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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34399-8.txt b/34399-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b7cad8 --- /dev/null +++ b/34399-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10963 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Westerners, by Stewart Edward White + +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: The Westerners + +Author: Stewart Edward White + +Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34399] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTERNERS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "SHE'S MY GIRL!"] + + + + + +THE WESTERNERS + + +By + +Stewart Edward White + + + + +NEW YORK + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + + + + +Copyright, 1900 and 1901, by + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE + + + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE HALF-BREED + II. THE WOMAN + III. THE MAN WHO STOOD "99" + IV. ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER + V. LAFOND DESERTS + VI. THE WOMAN AND THE MAN + VII. THE REINS OF POWER + VIII. THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE + IX. THE BROTHER OF GODS + X. THE PRICE OF A CLAIM + XI. THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE + XII. THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS + XIII. THE DISSOLVING VIEW + XIV. INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS + XV. IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL + XVI. AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN + XVII. BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION + XVIII. TIRED WINGS + XIX. THE BROAD WHITE ROAD + XX. THE EATING OF THE APPLE + XXI. LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND + XXII. IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND + GLORIFY PETER + XXIII. A FOOL FOR LUCK + XXIV. BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND + XXV. JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT + XXVI. AND HAS TO GO TO WORK + XXVII. PROSPERITY + XXVIII. LAFOND GOES EAST + XXIX. BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES + XXX. ANCESTRAL VOICES + XXXI. LAFOND'S FIRST CARD + XXXII. IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING + XXXIII. FUTILITY + XXXIV. LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED + XXXV. OUT OF THE PAST + XXXVI. UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS + XXXVII. ASHES + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"SHE'S MY GIRL!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +A SIOUX COUNCIL + +THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!" + +"COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..." + +"WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!" + +JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT. + +"ARE YOU STILL MAD?" + +"MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED. + + + + +I + +THE HALF-BREED + +A tourist of to-day, peering from the window of his vestibule train at +the electric-lit vision of Three Rivers, as it stars the banks of the +Missouri like a constellation against the blackness of the night, would +never recognize, in the trim little modern town, the old Three Rivers +of the early seventies. + +To restore the latter, he should first of all sweep the ground bare of +the buildings which now adorn it, leaving, perhaps, here and there an +isolated old shanty of boards far advanced toward dissolution. He +would be called upon to substitute, in place of the brick stores and +dwellings of to-day, a motley collection of lean-tos, dug-outs, tents, +and shacks, scattered broadcast over the virgin prairie without the +slightest semblance of order. Where the Oriole furniture factory now +stands, he must be prepared to see--and hear--a great drove of horses +and oxen feeding on bottom-land grass. And for the latter-day +citizens, whose police record is so discouraging to the ambitious +chief, and so creditable to themselves, he must imagine a multitude +more heterogeneous, perhaps, than could be gathered anywhere else in +the world--tenderfeet from the East; mountaineers from Tennessee and +Kentucky, bearing their historic long pea rifles; soft-voiced +Virginians; keen, alert woodsmen from the North; wiry, silent trappers +and scouts from the West; and here and there a straight Indian, +stalking solemnly toward some one of the numerous "whiskey joints." +The court-house site he would find crowded with canvas wagons, noisy +with the shrill calling of women and children. Where Judge Oglethorpe +has recently erected his stone mansion, Frank Byers would be running a +well-patronized saloon. Were he to complete the picture by placing +himself mentally at the exact period of our story's opening, he would +find the whole town, if such it might be called, seething, turbulent, +eager, and--it must be confessed--ready for trouble. + +For all these varied swarms had gathered from three points of the +compass for the purpose of pushing on to the gold discoveries of the +Black Hills. They had rushed eagerly to this extremest point--and +stopped. As far as the border of the great wilderness it was possible +to journey individually; beyond that mysterious boundary nothing could +be accomplished alone. Trained scouts and plainsmen there became +necessary, and these skilled men declined to attempt the journey. + +Their reasons were simple and cogent. Throughout all of the previous +winter unusual snows had covered the pasturage to such a depth that +much of the range stock, on which the plainsman relied to draw his +heavy "schooners," had died of cold and exhaustion, while of the +survivors but an insignificant remnant was fit to travel. After +causing this damage, the snow had melted in four days, leaving the +streams swollen, and the trails in an awful state, especially in the +Bad Lands, where, in the deeper gullies, they must have been quite +washed out. As an incidental climax, piled on top to make good +measure, the Ogallalas were on the war-path; and of all the Sioux the +Ogallalas are the worst. + +Nobody gave a thought to the Ogallalas. That was part of the game. +But a blind man could see that those emaciated cattle couldn't stand +the racket. And so Three Rivers steadily congested, and the conditions +of life daily became more exacting. + +One of the many who had reached the frontier town, only to find himself +checked in his desire to push ahead, was a young man of twenty-two or +three. He had made a long journey, and he was correspondingly +disappointed when he foresaw, as his immediate prospect, a summer's +sojourn in a sun-baked, turbulent, unprofitable region. Not that he +was content with a superficial proof of its necessity. He sought the +preventing causes at the very sources of them: he examined the cattle +carefully; he questioned closely the men who knew the trails, the +fords, the Indians. When he had quite finished his patient +investigations, he swore briefly and gustily, and then went on a +three-days' spree, from which he sobered into a quiet cigarette-smoking +lounger, waiting for what might turn up. Nothing did. + +The days followed one another until a month had passed, which seemed as +long as a year. Men gambled away one another's small store of wealth, +drank away their own disappointments, shot each other's lives out +unmolested. Three spasmodic vigilance committees hanged six men by the +neck until they were dead, but speedily allowed themselves to dissolve +and the town to relapse, because of a happy combination of sheer +laziness and sympathy with the offenders. + +Rumors of an advance flew thick. They were always brought heavily to +earth by a charge of common-sense or investigation. Nevertheless, +others were speedily on the wing; and men looked at them. Ensuing +disappointment came in time to possess a cumulative force that amounted +to a dull, sullen anger against nothing in particular. + +The young man of whom mention has already been made, took his month +with an outward seeming of imperturbability, but with an increasing +inner tension. He was a tall, dark, straight young man, +broad-shouldered and clean built; strong, but with fine hands and feet. +His hair was straight and black; his features clean-cut and swarthy. +By his restless eye and a certain indefinable cast of expression you +knew him for a half-breed. He gave out his name as Michaïl Lafond, and +he lived much in himself. Toward the close of the troublous thirty +days, a practised observer might have noticed that his slender fingers +were rarely still. Otherwise the half-breed appeared the most +indifferent member of the community. + +His apparent idleness did not prevent him from investigating in his +painstaking manner each rumor as it took form. This was the reason +why, when finally the formation of a genuine train was undertaken by +three of the specialists known as scouts, Michaïl Lafond was one of the +earliest to know of it, and one of the first to apply for admission. +He owned four strong little horses of mustang stock, and a light, +two-wheeled wagon of the bob-tailed type. Most of his life had been +spent in the great Northern wilderness. He was expert in his own kind +of woodcraft, accustomed to hardships, and a good shot. In every +respect he knew himself fitted to become a member of such an expedition +as the present. He had no doubt of his acceptance. When he realized +that at last his waiting was ended, he saddled one of his horses, and +rode three miles out on the lonely prairie, where he jumped up and +down, shook his fists in the air, and screamed with delight. This was +the half-breed of it. Impassibility may be stupid or intensely +nervous. Then, all a-tremble, he rode back to where the three +specialists in question were camped, just on the border of the town, +and proffered his formal application. + +The three to whom he addressed himself were practically at the head of +their profession. It was not a profession of easy access, but one to +which only a long and dangerous apprenticeship gave admittance. Its +members were men who had lived their lives on the frontier, either as +express riders, hunters, trappers, army scouts, or as members of the +Indian tribes themselves. They were a hardy, bold, self-reliant race, +equal to all emergencies, and exacting from the men in their charge the +most implicit obedience. To their wonderful resourcefulness is due the +fact that so many comparatively weak forces were enabled to penetrate +in safety a hostile country teeming with the most treacherous and wily +foes. + +As with all crafts, they had their big men--the masters, as it +were--whose deeds they emulated, whose feats of skill and divination +they spoke of with awe, whose names they worshipped. Of such were Kit +Carson, Wild Bill, Jim Clarke, Buffalo Bill, Slade, and the three men +with whom we have to deal--Jim Buckley, Alfred, and Billy Knapp. + +Billy Knapp was dark, tall, broad-shouldered, long-haired, wearing a +bristly mustache and goatee. A stranger might have remarked his +frowning, beetling brow with a little uneasiness, but would have taken +heart from the energetic kindliness of the eyes beneath. In fact, +eager, autocratic energy was the dominant note in Billy's character. +He succeeded because this energy carried him through--with some to +spare. + +Jim Buckley was also tall and large, but he gave one less the idea of +nervous force than of a certain static power. He was a mass which +moved slowly but irresistibly. His seal-brown beard, his broad +forehead, the distance between his wide, steady eyes strengthened this +impression. One felt that his decisions would be hardly come at, but +stubbornly held. Success was inevitable, but it would be the result of +slow thinking, deep purpose, and a quiet tenacity of grip that never +let go. + +As for Alfred--everybody has heard of him. His place in the annals of +the West is assured, and his peculiarities of person and character have +been many times described. Surely no one is unfamiliar with his short, +bandy legs, his narrow, sloping little shoulders, his contracted chest, +his queer pink and white face, with its bashful smile, his high bald +head. Everybody knows his fear of women. Everybody knows, too, that +he never had an opinion of his own on any subject. His speciality was +making the best of other people's, no matter how bad they were; and +competent judges say he could accomplish a more gloriously perfect best +out of some tenderfoot's fool notion than another man with the advice +of experts. Some people even maintain that Alfred was the best scout +the plains ever produced, only he was so bashful that it took an expert +to appreciate the fact. + +When Lafond approached the camp of these men and threw himself from his +pony, he found only Jim Buckley, sitting in the shade of one of his +wagons, smoking his pipe. + +"One says that you will tak' train through thees summer," began the +half-breed abruptly. "Ah lak' to go also." + +Buckley looked his interlocutor over keenly. + +"Yes," said he slowly, between puffs. "That's right. We aims to pull +through, but we don't aim to take no lumber with us. You married?" + +Lafond shook his head. "No! No! No!" he cried vehemently. + +"That's all right. Got any cattle?" + +"Four horses." + +"That one of them?" + +"Yes." + +The scout arose, still with the same appearance of deliberation, and +inspected the pony thoroughly, with the eye and movements of an expert. + +"Others as good?" he inquired. + +"Bettaire," assured Lafond. + +"Wagon?" pursued the laconic Buckley. + +"Bobtail," responded Lafond with equal brevity. Though young, he +already possessed some shrewdness in the reading of character. + +Buckley sat down in the shade and relit his pipe. + +"Where are you from?" he asked bluntly. + +"Ontario." + +"Woods?" + +"Yes." + +"Thought you wasn't no tenderfoot. Ever hit the trail?" + +"Not on those plains. In the woods many times." + +"We ain't takin' but damn few," went on Buckley dissertatively, "and +them that goes has to be right on to their job. No women; good cattle. +That's our motto. Reckon you-all fills the bill. Cyan't tell. Got to +ask the others." + +Lafond knew that this, from a man of Buckley's stamp, was distinct +encouragement. At the moment, the other two members came up. Buckley, +in a few words, told them of the newcomer's desires and qualifications. + +Billy looked him over briefly. + +"Yo're a breed, ain't yo'?" he inquired with refreshing directness. "I +thought so." He turned to Buckley, with the air of ignoring Lafond +altogether. "That bars him," he said, with a little laugh. + +"He's got a mighty good line of broncs," Buckley objected. + +"Don't care if his hosses _are_ good," stated Billy decidedly. "He's a +breed, an' that's enough. I seen plenty of that crew, and I ain't +goin' to have one in the same country with me, if I can help it, let +alone the same outfit." + +He began to whistle and rummage in the back of the wagon, with a +charming obliviousness to the presence of the subject of his remarks. + +"That settles it," said Buckley, curtly and indifferently. + +The half-breed, his nervous hands deep in his side-pockets, walked +slowly to his horse. Then, in sudden access of rapid motion, he leaped +on the animal's back and disappeared. + + + + +II + +THE WOMAN + +Barely had the dust of the half-breed's sudden departure sifted from +the air, when Buckley arose and announced his intention of "taking a +little look round." He was gone two hours, and returned looking solemn +and earnest. Billy and Alfred were cooking things over a small fire. +Buckley spat in a propitiatory manner toward seven small bushes, and +conversationally informed the northwest corner of the canvas top on a +nearby schooner that he, Jim Buckley, had decided to take along a woman. + +Billy and Alfred thereupon spilled the coffee, and could not believe +their ears. + +"She's goin', if I have to take her by myself," Buckley concluded. And +then Alfred and Billy looked up into his face, and saw that he was in +earnest. + +Alfred turned pink and wriggled the bacon, trying immediately