly think your
+feelin' means any wrong for us. More'n likely it's jest somebody dead."
+
+This thought, slightly consoling to Meeteetse, did not seem to comfort the
+Indian woman, who continued to squirm on the rickety seat and to strain
+her eyes into the darkness.
+
+"If anybody ud come along and want to mix with me--say, do you see that
+fist? If ever I hit anybody with that fist, they'll have to have it dug
+out of 'em. I don't row often, but when I does--oh, lordy! lordy! I jest
+raves and caves. I was home on a visit onct, and my old-maid aunt gits a
+notion of pickin' on me. Say, I ups and runs her all over the house with
+an axe! I'm more er less a dang'rous character when I'm on the peck. Is
+that feelin' workin off of you any?" he inquired anxiously.
+
+"It comes stronger," she answered, and her grip tightened on the
+flour-sack she held under her blanket.
+
+"I wisht I knowed what it was. I'm gittin' all strung up myself." His
+popping eyes ached from trying to see into the darkness around them. "If
+we kin git past them gulches onct! That ud be a dum bad place to roll off
+the side. We'd go kerplunk into the crick-bottom. Gosh! what was that?" He
+stopped the weary horses with a terrific jerk.
+
+It was only a little night prowler which had scurried under the horses'
+feet and rustled into the brush.
+
+"You see how on aidge I am! I'll tell you," he went on garrulously--the
+sound of his own voice was always pleasant to Meeteetse: "I take more
+stock in signs and feelin's than most people, for I've seen 'em work out.
+Down there in Hermosy there was a feller made a stake out'n a silver
+prospect, and he takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky and hunt up
+his wife, that he'd run off and left some time prev'ous. As the date gits
+clost for him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He'd skerce crack a
+smile. The night before the stage was comin' to git him, he was settin' in
+a 'dobe with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of his chair, with
+his hands in his pockets.
+
+"'Boys,' he says, 'I'll never git back to Genevieve. I feels it; I knows
+it; I'll bet you any amount I'm goin' to cash in between here and
+Nebrasky. I've seen myself in my coffin four times hand-runnin', when I
+was wide awake.'
+
+"Everybody had their mouths open to let out a holler and laff when jest
+then one of the biggest terrantuler that I ever see dropped down out'n the
+dirt and straw and lands on his bald head. It hangs on and bites 'fore
+anybody kin bresh it off, and, 'fore Gawd, he ups and dies while the
+medicine shark is comin' from the next town!"
+
+His companion did not find Meeteetse's reminiscence specially interesting,
+possibly because she had heard it before, so at its conclusion she made no
+comment, but continued to watch with anxious eyes the clouds and the road
+ahead.
+
+"Now if that ud been me," Meeteetse started to say, in nowise disconcerted
+by the unresponsiveness of his listener--"if that ud----"
+
+"Throw up your hands!" The curt command came out of the night with the
+startling distinctness of a gun-shot. The horses were thrown back on their
+haunches by a figure at their head.
+
+Meeteetse not only threw up his hands, but his feet. He threw them up so
+high and so hard that he lost his equilibrium, and, as a result, the
+ill-balanced seat went over, carrying with it Meeteetse and the Indian
+woman.
+
+The latter's mind acted quickly. She knew that her errand to the bank had
+become known. Undoubtedly they had been followed from town. As soon as she
+could disentangle herself from Meeteetse's convulsive embrace, she threw
+the flour-sack from her with all her strength, hoping it would drop out of
+sight in the sage-brush. It was caught in mid-air by a tall figure at the
+wagon-side.
+
+"Thank you, madam," said a hollow voice, "Good-night."
+
+It was all done so quickly and neatly that Meeteetse and the Indian woman
+were still in the bottom of the wagon when two dark figures clattered past
+and vanishing hoof-beats told them the thieves were on their way to town.
+
+"Well, sir!" Meeteetse found his feet, also his tongue, at last.
+
+"Well, sir!" He adjusted the seat.
+
+"Well, sir!" He picked up the reins and clucked to the horses.
+
+"Well, sir! I know 'em. Them's the fellers that held up the Great
+Northern!"
+
+The Indian woman said not a word. Her heart was filled with despair. What
+would Smith say? was her thought. What would he do? She felt intuitively
+how great would be his disappointment. How could she tell him?
+
+She drew the blanket tighter about her shoulders and across her face,
+crouching on the seat like a culprit.
+
+The ranch-house was dark when they drove into the yard, for which she was
+thankful. She left Meeteetse to unharness, and, without striking a light
+or speaking to Susie, crept between her blankets like a frightened child.
+
+Smith, in his dreams, had heard the rumble of the wagon as it crossed the
+ford, and he awoke the next morning with a sensation of pleasurable
+anticipation. In his mind's eye, he saw the banknotes in a heap before
+him. There were all kinds in the picture--greasy ones, crisp ones,
+tattered bills pasted together with white strips of paper. He rather liked
+these best, because the care with which they had been preserved conveyed
+an idea of value. They had been treasured, coveted by others, counted
+often.
+
+Eager, animated, his eyes bright, his lips curving in a smile, Smith
+hurried into his clothes and to the ranch-house, to seek the Indian woman.
+He heard her heavy step as she crossed the floor of the living-room, and
+he waited outside the door.
+
+"Prairie Flower!" he whispered as she stood before him.
+
+She avoided his eyes, and her fingers fumbled nervously with the buckle of
+her wide belt.
+
+"Could you get it?"
+
+"Most of it."
+
+"Where is it?" His eyes gleamed with the light of avarice.
+
+She drew in her breath hard.
+
+"It was stole."
+
+His face went blood-red; the cords of his neck swelled as if he were
+straining at a weight. She shrank from the snarling ferocity of his
+mouth.
+
+"You lie!" The voice was not human.
+
+He clenched his huge fist and knocked her down.
+
+She was on the ground when Susie came out.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+The woman blinked up at her.
+
+"I slip. I gettin' too fat," she said, and struggled to her feet.
+
+Elsewhere, with great minuteness of detail, Meeteetse was describing the
+exciting incident of the night, and what would have happened if only he
+could have laid hold of his gun.
+
+"Maybe they wouldn't 'a' split the wind if I could have jest drawed my
+automatic in time! As 'twas, I put up the best fight I could, with a woman
+screamin' and hangin' to me for pertection. I rastled the big feller
+around in the road there for some time, neither of us able to git a good
+holt. He was glad enough to break away, I kin tell you. They's no manner
+o' doubt in my mind but them was the Great Northern hold-ups."
+
+"But what would they tackle _you_ for?" demanded Old Man Rulison.
+"Everybody knows _you_ ain't got nothin', and you say all they took from
+the old woman was a flour-sack full of dried sa'vis berries. It's some of
+a come-down, looks to me, from robbing trains to stealin' stewin'-fruit."
+
+"Well, there you are." Meeteetse shrugged his shoulders. "That's your
+mystery. All I knows is, that I pulled ha'r every jump in the road to save
+them berries."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE LOVE MEDICINE OF THE SIOUX
+
+
+Still breathing hard, Smith hunted Tubbs.
+
+"Tubbs, will you be ready for business, to-day?"
+
+"The sooner, the quicker," Tubbs answered, with his vacuous wit.
+
+"Do you know the gulch where they found that dead Injun?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Saddle up and meet me over there as quick as you can."
+
+"Right." Tubbs winked knowingly, and immediately after breakfast started
+to do as he was bid.
+
+Smith's face was not good to look upon as he sat at the table. He took no
+part in the conversation, and scarcely touched the food before him. His
+disappointment was so deep that it actually sickened him, and his
+unreasoning anger toward the woman was so great that he wanted to get out
+of her sight and her presence. She was like a dog which after a whipping
+tries to curry favor with its master. She was ready to go to him at the
+first sign of relenting. She felt no resentment because of his injustice
+and brutality. She felt nothing but that he was angry at her, that he
+kept his eyes averted and repelled her timid advances. Her heart ached,
+and she would have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her. In her
+desperation, she made up her mind to try on him the love-charm of the
+Sioux women. It might soften his heart toward her. She would have
+sacrificed anything and all to bring him back.
+
+Smith was glad to get away into the hills for a time. He was filled with a
+feverish impatience to bring about that which he so much desired. The
+picture of the ranch-house with the white curtains at the windows became
+more and more attractive to him as he dwelt upon it. He looked upon it as
+a certainty, one which could not be too quickly realized to please him.
+Then, too, the atmosphere of the MacDonald ranch had grown distasteful to
+him. With that sudden revulsion of feeling which was characteristic, he
+had grown tired of the place, he wanted a change, to be on the move again;
+but, of more importance than these things, he sensed hostility in the air.
+There was something significant in the absence of the Indians at the
+ranch. There was an ominous quiet hanging over the place that chilled him.
+He had a feeling that he was being followed, without being able to detect
+so much as a shadow. He felt as if the world were full of eyes--glued upon
+him. Sudden sounds startled him, and he had found himself peering into
+dark stable corners and stooping to look where the shadows lay black in
+the thick creek-brush.
+
+He told himself that the trip through the Bad Lands had unnerved him, but
+the explanation was not satisfying. Through it all, he had an underlying
+feeling that something was wrong; yet he had no thought of altering his
+plans. He wanted money, and he wanted Dora. The combination was sufficient
+to nerve him to take chances.
+
+Tubbs was waiting in the gulch. Smith looked at the spot where White
+Antelope's body had lain, and reflected that it was curious how long the
+black stain of blood would stay on sand and gravel. He had been lucky to
+get out of that scrape so easily, he told himself as he rode by.
+
+"I guess you know what you're up against, feller," he said bluntly, as he
+and Tubbs met.
+
+"I inclines to the opinion that it's a little cattle deal," Tubbs replied
+facetiously.
+
+"You inclines right. Now, here's our play--listen. The Bar C outfit is
+workin' up in the mountains, so they won't interfere with us none, and
+about three or three and a half days' drive from here there's some fellers
+what'll take 'em off our hands. We gets our wad and divvies."
+
+"What for a hand do I take?"
+
+"By rights, maybe, we ought to do our work at night, but I've rode over
+the country, and it looks safe enough to drive 'em into the gulch to-day.
+They isn't a human in sight, and if one shows up, I reckon you know what
+to do."
+
+"It sounds easy enough, if it works," said Tubbs dubiously.
+
+"If it works? Feller, if you've got a yeller streak, you better quit right
+here."
+
+"I merely means," Tubbs hastened to explain, "that it sounds so easy that
+it makes me sore we wasn't doin' it before."
+
+The reply appeared to pacify Smith.
+
+"I hates to fool with cattle," he admitted, "'specially these here Texas
+brutes that spread out, leavin' tracks all over the flat, and they can't
+make time just off green grass. Gimme horses--but horses ain't safe right
+now, with the Injuns riled up. Now, you start out and gather up what you
+can, and hold 'em here till I get back. I'll go to the ranch and get a
+little grub together and get here as quick as it's safe."
