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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!"
+
+
+
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+material and sentimental, in the hands of this delightful old vagabond.
+
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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.
+
+A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with society
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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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+
+A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the soil on the one
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+
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+
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+
+A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners who
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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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