to think +how he was going to make the best of this. It did not look easy. + +Billy Knapp exploded. + +"You go to hell!" was his method of objection. + +"She goes," repeated Jim, with even greater quietness of manner. "An' +if you-all don' like it, why, jest say so. I quits. You got to have +her, if you have me." + +"I'd jest like to know why," complained Billy, a little sobered at this +threat. + +Whereupon Jim found himself utterly at a loss. He had not thought as +far as that. He suddenly appreciated the logical weakness of his +position; but then, again, intuitively, he realized more subtly its +strength. So he said not a word, but arose lightly, and brought unto +them the woman herself. + +She was a sweet little woman, with deep, trusting blue eyes, and she +accompanied Jim without a thought of the opposition she had excited. +Jim merely told her she was to meet the other two men. She intended +only to show her appreciation of their kindness. + +She approached the fire, and assumed her most gracious manner. + +"I want to thank you both, as well as Mr. Buckley, for being so good to +me," she began, with real feeling. "I know how hard it is for you to +take me just now, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I don't +know what we would have done. You need not be afraid that we shall be +much trouble, for we will all be brave, and not murmur. Your goodness +has made me very happy, and I am going to pray to God for you +to-night," said the little Puritan with simple reverence. It meant a +great deal to her. + +Alfred, as usual, was wrigglingly shy. Billy Knapp several times +opened his mouth to object, but somehow closed it slowly each time +without having objected. The woman saw. She thought it meant that her +presence embarrassed them both, so with true tact she wished them a +gentle good-night, and went away. + +The three looked at one another. + +"Well?" asked Jim defiantly. + +Billy coughed. He spat in the fire. He exploded. "Damn it! She +goes!" he roared with the voice of a bull. + +They both looked expectantly toward Alfred. Alfred nodded his head. +He was wondering how long it had been since anyone had prayed for him. + +"Thar is a man with her," remarked Jim, after a moment's silence. +"He's a tenderfoot. And a kid. The kid has blue eyes, too," he added +irrelevantly. + +"The camp'll be mighty riled," put in Alfred. + +"Let's go see the tenderfoot," suggested the practical Billy. + +They dropped everything, and went over to the "hotel," where they +viewed the woman's husband at a safe distance. He was a slight, bent +man, with near-sighted eyes behind thick spectacles, straight, light +hair, and a peering, abstracted expression of countenance. He wore a +rather shiny frock coat. + +"Gee Christmas!" ejaculated Billy, and laughed loudly. + +Alfred shook his head. + +Jim looked grave. + +They returned to camp, and began to discuss the question of ways and +means. There would surely be trouble when the affair became known. +The inclusion of a tenderfoot from Chicago, on account of his pinto +team, had almost resulted in a riot of the rejected. Not one of the +three was fatuous enough to imagine for a moment that Jack Snowie, for +instance, who had been refused because he wanted to take his wife, +would exactly rejoice over the scouts' decision. In fact, Jack had a +rather well-developed sense of injustice, and a summary method of +showing it. And he was by no means alone. + +Jim agreed to transport the three in his schooner, which was one point +well settled. Billy suggested at least a dozen absurd methods of +keeping the camp in ignorance until the start had actually been made, +each one of which was laughed to scorn by the practical Jim. + +"She might put on men's clothes," he concluded desperately. + +"For the love of God, what for?" inquired Jim. "Stick to sense, Billy. +Besides, there's the kid." + +Billy tried once more. + +"They might meet us 'bout a hundred mile out. He could take Jim's +schooner, here, and mosey out nor'-west, and then jest nat'rally pick +us up after we gets good and started. That way, the camp thinks he +palavers with Jim and us to get a schooner, and maybe they thinks Jim +is a damn fool a whole lot, but Jim don't mind that; do you, Jim?" + +"No, I don't mind that," said Jim, "but yore scheme's no good." + +"Why?" + +"He wouldn't get ten mile before somebody'd hold him up and lift his +schooner off him. They's a raft of bad men jest layin' fer a chance +like that to turn road agent." + +Billy turned a slow brick-red, and got up suddenly, overturning the +coffee-pot. A dozen strides brought him to the camp of the Tennessee +outfit. There he raised his voice to concert pitch. + +"We aims to pull out day arter to-morrow," he bellowed. "We also aims +to take with us two tenderfeet, a woman, and a kid. Them that has +objections can go to the devil." + +So saying, he turned abruptly on his heel and returned to his friends. +Jim whistled; but Alfred smiled softly, and began to recap the nipples +of his old-fashioned Colt's revolvers. Alfred was at that time the +best shot with a six-shooter in the middle West. + +Seeing this, Billy's frown relaxed into a grin. + +"I'm thinkin' that them that does object probably will go to the +devil," said he. + +In half an hour the news was all over camp. When Michaïl Lafond heard +of it, he left his dinner half eaten and went out to talk earnestly to +a great variety of people. + + + + +III + +THE MAN WHO STOOD "99" + +The three scouts would never have been able to explain satisfactorily +their reasons for being so easily persuaded, or their obstinacy in +adhering to the determination so suddenly made. Prue Welch would have +thanked a divine providence for it. The doctor, her husband, took it +as quite in the natural course of events. + +He was a queer man, the doctor, a pathetic little figure in the world's +progress--an outgrowth of it, in a certain way of thinking. + +Born of good old New England stock, he spent his studious, hard-working +boyhood on a farm. At sixteen he went to the high school, where he was +adored by his teachers because he stood ninety-nine in algebra. +Inconsequently, but inevitably, this rendered him shy in the presence +of girls, and unwarrantably conscious of his hands and feet. So, when +he went to college, he spent much time in the library, more in the +laboratory, and none at all in the elemental little chaos of a world +that can do so much for the wearers of queer clothes and queerer habits +of thought. He graduated, a spectacled grind, bowed of shoulder, +straight of hair, earnest of thought. + +Much reading of abstract speculation had developed in him a reverence +for the impractical that amounted almost to obsession. Given a bit of +useless information and a chunk of solid wisdom, he would at once +bestow his preference on the former, provided, always, it were +theoretical enough. He knew the dips of strata from their premonitary +surface wiggles to their final plunges into unknown and heated depths. +He could deliver to you a cross-section of your pasture lot, streaked +like the wind-clouds of early winter; and he could explain it in the +most technical language. Nothing rock-ribbed and ancient escaped him +in his frequent walks. He saw everything--except, perchance, the +beauty that clothes the rock-ribbed and ancient as a delicate aura, +invisible to the eye of science--and he labelled what he saw, and +ticketed it away in the pigeon-holes of his many-chambered mind, where +he could put his finger on it at any given moment in the easiest +fashion in the world. + +It is very pleasant to know where the Paleozoic has faulted, and how; +or why the stratifications of the ice age do not show glacial scorings +in certain New England localities. To verify in regard to lamination +green volumes of obese proportions, or to recognize the projection into +the geological physical world of the thought of a master, this is fine, +is noble; this makes to glow the kindly light in spectacled blue eyes. + +Adoniram Welch left college with many honors. He returned to his +little New England village, and for a space was looked upon as a local +celebrity. This is a bad thing for most youths, but Adoniram it +affected not at all. It availed only to draw upon him, in sweet +contemplation, another pair of blue eyes, womanly, serious blue eyes, +under a tangle of curly golden hair. + +And so, although Prue Welch was a homely name, and Prue Winterborne a +beautiful one, when Adoniram accepted the chair of geology offered him +by his alma mater, the owner of the blue eyes went with him, and the +new professor's thick spectacles somehow glowed with a kindly warmth, +which even fine specimens of the finest fossils had never been able to +kindle. He settled down into a little white house, in a little +blossomy "yard," under a very big, motherly elm, and gave his days to +the earnest mental dissection of the cuticle of the globe. His wife +attacked the problem of life on six hundred dollars a year. + +Now, from this state of affairs sprang two results. The professor +evolved a theory, and Mrs. Professor, although she did not in the least +understand what it was all about, came to believe in it, to champion +it, to consider it quite the most important affair of the age. The +professor thought so, too; and so they were happy and united. + +The theory was a tremendous affair, having to do with nothing less than +the formation of our continent. It was revolutionary in the extreme, +but shed such illumination in hitherto dark corners of this and allied +subjects that its probability, _prima facie_, was practically assured. +To Prue Welch it seemed to be quite so; but the inexorable eye of +science discerned breaks in the chain of continuity, gaps in the +procession of proofs, which, while not of vast importance in a specious +argument designed to furnish with peptonized intellectual pabulum the +more frivolous-minded layman, nevertheless sufficed to destroy utterly +its worth as a serious hypothesis. These breaks, the professor +explained, could never be filled except by actual field-work. The +proper field, he assured her, was the country of the Black Hills of +South Dakota, then as distant as the antipodes. He proved this +scientifically. Prue agreed, but did not understand. A number of +years later she did understand, from hearing Billy Knapp joking with +Alfred. + +"These yar hills," said Billy, "was made last. The Lo'd had a little +of everything left when he'd finished the rest, so he chucked it down +on the prairie, an' called it the Black Hills." + +However, the mere fact of her comprehension mattered not one iota. If +Adoniram said a thing was so, to Prue its truth at once became age-old. + +So it happened that the great theory hung fire wofully, and the country +of their dreams came to lie beyond the frontier wilderness, whose tide +was but just beginning to ebb back from the pine woods of Wisconsin and +the oak openings of Illinois. This was finality. What lay beyond they +did not trouble to inquire. The professor sighed the sigh of patient +abnegation. The professor's wife believed, with beautiful trust, that +a divine providence would provide, and that with the earth-wide fame +that must accrue to the author of _New World Erosions_ would come added +opportunity for added reputation. + +For a number of years the kind-hearted little professor looked +steadfastly out of the window during examinations in geology, and +turned a resolute deaf ear to the rustling of leaves as the despairing +student manipulated a cleverly concealed volume. For a number of years +he came home at four o'clock in the afternoon, and feverishly corrected +blue books until six, in order to ransom from professional duties the +whole of the precious evening. For a number of years he consulted +authorities in German and other difficult languages, and waxed ever +more enthusiastic over the new theory of erosions. During the interim +the baby learned to walk, and Prue's belief in its father strengthened, +if such a thing were possible. In time the professor and his wife grew +to be quite old. He looked every bit of his thirty, and she was an +aged dowager of twenty-five. Little Miss Prue was just two and a half. + +One day, early in the spring, the professor was called to the door of +his class-room to receive a telegram. He read it quietly, then +dismissed his class, and went home. + +"Prue," said he to his wife, "my father has just died. I must go up +there at once, for he was all I had left in the world, and it is not +seemly that I should be from his side." + +You can see from his manner of speech that the professor had by now +read a great many bookish books. + +"We will go together," replied Prue. + +So they put away mortality in the old Puritan fashion, standing +wistful, but tearless, hand in hand, on the hither side of grief; for +though in perspective the figure of the old New Englander loomed with a +certain gloomy and ascetic grandeur, in the daily contact he had always +held himself sternly and straitly in fear of God. For him the twin +lamps of Science and Love had burned but darkly. + +Adoniram Welch found himself sole heir of a few thousands and the old +home. + +On the way back to the college town, they planned the Western trip. +The professor was to resign his chair at once. He and Mrs. Prue and +little Miss Prue would travel by rail to Kansas or Iowa, there to join +one of the wagon-trains which now, in the height of the first great +gold excitement, continually braved savage warfare and brute thirst to +gain the dark shadows of the hills. + +During the next three weeks, Prue was a busy woman. The professor +resigned, becoming thereby only "the doctor"; had an explanatory +interview with the president of the college, and gave himself over to a +series of delightful potterings. He pottered about among his +belongings, and personally superintended just how everything was not +stowed away. He pottered about among the faculty, to the members of +which he talked mysteriously with ill-concealed exultation, for the +theory was also a secret. He lovingly packed his books and papers and +a small portion of his clothes, all of which Prue had to hunt out and +repack. Altogether, he had a delightful, absent-minded time, seeing in +the actual world no further than the end of his nose, but in the +visionary world of his most technical hopes far beyond the farthest +star. + +But Prue had a New England village to answer; she had the family's +belongings to take care of--no great task in itself; she had little +Miss Prue to oversee. Grave men who were professors of astronomy, or +Greek antiquities, or Hebrew, and who, therefore, knew all about it, +told her, in language of whose correctness Addison would have been +proud, that the aborigines of the American plains were bloodthirsty in +the extreme. Fluttering women detailed anecdotes of sudden death at +the hands of Indians. One and all bade her good-by with the firm +conviction, openly expressed, that she would never return; upon which +all whom weeping became wept, while others displayed their best +handkerchiefs as a sort of defiant substitute for more open emotion. +Prue saw the little town fade into distance with mingled feelings, of +which terror was the predominant, until her husband explained to her, +by the aid of an airy little octavo which he had stuffed into an +inadequate bag, that Professor Nincomb's theory of glacial action was +not only false, but would be conclusively proved to be so by the new +theory of erosion. At this she brightened. Prue owned to a vague +impression that glacial action had something to do with the North Pole, +so the argument _per se_ had little weight with her. But Prue was a +New Englander, and devout in the New England fashion, and she settled +back on Divine Providence with great thankfulness. She argued that no +scheme of things could dispense ruthlessly with so wonderful an affair +as the theory of erosions. Therefore the scheme of things would take +care of the only possessor of the theory. Indians lost their terrors, +she and little Miss Prue fell asleep together, leaving