+
+Smith galloped back to the ranch, to learn that Dora had ridden to the
+Agency to spend the day. He was keenly disappointed that he had missed the
+opportunity of saying good-by. She had chided him before for not telling
+her of his contemplated absence, and he had promised not to neglect to do
+so again; for she was in the habit of arranging the table for her
+night-school and waiting until he came. Then it occurred to Smith that he
+might write. He was delighted with the idea, and undoubtedly Dora would be
+equally delighted to receive a letter from him. It would show her that he
+remembered his promise, and also give her a chance to note his progress.
+Since Smith had learned that a capital letter is used to designate the
+personal pronoun, and that a period is placed at such points as one's
+breath gives out, he had begun to think himself something of a scholar.
+
+His enthusiasm grew as he thought of it, and he decided that while he was
+about it he would write a genuine love-letter.
+
+Borrowing paper, an erratic pen, and ink pale from frequent watering, from
+a shelf in the living-room, he repaired to the dining-room table and gave
+himself up to the throes of composition.
+
+Bearing in mind that the superlative of dear is dearest, he wrote:
+
+  Dearest Girl.
+
+  I have got to go away on bizness. I had ought to hav said good-by but
+  I cant wate till you gets back so I thort I wold write. I love you. I
+  hates everyboddy else when I think of you. I dont love no other woman
+  but you. Nor never did. If ever I go away and dont come back dont
+  forget what I say because I will be ded, I mean it. I will hav a stak
+  perty quick then I will show you this aint no josh. You no the rest,
+  good-by for this time.
+
+                                                                Smith.
+The perspiration stood out on his forehead, and he wiped it away with his
+ink-stained fingers.
+
+"Writin' is harder work nor shoein' a horse," he observed to Ling, and
+added for the Indian woman's benefit, "I'm sendin' off to get me a pair of
+them Angory saddle-pockets."
+
+His explanation did not deceive the person for whom it was intended. With
+the intuition of a jealous woman, she knew that he was writing a letter
+which he would not have her see. She meant to know, if possible, to whom
+he was writing, and what. Although she did not raise her eyes from her
+work when he replaced the pen and ink, she did not let him out of her
+sight. She believed that he had written to Dora, and she was sure of it
+when, thinking himself unobserved, he crept to Dora's open window, outside
+of the house, and dropped the letter into the top drawer of her bureau,
+which stood close.
+
+As soon as Smith was out of sight, she too crept stealthily to the open
+window. A red spot burned on either swarthy cheek, and her aching heart
+beat fast. She took the letter from the drawer, and, going toward the
+creek, plunged into the willows, with the instinct of the wounded animal
+seeking cover.
+
+The woman could read a little--not much, but better than she could write.
+She had been to the Mission when she was younger, and MacDonald had
+labored patiently to teach her more. Now, concealed among the willows,
+sitting cross-legged on the ground, she spelled out Smith's letter word by
+word,
+
+I love you. I hates everyboddy else when I think of you. I don't love no
+other woman but you. Nor never did.
+
+She read it slowly, carefully, each word sinking deep. Then she stroked
+her hair with long, deliberate strokes, and read it again.
+
+I don't love no other woman but you. Nor never did.
+
+She laid the letter on the ground, and, folding her arms, rocked her body
+to and fro, as though in physical agony. When she shut her lips they
+trembled as they touched each other, but she made no sound. The wound in
+her arm was beginning to heal. It itched, and she scratched it hard, for
+the pain served as a kind of counter-irritant. A third time she read the
+letter, stroking her hair incessantly with the long, deliberate strokes.
+Then she folded it, and, reaching for a pointed stick, dug a hole in the
+soft dirt. In the bottom of the hole she laid the letter and covered it
+with earth, patting and smoothing it until it was level. Before she left
+she sprinkled a few leaves over the spot.
+
+She looked old and ugly when she went into the house, seeming, for the
+first time, the woman of middle-age that she was. Quietly, purposefully,
+she drew out a chair, and, standing upon it, took down from the rafters
+the plant which Little Coyote's woman, the Mandan, had given her. It had
+hung there a long time, and the leaves crumpled and dropped off at her
+touch. She filled a basin with water and put the plant and root to soak,
+while she searched for a sharp knife. Turning her back to the room and
+facing the corner, like a child in mischief, she peeled the outer bark
+from the root with the greatest care. The inner bark was blood-red, and
+this too she peeled away carefully, very, very carefully saving the
+smallest particles, and laid it upon a paper. When she had it all, she
+burned the plant; but the red inner bark she put in a tin cup and covered
+it with boiling water, to steep.
+
+"Don't touch dat," she warned Ling.
+
+The afternoon was waning when she went again to the willows, but the air
+was still hot, for the rocks and sand held the heat until well after
+nightfall. In the willows she cut a stick--a forked stick, which she
+trimmed so that it left a crotch with a long handle. Hiding the stick
+under her blanket, she stepped out of the willows, and seemed to be
+wandering aimlessly until she was out of sight of the house and the
+bunk-house. Then she walked rapidly, with a purpose. Her objective point
+was a hill covered so thickly with rocks that scarcely a spear of grass
+grew upon it. The climb left her short of breath, she wiped the
+perspiration from her face with her blanket, but she did not falter.
+Stepping softly, listening, she crept over the rocks with the utmost
+caution, peering here and there as if in search of something which she did
+not wish to alarm. A long, sibilant sound stopped her. She located it as
+coming from under a rock only a few feet away, and a little gleam of
+satisfaction in her sombre eyes showed that she had found that for which
+she searched. The angry rattlesnake was coiled to strike, but she
+approached without hesitancy. Calculating how far it could throw itself,
+she stood a little beyond its range and for a moment stood watching the
+glitter of its wicked little eyes, the lightning-like action of its
+tongue. When she moved, its head followed her, but she dexterously pinned
+it to the rock with her forked stick and placed the heel of her moccasin
+upon its writhing body. Then, stooping, she severed its head from its body
+with her knife.
+
+She put the head in a square of cloth and continued her search. After a
+time, she found another, and when she went down the hill there were three
+heads in the blood-soaked square of cloth. She hid them in the willows,
+and went into the house to stir the contents of the tin cup. She noted
+with evident satisfaction that it had thickened somewhat. Little Coyote's
+woman had told her it would do so. She found a bottle which had contained
+lemon extract, and this she rinsed. She measured a teaspoonful of the
+thick, reddish-brown liquid and poured it into the bottle, filling it
+afterward with water. The cup she took with her into the willows. Laying
+the heads of the snakes upon a flat stone, she cut them through the jaws,
+and, extracting the poison sac, stirred the fluid into the tin cup. While
+she stirred, she remembered that she had heard an owl hoot the night
+before. It was an ill-omen, and it had sounded close. The hooting of an
+owl meant harm to some one. She wondered now if an owl feather would not
+make the medicine stronger. She set down her cup and looked carefully
+under the trees, but could find no feathers. Ah, well, it was stout enough
+medicine without it!
+
+She had brought a long, keen-bladed hunting-knife into the willows, and
+she dipped the point of it into the concoction--blowing upon it until it
+dried, then repeating the process. When the point of the blade was well
+discolored, she muttered:
+
+"Dat's de strong medicine!"
+
+Her eyes glittered like the eyes of the snakes among the rocks, and they
+seemed smaller. Their roundness and the liquid softness of them was gone.
+She looked "pure Injun," as Smith would have phrased it, with murder in
+her heart. Deliberately, malevolently, she spat upon the earth beneath
+which the letter lay, before she returned to the house.
+
+She heard Susie's voice in the Schoolmarm's room, and quickly hid the
+knife behind a mirror in the living-room, where she hid everything which
+she wished to conceal, imagining, for some unknown reason, that no one but
+herself would ever think of looking there. Susie often had thought
+laughingly that it looked like a pack-rat's nest.
+
+The woman poured the liquid which remained in the tin cup into another
+bottle, frowning when she spilled a few precious drops upon her hand.
+This bottle she also hid behind the mirror.
+
+In Dora Marshall's room, Susie was examining the teacher's toilette
+articles, which held an unfailing interest for her. She meant to have an
+exact duplicate of the manicure set and of the hairbrush with the heavy
+silver back. To Susie, these things, along with side-combs and petticoats
+that rustled, were symbols of that elegance which she longed to attain.
+
+As she stood by the bureau, fumbling with the various articles, she caught
+sight of a box through the crack of the half-open drawer. She had seen
+that battered box before. It was the grasshopper box--for there was the
+slit in the top.
+
+Susie was not widely experienced in matters of sentiment, but she had her
+feminine intuitions, besides remarkably well-developed reasoning powers
+for her years.
+
+Why, she asked herself as she continued to stare through the crack, why
+should Teacher be cherishing that old bait-box? Why should she have it
+there among her handkerchiefs and smelly silk things, and the soft lace
+things she wore at her throat? Why--unless she attached value to it?
+Why--unless it was a romantic and sacred keepsake?
+
+Susie rather prided herself on being in touch with all that went on, and
+now she had an uneasy feeling that she might have missed something. She
+remembered the day of their fishing trip well, and at the time had
+thought she had scented a budding romance. Had they quarrelled, she
+wondered?
+
+She sat on the edge of the bed and swung her feet.
+
+"My, but won't it seem lonesome here without Mr. Ralston?" Susie sighed
+deeply.
+
+"Is he going away?" Dora asked quickly.
+
+"He'll be goin' pretty soon now, because he's found most of his strays and
+bought all the ponies he wants."
+
+"I suppose he will be glad to get back among his friends."
+
+Susie thought Teacher looked a little pale.
+
+"Maybe he'll go back and get married."
+
+"Did he say so?"
+
+Susie was _sure_ she was paler.
+
+"No," she replied nonchalantly. "I just thought so, because anybody that's
+as good-looking as he is, gets gobbled up quick. Don't you think he is
+good-looking?"
+
+"Oh, he does very well."
+
+"Gee whiz, I wish he'd ask me to marry him!" said Susie unblushingly. "You
+couldn't see me for dust, the way I'd travel. But there's no danger. Look
+at them there skinny arms!"
+
+"Susie! What grammar!"
+
+"Those there skinny arms."
+
+"Those."
+
+"Those skinny arms; those hair; those eyes--soft and gentle like a couple
+of augers, Meeteetse says." Susie shook her head in mock despondency.
+"I've tried to be beautiful, too. Once I cut a piece out of a newspaper
+that told how you could get rosy cheeks. It gave all the different things
+to put in, so I sent off and got 'em. I mixed 'em like it said and rubbed
+it on my face. There wasn't any mistake about my rosy cheeks, but you
+ought to have seen the blisters on my cheek-bones--big as dollars!"
+
+"I'm sure you will not be so thin when you are older," Dora said
+consolingly, "and your hair would be a very pretty color if only you would
+wear a hat and take a little care of it."
+
+Susie shook her head and sighed again.
+
+"Oh, it will be too late then, for he will be snapped up by some of those
+stylish town girls. You see."
+
+Dora put buttons in her shirt-waist sleeves in silence.
+
+"I think he liked to stay here until you quarrelled with him."