the doctor still +poring excitedly over the octavo of Professor Nincomb. + +Their first serious difficulties were encountered at Three Rivers. Of +course, in the circumstances, the mild little doctor quite failed in +his attempts to secure transportation. How should he, a scientist, +know or care anything about gold excitements? The hustle confused him, +the crowd stunned him, the fierce self-reliance and lack of +consideration of these rough men alarmed him. + +He came back to the board hotel very much discouraged. "There is not a +conveyance of any sort to be found," he informed Mrs. Prue, "and there +is great difficulty in estimating the precise duration of the present +state of affairs. It may continue into next summer; or so, at least, I +was informed by a very estimable person." + +That was unbearable. Think of little Miss Prue being required, in the +third year of her diminutive life, to face the heat of the plains in +midsummer! Think of the cost of living a twelvemonth in such a place +as Three Rivers! Prue put on her hat and went out into the turbulent +camp. Until that moment she had deemed it wisest to remain in her room. + +She was greeted only with respect. Men paused and looked after her. +You see, Prue had such grave, calm eyes, that looked straight at you +with so much confidence; and such a sensitive, serious mouth, that +argued such a capacity for making up quiet opinions of people--and +acting on them--that you were always very much inclined to take off +your hat, even if you were Tony Quinn and middling drunk. It was not +ten minutes before she had corroborated the doctor's bad news; but she +had also heard incidentally of Billy Knapp, Alfred, and Buckley. The +hotel-keeper pointed out the latter--that quiet man with the brown +beard. Prue went straight to him and stated her case. + +In the statement she laid great stress on the importance of the dip of +strata. If the doctor did not get to work before long, he would be +unable to finish his explorations before his means had become +exhausted. Prue waxed quite technical. She used a number of long +words and a few long phrases, hoping thus to awe the calm and +contemplative individual in front of her. + +Buckley did not comprehend the reasons. He did comprehend the +unutterable eloquence of the eyes, for though her logic went for naught +with the scout, it succeeded nevertheless in impressing Prue herself, +in bringing more vividly before her the importance of it all. She +clasped her hands, and tears choked her. When she had finished, Jim +said gravely that she should go. + + + + +IV + +ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER + +Michaïl Lafond merely spread the news, and made it a subject of +discussion. In his statements he said nothing of his own grievance, +nor did he suggest a plan. He knew that this was not a case for +violence, nor did he care that it should become such. His actions +always depended very much on how an impulse hit his queerly constructed +nature. In the present instance he might either resolve to get even +with Billy Knapp by means of personal vengeance, or his anger might +take the direction of a cold, set determination to get through the +plains journey in spite of the scout's prohibition. That the latter, +rather than the former course happened to appeal to him, was purely a +matter of chance. So, though he said little to the direct point, the +plan finally adopted in secret by a choice few had a good deal of his +desire mingled in its substance. + +The quiescence of the camp astonished and puzzled the three scouts. +They had expected an outbreak, and were prepared for it. It did not +come. + +The three days slipped by; everything was packed; and early in the +morning, before the dawn's freshness had left the air, the little band +defiled across the prairie. A curious crowd gathered sleepily to watch +it go, but there was no demonstration. Billy openly congratulated +himself. Alfred looked to see that his revolvers were still capped. + +The party comprised an even dozen "schooners," each drawn by four tough +ponies. Besides these, a dozen men rode on horseback. On occasion, +their mounts could be pressed into draft service. The men themselves +were a representative lot; tall, bronzed, silent. They had taken part +in the fierce Indian wars, then just beginning to lull; they had ridden +pony-express with Wild Bill; they had stalked revenue officers in the +mountains of Tennessee. As they strode with free grace beside their +teams, or sat, with loose-swaying shoulders, their wiry little broncos, +they drew to themselves in the early light the impressiveness of an +age--the age of pioneers. + +At their head rode Billy Knapp. At their rear rode Jim Buckley. +Alfred was a little of everywhere at once. As a matter of habit, these +three carried their rifles cross-fashion in front of them, but the new +Winchesters and the old long-barrelled pieces of the other score of men +were still slung inside the canvas covers, for the Indian country was +yet to see. Beneath the axles hung pails. The wagons contained much +food, a good supply of ammunition, and a scanty equipment of the +comforts of life. In one of them were three wooden boxes, two trunks, +the doctor, Mrs. Prue, and little Miss Prue herself, laughingly proud +at being allowed to dangle along the dew-wet grass the heavy coil of a +black snake whip. + +The men shouted suddenly, the horses leaned to their collars, the +wagons creaked, and the swaying procession began to loom huge and +ghost-like in the mist that steamed golden-white from the surface of +the prairie. + +Then, from the haze of the town, six more wagons silently detached +themselves, and followed in the wake of the first. + +This second caravan differed from the other in that it deployed no +outriders, and from the close-drawn canvas of its wagons came, once in +a while, the sharp cry of a child, followed immediately by the +comforting of a woman. The men drove from the seats, and across the +lap of each was a weapon. + +About five miles out, the first caravan halted until the second drew +nearer. Billy Knapp cantered back to it. One of the men in the +foremost wagon thereupon clamped the brake and jumped to the ground, +where he stood, leaning on the muzzle of his big mountaineer's rifle, +chewing a nonchalant plug. + +"What's this?" demanded Billy, reining in his horse. + +The man shifted his quid. + +"Nawthin'," he drawled, "'xcept that this yare outfit's a-goin' too." + +Billy's eyes snapped. + +"We settled all thet afore," said he, with outward calm. + +"This yare outfit's a-goin' too," reiterated the man. + +"The hell it is!" cried the scout angrily. "We all said no women and +no poor hosses, and that goes. Yore hosses are a lot of crowbait, +and----" + +"The women is women as is women," cried another voice, "and not yore +leetle white-faced, yaller-haired sort that'd keel over if yo' said boo +to her!" + +During the laconic dialogue, the schooners had gradually drawn nearer, +until now they were grouped in a rough crescent around the two men. +Billy looked up to see a tall woman in blue gingham haranguing him from +behind one of the seats. + +"I reckon if she can go, we can; and you jest chalk that down, Mr. +Speckleface!" she went on. Billy was slightly pockmarked. + +Other canvas flaps opened, and the audience was increased by half. + +"We're goin'," went on the woman, "whether you want us to or not; an' +what's more, you got t' take care of us in the Injun country, an' if +you don't I'll curse you from the grave, you white-livered, no 'count +cradle robber, you! Folks has some rights on the plains, an' you know +it jest's well as I do, an' if you think you can shake yore ole pals +for a lot of no 'count tenderfeet, an' not find trouble, you jest fools +yoreself up a lot, let me tell you that. If Dave yere had th' sperrit +of a coyote, he'd fix you, Mr. Seoul!" with vast contempt. + +"You men are all alike! A pretty face----" began the virago again, but +Billy had fled at speed. + +The man, who had been chuckling silently, spat and threw the rifle into +the hollow of his arm. + +"Good for you, Susie," he remarked. + +"You shut up!" replied Susie with acerbity, and retired within. The +man had yet to learn that one should never voluntarily step within the +notice of an angry woman. + +The two wagon-trains proceeded as before--one behind the other by about +half a mile. + +At intervals Billy or Jim went back to expostulate. They might be able +to undertake the responsibility of one woman, hardly of nine! But they +never got a hearing, as all the conversation was vituperative and +one-sided. + +Alfred led the party to a deep, swift crossing of the Platte. By the +aid of the extra ponies the ford was made without loss. The second +party had a hard struggle, but emerged dripping and triumphant. + +Billy and Jim were again put to rout in an attempt at mere verbal +dissuasion. + +Alfred took them roundabout through a piece of country, cut and gullied +by rains. Some hills they climbed by the help of long ropes. The +second party dragged their wagons up singly, using all their animals to +each wagon. They lost some time, but the evening of the day following +they strung out in the rear as imperturbably as ever. Alfred ordered +all the riders into the wagons, and, by alternating the ponies, made +forced marches, hoping thus to shake the others off. The others, +however, discovering that Alfred's party had been doubling and twisting +through the worst country, detached a single rider, whose business it +was to search out the directest and easiest route. Thus they caught +up. Alfred discovered it too late, for they were now on the borders of +the Indian country. + +Here a serious problem presented itself. The second party had, up to +now, made no attempt to close in and join forces. On entering the +Indian country, they would certainly do so. The question was, whether +they should be resisted or received. + +If they were not repulsed, could they be brought through successfully? +If they were resisted, would the resistance be effective? One thing or +the other must be decided immediately, for, whatever the policy +adopted, it must be a settled policy before entering hostile ground. + +In the contest of endurance, the score of men comprising the main party +had taken part amusedly. They were under the command of the scouts. +When the scouts ordered speed, speed was made. When they said to climb +hills, hills were climbed. When they advised difficult fords, the +difficulties of crossing were overcome. If the other train had trouble +keeping up with the procession, why, that was good enough fun. But +actual resistance was a different matter. After all, according to +their lights, these other men were entirely in the right. They had +been excluded from the expedition, on the basis of a rule which had +been agreed to after some grumbling; and now that the rule had been +broken by the very framers of it, there seemed to be no longer fair +grounds of exclusion; and therefore a certain rough sense of justice +inclined them to take sides with the bearers of the pea rifles in the +rear. At the same time, they felt the truth of Billy's statement, that +it would be impossible to get so unwieldy a caravan over the rough +country and through the dangers to come. So, seeing reason on both +sides, they maintained a guarded neutrality. + +Resistance being out of the question, the three next considered the +other horn of the dilemma. Alfred rode over to examine the prospective +addition to the party. He found the animals in poor condition, partly +because of the forced marches he had himself imposed. In his opinion +they would not last out the journey, and he so reported, to the great +consternation of the other two. + +While they lamented, Prue came up and heard a part. She demanded the +whole, and they told her frankly. The heroine of romance, realizing +herself the cause of the trouble, would have offered to return with the +other women, and so the whole question would have been resolved; but +Prue was only a very nice little woman, in love with her husband. Her +chief concern was not the triumph of eternal justice, but whether the +whole expedition would come to nothing. She pondered. + +"If you can't keep them from going with us, and if you can't get +through if they do go with us," she said finally, "it seems to me that +the only way to fix it would be to do something so they couldn't +go"--with which vague hint this Puritan looked wickedly at them all, +and went away, clinching her small hands with anger. From the hint, +they made a plan to which all three agreed. + +Next morning Jim roused the camp an hour earlier than usual, and +insisted on an immediate departure. The horses were hitched, and the +breakfast things put away. Then Alfred rode over to the other camp, +with Jim and Billy following at a little distance. + +People start a camp on the plains, in a safe country, by arranging the +wagons in a rough semicircle. Behind this semicircle the horses are +hobbled, and left to graze. In front of it the cooking-fire is built. +During the night, besides the regular sentinels, one man is assigned to +ride herd, but this is unnecessary in full daylight; so at breakfast +the horses are left to graze quite unprotected. In a hostile country, +picket ropes and more care are needed. This party had so hobbled +twenty-four animals--four for each wagon, which is a scant supply. + +Alfred cantered rapidly up to the herd from the east. He had made a +long detour, so as to approach in the eye of the sun. With the twelve +chambers of his revolvers he killed eleven horses. As I have said, +Alfred was one of the best pistol shots in the middle West; After this, +he put spurs to his mount, and shot away like an arrow in the direction +of his own camp. + +The unsuspicious mountaineers, at breakfast, did not gather their wits +until too late. Then eight of them leaped fiercely upon some of the +remaining animals, and pursued the wagon-train, which, under the +frantic urging of Billy and Jim, was already under way in close order. +A few of their bullets spattered against the wagon-bodies, and they +wounded a horse. + +This roused the other men. Neutrality was all right enough, but they +could not afford to lose horses, so they made such a brave show of +rifle muzzles that the eight fell back. Three to one was too big odds; +but their rage was great. + +Then Jim took his life in his hands, and rode a little way out on the +prairie toward them, waving a white handkerchief. Somebody shot at +him, and bored a hole through the looseness of his flannel shirt, +whereupon he dismounted and dropped two horses with his new-model +Winchester. His own horse was killed in the exchange, but Jim could +take care of himself in frontier fashion. + +Before the men could reload or move, Jim, imperturbably, arose from +behind his dead mount, and waved his white handkerchief again. There +was a moment's hesitation, then someone returned the signal. Jim +promptly advanced. His remarks were brief and businesslike, and were +received in sullen silence. + +"You fellows have got to go back," said he. "You have hosses enough +left to get your women back with, by goin' slow. If you try to shoot +us up any, we'll kill every hoof you have. So don't come any funny +business." + +He turned squarely on his heel, and walked away rapidly. He wanted to +get his distance before the reaction came. Michaïl Lafond, no longer +impassive, shook his rifle after him. + +"You damn skunk!" he shouted, hoarse with anger. "Tell your damn woman +I'll pull every hair from her head!" + +Jim did not turn his head, but ducked into the long grass, where he +wriggled along Indian fashion. Lafond, who had thrown his rifle into +position for a shot, started forward in pursuit, his face twisted with +passion, but he was dragged back by main strength. Two of the horses +bore double, and the little group turned sullenly toward the east. + +The mood of the original party, after this incident, was grim. The +bonds of plains brotherhood had been lightly broken. + +Alfred had resorted to such desperate measures in making the best of +undesirable conditions brought to pass by someone else. + +Billy Knapp had done so because he had entered into a game, and +declined to be beaten by anyone. + +Jim alone was happy. He had done it solely and simply for a woman; and +the woman had seen him fight for her. + + + + +V + +LAFOND DESERTS + +The eight men of the attacking party returned slowly to the little dip +of land which held the temporary camp. They were defeated, baffled, +and angry. If a stranger had accosted them at that moment, he would +probably have been gruffly answered one minute and assaulted the next. +But for the present they were silent. They were Anglo-Saxons and +Tennessee mountaineers for the most part; hence they were also +adaptable, and attuned to the fatalism that comes from much +contemplating of cloud-capped peaks and wind-swept pines. + +Not so with Michaïl Lafond, who alternately raved and wept, frantically +brandishing his rifle. An impassive mountaineer sat behind him, +holding him to the party. If not thus restrained, he would, in the +heat of anger, have attacked the whole train single-handed, for he was +brave enough in his way. The sober second-thought of the Indian in him +might perhaps have caused him to pause on the brink of the charge and +sink into the long grasses to await the chance of a more silent blow; +but the impulse up to that point would have been real and whole-souled. +So it was now. The man raved as a maniac might. He called down the +curses of heaven on his companions for cowards. + +And in this, when he reached camp, he was ably seconded by the women. +They surrounded him in a voluble and indignant group, and listened to +him with sympathy, casting glances of scorn toward their passive lords +and masters in the background. In their way they became as excited as +Lafond. One or two wept. Most employed the variety of their +vocabularies in giving the world what is known as a "piece of their +minds." + +In the still air of a prairie morning their hysterical cackle rose like +the crying of an indignant band of brant. Lafond told, dramatically, +what should have been done. The women, in turn, told how effectively +they would have done it. The men were taking stock of the situation. + +The mountaineers wasted little discussion on what might have been done. +The question before them was that of the most practical method of +returning over the long miles of prairie they had traversed in their +pursuit of Alfred and his outfit. They entertained not a moment's +doubt as to the necessity of the return. Their equipment consisted now +of ten horses and six wagons. By humoring the animals they might be +able to get through with a pair to each schooner. This meant the +abandonment of one of the wagons, and the lightening of the others. It +was decided. One of the men strode to the group of women. + +Lafond was in the midst of a tirade, but when he saw the mountaineer +approach, he prepared to pay eager attention to the plan of action. + +"H'yar," announced the latter, with a little the heavier shading on his +accustomed drawl, "that's enough of this h'yar jaw, I reckon. You-all +come along and pack up." + +"And when is it that we do pursue them?" asked Lafond eagerly. + +"Pursue nothin'," replied the man. "We're goin' back." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"And you intend not to get that revenge?" the half-breed inquired. + +"Revenge!" snorted the man. "You damn fool--with _that_ outfit?" He +swept a descriptive gesture toward the women. "Besides, what's the +good now?" Lafond fell silent, and withdrew from the group. + +The man of mixed blood is not like other men, and cannot be judged by +the standards of either race. From his ancestors he takes qualities +haphazard, without balance or proportion, so that the defects of +virtues may often occur without the assistance of the virtues +themselves. And, besides, he develops traits native to neither of the +parent races, traits which perhaps can never be comprehended by us who +call ourselves the saner people. He is superstitious, given to strange +impulses, which may unexpectedly, and without reason, harden into +convictions; obscure in his ends; unscrupulous in his means. No man +lives who can predict what may or may not suffice to set into motion +the machinery of his passions. A triviality is enough to-day. +To-morrow the stroke of a sledge may not even jar the cogs. But, once +started, the results may be tremendous, and quite out of proportion to +the first careless touch on the lever. Such passions are dangerous, +both to their possessor and to those who stand in their way. + +[Illustration: A SIOUX COUNCIL] + +Now, from the gainsaying of his lesser revenge--the proving to Billy +Knapp the futility of his objections--Lafond conceived the desire for a +greater. There entered into his life one of those absorbing passions +which are to be encountered in all their intensity only in such men as +he--passions which come to be ruling motives in the lives of those who +harbor them; gathering to themselves all lesser forces which are spread +more evenly over saner existences; losing their first burning +intensity, perhaps, but becoming thereby only the more sustained, cool, +and deadly; so that at the last they lie unnoticed in the background of +the man's ordinary life, coloring, influencing every act--a religion to +which, without anger, but without relenting, he bends every +long-planned effort of even his trivial and daily deeds. You may not +understand this, unless you have known a half-breed; but it is true. + +Interrupted in the midst of his flow of anger, and deprived of the +immediate solace of shooting things at his enemies, Lafond fell into a +sulking fit. During the rest of the day he brooded. After dark that +night he wound his way silently through the grasses, crept up behind +the solitary sentinel considered necessary in this peaceful country, +stabbed the man in the back, and returned to camp. Thus his way was +clear. Then he took from the wagons three slabs of bacon, a small sack +of coffee, a large supply of powder, lead, and caps, a blanket, and a +frying-pan and cup. With these he mounted the hill, past the dead +sentinel, to the ponies. Two of the latter he drew apart from the +herd. One of them he saddled; the other he packed with his supplies. +Then the half-breed led them silently westward for a good half-mile. +Then he mounted and rode away. + + + + +VI + +THE WOMAN AND THE MAN + +The wagon-train under the command of Billy Knapp, and Alfred, and Jim +Buckley had a very hard trip before they were done with it. The only +difficulty they did not encounter was lack of water. There was too +much of that. Several times the party had to camp in one spot for days +while the wagons were laboriously warped across rivers of mud and +quicksand, with steep, slippery clay banks. How little Prue stood the +journey so well, neither her father, her mother, nor the men of the +party were able to divine; but she did, and, what is more, she seemed +to think it great fun. So cheerful was she, and so sunny, that the men +came to grudge each other her company. And as for Mrs. Prue and the +doctor, who could help loving the patient sweetness of the one, or the +pathetic, gentle, impracticable kindness of the other? + +Yes, it was a hard journey; but somehow the feeling was not entirely of +joy and relief when the stockade of Frenchman's Creek shimmered across +the broad, flat foot-hills. There they separated. The dangers were +over. + +Then, to the surprise of everyone, the doctor waked up and knew just +where he wanted to go. He displayed an unexpected familiarity with the +general topography of the hills. It puzzled Billy. And, to the vaster +astonishment of both his _confrères_, Jim suddenly announced, with +quite unwonted volubility, that he had been intending all along to +start in prospecting at the end of this trip, and that here he meant to +quit scouting and leave the society of his brothers in arms--unless, of +course, he added, as a doubtful afterthought, they wanted to join him. +They profanely replied that they did not. + +Most of the men pushed on immediately to Rockerville, whither a +majority of the former inhabitants of Frenchman's Creek had already +emigrated. Alfred and Billy decided to get over in the Limestone for a +"big hunt" before returning East. Prue said good-by to them with real +feeling, and most of them threw out their chests and were very gruff +and rude because they were sorry to leave. Prue understood. They were +kind-hearted men, after all, these rough pioneers. Billy remembered +for almost two years how she looked when she said that, which was +extraordinary for Billy. He had led so varied a life as pony-express +rider, stage-driver, scout, Indian, bronco-buster, hunter, and trapper, +that he had little room in his memory for anything short of bloodshed +or a triumph for himself. + +Finally, after all the rest had gone, Jim and the doctor made the +mutually delightful discovery that they had selected the same locality, +the one for his prospecting, the other for his scientific +investigations. So the doctor simply left his outfit in Jim's wagon, +and they all went up together. + +The little scientist was as excited as a child. To him the country was +as a document--a document which he had studied thoroughly in the pocket +editions. He now had it before him in the original manuscript, open +and unabridged. + +And indeed, even to an ordinary observer, the Black Hills are a strange +series of formations. + +They run north and south at the westernmost edge of the northern +prairie, and are, altogether, about as large as the State of Vermont. +Unlike other ranges, they possess no one ridge that serves as a +backbone to the system. The separate peaks rise tumultuously, like the +rip of seas in a tideway, without connection, solitary, sombre. +Between them lie deep gorges, or broad stretches of grass-park, which +dip away and away, until one catches the breath at the grand free sweep +of them. Huge castellated dikes crop up from the ridge-tops like +ramparts. Others rise parallel in the softest verdure, guarding +between their perpendicular sides streets as narrow and clean-cut as +the alleys of a city of skyscrapers. + +Through it all, back and forth, like the walls of a labyrinth, run the +broken, twisted, faintly defined geological systems, which cross each +other so frequently and so vigorously that all semblance of order is +lost in the tumultuous upheaval. Here are strata deposited by the +miocene tertiary; here are breakings forth of metamorphic rocks of many +periods; here are the complex results of diverse influences and forces. +Down in the south is a great cavern--of which ninety-seven miles and +twenty-five hundred rooms have, at this writing, been explored--which +was once the interior of a geyser. For ages it spouted; for ages more +its fluids crystallized and petrified into varied and beautiful forms; +and then, finally, many layers of stratified rock were slowly overlaid +to seal forever this dried-out, beautiful, lifeless mummy of a cave. +It lies there now, as it has lain through the centuries, with a single, +tiny opening by which it can be entered--a palace of vast re-echoing +halls, hung with jewels, a horror-haunted honeycomb of unsounded +depths, a solemn abode wherein not the faintest drip of water, not the +gentlest sigh of air through the corridors, breaks the eternal silence. +Only its mouth roars continually as the winds rush in or out. The +Indians assign to it the spirits of their dead warriors, and cannot be +induced to approach it. Geologists rave over it, and cannot be +persuaded to come away. + +But this is in the latter day of railroads and tenderfeet. At the time +of which this story treats, little was known of the country. It was +simply a great second-hand shop, of a little of everything in the +geological line. + +When the party arrived at Spanish Gulch, the doctor was so eager to get +into the wonderful hills that only with the greatest difficulty did he +constrain himself to help Jim erect a log cabin for the accommodation +of his family. Even then he was not of much use, although he could at +least help to lift timbers. Jim practically did it alone, and it took +him almost a month; but when it was done, it was very nice. The doctor +accepted the free gift of the scout's labor and skill quite as a matter +of course, just as he had taken the free gift of an ordinarily +expensive pilotage across the plains; but the woman appreciated, and +perhaps she understood, for she suddenly became very shy in Jim's +presence. And then, sometimes, she would gaze at him, when he was not +looking, with an adoration of gratitude filling her eyes. + +After the doctor's home was finished, Jim betook himself into another +gulch, where he constructed a less elaborate shelter for his own +occupation. Thenceforward he spent much of his time in mysterious +prospecting operations; but two or three times a week he liked to sit +perfectly silent under the tree which overshadowed the doctor's cabin, +watching Prue, if she happened to be near, playing with Miss Prue, or +trying to talk with the doctor. He never went inside the house, even +in the winter; and he never seemed to try to know Prue any more +intimately. It would have been difficult for him to say just what +pleasure he discovered in these visits. + +After a little, the routine of life became fixed. The doctor took up +his work systematically. Each morning he plunged into the hills. His +little bent form moved from ridge to ridge, following his own especial +leads as earnestly as the most eager gold prospector of them all. +Sometimes he got lost, but generally he managed to reach home at +sunset. He was entirely preoccupied. He ate his meals as they were +set before him without question, he pulled on his well-mended clothes +without noticing the new patches, he warmed himself before his fire +without a thought of whence came the wood, blazing up the mud-chimney. + +Prue at first wondered a little at this, for even in his intensest +absorption the doctor's home-life had been much to him; but in time she +came to appreciate his mood, and to rely on herself even more than +usual. She had such an exalted opinion of his work that she easily +fell into the habit of sacrificing herself to it. She watched for the +things that pleased him, or, rather, did not bother him, for his +pleasures were negative; she carefully excluded all disturbing +influences, and came to look on this lonely time as only a probation, +sooner or later to be over, after which, in the fulness of his success, +he would turn to her with his old love. To hasten this she would have +cut off her right hand. + +So, much to the disgust of Jim Buckley, the brave little woman took the +management of things upon herself. During the long days, while the +doctor was away, she schemed to make both ends meet. She raised a few +vegetables in a plot of open ground on the sunny side of the creek, +working in it daily with an old spade. Her face was hidden in the +depths of a sunbonnet, and her hands were covered with a pair of +deerskin gauntlets, for she could not forget, poor woman! that she was +gently bred, and she hated to see her skin reddening in the dry air of +the hills. + +Items of necessity she bought scantily, sparingly, of travelling +pedlars, for prices were high. Candles for the winter, corn-meal, +occasionally flour, coffee, sugar--all these counted. Things cost so +much more here than she had anticipated. Prue saw the end coming, +distant though it might be. She sometimes did little bits of mending +for passing miners, and was paid for it. Oftener she skimped on the +daily meals, pretending that she was tired and did not care to eat. +The doctor never noticed, nor did she mean that he should. + +In the presence of his work, he could think of nothing else. Once, +when they ran out of wood, she told him of it. It worried him for a +week. Material necessities drew his mind away from the attitude of +calm scientific investigation. The pile of fuel that goes with every +new