+
+"I quarrelled with him?"
+
+"Oh, didn't you?" Susie was innocence itself. "You treat him so polite, I
+thought you must have quarrelled--such a chilly polite," she explained.
+
+"I don't think _he_ has observed it," Dora answered coldly.
+
+"Oh, yes, he has." Susie waited discreetly.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"When you come to the table and say, Good-morning, and look at him without
+seeing him, I know he'd a lot rather you cuffed him."
+
+"What a dreadful word, Susie, and what an absurd idea!"
+
+Susie noted that Teacher's eyes brightened.
+
+"_You'll_ be goin' away, too, pretty soon, and I s'pose you'll be glad you
+will never see him again. But," she added dolefully, "ain't it awful the
+way people just meets and parts?"
+
+Dora was a long time finding that for which she was searching among the
+clothes hanging on a row of nails, and Susie, rolling her eyes in that
+direction, was sure, very sure, that she saw Teacher dab at her lashes
+with the frilly ruffle of a petticoat before she turned around.
+
+"When did he say he was going?"
+
+"He didn't say; but to-day or to-morrow, I should think."
+
+"If he cared so much because I am cool to him, he certainly would have
+asked me why I treated him so. But he didn't care enough to ask."
+
+Teacher's voice sounded queer even to herself, and she seemed intensely
+interested in buttoning her boots.
+
+"Pooh! I know why. It's because he thinks you like that Smith."
+
+"Smith!"
+
+"Yes, Smith."
+
+The jangle of Ling's triangle interrupted the fascinating conversation.
+
+"How perfectly foolish!" gasped Dora.
+
+"Not to Smith," Susie replied dryly, "nor to Mr. Ralston."
+
+Susie looked at the unoccupied chairs at the table as she and Dora seated
+themselves. Ralston's, Tubbs's, Smith's, and McArthur's chairs were
+vacant.
+
+"Looks like you're losin' your boarders fast, Ling," she remarked.
+
+"Good thing," Ling answered candidly.
+
+The Indian woman gulped her coffee, but refused the food which was passed
+to her. A strange faintness, accompanied by nausea, was creeping upon her.
+Her vision was blurred, and she saw Meeteetse Ed, at the opposite end of
+the table, as through a fog. She pushed back her chair and went into the
+living-room, swaying a little as she walked. A faint moan caught Susie's
+ear, and she hastened to her mother.
+
+The woman was lying on the floor by the bench where she sewed, her head
+pillowed on her rag-rug.
+
+"Mother! Why, what's the matter with your hand? It's swelled!"
+
+"I heap sick, Susie!" she moaned. "My arm aches me."
+
+"Look!" cried Susie, who had turned back her sleeve. "Her arm is black--a
+purple black, and it's swellin' up!"
+
+"Oh, I heap sick!"
+
+"What did you do to your arm, Mother? Did you have the bandage off?"
+
+"Yes, it come off, and I pin him up," said Ling, who was standing by.
+
+A paroxysm of pain seized the woman, and she writhed.
+
+"It looks exactly like a rattlesnake bite! I saw a fellow once that was
+bit in the ankle, and it swelled up and turned a color like that,"
+declared Susie in horror. "Mother, you haven't been foolin' with snakes,
+or been bit?"
+
+The woman shook her head.
+
+"I no been bit," she groaned, and her eyes had in them the appealing look
+of a sick spaniel.
+
+Dora and Susie helped her to her room, and though they tried every simple
+remedy of which they had ever heard, to reduce the rapidly swelling arm,
+all seemed equally unavailing. The woman's convulsions hourly became more
+violent and frequent, while her arm was frightful to behold--black, as it
+was, from hand to shoulder with coagulated blood.
+
+"If only we had an idea of the cause!" cried Dora, distracted.
+
+"Mother, can't you imagine anything that would make your arm bad like
+this? Try to think."
+
+But though drops of perspiration stood on the woman's forehead, and her
+grip tore the pillow, she obstinately shook her head.
+
+"I be better pretty soon," was all she would say, and tried to smile at
+Susie.
+
+"If only some one would come!" Dora went to the open window often and
+listened for Ralston's voice or McArthur's--the latter having gone for his
+mail.
+
+The strain of watching the woman's suffering told on both of the girls,
+and the night by her bedside seemed centuries long. Toward morning the
+paroxysms appeared to reach a climax and then to subside. They were of
+shorter duration, and the intervals between were longer.
+
+"She's better, I'm sure," Dora said hopefully, but Susie shook her head.
+
+"I don't think so; she's worse. There's that look behind, back of her
+eyes--that dead look--can't you see it? And it's in her face, too. I don't
+know how to say what I mean, but it's there, and it makes me shiver like
+cold." The girl looked in mingled awe and horror at the first human being
+she ever had seen die.
+
+Unable to endure the strain any longer, Dora went into the fresh air, and
+Susie dropped on her knees by the bedside and took her mother's limp hand
+in both of hers.
+
+"Oh, Mother," she begged pitifully, "say something. Don't go away without
+sayin' something to Susie!"
+
+With an effort of will, the woman slowly opened her dull eyes and fixed
+them upon the child's face.
+
+"Yas," she breathed; "I _want_ to say something."
+
+The words came slowly and thickly.
+
+"I no--get well."
+
+"Oh, Mother!"
+
+Unheeding the wail, perhaps not hearing it, she went on, stopping often
+between words:
+
+"I steal--from you--my little girl. I bad woman, Susie. It is right I die.
+I take de money--out of de bank dat MacDonald leave us--to give to Smith.
+De hold-ups steal de money on--de road. I have de bad heart--Susie--to do
+dat. I know now."
+
+"You mustn't talk like that, Mother!" cried Susie, gripping her hand
+convulsively. "You thought you'd get it again and put it back. You didn't
+mean to steal from me. I know all about it. And I've got the money. Mr.
+Ralston found a check you had thrown away--you'd signed your name on it in
+the wrong place. When we saw the date, and what a lot of money it was, and
+found you had gone to town, we guessed the rest. It was easy to see Smith
+in that. So we held you up, and got it back. We knew there was no danger
+to anybody, but, of course, we felt bad to worry and frighten you."
+
+"I'm glad," said the woman simply. She had no strength or breath or time
+to spare. "Dey's more. I tell you--I kill Smith--if he lie. He lie. He
+bull-dog white man. I make de strong medicine to kill him--and I get de
+poison in my arm when de bandage slip. Get de bottles and de knife behind
+de lookin'-glass--I show you."
+
+Susie quickly did as she was bid.
+
+"De lemon bottle is de love-charm of de Sioux. One teaspoonful--no more,
+Little Coyote's woman say. De other bottle is de bad medicine. Be careful.
+Smith--make fool--of me--Susie." What else she would have said ended in a
+gurgle. Her jaw dropped, and she died with her glazing eyes upon Susie's
+face.
+
+Susie pulled the gay Indian blanket gently over her mother's shoulders, as
+if afraid she would be cold. Then she slipped a needle and some beads and
+buckskin, to complete an unfinished moccasin, underneath the blanket. Her
+mother was going on a long journey, and would want occupation. There were
+no tears in Susie's eyes when she replaced the bottles and the skinning
+knife with the discolored blade behind the mirror.
+
+The wan little creature seemed to have no tears to shed. She was
+unresponsive to Dora's broken words of sympathy, and the grub-liners'
+awkward condolences--they seemed not to reach her heart at all. She heard
+them without hearing, for her mind was chaos as she moved silently from
+room to room, or huddled, a forlorn figure, on the bench where her mother
+always had sat.
+
+Breakfast was long since over and the forenoon well advanced when she
+finally left the silent house and crept like the ghost of her spirited
+self down the path to the stable and into the roomy stall where her stout
+little cow-pony stood munching hay.
+
+In her sorrow, the dumb animal was the one thing to which she turned. He
+lifted his head when she went in, and threw his cropped ears forward,
+while his eyes grew limpid as a horse's eyes will at the approach of some
+one it knows well and looks to for food and affection.
+
+They had almost grown up together, and the time Susie had spent on his
+back, or with him in the corral or stall, formerly had been half her
+waking hours. They had no fear of each other; only deep love and mutual
+understanding.
+
+"Oh, Croppy! Croppy!" her childish voice quavered. "Oh, Croppy, you're all
+I've got left!" She slipped her arms around his thick neck and hid her
+face in his mane.
+
+He stopped eating and stood motionless while she clung to him, his ears
+alert at the sound of the familiar voice.
+
+"What _shall_ I do!" she wailed in an abandonment of grief.
+
+In her inexperience, it seemed to Susie, that with her mother's death all
+the world had come to an end for her. Undemonstrative as they were, and
+meagre as had been any spoken words of affection, the bond of natural love
+between them had seemed strong and unbreakable until Smith's coming. They
+had been all in all to each other in their unemotional way; and now this
+unexpected tragedy seemed to crush the child, because it was something
+which never had entered her thoughts. It was a crisis with which she did
+not know how to cope or to bear. The world could never be blacker for her
+than it was when she clung sobbing to the little sorrel pony's thick neck
+that morning. The future looked utterly cheerless and impossible to
+endure. She had not learned that no tragedy is so blighting that there is
+not a way out--a way which the sufferer makes himself, which comes to him,
+or into which he is forced. Nothing stays as it is. But it appeared to
+Susie that life could never be different, except to be worse.
+
+She had talked much to McArthur of the outside world, and questioned him,
+and a doubt had sprung up as to the feasibility of searching for her
+kinsfolk, as she had planned. There were many, many trails and wire fences
+to bewilder one, and people--hundreds of people--people who were not
+always kind. His answers filled her with vague fears. To be only sixteen,
+and alone, is cause enough for tears, and Susie shed them now.
+
+McArthur, with a radiant face, was riding toward the ranch to which he had
+become singularly attached. His saddle-pockets bulged with mail, and his
+elbows flapped joyously as he urged his horse to greater speed. He looked
+up eagerly at the house as he crossed the ford, and his kind eyes shone
+with happiness when he rode into the stable-yard and swung out of the
+saddle.
+
+He heard a sound, the unmistakable sound of sobbing, as he was unsaddling.
+Listening, he knew it came from somewhere in the stable, so he left his
+horse and went inside.
+
+It was Susie, as he had thought. She lifted her tear-stained face from the
+pony's mane when he spoke, and he knew that she was glad to see him.
+
+"Oh, pardner, I thought you'd _never_ come!"
+
+"The mail was late, and I stayed with the Major to wait for it. What has
+gone wrong?"
+
+"Mother's dead," she said. "She was poisoned accidentally."
+
+"Susie! And there was no one here?" The news seemed incredible.
+
+"Only Teacher and me--no one that knew what to do. We sent Meeteetse for a
+doctor, but he hasn't come yet. He probably got drunk and forgot what he
+went for. It's been a terrible night, pardner, and a terrible day!"
+
+McArthur looked at her with troubled eyes, and once more he stroked her
+hair with his gentle, timid touch.