shack lasted the first winter through. After that was gone, Prue +used the chips made when the house was built, as long as they held out. +Then she tried to chop down a tree herself. Jim Buckley found her +sitting on a stone, the axe between her knees, her face buried in her +hands. Beside her was a pine scarred at random with weak, ill-directed +blows. He made a few profane remarks into his thick beard concerning +the doctor, then took the axe from her, and started to work. In a week +enough firewood was piled over against the house to last the winter. +During that week he ate his noon meals in the little cabin. The woman +did her best, and used up a fortnight's provisions in the attempt to +make a respectable showing before the hungry man. But in spite of that +he saw through her pitiful efforts, and offered to let her have money. +She drew herself up and showed him the door. When he had gone, +bewildered, she went out and looked at the white shining wood-pile and +wept bitterly. + +But in spite of economy the closest, and the sacrifice of absolutely +every non-essential, the time came when the last cent had gone. The +woman stood face to face with want. And, as ill-luck would have it, at +this period the doctor was especially brimming with enthusiasm, for he +had almost achieved the one result he needed to fill out his scheme. +He worked feverishly to forestall the snow. He was full of his system, +alternating between glowing enthusiasm and a haunting fear that the +winter would set in too early. He must have uninterrupted time for +work until then, he said. On this depended his professional +reputation, their fortune. + +She set her lips firmly and looked about her. The flour and meal were +gone; there were no candles, and without candles how could the doctor +put the last touches to his book when winter fell? Little light +filtered through the oiled paper of the windows. She sold her ring to +some passing gamblers. The money soon slipped away. For a few days +she fought hard with her pride. Then she put on her sunbonnet, and, +kissing the child tenderly, went, with heightened color, down the gulch +to Jim Buckley's. + +She found him sitting on a stump in front of his dirt-roofed shack, +pounding into sand some quartz in an iron mortar. He did not hear her +until she stood beside him. Then he arose, drawing his gaunt form up +quickly, taking off his broad hat, and wiping his grimy hands on his +jeans. + +"Mr. Buckley," she said hurriedly, before he could speak, "I have come +to tell you how sorry I am that I was so rude to you. You have been +very kind to me, and I had no right to speak to you as I did. No, no!" +she implored, as Jim opened his mouth to expostulate. "I must tell you +that, and _please_ don't interrupt me. + +"My husband is doing some very valuable work," Prue continued, "very +valuable, and when he gets it done he will be very famous and very +rich. But just now it takes all his time and attention, so that he +doesn't realize--how--poor--we--are." The little woman's cheeks +burned, and she lowered her head until the sunbonnet hid her face. "Of +course, if I should tell him," she went on proudly, "he would attend to +it at once. But I mustn't do that. He needs _such_ a little time to +finish his work, and I mustn't--must I?" And she suddenly looked up +into Jim's honest eyes with an imploring gesture. + +Jim was standing, his broad hat against his knee, looking at her +fixedly. No doubt he was thinking how, when he had first seen her, her +cheeks were as full and ripe as the apples of his old home in New +England; and was wondering if the dip of strata were worth this. +Seeing that he intended no reply, she looked down again and went on. + +"I came here to see you about that. Once, Mr. Buckley, you offered to +lend me some money, and I--I--am afraid I was very rude. And now--oh, +dear!" And suddenly the poor little figure in faded and patched calico +sank to the ground, and began to sob as if her heart would break. + +Jim was distressed. He started forward, hesitated, looked up at the +sky and down the gulch. Then he threw down his hat and darted into the +cabin, returning in a moment with a buckskin bag, which he tossed +impulsively into her lap. + +"There, there!" he said distractedly. "Why didn't you say so before? +Stop! _Please_ stop! Oh, the----" + +She looked up suddenly with a blinding smile. + +"Now, don't say anything naughty!" she cried airily through her tears. +She laughed queerly at Jim's open mouth and astonished eyes. He could +not grasp the meaning of her change of mood. Before he could recover, +she was on her feet, a roguish vision of blushing cheeks and dancing +eyes. She shook the buckskin bag in his face. + +"Aren't you afraid you'll never be paid, sir?" she demanded; then, with +a quick sob, "I think you are the kindest man in all the world!" The +next instant the alders closed about her fluttering figure on the +trail. For a week after, her cheeks burned, and she was afraid to look +out of the cabin lest Jim should be coming up the path. + +As the winter wore away, however, she began to see the bottom of the +little buckskin bag. The doctor was as absorbed as ever. She could +not bring her pride to the point of asking Buckley for another loan, +and so again the terror of poverty seized upon her. Her eyes looked +harassed and worn, and her mouth had queer little lines in the corners. +She would stand watching the flames in the chimney for hours, and then +would turn suddenly, hungrily, and snatch up the little girl, devouring +her with kisses. Sometimes she would wrinkle her brow, peeping into +the doctor's manuscripts, trying to make out how near the end he was, +but she always laid them down with a puzzled sigh. She did not eat +enough, and she grew thin. She tried expedients of which she had read. +For instance, one day she went down into the creek bottom and cut some +willows. She peeled the bark from them, and from the inside rind she +collected a quantity of fine white dust, with which she made a pasty +kind of dough. The biscuits were tough and of a queer flavor. Even +the doctor, after tasting one of them, looked up in surprise. + +"What do you call this, my dear?" he inquired. + +She clapped her hands gayly, and laughed with a catch in her voice. + +"Oh, a queer Indian dish I've learned, that's all. You never _do_ pay +any attention to what you eat, so I thought I'd make you for once." + +"Oh," said the doctor, smiling faintly. + +The willow flour appeared no more. + +So the long winter drew to its close, and still the brave little woman +set her face resolutely forward, striving to help the doctor with his +life-work as only a woman can. She could see no way out. The case was +hopeless, and often she shed impotent tears over her inability. He +worked so hard, and she did so little! + +And then the spring brought with it the solution. + + + + +VII + +THE REINS OF POWER + +For two weeks after, Michaïl Lafond, cut loose from the crippled +wagon-train returning to Three Rivers, travelled westward by the sun, +sleeping under the stars, living on bacon, coffee, and an occasional +bit of small game, drinking muddy water from buffalo wallows which +providential rains had filled. At the end of that time he was raided +by the Sioux. When they approached him, he led forward his two ponies, +placed his rifle on the ground in front of their noses, unslung his +powder-horn and laid it beside the weapon, and stepped back, throwing +his arms wide apart. The Indians rode forward silently, a strange, +naked band, whose fancy ran to chrome yellow, and took possession of +Lafond and his equipment. + +The half-breed became a squaw man, and lived with these Indians for +some time. At first he was given drudgery to do. He did it, but kept +his eyes open, and learned the language. After a little his chance +came. + +The band captured a wagon-train, and massacred its men and women. It +found itself in possession of fifty or sixty horses, half a score of +wagons, some provisions, and a goodly quantity of blankets, axes, +utensils, and the rude necessities of life on the frontier. An Indian +cannot possess too many ponies, he is always ready to eat, and blankets +come handy in winter; but he has absolutely no use for the rest of the +plunder. So he usually puts a torch to the lot, and has a bonfire by +way of celebration. + +On this occasion, Michaïl Lafond succeeded in getting Lone Wolf to +postpone the bonfire, to lend him twenty ponies, and to detail to his +service half as many squaws. The feat in itself was a mark of genius, +as anyone who knows the Indian character will admit, and cost Michaïl +many of his newly learned words, put together with all of his native +eloquence. + +The twenty ponies, driven by the ten squaws, drew the schooners and +their contents to the Bad Lands, where Michaïl concealed them in a +precipitous gully of the deeply eroded sort so common in that strange, +rainless district. Then he returned fifteen of the ponies to Lone +Wolf. Lone Wolf's band took up quarters within striking distance of +the cached schooners. + +All this was done by Michaïl Lafond, and when it was completed he drew +a long breath. He felt that the foundations of his influence were +laid. It was no light thing thus to have drawn self-willed savages +from their accustomed ways of life. He had done it only by vague +promises of great benefits to accrue in the immediate future, said +benefits to be "big medicine" in the extreme. Lone Wolf had pondered +much; had seen an opportune shooting star; had consented. + +A month later, a half-breed returned alone across the plains from the +hill country. At Pierre he announced open trail. He had himself come +through without the least trouble, he claimed, although he had seen +many Indians. This was strictly true. He went on to say that he would +sell his outfit cheap, as he was anxious to go on east. The gold +prospects were good. He had a partner squatting on several claims, to +whom he would return the following year. He hinted mysteriously of +capital to be invested and exhibited a small nugget of placer gold. +Most of this was untrue, and the nugget he had found, not in the placer +beds, but in a small pasteboard box in one of the schooners. + +The outfit brought three hundred and fifty dollars, for the half-breed +sold cheap. With this money and the horses he departed the day +following. + +Michaïl was now richer by three hundred and fifty dollars and five +horses than he had been before his capture by the Indians. Were it not +for two considerations, he might have decamped with the proceeds. +Conscience was not one of them. In the first place, his Caucasian +instincts taught him to look ahead to larger things. In the second +place, his Indian blood would not let him lose sight of certain bits of +savagery he had in contemplation. So, instead of decamping, he +purchased with the money, in a town where he was unknown, five of the +new breech-loading rifles and nearly five thousand rounds of +ammunition. His tale here was simple. The trail was _not_ open, and a +wagon-train was soon to attempt the task of opening it. He loaded the +munitions on his five broncos, and joined Lone Wolf, who was outlying +near at hand. + +In the course of the next six months a certain half-breed, with various +stores and outfits, was observed in several small towns on the border +of the frontier. In half of them he was headed east and sold his +outfit; in the other half he was headed west and bought rifles. At the +end of the year there remained no more schooners in the _cache_ of the +Bad Lands, but Lone Wolfs band was the best armed in all the West. +Michaïl Lafond had let slip the chance of embezzling some thousands of +dollars, but he had gained what was much mere valuable to him--power +over an efficient band of fighting men, and the implicit confidence of +a tribe of Sioux Indians. He was respected and feared. His unseen +influence was felt throughout the whole plains country. + +Lafond was too shrewd either to repeat his venture or to become +identified with the tribe. His influence, as has been said, was unseen +and unsuspected. Lone Wolf's band was successful from the Indian +standpoint, pernicious from the white man's. That was all that +appeared on the outside. Lafond himself became a savage. He slept out +with little cover, and often rode with none at all. He ate dog and +rattlesnake, when dog and rattlesnake happened to be on the bill of +fare. He carried a knife deep in the recess of a long, loose buckskin +sheath; and from the ridge of his tepee hung five clotted horrors, torn +from the heads of the victims of his personal prowess. The number of +these might easily have been augmented, but Michaïl struck seldom in +his own person. When he did, not one of the victims escaped, for no +man must have seen Michaïl, the savage. Michaïl, the civilized, would +need a clear field before him when once again he appeared in the towns. + +The life was fascinating to such as he. He loved it, but he did not +forget his purposes. When at last he had gathered firmly the reins of +his power, he shook them, and the twin steeds of Murder and Rapine +swept destroyingly through the land. + +For the present there was peace on the plains. Wagon-trains came +across the Pierre trail, or further down along South Fork. Custer +explored. White men settled in the Black Hills, in spite of the +treaty. The Indians hunted buffalo, and their wives made robes, and +cut tepee poles from the valley of Iron Creek. + +But in spite of all the seeming tranquillity, the seeds of discord had +been sown broadcast, and Lafond, with his devilish cleverness of +insight, could see that the struggle was not long to wait. Both sides +felt aggrieved, and both sides had more than a show of reason for +feeling so. Perhaps, in the long run, this was an inevitable result of +the advance of civilization; but it is a little unfortunate that the +provisional races must be set aside so summarily. That fact serves +occasionally to cast a doubt in reflective minds on the ultimate +benefit of the civilization. + +We who look upon our tamed country, or those plainsmen who have +perforce to struggle in the thick of the avenging troubles which follow +injustice as surely as symptoms follow the disease, may not be able to +see the Indian's side of the question. We, the peaceful citizens, +enjoy the security of policed cities and fenced prairies; and we are +convinced that it is worth the price. They, the pioneers, fight, and +are maimed; they lose their worldly possessions, and their +heart-strings are twanged to the tuning of grief; and so they become +partisans, to whom the old scriptural saying that "he who is not for me +is against me" comes home with a sternness brewed of tears. + +But to those others who looked on from the height, to the men who sat +safe, but moved the pawns on the board--to them there was a real +justice, and they infringed it; a real duty, and they failed it. They +held the whip hand and spared not the lash, and it shall be visited +unto them. + +Nearly fifty years ago, a Lieutenant Warren, at the head of a small +exploring party, approached the Black Hills. He was met near the South +Fork by a friendly but firm deputation of Sioux chiefs. Pah-sap-pah +was sacred. Pah-sap-pah must not be entered. All the rest of the +country was open, by the courtesy of the red men, to their white +brothers, but sacred land must not be profaned. Warren acquiesced, and +contented himself with ascertaining the general extent and +configuration of the forbidden district. When, in the fulness of time, +the government entered into treaty with these Indians, Warren's policy +was continued, and the Black Hills were, by a special clause, exempted +from white invasion forever. According to the Indians, the place was +the abode of spirits, and each tree, each rock, each dell, had its own +especial _manitou_ whom it were sacrilege to offend by the touch of +profane hands. + +For many years the treaty was respected. Then a Pawnee brought into +one of the reservations a small quantity of gold dust, which he +confessed to have found in the