+
+"Everything just looks awful to me, with Dad and mother both gone, and me
+here alone on this big ranch, with only Ling and grub-liners. And to think
+of it all the rest of my life like this--with nobody that I belong to, or
+that belongs to me!"
+
+Something was recalled to McArthur with a start by Susie's words. He had
+forgotten!
+
+"Come, Susie, come with me."
+
+She followed him outside, where he unbuckled his saddle-pocket and took a
+daguerreotype from a wooden box which had come in the mail. The gilt frame
+was tarnished, the purple velvet lining faded, and when he handed the case
+to Susie she had to hold it slanting in the light to see the picture.
+
+"Dad!"
+
+She looked at McArthur with eyes wide in wonder.
+
+"Donald MacDonald, my aunt Harriet's brother, who went north to buy furs
+for the Hudson Bay Company!" McArthur's eyes were smiling through the
+moisture in them.
+
+"We've got one just like it!" Susie cried, still half unable to believe
+her eyes and ears.
+
+"I was sure that day you mimicked your father when he said, 'Never forget
+you are a MacDonald!' for I have heard my aunt say that a thousand times,
+and in just that way. But I wanted to be surer before I said anything to
+you, so I sent for this."
+
+"Oh, pardner!" and with a sudden impulse which was neither Scotch nor
+Indian, but entirely of herself, Susie threw her arms about his neck and
+all but choked him in the only hug which Peter McArthur, A.M., Ph.D.,
+could remember ever having had.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE MURDERER OF WHITE ANTELOPE
+
+
+It was nearly dusk, and Ralston was only a few hundred yards from the Bar
+C gate, when he met Babe, highly perfumed and with his hair suspiciously
+slick, coming out. Babe's look of disappointment upon seeing him was not
+flattering, but Ralston ignored it in his own delight at the meeting.
+
+"What was your rush? I was just goin' over to see you," was Babe's glum
+greeting.
+
+"And I'm here to see you," Ralston returned, "but I forgot to perfume
+myself and tallow my hair."
+
+"Aw-w-w," rumbled Babe, sheepishly. "What'd you want?"
+
+"You know what I'm in the country for?"
+
+Babe nodded.
+
+"I've located my man, and he's going to drive off a big bunch to-night.
+There's two of them in fact, and I'll need help. Are you game for it?"
+
+"Oh, mamma!" Babe rolled his eyes in ecstasy.
+
+"He has a horror of doing time," Ralston went on, "and if he has any show
+at all, he's going to put up a hard fight. I'd like the satisfaction of
+bringing them both in, single-handed, but it isn't fair to the Colonel to
+take any chances of their getting away."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Smith."
+
+"That bastard with his teeth stickin' out?"
+
+Ralston laughed assent.
+
+"Pickin's!" cried Babe, with gusto. "I'd like to kill that feller every
+mornin' before breakfast. Will I go? Will I? _Will_ I?" Babe's crescendo
+ended in a joyous whoop of exultation. "Wait till I ride back and tell the
+Colonel, and git my ca'tridge belt. I take it off of an evenin' these
+tranquil times."
+
+Ralston turned his horse and started back, so engrossed in thoughts of the
+work ahead of him that it was not until Babe overtook him that he
+remembered he had forgotten to ask Babe's business with him.
+
+"Well, I guess the old Colonel was tickled when he heard you'd spotted the
+rustlers," said Babe, as he reined in beside him. "He wanted to come
+along--did for a fact, and him nearly seventy. He'd push the lid off his
+coffin and climb out at his own funeral if somebody'd happen to mention
+that thieves was brandin' his calves."
+
+"You said you had started to the ranch to see me."
+
+"Oh, yes--I forgot. Your father sent word to the Colonel that he was
+sellin' off his cattle and goin' into sheep, and wanted the Colonel to
+let you know."
+
+"The poor old Governor! It'll about break his heart, I know; and I should
+be there. At his time of life it's a pretty hard and galling thing to quit
+cattle--to be forced out of the business into sheep. It's like bein' made
+to change your politics or religion against your will."
+
+"'Fore I'd wrangle woolers," declared Babe, "I'd hold up trains or rob
+dudes or do 'most any old thing. Say, I've rid by sheep-wagons when I was
+durn near starvin' ruther than eat with a sheep-herder or owe one a favor.
+Where do you find a man like the Colonel in sheep?" demanded Babe. "You
+don't find 'em. Nothin' but a lot of upstart sheep-herders, that's got
+rich in five years and don't know how to act."
+
+"Oh, you're prejudiced, Babe. Not all sheepmen are muckers any more than
+all cattlemen are gentlemen."
+
+"I'm not prejudiced a-_tall_!" declared Babe excitedly. "I'm perfectly
+fair and square. Woolers is demoralizin'. Associate with woolers, and it
+takes the spirit out of a feller quicker'n cookin.' In five years you
+won't be half the man you are now if you go into sheep. I'll sure hate to
+see it!" His voice was all but pathetic as he contemplated Ralston's
+downfall.
+
+"I think you will, though, Babe, if I get out of this with a whole hide."
+
+"You'll be so well fixed you can git married then?" There was some
+constraint in Babe's tone, which he meant to be casual.
+
+Ralston's heart gave him a twinge of pain.
+
+"I s'pose you've had every chance to git acquainted with the Schoolmarm,"
+he observed, since Ralston did not reply.
+
+"She doesn't like me, Babe."
+
+"_What_!" yelled Babe, screwing up his face in a grimace of surprise and
+unbelief.
+
+"She would rather talk to Ling than to me--at least, she seems far more
+friendly to any one else than to me."
+
+"Say, she must be loony not to like you!"
+
+Ralston could not help laughing outright at Babe's vigorous loyalty.
+
+"It's not necessarily a sign of insanity to dislike me."
+
+"She doesn't go that far, does she?" demanded Babe.
+
+"Sometimes I think so."
+
+"You don't care a-tall, do you?"
+
+"Yes," Ralston replied quietly; "I care a great deal. It hurts me more
+than I ever was hurt before; because, you see, Babe, I never loved a woman
+before."
+
+"Aw-w-w," replied Babe, in deepest sympathy.
+
+Smith had congratulated himself often during the day upon the fact that he
+could not have chosen a more propitious time for the execution of his
+plans--at least, so far as the Bar C outfit was concerned. His uneasiness
+passed as the protecting darkness fell without their having seen a single
+person the entire day.
+
+When the last glimmer of daylight had faded, Tubbs and Smith started on
+the drive, heading the cattle direct for their destination. They were
+fatter than Smith had supposed, so they could not travel as rapidly as he
+had calculated, but he and Tubbs pushed them along as fast as they could
+without overheating them.
+
+The darkness, which gave Smith courage, made Tubbs nervous. He swore at
+the cattle, he swore at his horse, he swore at the rocks over which his
+horse stumbled; and he constantly strained his roving eyes to penetrate
+the darkness for pursuers. Every gulch and gully held for him a fresh
+terror.
+
+"Gee! I wisht I was out of this onct!" burst from him when the howl of a
+wolf set his nerves jangling.
+
+"What'd you say?" Smith stopped in the middle of a song he was singing.
+
+"I said I wisht I was down where the monkeys are throwin' nuts! I'm
+chilly," declared Tubbs.
+
+"Chilly? It's hot!"
+
+Smith was light-hearted, sanguine. He told himself that perhaps it was as
+well, after all, that the hold-ups had got off with the "old woman's"
+money. She might have made trouble when she found that he meant to go or
+had gone with Dora.
+
+"You can't tell about women," Smith said to himself. "They're like ducks:
+no two fly alike."
+
+He felt secure, yet from force of habit his hand frequently sought his
+cartridge-belt, his rifle in its scabbard, his six-shooter in the holster
+under his arm. And while he serenely hummed the songs of the dance-halls
+and round-up camps, two silent figures, so close that they heard the
+clacking of the cattle's split hoofs, Tubbs's vacuous oaths, Smith's
+contented voice, were following with the business-like persistency of the
+law.
+
+The four mounted men rode all night, speaking seldom, each thinking his
+own thoughts, dreaming his own dreams. Not until the faintest light grayed
+the east did the pursuers fall behind.
+
+"We're not more'n a mile to water now"--Smith had made sure of his country
+this time--"and we'll hold the cattle in the brush and take turns
+watchin'."
+
+"It's a go with me," answered Tubbs, yawning until his jaws cracked. "I'm
+asleep now."
+
+Ralston and Babe knew that Smith would camp for several hours in the
+creek-bottom, so they dropped into a gulch and waited.
+
+"They'll picket their horses first, then one of them will keep watch while
+the other sleeps. Very likely Tubbs will be the first guard, and, unless
+I'm mistaken, Tubbs will be dead to the world in fifteen minutes--though,
+maybe, he's too scared to sleep." Ralston's surmise proved to be correct
+in every particular.
+
+After they had picketed their horses, Smith told Tubbs to keep watch for a
+couple of hours, while he slept.
+
+"Couldn't we jest switch that programme around?" inquired Tubbs
+plaintively. "I can't hardly keep my eyes open."
+
+"Do as I tell you," Smith returned sharply.
+
+Tubbs eyed him with envy as he spread down his own and Tubbs's
+saddle-blankets.
+
+"I ain't what you'd call 'crazy with the heat.'" Tubbs shivered. "Couldn't
+I crawl under one of them blankets with you?"
+
+"You bet you can't. I'd jest as lief sleep with a bull-snake as a man,"
+snorted Smith in disgust, and, pulling the blankets about his ears, was
+lost in oblivion.
+
+"I kin look back upon times when I've enj'yed myself more," muttered Tubbs
+disconsolately, as he paced to and fro, or at intervals climbed wearily
+out of the creek-bottom to look and listen.
+
+Ralston and Babe had concealed themselves behind a cut-bank which in the
+rainy season was a tributary of the creek. They were waiting for daylight,
+and for the guard to grow sleepy and careless. With little more emotion
+than hunters waiting in a blind for the birds to go over, the two men
+examined their rifles and six-shooters. They talked in undertones,
+laughing a little at some droll observation or reminiscence. Only by a
+sparkle of deviltry in Babe's blue eyes, and an added gravity of
+expression upon Ralston's face, at moments, would the closest observer
+have known that anything unusual was about to take place. Yet each
+realized to the fullest extent the possible dangers ahead of them. Smith,
+they knew to be resourceful, he would be desperate, and Tubbs, ignorant
+and weak of will as he was, might be frightened into a kind of frenzied
+courage. The best laid plans did not always work out according to
+schedule, and if by any chance they were discovered, and the thieves
+reached their guns, the odds were equal. But it was not their way to talk
+of danger to themselves. That there was danger was a fact, too obvious to
+discuss, but that it was no hindrance to the carrying out of their plans
+was also accepted as being too evident to waste words upon.
+
+While the east grew pink, they talked of mutual acquaintances, of horses
+they had owned, of guns and big game, of dinners they had eaten, of socks
+and saddle blankets that had been stolen from them in cow outfits--the
+important and trivial were of like interest to these old friends waiting
+for what, as each well knew, might be their last sunrise.
+
+Ralston finally crawled to the top of the cut-bank and looked cautiously
+about.
+
+"It's time," he said briefly.
+
+"_Bueno_." Babe gave an extra twitch to the silk handkerchief knotted
+about his neck, which, with him, signified a readiness for action.
+
+He joined Ralston at the top of the cut-bank.
+
+"Not a sign!" he whispered. "Looks like you and me owned the world,
+Dick."
+
+"We'll lead the horses a little closer, in case we need them quick. Then,
+we'll keep that bunch of brush between us and them, till we get close
+enough. You take Tubbs, and I'll cover Smith--I want that satisfaction,"
+he added grimly.
+
+It was a typical desert morning, redolent with sage, which the night's dew
+brought out strongly. The pink light changing rapidly to crimson was
+seeking out the draws and coulees where the purple shadows of night still
+lay. The only sound was the cry of the mourning doves, answering each
+other's plaintive calls. And across the panorama of yellow sand, green
+sage-brush, burning cactus flowers, distant peaks of purple, all bathed
+alike in the gorgeous crimson light of morning, two dark figures crept
+with the stealthiness of Indians.
+
+From behind the bush which had been their objective-point they could hear
+and see the cattle moving in the brush below; then a horse on picket
+snorted, and as they slid quietly down the bank they heard a sound which
+made Babe snicker.
+
+"Is that a cow chokin' to death," he whispered, "or one of them cherubs
+merely sleepin'?"
+
+In sight of the prone figures, they halted.
+
+Smith, with his hat on, his head pillowed on his saddle, was rolled in an
+old army blanket; while Tubbs, from a sitting position against a tree, had
+fallen over on the ground with his knees drawn to his chin. His mouth,
+from which frightful sounds of strangulation were issuing, was wide open,
+and he showed a little of the whites of his eyes as he slumbered.
+
+"Ain't he a dream?" breathed Babe in Ralston's ear. "How I'd like a
+picture of that face to keep in the back of my watch!"
+
+Smith's rifle was under the edge of his blanket, and his six-shooter in
+its holster lay by his head; but Tubbs, with the carelessness of a green
+hand and the over-confidence which had succeeded his nervousness, had
+leaned his rifle against a tree and laid his six-shooter and
+cartridge-belt in a crotch.
+
+Ralston nodded to Babe, and simultaneously they raised their rifles and
+viewed the prostrate forms along the barrels.
+
+"Put up your hands, men!"
+
+The quick command, sharp, stern, penetrated the senses of the men inert in
+heavy sleep. Instantly Smith's hand was upon his gun. He had reached for
+it instinctively even before he sat up.
+
+"Drop it!" There was no mistaking the intention expressed in Ralston's
+voice, and the gun fell from Smith's hand.
+
+The red of Smith's skin changed to a curious yellow, not unlike the yellow
+of the slicker rolled on the back of his saddle. Panic-stricken for the
+moment, he grinned, almost foolishly; then his hands shot above his head.
+
+A line of sunlight dropped into the creek-bottom, and a ray was caught by
+the deputy's badge which shone on Ralston's breast. The glitter of it
+seemed to fascinate Smith.
+
+"You"--he drawled a vile name. "I orter have known!"
+
+Still dazed with sleep, and not yet comprehending anything beyond the fact
+that he had been advised to put up his hands, and that a stranger had
+drawn an uncommonly fine bead on the head which he was in honor bound to
+preserve from mutilation, Tubbs blinked at Babe and inquired peevishly:
+
+"What's the matter with you?" He had forgotten that he was a thief.
+
+"Shove up your hands!" yelled Babe.
+
+With an expression of annoyance, Tubbs did as he was bid, but dropped them
+again upon seeing Ralston.
+
+"Oh, hello!" he called cheerfully.
+
+"Put them hands back!" Babe waved his rifle-barrel significantly.
+
+"What's the matter with you, feller?" inquired Tubbs crossly. Though he
+now recollected the circumstances under which they were found, Ralston's
+presence robbed the situation of any seriousness for him. It did not occur
+to Tubbs that any one who knew him could possibly do him harm.
+
+"Keep your hands up, Tubbs," said Ralston curtly, "and, Babe, take the
+guns."
+
+"What for a josh is this anyhow?"--in an aggrieved tone. "Ain't we all
+friends?"
+
+"Shut up, you idjot!" snapped Smith irritably. His glance was full of
+malevolence as Babe took his guns. The yellow of his skin was now the only
+sign by which he betrayed his feelings. To all other appearances, he was
+himself again--insolent, defiant.
+
+When it thoroughly dawned upon Tubbs that they were cornered and under
+arrest, he promptly went to pieces. He thrust his hands so high above his
+head that they lifted him to tiptoe, and they shook as with palsy.
+
+"Stack the guns and get our horses, Babe," said Ralston.
+
+"Mine's hard for a stranger to ketch," said Smith surlily. "I'll get him,
+for I don't aim to walk."
+
+"All right; but don't make any break, Smith," Ralston warned.
+
+"I'm not a fool," Smith answered gruffly.
+
+Ralston's face relaxed as Smith sauntered toward his horse. He was glad
+that they had been taken without bloodshed, and, now the prisoners' guns
+had been removed, that possibility was passed.
+
+Smith's horse was a newly broken bronco, and he was a wild beggar, as
+Smith had said; but he talked to him reassuringly as the horse jumped to
+the end of his picket-rope and stood snorting and trembling in fright, and
+finally laid his hand upon his neck and back. The fingers of one hand were
+entwined in the horse's mane, and suddenly, with a cat-like spring made
+possible only by his desperation, Smith landed on the bronco's back. With
+a yell of defiance which Ralston and Babe remembered for many a day, he
+kicked the animal in the ribs, and, as it reared in fright, it pulled
+loose from the picket-stake. Smith reached for the trailing rope, and they
+were gone!
+
+Ralston shot to cripple the horse, but almost with the flash they were
+around the bend of the creek and out of sight. The breathless, speechless
+seconds seemed minutes long before he heard Babe coming.
+
+"Aw-w-w!" roared that person in consternation and chagrin, as he literally
+dragged the horses behind him.
+
+Ralston ran to meet him, and a glance of understanding passed between them
+as he leaped into the saddle and swept around the bend like a whirlwind,
+less than thirty seconds behind Smith.
+
+Babe knew that he must secure Tubbs before he joined in the pursuit, and
+he was pulling the rawhide riata from his saddle when Tubbs, inspired by
+Smith's example and imbued with the hysterical courage which sometimes
+comes to men of his type in desperate straits, made a dash for his rifle,
+and reached it. He threw it to his shoulder, but, quick as he was, Babe
+was quicker.
+
+[Illustration: SMITH REACHED FOR THE TRAILING ROPE AND THEY WERE GONE!]
+
+With the lightning-like gesture which had made his name a byword where
+Babe himself was unknown, he pulled his six-shooter from its holster and
+shot Tubbs through the head. He fell his length, like a bundle of
+blankets, and, even as he dropped, Babe was in the saddle and away.
+
+It was a desperate race that was on, between desperate men; for if Smith
+was desperate, Ralston was not less so. Every fibre of his being was
+concentrated in the determination to recapture the man who had twice
+outwitted him. The deputy sheriff's reputation was at stake; his pride and
+self-respect as well; and the blood-thirst was rising in him with each
+jump of his horse. Every other emotion paled, every other interest faded,
+beside the intensity of his desire to stop the man ahead of him.
+
+Smith knew that he had only a chance in a thousand. He had seen Ralston
+with a six-shooter explode a cartridge placed on a rock as far away as he
+could see it, and he was riding the little brown mare whose swiftness
+Smith had reason to remember.
+
+But he had the start, his bronco was young, its wind of the best, and it
+might have speed. The country was rough, Ralston's horse might fall with
+him. So long as Smith was at liberty there was a fighting chance, and as
+always, he took it.
+
+The young horse, mad with fright, kept to the serpentine course of the
+creek-bottom, and Ralston, on the little mare, sure-footed and swift as a
+jack-rabbit, followed its lead.
+
+The race was like a steeple-chase, with boulders and brush and fallen logs
+to be hurdled, and gullies and washouts to complicate the course. And at
+every outward curve the _pin-n-gg!_ of a bullet told Smith of his
+pursuer's nearness. Lying flat on the barebacked horse, he hung well to
+the side until he was again out of sight. The lead plowed up the dirt
+ahead of him and behind him, and flattened itself against rocks; and at
+each futile shot Smith looked over his shoulder and grinned in derision,
+though his skin had still the curious yellowness of fear.
+
+The race was lasting longer than Smith had dared hope. It began to look as
+if it were to narrow to a test of endurance, for although Ralston's shots
+missed by only a hair's breadth at times, still, they missed. If Smith
+ever had prayed, he would have prayed then; but he had neither words nor
+faith, so he only hoped and rode.
+
+A flat came into sight ahead and a yell burst from Ralston--a yell that
+was unexpected to himself. A wave of exultation which seemed to come from
+without swept over him. He touched the mare with the spur, and she skimmed
+the rocks as if his weight on her back were nothing. It was smoother, and
+he was close enough now to use his best weapon. He thrust the empty rifle
+into its scabbard, and shot at Smith's horse with his six-shooter. It
+stumbled; then its knees doubled under it, and Smith turned in the air.
+The game was up; Smith was afoot.
+
+He picked up his hat and dusted his coat-sleeve while he waited, and his
+face was yellow and evil.
+
+"That was a dum good horse," was Babe's single comment as he rode up.
+
+"Get back to camp!" said Ralston peremptorily, and Smith, in his
+high-heeled, narrow-soled boots, stumbled ahead of them without a word.
+
+He looked at Tubbs's body without surprise. Sullen and surly, he felt no
+regret that Tubbs, braggart and fool though he was, was dead. Smith had no
+conscience to remind him that he himself was responsible.
+
+Babe shook out Smith's blue army blanket and rolled Tubbs in it. Smith had
+bought it from a drunken soldier, and he had owned it a long time. It was
+light and almost water-proof; he liked it, and he eyed Babe's action with
+disfavor.
+
+"I reckon this gent will have to spend the day in a tree," said Babe
+prosaically.
+
+"Couldn't you use no other blanket nor that?" demanded Smith.
+
+It was the first time he had spoken.
+
+"Don't take on so," Babe replied comfortingly. "They furnish blankets
+where you're goin'."
+
+He went on with his work of throwing a hitch around Tubbs with his
+picket-rope.
+
+Ralston divided the scanty rations which Smith and Tubbs, and he and Babe,
+had brought with them. He made coffee, and handed a cup to Smith first.
+The latter arose and changed his seat.
+
+"I never could eat with a corp' settin' around," he said disagreeably.
+
+Smith's fastidiousness made Babe's jaw drop, and a piece of biscuit which
+had made his cheek bulge inadvertently rolled out, but was skillfully
+intercepted before it reached the ground.