Hills. + +The following spring, Custer, at the head of an expedition of one +thousand two hundred men, entered into a long scout with the avowed +purpose of exploring the Black Hills for indications of gold. In this +he acted directly under his governmental orders. Thus was the treaty +first broken. + +Next year the Hills were overrun with miners, illegal miners, just as +the troops had been with illegal explorers. They scattered through the +wilderness in vast numbers, and about a hundred of them staked out, +near the centre of the Southern Hills, a town which they named Custer +City. The irony was unconscious. What followed was farcical, and was +relished as such by the participants. Bodies of troops were sent to +enforce the treaty. Legally they did so. Although inferior in numbers +to the miners, and no better armed, they succeeded several times in +sweeping all the trespassers together into one band. The latter +submitted good-naturedly. The culprits were then turned over to civil +authority. Civil authority waited only for the disappearance of the +troops to set the miners at liberty; whereupon they scurried, as fast +as their animals could carry them, back to the prospect-holes of their +choice. It was all a huge joke, and everybody knew it. + +In the meantime the Indians were becoming restive. It may not be known +to the general reader, but it is a fact, that one of the strongest +virtues of the red man's character is his fidelity to his given word. +A liar is, in his moral code, the most despised of men. He cannot +conceive the possibility of broken faith, and there are recorded +instances wherein an Indian condemned to capital punishment has been +set free on his oral promise to return for his hanging; and he has +returned. Therefore the Sioux could not understand the infraction of +the treaty. + +They had viewed with alarm the scouting expedition by Custer. On the +invasion by the horde of miners, the following spring, an outbreak was +only avoided by the prompt action of the troops in evicting the +trespassers; but now, this winter of 1875, the more sagacious of the +Indian leaders were beginning to suspect the truth, namely, that the +eviction had been nothing but a form, and that Pah-sap-pah, in spite of +the treaty, was lost to them forever. Affairs were ripe for a great +Indian war; and, realizing this, the department set on foot Crook's and +Reynolds' unfortunate expedition toward the Big Horn. + +The savages at once began to gather under a famous chief, Sitting Bull. +The storm rumbled, and Custer was despatched to effect a junction with +his brother officers somewhere north of the Hills. + + + + +VIII + +THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE + +Meanwhile a personal animus had sprung up against that general because +of a mild stroke of justice on his part against a singularly proud man. + +It seems that the personnel of Custer's former expedition to the +Yellowstone included two civilians, a Dr. Honzinger and a Mr. Baliran. +These men were not, of course, subject to the full rigor of military +discipline, and so were accustomed to depart from, and return to, the +main line of march at will. When they did not reappear in due time +from one of these little trips, search was made; and they were found +killed with arrows. Dr. Honzinger's skull was crushed in, but neither +man was scalped, for the doctor was bald and the other wore his hair +clipped short. Some time later, knowledge of the murderer's identity +came to light, through information stumbled upon by one of Custer's own +scouts. + +At that period, rations and ammunition were distributed regularly at +the various agencies. In return the savages promised to be good +Indians and to submit to the white men's laws. This promise they kept +faithfully enough, but according to their own standards. At the times +of distribution, when inevitably a great many of the Indians were +gathered together, the occasion was signalized by feasting and ghost +dances. The latter are uncouth exhibitions enough, consisting +decoratively of much cheap body-paint, many eagle feathers, and trashy +jewelry; musically of most unmusical pounding and screaming; and +physically of a crouching posture and a solemnly bounding progression +from one foot to the other around a circle. They are accompanied by a +recital of valorous deeds. + +Such a dance was organized at the Standing Rock Agency, below Fort +Lincoln, in the winter of 1875. As usual, besides the gathering of old +warriors and squaws, assembled to watch the dance, the audience +included a number of white men, present on business or pleasure. Among +them was Charley Reynolds, one of Custer's scouts. This man stood +exchanging idle comment and chaff with another scout, and throwing an +occasional glance in the direction of the vortex of dancers, swirling +about in gaudy confusion, like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. Suddenly +he closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward at keen attention. +He had caught a few words that interested him. + +The dancers had reached the point of frenzy. They leaped forward with +solemnity still, but it was a quivering solemnity held in leash. Their +bodies were tense, and the trailing knives and hatchets trembled with +nervous force. Each warrior, nostrils distended and eyes flashing, was +declaiming his deeds with an ecstasy that bordered on madness, rolling +out tale after tale of murder, theft of horses--the only sort of theft +countenanced by the Indian code--and fortitude under suffering. +Noticeable among these dancers was a young warrior painted in the +manner of the Uncpapa Sioux. He was of magnificent physique and +striking countenance, but the most remarkable feature of his appearance +was a huge, ragged scar across the muscles of his back. When the scout +looked toward him, he was shaking in the air the chain of a watch, and +declaiming at the top of his voice in the Sioux language. + +"And he was great in body," he chanted, "and he fell, and I killed him +with a stone, and the other fled, and I shot him, and so they died! I +killed them! I am a great warrior, for I killed two white men, and +these things are tokens that I speak the truth!" + +He rattled the chain, and went through a vivid pantomime of the slaying +of the two white men. Charley Reynolds recognized the trinket as +belonging to Dr. Honzinger. + +The young warrior was called Rain-in-the-Face, and he was at that time +esteemed as the bravest of the northern Sioux. Others, such as Crazy +Horse or Sitting Bull, might have been greater in generalship, but +neither had the Uncpapa youth's reputation for sheer personal bravery. +In the sun dance he had hung for four hours. The incisions behind the +great muscles of the back, through which the rope was threaded, had +been cut too deep, and the flesh failed to give way when +Rain-in-the-Face was suspended. For some time he hung in midair, his +whole weight depending from the loops of torn muscles, the blood +streaming over his limbs, and the hot sun beating down upon him. Then +the chiefs attempted to cut him down, but Rain-in-the-Face refused to +permit it. Four hours later the flesh rent away from his bones, and he +fell. That day made him the idol of the Sioux nation. + +Charley Reynolds lost no time in informing Custer of his discovery, for +the policy of the period was to punish as many culprits as possible, in +order that the whites might establish, as soon as might be, a moral as +well as military supremacy over the turbulent savages. The commander +resolved to arrest Rain-in-the-Face. To that end he detailed a hundred +men under Captain Yates. + +Contrary to what one unused to the Indian character might expect, no +difficulty was anticipated in finding the culprit. To be sure, the +plains were broad and the hiding places many, but Rain-in-the-Face was +at once an agency Indian and a reckless man. He drew his rations and +he drew them boldly. With his blanket wrapped about him and his rifle +peeping from its folds across his left arm, he stalked here and there +among the agency's few buildings. Any distribution day at the +reservation would discover him there. + +But, on the other hand, the captain was not at all sure of being able +to arrest him when found. A hundred men would stand but small chance +in a fight with six hundred well-armed savages; whereas the appearance +of a larger expedition would serve merely to frighten every agency +Indian out into the wilds. The situation was not encouraging. How not +to alarm the quarry, and how still to possess strength enough to seize +it, was the problem that confronted Captain Yates. + +His first move may seem, when cursorily examined, most unwise. He +detailed a lieutenant and forty of his little command, whose orders +were to proceed farther down the river, ostensibly for the purpose of +making inquiries concerning three Osage Indians wanted for murder. +Thus his available force was reduced to sixty, and with that handful he +intended to capture and take away, in the face of ten times the number, +one of the most popular fighting men of the Sioux nation. + +But, as a matter of fact, in so dividing his forces the captain was +correct in his tactics. He realized that surprise was his only +effective weapon, and his ruse made surprise certain by lulling any +suspicion as to the object of the expedition. + +Arrived at the agency, a cursory examination disclosed the fact that +Rain-in-the-Face was not among the groups of Indians camped on the +prairie. He must, therefore, be inside the agency building itself. +Captain Yates distributed his men near the little structure, and +Colonel Tom Custer went inside with half a dozen soldiers. + +The room was found to be full of blanketed Sioux warriors, muffled to +the eyes, indistinguishable in the half light, except as +eagle-feathered silhouettes. Greetings were exchanged, pipes filled, +and a grave silence fell on the little group. The minutes passed, but +no one moved. The atmosphere was dense with smoke, and still the +parties watched each other--the whites with veiled eagerness, the +Indians with unsuspicious stolidity. Finally the agent piled dry wood +on the fire, and the blaze leaped up the chimney. The heat became +oppressive, so after a moment the warrior nearest the fireplace threw +back the blanket from his shoulders. It was Rain-in-the-Face himself. + +On this rather dramatic disclosure, one of the troopers uttered an +exclamation. The Indian, always suspicious, at once leaped back and +cocked his rifle; but before he could raise the piece or pull the +trigger, Colonel Custer wound his arms around him from behind. The +other Indians rushed from the room. + +The captive's hands were tied as rapidly as possible, but by the time +he was brought to the door, the Indians were running angrily from all +directions toward the building. + +Captain Yates had succeeded in intimidating the first comers by a show +of force, but he was soon outnumbered and a struggle seemed imminent. + +However, an old chieftain began to declaim in the violent, high-pitched +monotone so much affected by Indian orators. This delay afforded the +soldier a much needed respite, but it tended also to concerted action +later. The white man seized his opportunity. Through the interpreter +he called upon the chiefs to stand forward for a parley. + +"My brothers will hear me," said the interpreter for him, "because it +is right, for they wear the Great Father's blankets and his food is in +their bellies. This young warrior is brave and his enemies are as the +feeble wind to him. But his eye became blinded. He thought he saw +before him the Pawnees, the enemies of his people; but they were old +men of my race. He killed those old men, and now the Great Father +would know why. He must tell the Great Father of his blindness. +Therefore it is well that he should go. + +"So restrain your young men and I will restrain mine. It might be that +your young men would kill many of mine; and it might be that my young +men would kill many of yours. But why kill them? It is useless, for +first of all, by my hand, this young warrior would die." + +At the advance of the chiefs, the Sioux warriors had suddenly, from the +wildest confusion, calmed to the deepest attention. They stood +motionless against the white background of the snow, only their fierce +eyes rolling from the speaker to their own chiefs and back again. One +of the latter replied-- + +"It is not well to talk so," he said brusquely. "The words of my +brother are idle words and mean nothing. My young men are many, and +yours are few; yet shall your young men go unharmed if you give to us +our warrior." + +He swept his blanket over his shoulder with a sudden gesture, and +scowled. For answer Captain Yates drew from its holster his army +revolver and presented it at Rain-in-the-Face's breast. The Sioux +looked far away beyond the horizon, but his nostrils dilated. + +"It is well," said the chief hastily, "for my brother's words are words +of wisdom. Take _two_ warriors to the Great Father, but leave us this +young man, that he may teach us that blindness is not wise." + +In answer to his gesture two Indian youths stepped forward, proud of +the distinction. + +"See," went on the chief, "these shall go with your young men, and all +will be well." + +Yates lowered his pistol, and turned. + +"Tell him," he said to the interpreter, "that this man goes with us. +If I see the muzzle of a rifle, I'll shoot him dead." + +The savages listened gravely. Their first burst of rage had passed, +and, as always with their race, they were loath to engage in a stand-up +fight in cold blood. The Indian is brave enough, but he likes to be +brave in his own way. The chief turned and waved his hand. Ten +minutes later bands of savages were speeding swiftly away in all +directions, and the agency was entirely deserted. + +The little command shortly after set out on its return trip. Yates +fully expected to be attacked before he rejoined his chief; but +although many savages were at various times visible, hurrying by, the +troops arrived at Fort Lincoln in due course, and Custer stood face to +face with his future slayer. + +There is little need to repeat here the details of Rain-in-the-Face's +captivity. It is interesting, but not of the story. He received +visits from great warriors representing various tribes of the Sioux +nation--Brulé, Yankton, Teton, Ogallala--all uniting to honor him. To +the surprise of the few white spectators, these visitors kissed the +young captive on the cheek, a mark of respect and affection almost +unheard of among this savage people. Two of the younger warriors asked +and received permission to share his captivity for a time. +Rain-in-the-Face bore the imprisonment well; was docile, friendly, +apparently happy. He had many talks with General Custer, and came to +be well liked. + +But he had much leisure for thought, and he was a proud man. + +After some months, two white men, grain thieves, were placed in the +same guard house. Being enterprising pioneers, they promptly sawed a +hole and escaped. Rain-in-the-Face availed himself of the opening. + +Once under the open sky, he adjusted his moccasins and struck boldly +across the prairie for the West. Rain-in-the-Face was no longer an +agency Indian, but a hostile. + + + + +IX + +THE BROTHER OF GODS + +Rain-in-the-face had no very definite idea of where he should go. The +main and pressing need was to put a certain distance between himself +and his pursuers as rapidly as possible. + +To this end, he pushed diligently north-west in a bee line. At first +he covered his trail skilfully, so that Custer's men would have to +guess his direction of flight as any one of the three hundred and sixty +degrees of the complete circle. After a little, this was unnecessary. +It became desirable to fall in with a camp of the Sioux, in order that +he might be directed to his own tribe of that people, the Uncpapa. + +But as day followed day, Rain-in-the-Face owned himself puzzled. In +the space of time that had elapsed since his escape, he should have +encountered a dozen