+
+"I hope you'll excuse us, Mr. Smith," said Babe, bowing as well as he
+could sitting cross-legged on the ground. "I hope you'll overlook our
+forgittin' the napkins and toothpicks."
+
+When they had finished, they slung Tubbs's body into a tree, beyond the
+reach of coyotes. The cattle they left to drift back to their range.
+Tubbs's horse was saddled for Smith, and, with Ralston holding the lead
+rope and Babe in the rear, the procession started back to the ranch.
+
+Smith had much time to think on the homeward ride. He based his hopes upon
+the Indian woman. He knew that he could conciliate her with a look. She
+was resourceful, she had unlimited influence with the Indians, and she had
+proven that she was careless of her own life where he was concerned. She
+was a powerful ally. The situation was not so bad as it had seemed. He had
+been in tighter places, he told himself, and his spirits rose as he rode.
+Without the plodding cattle, they retraced their steps in half the time it
+had taken them to come, and it was not much after midday when they were
+sighted from the MacDonald ranch.
+
+The Indians that Smith had missed were at the ford to meet them: Bear
+Chief, Yellow Bird, Running Rabbit, and others, who were strangers to him.
+They followed as Ralston and Babe rode with their prisoner up the path to
+put him under guard in the bunk-house.
+
+Susie, McArthur, and Dora were at the door of the ranch-house, and Susie
+stepped out and stopped them when they would have passed.
+
+"You can't take him there; that place is for our _friends_. There's the
+harness-house below. The dogs sleep there. There'll be room for one
+more."
+
+The insult stung Smith to the quick.
+
+"What _you_ got to say about it? Where's your mother?"
+
+With narrowed eyes she looked for a moment into his ugly visage, then she
+laid her hand upon the rope and led his horse close to the open window of
+the bedroom.
+
+"There," and she pointed to the still figure on its improvised bier.
+"There's my mother!"
+
+Smith looked in silence, and once more showed by his yellowing skin the
+fear within him. The avenue of escape upon which he had counted almost
+with certainty, was closed to him. At that moment the harsh, high walls of
+the penitentiary loomed close; the doors looked wide open to receive him;
+but, after an instant's hesitation, he only shrugged his shoulders and
+said:
+
+"Hell! I sleeps good anywhere."
+
+In deference to Susie's wishes, Ralston and Babe had swung their horses to
+go back down the path when Smith turned in his saddle and looked at Dora.
+She was regarding him sorrowfully, her eyes misty with disappointment in
+him; and Smith misunderstood. A rush of feeling swept over him, and he
+burst out impulsively:
+
+"Don't go back on me! I done it for you, girl! I done it to make _our
+stake_!"
+
+Dora stood speechless, bewildered, confused under the astonished eyes upon
+her. She was appalled by the light in which he had placed her; and while
+the others followed to the harness-house below, she sank limply upon the
+door-sill, her face in her hands.
+
+Smith sat on a wagon-tongue, swinging his legs, while they cleaned out the
+harness-house a bit for his occupancy.
+
+"Throw down some straw and rustle up a blanket or two," said Babe; and
+McArthur pulled his saddle-blankets apart to contribute the cleanest
+toward Smith's bed.
+
+Something in the alacrity the "bug-hunter" displayed angered Smith. He
+always had despised the little man in a general way. He uncinched his
+saddle on the wrong side; he clucked at his horse; he removed his hat when
+he talked to women; he was a weak and innocent fool to Smith, who lost no
+occasion to belittle him. Now, when the prisoner saw him moving about,
+free to go and come as he pleased, while he, Smith, was tied like an
+unruly pup, it, of a sudden, made his gorge rise; and, with one of his
+swift, characteristic transitions of mood, Smith turned to the Indians who
+guarded him.
+
+"You never could find out who killed White Antelope--you smart-Alec
+Injuns!" he sneered contemptuously. "And you've always wanted to know,
+haven't you?" He eyed them one by one. "Why, you don't know straight up,
+you women warriors! I've a notion to tell you who killed White
+Antelope--just for fun--just because I want to laugh, me--Smith!"
+
+The Indians drew closer.
+
+"You think you're scouts," he went on tauntingly, "and you never saw White
+Antelope's blanket right under your nose! Put it back, feller"--he nodded
+at McArthur. "I don't aim to sleep on dead men's clothes!"
+
+The Indians looked at the blanket, and at McArthur, whom they had grown to
+like and trust. They recognized it now, and in the corner they saw the
+stiff and dingy stain, the jagged tell-tale holes.
+
+McArthur mechanically held it up to view. He had not the faintest
+recollection where it had been purchased, or of whom obtained. Tubbs
+always had attended to such things.
+
+No one spoke in the grave silence, and Smith leered.
+
+"I likes company," he said. "I'm sociable inclined. Put him in the
+dog-house with me."
+
+Susie had listened with the Indians; she had looked at the blanket, the
+stain, the holes; she saw the blank consternation in McArthur's face, the
+gathering storm in the Indians' eyes. She stepped out a little from the
+rest.
+
+"Mister _Smith_!" she said. "_Mister_ Smith"--with oily, sarcastic
+emphasis--"how did you know that was White Antelope's blanket, when you
+never _saw_ White Antelope?"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A MONGOLIAN CUPID
+
+
+With his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, Ralston leaned against
+the corner of the bunk-house, from which point of vantage he could catch a
+glimpse of the Schoolmarm's white-curtained window. He now had no feeling
+of elation over his success. Smith was a victorious captive. Ralston's
+heart ached miserably, and he wished that the day was ended and the
+morning come, that he might go, never to return.
+
+He too had seen the mist in Dora's eyes; and, with Smith's words, the
+air-castles which had persistently built themselves without volition on
+his part, crumbled. There was nothing for him to do but to efface himself
+as quickly and as completely as possible. The sight of him could only be
+painful to Dora, and he wished to spare her all of that within his power.
+
+He looked at the foothills, the red butte rising in their midst, the
+tinted Bad Lands, the winding, willow-fringed creek. It was all beautiful
+in its bizarre colorings; but the spirit of the picture, the warm, glowing
+heart of it, had gone from it for him. The world looked a dull and
+lifeless place. His love for Dora was greater than he had known, far
+mightier than he had realized until the end, the positive end, had come.
+
+"Oh, Dora!" he whispered in utter wretchedness. "Dear little Schoolmarm!"
+
+In the room behind the white-curtained window the Schoolmarm walked the
+floor with her cheeks aflame and as close to hysteria as ever she had been
+in her life.
+
+"What _will_ he think of me!" she asked herself over and over again,
+clasping and unclasping her cold hands. "What _can_ he think but one
+thing?"
+
+The more overwrought she became, the worse the situation seemed.
+
+"And how he looked at me! How they all looked at me! Oh, it was too
+dreadful!"
+
+She covered her burning face with her hands.
+
+"There isn't the slightest doubt," she went on, "but that he thinks I knew
+all about it. Perhaps"--she paused in front of the mirror and stared into
+her own horrified eyes--"perhaps he thinks I belong to a gang of robbers!
+Maybe he thinks I am Smith's tool, or that Smith is my tool, or something
+like that! Oh, whatever made him say such a thing! 'Our stake--_our_
+stake'--and--'I done it for you!'"
+
+Another thought, still more terrifying occurred to her excited mind:
+
+"What if he should have to arrest me as an accomplice!"
+
+She sat down weakly on the edge of the bed.
+
+"Oh," and she rocked to and fro in misery, "if only I never had tried to
+improve Smith's mind!"
+
+The tears slipped from under the Schoolmarm's lashes, and her chin
+quivered.
+
+Worn out by the all night's vigil at her mother's bedside, and the
+exciting events of the morning, Susie finally succumbed to the strain and
+slept the sleep of exhaustion. It was almost supper-time when she
+awakened. Passing the Schoolmarm's door, she heard a sound at which she
+stopped and frankly listened. Teacher was crying!
+
+"Ling, this is an awful world. Everything seems to be upside down and
+inside out!"
+
+"Plenty tlouble," agreed Ling, stepping briskly about as he collected
+ingredients for his biscuits.
+
+"Don't seem to make much difference whether you love people or hate 'em;
+it all ends the same way--in tears."
+
+"Plitty bad thing--love." Ling solemnly measured baking-powder. "Make
+people cly."
+
+Susie surmised correctly that Ling's ears also had been close to a nearby
+keyhole.
+
+"There'd 'a' been fewer tears on this ranch if it hadn't been for Smith."
+
+"Many devils--Smith."
+
+Susie sat on the corner of his work-table, and there was silence while he
+deftly mixed, rolled, and cut his dough.
+
+"Mr. Ralston intends to go away in the morning," said Susie, as the
+biscuits were slammed in the oven.
+
+Ling wagged his head dolorously.
+
+"And they'll never see each other again."
+
+His head continued to wag.
+
+"Ling," Susie whispered, "we've got to _do_ something." She stepped
+lightly to the open door and closed it.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were few at the supper-table that night, and there was none of the
+noisy banter which usually prevailed. The grub-liners came in softly and
+spoke in hushed tones, out of a kind of respect for two empty chairs which
+had been the recognized seats of Tubbs and the Indian woman.
+
+Ralston bowed gravely as Dora entered--pale, her eyes showing traces of
+recent tears. Susie was absent, having no heart for food or company, and
+preferring to sit beside her mother for the brief time which remained to
+her. Even Meeteetse Ed shared in the general depression, and therefore it
+was in no spirit of flippancy that he observed as he replaced his cup
+violently in its saucer:
+
+"Gosh A'mighty, Ling, you must have biled a gum-boot in this here tea!"
+
+Dora, who had drank nearly half of hers, was unable to account for the
+peculiar tang which destroyed its flavor, and Ralston eyed the contents of
+his cup doubtfully after each swallow.
+
+"Like as not the water's gittin' alkali," ventured Old Man Rulison.
+
+"Alkali nothin'. That's gum-boot, or else a plug of Battle Ax fell in."
+
+Ling bore Meeteetse's criticisms with surprising equanimity.
+
+A moment later the lights blurred for Dora.
+
+"I--I feel faint," she whispered, striving to rise.
+
+Ralston, who had already noted her increasing pallor, hastened around the
+table and helped her into the air. Ling's immobile face was a study as he
+saw them leave the room together, but satisfaction was the most marked of
+its many expressions. He watched them from the pantry window as they
+walked to the cottonwood log which served as a garden-seat for all.
+
+"I wonder if it was that queer tea?"
+
+"It has been a hard day for you," Ralston replied gently.
+
+Dora was silent, and they remained so for some minutes. Ralston spoke at
+last and with an effort.
+
+"I am sorry--sorrier than I can tell you--that it has been necessary for
+me to hurt you. I should rather, far, far rather, hurt myself than you,
+Miss Marshall--I wish I could make you know that. What I have done has
+been because it was my duty. I am employed by men who trust me, and I was
+in honor bound to follow the course I have; but if I had known what I know
+now--if I had been sure--I might in some way have made it easier for you.
+I am going away to-morrow, and perhaps it will do no harm to tell you that
+I had hoped"--he stopped to steady his voice, and went on--"I had hoped
+that our friendship might end differently.
+
+"I shall be gone in the morning before you are awake, so I will say
+good-night--and good-by." He arose and put out his hand. "Shall I send
+Susie to you?"
+
+The lump in Dora's throat hurt her.
+
+"Wait a minute," she whispered in a strained voice. "I want to say
+something, too, before you go. I don't want you to go away thinking that I
+knew anything of Smith's plans; that I knew he was going to steal cattle;
+that he was trying to make a 'stake' for us--for _me_. It is all a
+misunderstanding."
+
+Dora was looking straight ahead of her, and did not see the change which
+came over Ralston's face.
+
+"I never thought of Smith in any way except to help him," she went on. "He
+seemed different from most that stopped here, and I thought if I could
+just start him right, if only I could show him what he might do if he
+tried, he might be better for my efforts. And, after all, my time and good
+intentions were wasted. He deceived me in making me think that he too
+wanted to make more of his life, and that he was trying. And then to make
+such a speech before you all!"
+
+"Don't think about it--or Smith," Ralston answered. "He has come to his
+inevitable end. When there's bad blood, mistaken ideals, and wrong
+standards of living, you can't do much--you can't do anything. There is
+only one thing which controls men of his type, and that is fear--fear of
+the law. His love for you is undoubtedly the best, the whitest, thing that
+ever came into his life, but it couldn't keep him straight, and never
+would. Don't worry. Your efforts haven't hurt him, or you. You are wiser,
+and maybe he is better."
+
+"It's awfully good of you to comfort me," said Dora gratefully.
+
+"Good of me?" he laughed softly. "Little Schoolmarm"--he laid a hand upon
+each shoulder and looked into her eyes--"I love you."
+
+Her pupils dilated, and she breathed in wonder.
+
+"You _love_ me?"
+
+"I do." He brushed back a wisp of hair which had blown across her cheek,
+and, stooping, kissed her deliberately upon the mouth.
+
+Inside the house a radiant Mongolian rushed from the pantry window into
+the room where Susie sat. He carried a nearly empty bottle which had once
+contained lemon extract, and his almond eyes danced as he handed it to
+her, whispering gleefully:
+
+"All light! Good medicine!"
+
+The big kerosene lamp screwed to the wall in the living-room had long
+since been lighted, but Susie still sat on the floor, leaning her cheek
+against the blanket which covered the Indian woman. The house was quiet
+save for Ling in the kitchen--and lonely--but she had a fancy that her
+mother would like to have her there beside her; so, although she was
+cramped from sitting, and the house was close after a hot day, she refused
+all offers to relieve her.
+
+She was glad to see McArthur when he tapped on the door.
+
+"I thought you'd like to read the letter that came with the picture," he
+said, as he pulled up a chair beside her. "I want you to know how welcome
+you will be."
+
+He handed her the letter, with its neat, old-fashioned penmanship, its
+primness a little tremulous from the excitement of the writer at the time
+she had penned it. Susie read it carefully, and when she had finished she
+looked up at him with softened, grateful eyes.
+
+"Isn't she good!"
+
+"The kindest of gentlewomen--your Aunt Harriet."
+
+"My Aunt Harriet!" Susie said it to herself rapturously.
+
+"She hasn't much in her life now--_she's_ lonely, too--and if you can be
+spoiled, Susie, you soon will be well on the way--between Aunt Harriet and
+me." He stroked her hair fondly.
+
+"And I'm to go to school back there and live with her. I can't believe it
+yet!" Susie declared. "So much has happened in the last twenty-four hours
+that I don't know what to think about first. More things have happened in
+this little time than in all my life put together."
+
+"That's the way life seems to be," McArthur said musingly--"a few hours at
+a tension, and long, dull stretches in between."
+
+"Does she know--does Aunt Harriet know--how _green_ I am?"
+
+McArthur laughed at her anxiety.
+
+"I am sure," he replied reassuringly, "that she isn't expecting a young
+lady of fashion."
+
+"Oh, I've got clothes," said Susie. "Mother made me a dress that will be
+just the thing to wear in that--what do you call it?--train. She made it
+out of two shawls that she bought at the Agency."
+
+McArthur looked startled at the frock of red, green, and black plaids
+which Susie took from a nail behind the door.
+
+"The colors seem a little--a little----"
+
+"If that black was yellow, it _would_ look better," Susie admitted. "I've
+got a new Stetson, too."
+
+"It will take some little time to arrange your affairs out here, and in
+the meantime I'll write Aunt Harriet to choose a wardrobe for you and send
+it. It will give her the greatest pleasure."
+
+"Can I take Croppy and Daisy May?"
+
+"Daisy May?"
+
+"The pet badger," she explained. "I named her after a Schoolmarm we
+had--she looks so solemn and important. I can keep her on a chain, and she
+needn't eat until we get there," Susie pleaded.
+
+Trying not to smile at the mental picture of himself arriving in the staid
+college town, with a tawny-skinned child in a red, green, and black frock,
+a crop-eared cayuse, and a badger on a chain, McArthur ventured it as his
+opinion that the climate would be detrimental to Daisy May's health.
+
+"You undoubtedly will prefer to spend your summers here, and it will be
+pleasant to have Croppy and Daisy May home to welcome you."
+
+Susie's face sobered.
+
+"Oh, yes, I must come back when school is over. I wouldn't feel it was
+right to go away for always and leave Dad and Mother here. Besides, I
+guess I'd _want_ to come back; because, after all, you know, I'm half
+Injun."
+
+"I wish you'd try and sleep, and let me sit here," urged McArthur kindly.
+
+Susie shook her head.
+
+"No; Ling will stay after awhile, and I'm not sleepy or tired now."
+
+"Well, good-night, little sister." He patted her head, while all the
+kindliness of his gentle nature shone from his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+IN THEIR OWN WAY
+
+
+Through the chinks in the logs, where the daubing had dropped out, Smith
+watched the lights in the ranch-house. He relieved the tedium of the hours
+by trying to imagine what was going on inside, and in each picture Dora
+was the central figure. Now, he told himself, she was wiping the dishes
+for Ling, and teaching him English, as she often did; and when she had
+finished she would bring her portfolio into the dining-room and write home
+the exciting events of the day. He wondered what had "ailed" the Indian
+woman, that she should die so suddenly; but it was immaterial, since she
+_was_ dead. He knew that Susie would sit by her mother; probably in the
+chair with the cushion of goose-feathers. It was his favorite chair,
+though it went over backwards when he rocked too hard. Ralston--curse
+him!--was sitting on one of the benches outside the bunk-house, telling
+the grub-liners of Smith's capture, and the bug-hunter was making notes of
+the story in his journal. But, alas! as is usual with the pictures one
+conjures, nothing at all took place as Smith fancied.
+
+When all the lights, save the one in the living-room, had gone out, there
+was nothing to divert his thoughts. Babe, who was on guard outside,
+refused to converse with him, and he finally lay down, only to toss
+restlessly upon the blankets. The night seemed unusually still and the
+stillness made him nervous; even the sound of Babe's back rubbing against
+the door when he shifted his position was company. Smith's uneasiness was
+unlike him, and he wondered at it, while unable to conquer it. It must
+have been nearly midnight when, staring into the darkness with sleepless
+eyes, he felt, rather than heard, something move outside. It came from the
+rear, and Babe was at the door for only a moment before he had struck a
+match on a log to light a cigarette. The sound was so slight that only a
+trained ear like Smith's would have detected it.
+
+It had sounded like the scraping of the leg of an overall against a
+sage-brush, and yet it was so trifling, so indistinct, that a field mouse
+might have made it. But somehow Smith knew, he was sure, that something
+human had caused it; and as he listened for a recurrence of the sound, the
+conviction grew upon him that there was movement and life outside. He was
+convinced that something was going to happen.
+
+His judgment told him that the prowlers were more likely to be enemies
+than friends--he was in the enemies' country. But, on the other hand,
+there was always the chance that unexpected help had arrived. Smith still
+believed in his luck. The grub-liners might come to his rescue, or "the
+boys," who had been waiting at the rendezvous, might have learned in some
+unexpected way what had befallen him. Even if they were his enemies, they
+would first be obliged to overpower Babe, and, he told himself, in the
+"ruckus" he might somehow escape.
+
+But even as he argued the question pro and con, unable to decide whether
+or not to warn Babe, a stifled exclamation and the thud of a heavy body
+against the door told him that it had been answered for him. Wide-eyed,
+breathless, his nerves at a tension, his heart pounding in his breast, he
+interpreted the sounds which followed as correctly as if he had been an
+eye-witness to the scene.
+
+He could hear Babe's heels strike the ground as he kicked and threshed,
+and the inarticulate epithets told Smith that his guard was gagged. He
+knew, too, that the attack was made by more than two men, for Babe was a
+young Hercules in strength.
+
+Were they friends or foes? Were they Bar C cowpunchers come to take the
+law into their own hands, or were they his hoped-for rescuers? The
+suspense sent the perspiration out in beads on Smith's forehead, and he
+wiped his moist face with his shirt-sleeve. Then he heard the shoulders
+against the door, the heavy breathing, the strain of muscles, and the
+creaking timber. It crashed in, and for a second Smith's heart ceased to
+beat. He sniffed--and he knew! He smelled buckskin and the smoke of
+tepees. He spoke a word or two in their own tongue. They laughed softly,
+without answering. From instinct, he backed into a corner, and they groped
+for him in the darkness.
+
+"The rat is hiding. Shall we get the cat?" The voice was Bear Chief's.
+
+Running Rabbit spoke as he struck a match.
+
+"Come out, white man. It is too hot in here for you."
+
+Smith recovered himself, and said as he stepped forward:
+
+"I am ready, friends."
+
+They tied his hands and pushed him into the open air. Babe squirmed in
+impotent rage as he passed. Dark shadows were gliding in and out of the
+stable and corrals, and when they led him to a saddled horse they motioned
+him to mount. He did so, and they tied his feet under the horse's belly,
+his wrists to the saddle-horn. Seeing the thickness of the rope, he
+jested:
+
+"Friends, I am not an ox."
+
+"If you were," Yellow Bird answered, "there would be fresh meat
+to-morrow."
+
+There were other Indians waiting on their horses, deep in the gloom of the
+willows, and when the three whom Smith recognized were in the saddle they
+led the way to the creek, and the others fell in behind. They followed the
+stream for some distance, that they might leave no tracks, and there was
+no sound but the splashing and floundering of the horses as they slipped
+on the moss-covered rocks of the creek-bed.
+
+Smith showed no fear or curiosity--he knew Indians too well to do either.
+His stoicism was theirs under similar circumstances. Had they been of his
+own race, his hope would have lain in throwing himself upon their mercy;
+for twice the instinctive sympathy of the white man for the under dog, for
+the individual who fights against overwhelming odds, had saved his life;
+but no such tactics would avail him now.