bands, for he was intimately acquainted with the +country and with the Indian habit of life. The village sites were +deserted, the plains were empty. The Indian did not know of the two +expeditions, commanded respectively by Crook and Terry, which, the one +from the south and the other from the north, were converging at the Big +Horn; nor that in that district nearly every plains Indian had +encamped, either openly allied with Sitting Bull, or near enough to +become so should such a move seem expedient. + +So for a week he subsisted alone as only an Indian can. + +Let loose a tired pony at night on the plains, and in the morning he +will turn up well fed and full of vigor. It is the same with a savage. +He knows expedients for getting food, for preparing it, for combating +thirst, for sleeping in bad weather with some degree of comfort, which +a white man never acquires without a long and hazardous apprenticeship. +It is a case of the survival of the fittest; and the Indian always +survives. + +Toward the end of the week, Rain-in-the-Face drew near the low hills of +the Cheyenne River, in good condition, except that his moccasins were +nearly worn out. Then he became aware of a camp. As beseemed a good +warrior, he scouted carefully until he had satisfied himself that the +lodges were those of people of his own nation. Then he allowed himself +to be captured by the herd boys and escorted to Lone Wolf, the chief of +the band. + +Lone Wolf had been easily persuaded by Lafond that it was not good +policy to join Sitting Bull. The tribe was well fed and rich. It +could gain nothing by such a war, and could lose much. Now was the +time to prepare against the coming winter; now, in the early summer, +when the energy of the band was at its flood. War it had enjoyed but +recently with the Pawnees; so the hearts of the young men were big with +valor. Let them equally enjoy the chase, the other branch of a brave's +education. + +These, and a hundred like reasons, Lafond had urged so plausibly that +the chief had come, without difficulty, to his way of thinking. After +all, why not at least await the plum season, and the great gathering of +prairie chickens which was invariably consequent on the ripening of the +fruit? With that plan in view, the warrior had moved his band and all +its household goods to the banks of the Cheyenne, where he settled down +peaceably to a season of plenty. There Rain-in-the-Face found him. + +The camp had been pitched, after the usual rambling manner, in a broad +grass park of sandy subsoil, below hills on which wandered the ponies +in times of safety, or lurked the sentinels in time of danger. Above +the lodges, like blazoned arms, were suspended the spears and shields +of the warriors, and before the open flap of each the owner could be +seen sprawled in dignified idleness among his favorite squaws. +Children sat grave and silent near at hand, or whirled in mimic and +noisy warfare farther out over the prairie. Dogs skulked here and +there. Kettles above shallow fire holes bubbled and steamed. About +over the ground was strewn the indescribable litter of a long-used +camp. Through the early summer air rose shrill laughter, the sounds of +good-natured chaff, the yelp of dogs and the hum of lower conversation; +for, no matter how shy or stoical an Indian may seem before strangers, +he is sociable enough among his own people. Near the centre of the +village stood the lodge of Lone Wolf. At his hand sat Michaïl Lafond. + +The half-breed had in the past two years reverted almost to the type of +his more savage parent. His hair was long and worn loose, after the +Sioux fashion. The upper part of his body was naked. About his neck +hung a string of bears' claws. Paint streaked his countenance. White +buckskin leggings, ornamented with beads, covered his legs. Only the +shifty character of his eye and a certain finer modelling of the bold +lines of his face differentiated him from the full-blooded Sioux at his +side. The two were conversing in the Sioux language. + +To them the boys brought their stranger. From various directions +squaws and children sidled nearer for a look. The warriors, disdaining +such an exhibition of womanish curiosity, remained placidly smoking in +the sunshine. Near at hand the sounds of laughter and of conversation +died, and the solemnity of ceremony fell. + +As he approached, the stranger raised his right hand, palm forward, in +token of peace, and then drew the edge of the same hand across his +throat from left to right. This latter is the "sign" of the Sioux, and +thus Lone Wolf was made aware that he received one of his own nation. +Lone Wolf inclined slightly, and raised his hand with the peace +gesture. The three then sat and the inevitable pipe was produced. + +Thus Rain-in-the-Face was received with all ceremony. Later, the first +dip into the kettle of boiling meat was conceded him, and in that +manner he was made free of Lone Wolf's lodge. No question was asked as +to his identity, and he vouchsafed no information; that would come +later, when the warriors gathered for a formal powwow. + +And in the meantime, Michaïl Lafond's roving French eyes took in every +detail of the stranger's appearance, and his keen French mind drew its +own conclusions. Near the close of the afternoon, he left his seat and +addressed the stranger. + +"My brother knows ponies," said he. "Will he look upon one of mine?" + +It was equivalent to an invitation to call. The savage arose and +stalked by the half-breed's side in the direction of Lafond's fine +lodge of whitened skins. As they approached, two young squaws glided +away. Lafond spoke a word to one of them, and a moment later the boys +of the camp raced eagerly in the direction of the band of ponies on the +hill. + +[Illustration: THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"] + +The lodge of Michaïl Lafond stood just beyond the village proper and on +a slight elevation. The entire camp lay spread out before it, a +panorama to be seized by a single sweep of the eye. + +The savage paused for a moment before entering the doorway, and looked +about him with a little envy. Never had he visited a band so well +supplied with ponies, so efficiently armed, so wealthy in robes and +lodges and kettles and all the other articles of Indian wealth which go +to make up prosperity. Lafond watched him closely. The Indian turned +inside the doorway, and sat down on a heavily furred buffalo skin near +the entrance. In the background wallowed a dim confusion of skins, +robes, and utensils. Lafond placed himself beside his guest and the +pipe was lighted. + +The stir following the stranger's arrival had lulled. The women and +children, having satisfied their curiosity as to his personal +appearance, returned to their wonted occupations, so that once again +the mingled noises of the camp rose from the little valley. + + +In a moment the young squaw led up a pony. The animal was fine above +the average. Its limbs were deer-like in delicacy, its nostrils were +wide, its neck slender and tapering--quite in contrast to the ordinary +Indian pony's clumsiness in this respect--and, above all, it was marked +black and white in the _pinto_ fashion. This last is considered to +indicate superior spirit and is much prized. The woman had twisted +pieces of bright-colored cloth and eagle feathers into the mane and +tail. + +At the sight of so beautiful an animal, the stranger exclaimed in +delight. + +"It pleases my brother?" inquired Lafond politely. "It is his." + +The squaw led the beast forward, touching the young warrior's hand with +the end of the halter in token of proprietorship. Lafond rose and +closed the tent flap. The noises of the camp were at once muffled, and +twilight fell. + +"My brother is a great warrior," he began after a moment, "yet he has +need of ponies, for he comes on foot and his moccasins are worn." + +The stranger, impassive but watchful, made no answer. + +"My brother has come far?" went on Lafond cunningly. + +"Far," repeated the youth politely. + +"His eyes have seen the waters of the Great River?" + +The savage bowed. + +"Perhaps his pony was lost there?" + +"It may be." + +"The sight of the white man frightened him and he was drowned?" + +The Indian's eyes flashed. + +"It may be so." + +"On his back my brother bears great scars," said Lafond suddenly after +a short pause; "but they are the scars of a brave man. He bears other +scars on his face; they are the scars of shame." + +He ceased abruptly at the stranger's fierce ejaculation. The Indian +seemed about to spring on him. + +"But," the half-breed went on in haste, "my brother will destroy the +shame, and the scars will go." He leaned forward and touched the +savage lightly on his bare shoulder. "They are the scars from the +white man's prison," he said. + +For a moment the stranger's face was a study in livid hate. Then all +expression died from it, leaving it stolid as before. + +The half-breed smoked in silence. His surmises had been correct. This +was indeed the young hero of the sun dance, the news of whose +imprisonment had, by chance, come to his ears but a short time before. +He considered. Finally, he turned to his guest once more. + +"My brother has travelled many miles," he said. "Tell me, has he seen +the lodges of his people?" + +"The prairies have been waste." + +"I will tell you why. The great white war chief has gone with his +young men beyond Pah-sap-pah. There the warriors will strike him and +destroy him. My brother's people are there." + +The hate came back into the Indian's face with a flash. He fingered +the haft of a knife that lay near his hand. + +"I will join my people," he said. + +"And aid them. It is well. But will my brother go alone and without +arms?" + +"What would you?" replied the Indian bitterly. "Am I a chief that I +should go attended? Do arrows and rifles grow on the prairies?" + +The half-breed craftily permitted another impressive but momentary +silence to fall. + +"But if my brother were to ride with a hundred fighting men; on his own +pony; with a rifle in his hand--would not that be more in accord with +his dignity as a brave warrior?" he suggested suddenly. + +"Where are a hundred such?" + +Lafond arose and pulled aside the flap of the tent. The camp lay in +the half glow as a flat picture, and its noise burst in through the +open doorway like a blare of music. The Indian's expressive eyes +flashed comprehension. + +"And if they go?" he asked. + +"I, too, have enemies," replied Lafond. + +Rain-in-the-Face smoked meditatively. If this man held the power to +sway thus the policy of the camp, why did he not use it to crush the +enemies of whom he had spoken? What added force could a young, unarmed +stranger bring him that would compensate for the trouble and expense to +which he was putting himself? + +Lafond saw the hesitation and dreaded aright. + +"My enemies dwell in Pah-sap-pah," said he simply. + +In that sentence he exposed the weakness of his position. Pah-sap-pah +was sacred, so sacred that for many years miners fled to it as to a +sanctuary, certain that once within its dark border pursuit would +cease. Hunts in it were undertaken only at certain times of the year, +and under peculiar auspices. War died into peace when it dashed +against those sombre cliffs. The winds in the trees were voices of +Soulless Ones, bewailing always their fate; the frown of sun-red +Harney--or the peak afterward known under that name--was instinct with +the brooding wrath of some great manitou, who slept lightly only when +his children disturbed him not. Even the powerful influence of Michaïl +Lafond had failed to induce Lone Wolf to enter the Black Hills on an +errand of murder. + +But the name of Rain-in-the-Face was one to conjure with in just such +matters as these. He was not only a brave man and a great warrior, but +he was favored of the gods. In the belief of the Sioux nation, his +wonderful endurance in the sun dance was at once evidence and warranty +of it. Without divine favor he could not have endured so long; +enduring so long had brought to him great abundance of divine favor. +So, without actually professing to be a medicine man, he had freely +accorded to him all the confidence a member of the priestcraft usually +enjoys. If Lafond could induce Rain-in-the-Face to lead, the warriors +of the band would follow blindly, even into Pah-sap-pah itself. + +The Indian started as he caught the import of Lafond's words. + +"My brother has looked upon the face of the angry Manitou," went on +Lafond eagerly; "and he has not been afraid. He has danced the dance +of death, and the great Manitou has stretched out his hand and held him +up. My brother is favored of the Great Spirit, and he is not afraid." + +"It is Pah-sap-pah," replied the Indian sombrely. + +"Yes, it is Pah-sap-pah, and Pah-sap-pah is sacred. In Pah-sap-pah are +two men, and they go here and there breaking her rocks, cutting her +trees, defiling her streams. They profane the spirits. On the clouds +of the mountain Gitche Manitou frowns because his children permit it. +'Why comes not one to take these away?' he says. 'My children have +forgotten me.'" + +"Gitche Manitou is great," said Rain-in-the-Face thoughtfully. "Why +does he not destroy his enemies?" + +"Gitche Manitou destroys through his chosen. Destroy thou, and it will +be Gitche Manitou who destroys through thy hand." + +The wily half-breed had caught this doctrine of the Jesuit in his old +north country home, and his crafty use of it impressed its force +strongly on the savage's mind. Lafond proceeded-- + +"And who more fitted than Rain-in-the-Face?" + +The Indian glanced at him with new respect at this knowledge of his +name. + +"For he stands near to the Great Spirit, and the warriors will follow +him." + +The half-breed paused, pretending to consider the difficulties. + +"The men are but two and there is a woman. There are here a hundred +warriors, and each warrior has a gun and much powder. When the profane +ones have been destroyed, then Rain-in-the-Face will turn northward and +enter the camp of Sitting Bull at the head of many fighting men. It +little beseems so great a warrior of the Uncpapas to go begging a rifle +from the Tetons!" + +The mind of Rain-in-the-Face, thus relieved of some degree of its +superstitious fear, lay fully open to this last appeal to his pride. +He picked up the pipe and puffed stolidly on it twice. + +"The enemies of my brother shall die," said he. + +Before the formal conference of that evening, Michaïl Lafond had +arranged to carry out his side of the bargain. He had done this very +simply. After the conversation in the lodge he had gone to Lone Wolf. + +"The stranger is Rain-in-the-Face, of the Uncpapas," said he. "He is +pleased with our warriors and he wishes to lead them against the great +white war chief near the Big Horn. There are also strangers in +Pah-sap-pah whom it is the will of Gitche Manitou that Rain-in-the-Face +should destroy, and he desires your help." + +Lone Wolf was delighted. That so famous a warrior should choose his +band was honor enough to repay any effort. + +In all this transaction, the offices of Michaïl Lafond could easily +have been dispensed with. If Lone Wolf had gone to Rain-in-the-Face +and said, "Behold, here are my young men. Lead them," the latter would +have accepted the tender with joy. If, on the other hand, the stranger +had merely announced his identity to Lone Wolf, that chieftain would +gladly have furnished him with everything he needed. But each was in +the dark as to one fact, of which Lafond had knowledge. +Rain-in-the-Face did not suspect how his imprisonment had increased his +importance, nor did he know that the deep content which brooded over +Lone Wolf's camp was only apparent, and had been carefully fostered by +Lafond. Nor did Lone Wolf recognize Rain-in-the-Face, nor realize how +anxious the youth was for an escort to uphold his pride. It was by +seeing little things of this sort, and acting upon them, that the +half-breed had gained so much influence. + +Four days later, Lone Wolf's camp swept northwestward toward the Big +Horn Mountain. On