+
+His hope lay in playing upon their superstitions and weaknesses; in
+winning their admiration, if possible; and in devising means by which to
+gain time. He knew that as soon as his absence was discovered an effort
+would be made to rescue him. He found some little comfort, too, in telling
+himself that these reservation Indians, broken in spirit by the white
+man's laws and restrictions, were not the Indians of the old days on the
+Big Muddy and the Yellowstone. The fear of the white man's vengeance would
+keep them from going too far. And so, as he rode, his hopes rose
+gradually; his confidence, to a degree, returned; and he even began to
+have a kind of curiosity as to what form their attempted revenge would
+take.
+
+The slowness of their progress down the creek-bed had given him
+satisfaction, but once they left the water, there was no cause for
+congratulation as they quirted their horses at a breakneck speed over
+rocks and gullies in the direction of the Bad Lands. He could see that
+they had some definite destination, for when the horses veered somewhat to
+the south, Running Rabbit motioned them northward.
+
+"He was there yesterday; Running Rabbit knows," said Bear Chief, in answer
+to an Indian's question; and Smith, listening, wondered where "there"
+might be, and what it was that Running Rabbit knew.
+
+He asked himself if it could be that they were taking him to some desert
+spring, where they meant to tie him to die of thirst in sight of water.
+The alkali plain held many forms of torture, as he knew.
+
+His captors did not taunt or insult him. They rode too hard, they were too
+much in earnest, to take the time for byplay. It was evident to Smith that
+they feared pursuit, and were anxious to reach their objective point
+before the sun rose. He knew this from the manner in which they watched
+the east.
+
+Somehow, as the miles sped under their horses' feet, the ride became more
+and more unreal to Smith. The moon, big, glorious, and late in rising,
+silvered the desert with its white light until they looked to be riding
+into an ocean. It made Smith think of the Big Water, by moonlight, over
+there on the Sundown slope. Even the lean, dark figures riding beside him
+seemed a part of a dream; and Dora, when he thought of her, was shadowy,
+unreal. He had a strange feeling that he was galloping, galloping out of
+her life.
+
+[Illustration: THEY QUIRTED THEIR HORSES AT BREAKNECK SPEED IN THE
+DIRECTION OF THE BAD LANDS.]
+
+There were times when he felt as if he were floating. His sensations were
+like the hallucinations of fever, and then he would find himself called
+back to a realization of facts by the swish of leather thongs on a horse's
+flank, or some smothered, half-uttered imprecation when a horse stumbled.
+The air of the coming morning fanned his cheeks, its coolness stimulated
+him, and something of the fairy-like beauty of the white world around him
+impressed even Smith.
+
+They had left the flatter country behind them, and were riding among hills
+and limestone cliffs, Running Rabbit winding in and out with the certainty
+of one on familiar ground. The way was rough, and they slackened their
+pace, riding one behind the other, Indian file.
+
+Running Rabbit reined in where the moonlight turned a limestone hill to
+silver, and threw up his hand to halt.
+
+He untied the rope which bound Smith's hands and feet.
+
+"You can't coil a rope no more nor a gopher," said Smith, watching him.
+
+"The white man does many things better than the Indian." Running Rabbit
+went on coiling the rope.
+
+He motioned Smith to follow, and led the way on foot.
+
+"I dotes on these moonlight picnics," said Smith sardonically, as he
+panted up the steep hills, his high-heeled boots clattering among the
+rocks in contrast to the silent footsteps of the Indian's moccasined
+feet.
+
+Running Rabbit stopped where the limestone hill had cracked, leaving a
+crevice wide at the top and shallowing at the bottom.
+
+"This is a good place for a white man who coils a rope so well, to rest,"
+he said, and seated himself near the edge of the crevice, motioning Smith
+to be seated also.
+
+"Or for white men who shoot old Indians in the back to think about what
+they have done." Yellow Bird joined them.
+
+"Or for smart thieves to tell where they left their stolen horses." Bear
+Chief dropped cross-legged near them.
+
+"Or for those whose forked tongue talks love to two women at once to use
+it for himself." The voice was sneering.
+
+"Smith, you're up against it!" the prisoner said to himself.
+
+As the others came up the hill, they enlarged the half-circle which now
+faced him. Recovering himself, he eyed them indifferently, one by one.
+
+"I have enemies, friends," he said.
+
+"White Antelope had no enemies," Yellow Bird replied.
+
+"The Indian woman had no enemies," said Running Rabbit.
+
+"It is our friends who steal our horses"--Bear Chief's voice was even and
+unemotional.
+
+Their behavior puzzled Smith. They seemed now to be in no hurry. Without
+gibes or jeers, they sat as if waiting for something or somebody. What was
+it? He asked himself the question over and over again. They listened with
+interest to the stories of his prowess and adventures. He flattered them
+collectively and individually, and they responded sometimes in praise as
+fulsome as has own. All the knowledge, the tact, the wit, of which he was
+possessed, he used to gain time. If only he could hold them until the sun
+rose. But why had they brought him there? With all his adroitness and
+subtlety, he could get no inkling of their intentions. The suspense got on
+Smith's nerves, though he gave no outward sign. The first gray light of
+morning came, and still they waited. The east flamed.
+
+"It will be hot to-day," said Running Rabbit. "The sky is red."
+
+Then the sun showed itself, glowing like a red-hot stove-lid shoved above
+the horizon.
+
+In silence they watched the coming day.
+
+"This limestone draws the heat," said Smith, and he laid aside his coat.
+"But it suits me. I hates to be chilly."
+
+Bear Chief stood up, and they all arose.
+
+"You are like us--you like the sun. It is warm; it is good. Look at it.
+Look long time, white man!"
+
+There was something ominous in his tone, and Smith moistened his short
+upper lip with the tip of his tongue.
+
+"Over there is the ranch where the white woman lives. Look--look long
+time, white man!" He swung his gaunt arm to the west.
+
+"You make the big talk, Injun," sneered Smith, but his mouth was dry.
+
+"Up there is the sky where the clouds send messages, where the sun shines
+to warm us and the moon to light us. There's antelope over there in the
+foothills, and elk in the mountains, and sheep on the peaks. You like to
+hunt, white man, same as us. Look long time on all--for you will never see
+it again!"
+
+The sun rose higher and hotter while the Indian talked. He had not
+finished speaking when Smith said:
+
+"God!"
+
+A look of indescribable horror was on his face. His skin had yellowed, and
+he stared into the crevice at his feet. Now he understood! He knew why
+they waited on the limestone hill! An odor, scarcely perceptible as yet,
+but which, faint as it was, sickened him, told him his fate. It was the
+unmistakable odor of rattlesnakes!
+
+The crevice below was a breeding-place, a rattlesnakes' den. Smith had
+seen such places often, and the stench which came from them when the sun
+was hot was like nothing else in the world. The recollection alone was
+almost enough to nauseate him, and he always had ridden a wide circle at
+the first whiff.
+
+His aversion for snakes was like a pre-natal mark. He avoided cowpunchers
+who wore rattlesnake bands on their hats or stretched the skin over the
+edge of the cantle of their saddles. He always slept with a hair rope
+around his blankets when he spent a night in the open. He would not sit in
+a room where snake-rattles decorated the parlor mantel or the organ. A
+curiosity as to how they had learned his peculiarity crept through the
+paralyzing horror which numbed him, and as if in answer the scene in the
+dining-room of the ranch rose before him. "I hates snakes and mouse-traps
+goin' off," he had said. Yes, he remembered.
+
+The Indians looked at his yellow skin and at his eyes in which the horror
+stayed, and laughed. He did not struggle when they stood him, mute, upon
+his feet and bound him, for Smith knew Indians. His lips and chin
+trembled; his throat, dry and contracted, made a clicking sound when he
+swallowed. His knees shook, and he had no power to control the twitching
+muscles of his arms and legs.
+
+"He dances," said Yellow Bird.
+
+As the sun rose higher and streamed into the crevice, the overpowering
+odor increased with the heat. The yellow of Smith's skin took on a
+greenish tinge.
+
+"Ugh!" An Indian laid his hand upon his stomach. "Me sick!"
+
+A bit of limestone fell into the crevice and bounded from one shelf of
+rock to the other. Upon each ledge a nest of rattlesnakes basked in the
+sun, and a chorus of hisses followed the fall of the stone.
+
+"They sing! Their voices are strong to-day," said Running Rabbit.
+
+The Indians threw Smith upon the edge of the crevice, face downward, so
+that he could look below. With his staring, bloodshot eyes he saw them
+all--dozens of them--a hundred or more! Crawling on the shelves and in the
+bottom, writhing, wriggling, hissing, coiled to strike! Every marking,
+every shading, every size--Smith saw them all with his bulging, fascinated
+eyes. The Indians stoned them until a forked tongue darted from every
+mouth and every wicked eye flamed red.
+
+The thick rope was tied under Smith's arms, and a noose thrown over a huge
+rock. They shoved him over the edge--slowly--looking at him and each
+other, laughing a little at the sound of reptile fury from below. It was
+the end. Smith's eyes opened before they let him drop, and his lips drew
+back from his white, slightly protruding teeth. They thought he meant to
+beg at last, and, rejoicing, waited. He looked like a coyote, a coyote
+when its ribs are crushed, its legs broken; when its eyes are blurred with
+the death film, and its mouth drips blood. He gathered himself--he was all
+but fainting--and threw back his head, looking at Bear Chief. He
+snarled--there was no tenderness in his voice when he gave the message:
+
+"Tell _her_, you damned Injuns--tell the Schoolmarm I died game,
+me--Smith!"
+
+
+
+
+TITLES SELECTED FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
+
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+
+THE SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W. W. Fawcett.
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+
+An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy New
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+
+TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illustrated by Howard
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+
+An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town,
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+
+FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace Miller White. Frontispiece and
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+
+Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are kidnapped
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+
+THE LIGHTED MATCH. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R. F.
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+
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+
+MAUD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
+
+A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a
+young man who had been impressed into English service during the
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+
+THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe.
+
+A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman
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+
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+
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+
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+THE MASTER'S VIOLIN By MYRTLE REED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso
+is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to take as his
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+
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+THE PRODIGAL JUDGE By VAUGHAN KESTER
+
+This great novel--probably the most popular book in this country
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+
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+
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+
+The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters as
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+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
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+
+
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+WHEN A MAN MARRIES. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. Illustrated by Harrison
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+A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visit
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+
+A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days"
+
+THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG. By David Graham Phillips.
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+
+A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and
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+
+"DOC." GORDON. By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman. Illustrated by Frank T.
+Merrill.
+
+Against the familiar background of American town life, the author portrays
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+
+HOLY ORDERS. By Marie Corelli.
+
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+KATRINE. By Elinor Macartney Lane. With frontispiece.
+
+Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly
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+
+The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and the
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+
+THE FORTUNES OF FIFI. By Molly Elliot Seawell Illustrated by T. de
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+
+A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon. Fifi, a glad,
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+SHE THAT HESITATES. By Harris Dickson. Illustrated by C. W. Relyea.
+
+The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg in
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+
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+A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the one
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+Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage beauty of the
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+YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS. By Herbert Quick.
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