the 25th of June, Rain-in-the-Face confronted +General Custer, on a knoll near the river of the Little Big Horn. A +great battle was all but over, and the few remaining troopers, their +last cartridges gone, were fighting desperately with sabres. + +The savage shot the white man through the heart. + + + + +X + +THE PRICE OF A CLAIM + +All through this time of dread and danger, of plot and counterplot and +intrigue, of brooding war and half-awakened pillage, the doctor went on +peacefully collecting his funny little statistics, utterly oblivious to +everything but their accumulation and arrangement. Every morning of +the warmer months he went out into the hills for the day. There he +would grub about among his ledges and leads, pecking away at the rocks +with his little hand pick, filling his canvas bags, jotting down notes +and statistics in his notebook. + +During its progress he was blind to everything but his work. One day, +as he walked along the top of a ridge, a huge bear rose up in his path. +The doctor politely lifted his hat and passed to one side. The decline +of the sun alone he noticed. When the shadow of Harney crept out to +him he turned toward home. As he neared the log cabin his placid eyes +fairly beamed through his spectacles. When he came in sight of it he +ran forward, his specimen bags swinging heavily against his legs, +caught up the child stumbling to meet him and carried her, laughing and +struggling, to the woman in the doorway. Then they had supper all +together--bacon, or perhaps game, with vegetables from the garden, and +corn bread. Occasionally they had white bread and coffee, and always +fresh water from the cold mountain creek. After supper the doctor went +outdoors to arrange his specimens and plot out his notes as long as the +daylight lasted. His wife moved about inside softly. After a time she +brought out the little girl in her nightdress to be kissed. So the +twilight neared, and the long day was done. + +As the yellow glow crept down, she came outdoors too, and sat pensively +looking over the peaks of the lower mountains to the distant Cheyenne +and the prairies. Beyond them was the East. There were cities and +books and other women and the beat of human life in the air. Here was +a still, lonely grandeur that even the wind in the pines did not +relieve. + +The doctor finally had to put aside his work for lack of light, and sat +at her feet leaning against the logs of the cabin. She looked down on +his little figure, his round shoulders, his forehead even now abstract +and wrinkled with speculation, his kindly blue eyes, his sensitive +mouth, and then she softly reached out and took his hand. The two sat +there until the moon rose over the Bad Lands. Then they went inside. +In moments such as this the woman lived. + +In winter time the doctor sat near the fireplace, writing by the +candlelight on his great book. She was in the shadow, looking at him +with tenderness, smiling wearily at the eager quivering of his chin, +and rocking gently back and forth. The little girl played demurely on +the floor within the circle of firelight, her curls falling down on her +forehead. She piled up her blocks, and occasionally, as one would +fall, she would look up in deprecation of her mother's hush. The +golden heads of the mother and child were like sunshine before the dark +walls of the cabin. Against them the firelight gleamed. Outside, the +thin, light snow drifted fitfully by the pane. The doctor wrote. The +woman watched in patience. The child played. + +As spring came on, the doctor got out into the hills again. + +One day he came back and found the woman murdered and the child gone. +The cabin was ransacked from one end to the other, but no attempt had +been made to fire it. + +The doctor put his specimen bags methodically in their places, and then +sat down by his dead wife. + +At evening some passing miners found him there holding her hand. With +some difficulty, and by the exercise of a gentle force, they persuaded +him to rise, after which they tenderly laid the body on a couch, +concealing as best they might the red tonsure where the scalp had been. +They set the cabin in order and cooked supper from the provisions in +their wagon. The doctor ate and drank in silence, making no sign when +the men spoke to him. + +After supper he went outside and began to arrange his specimens. When +darkness fell he came in, stood undecided for a moment, and then lay +down on a bear-skin, Jim's gift, and slept. + +The men looked at one another in a puzzled way, conversing in low +tones. Soon they too rolled themselves up and went to sleep on the +floor. + +Early in the morning Jim Buckley came down the gulch with part of a +deer. The men told him the news hurriedly, between mouthfuls of +coffee. Jim looked at the dead woman with a hardening of the mouth and +a softening of the eyes; then he went out and for the first time took +the doctor's hand. + +When they had finished breakfast, the men made a rough bier of willow +branches plaited, on which they gently laid the body. Two went down to +the soft earth by the creek bottom and began to dig. The others +followed with their burden, which they laid beside the growing +excavation, and then stood with bared heads, waiting for the diggers. +The doctor would not come. After a little persuasion they left him +sitting on the ground, leaning against the logs of the cabin, looking +out over the bluffs of the Cheyenne to the east. + +The men in the trench worked rapidly and skilfully, one loosening the +gravel with his pick, the other shovelling it out on the grass. +Suddenly the latter stopped in the act of tossing a shovelful. He +pushed his stubby forefinger in among the gravel for a moment and drew +out an irregular bit of metal. It was gold. + +They buried the young wife elsewhere, and staked out the claim, and +others, lying along the creek. + +So Prue slept quietly at last. Her little life was drab-colored in +spite of the lights of adventure and drama that had played over it. It +contained a great love and a great sacrifice. So little of the gold +would have made her happy, and yet all the wealth of these new placers +could not have saved her at the last! + +A rider dashed up to them at the cabin, bringing news of the outbreak. +It was directed to the towns of the North, and had only brushed Spanish +Gulch on its destroying way. The men camped on the site of the new +placer. They built cradles and pumped water down from Spanish Creek, +so that in a little time the gulch contained quite a town. The first +discovery is known as the Doctor's Claim, and so you can find it +recorded in the records of Pennington County to-day. It turned out to +be very rich. + +And as for the doctor--he died. + + + + +XI + +THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE + +The day following the conference, Lone Wolf struck camp. The squaws +quickly removed and rolled into convenient bundles the skin coverings +of the tepees. The poles of the latter were strapped on each side of +the ponies in such a manner that, their ends dragging on the ground, a +sort of litter was formed for the transportation of the household goods +and the younger children. Before the sun was an hour high, the caravan +was under way. + +From this, the South Fork of the Cheyenne, the main band, under Lone +Wolf, were to push directly through to the Big Horn. Lafond, +Rain-in-the-Face, and the warriors detailed for the expedition were to +carry out the adventure of Pah-sap-pah to the half-breed's +satisfaction, and were then to rejoin the main body as soon as possible. + +The smaller band cut in to the Black Hills shortly after daybreak one +morning. It rode up Spanish Gulch a little before noon. + +Most of these warriors had never before entered the dark limits of +Pah-sap-pah. They were plainly in awe of its frowning cliffs and +rustling pines. They rode close together, whispering uneasily. Even +Rain-in-the-Face failed to reassure them. Why should he? He was a +little afraid himself. + +Lafond's knowledge of the topography of the place was excellent. He +had visited it several times. He had watched the doctor, step by step, +throughout a long day of geological searching. He knew Jim Buckley's +dwelling, where he worked, what hours he kept, and just how late he sat +up at night. Innumerable times he had viewed the doctor, Prue, and the +scout through the buck-horn sights of his long rifle; yet he had never +been even tempted to pull the trigger. Why? Because he was a Latin, +and so theatrical effects were dear to him; because he was an Indian, +and so revenge with him seemed to lie not so much in the mere +infliction of injury as in the victim's realization that he was being +come up with. Lafond not only wanted the doctor and his companions to +be killed, but he wanted them to know why they were killed, and by +whom. It was finer to be able thus to do the thing with all the stage +settings. The dramatic instinct was part of the barbaric quality of +his nature, like a love for red. + +So Lafond had let slip innumerable opportunities of picking off his +victims single-handed, merely to gain the local knowledge necessary to +a final _coup de théâtre_. Consequently, he knew where the cabin was +situated, and quickly scouted the state of affairs. The coast was +clear. He gave the required signal; the savages silently approached on +foot, and they entered the little house together. + +Now at this time of year, in the Black Hills, there occurs a daily +meteorological phenomenon of a rather peculiar character. The hot air +from the prairies sweeps over from the Missouri River, crossing a +number of lesser streams in its passage, until it strikes the slope of +the hills. There it is deflected upward, gradually becoming colder as +the elevation rises, until, at the barrier of Harney, it gathers in +rain clouds. These are at first mere wisps of down, streaming in +ragged ribbons from the peak; but with incredible rapidity they gain in +density and extent, until they spread over a considerable area of the +surrounding country. Then they empty themselves in a terrific deluge +of water and hail, accompanied by thunderclaps so reverberant that they +seem to arise from the rending of the hills themselves. After this +short crisis, the dismembered clouds float out over the prairie and are +dissipated in the hot air, even before they reach the first white +turrets of the Bad Lands. + +So rapidly does the storm gather and break, that there is but a short +half hour between the morning and the afternoon clearness of the skies. +To those who have never experienced this phenomenon, it is startling in +the extreme; to those who have, it is a matter of seeking temporary +shelter until the disturbance blows over. In any case, the first +indications are but scant warning. + +By the time the little band of Indians had reached the doctor's cabin, +the first wisps of cloud were clinging to Harney. While they were in +the house, the blackness gathered and loomed and darkened until the sun +was obscured and the western hills lost themselves in rain. + +The doctor was in the hills. Prue was making the bed in the little +bedroom, and little Miss Prue was asleep on a rug in one corner of the +larger apartment. The savages stole in with noiseless, moccasined feet +behind the stooping woman. Lafond, forgetting in his excitement +everything but the lust of killing, stabbed her deeply twice in the +broad of the back. She fell forward on the bed without a murmur, and +the murderer, seizing the knob of her hair, circled her brow with his +knife's edge, and ripped loose the scalp. Then they all glided back +into the other room. + +Three of the savages took from the wood box near the crude fireplace +some of the dried kindling with which Jim Buckley had supplied the +family, and began to build a little wigwam-shaped pyramid against the +side of the wall. Others moved about furtively, prying here and there +for possible plunder. They preserved absolute silence, for the +superstitious terror of the place was working on them, and they had +begun to experience that panic-like tremor which seems to create an +invisible clutch ready to seize from behind. + +Even the encouraging presence of Rain-in-the-Face was not potent enough +to prevent this. Out on the plains the personality of the man had +loomed large, but here the legend was greater than he. The warriors +felt the imminence of the frowning, brooding manitou of Harney; they +almost heard the moaned syllables of the Soulless Ones' complaint. +Their movements were those of timid mice, advancing a little, +hesitating much, ready to flee in panic. + +Not so Lafond. He strode roughly over to the corner where the child +lay. In his mind, with new vividness, burned that old picture of his +humiliation. He began to realize, now that the patient repression of +his hate was over, how potent it had been. Alfred and Billy Knapp were +out of his reach for the present, but here were the others ready to his +hand. He seized little Prue by the hair of her head. + +The child, thus suddenly awakened, screamed violently, shriek upon +shriek, as her terror became more fully conscious of the savage and his +bloody knife. About the room the warriors paused nervously. +Accustomed enough to screams of this sort, they were now dominated by +superstition and were thrown off their wonted balance. + +And then a fearful thing occurred. Before their eyes, in the open +door, groped and staggered the woman Lafond had stabbed but a moment +before. From the red raw surface of her scalp blood streamed--streamed +over the remaining fringe of her hair, matting it down; streamed down +into her eyes, blinding them; over her drawn countenance; over the +dabbled, sticky, clinging fabric of her garment, reddened still more by +the pulsing flood from the two great wounds in her body. Her breast +heaved painfully, the breath coming and going with a strange bubbling +gurgle. Her face was turned upward almost to the ceiling above in the +agony of her endeavor. Her little hands, become waxen, clutched and +unclutched the side of the door. The child screamed yet again, +mercifully hidden from this awful sight by the intervention of Lafond's +body. The woman made a supreme effort to advance, plunged forward, and +rolled over and over on the cabin floor. + +At the same instant, with a shriek of wind and a roar of rain, the +voice of the thunder spoke. + +The savages, who had watched with strained eyes this resurrection from +the dead, yelled in an ecstasy of superstitious terror and rushed for +the door. + +Lafond, utterly unmoved, called to them in Indian and swore at them in +French, but they were gone. He hesitated for a moment in evident +indecision as to what should be done next. Then he rapidly bundled the +little girl in a blanket and threw her across his shoulder. As he +hurried to the door, he paused for a moment over the motionless heap of +blood and rags on the floor, coolly thrusting his knife again and again +into the unresisting flesh. + +He caught the fugitives only below the cañon of Iron Creek. They had +made no pause until well out of the hills, and were still shaking with +superstitious dread. Even Rain-in-the-Face, bold and self-confident as +he was, had yielded to the panic; nor could the persuasions, threats or +ridicule of the half-breed induce them to return. + +For a time Lafond was of two minds as to his own course in the matter. +Should he leave things as they were for the present or should he return +alone to complete the work? Finally he decided on the former. The +Gallic love of the spectacular again intervened; besides, he was +possessed of a certain large feeling that the world was not wide enough +to save his victims from him when he should judge the time fit. He +found much joy in gloating over what he imagined the two men would say, +do, and think when they returned to the cabin. And he was a good deal +of a savage. He looked forward with fierce delight to the great battle +which he foresaw would soon take place between Sitting Bull and his +white enemies. So he rode on with the little band of warriors to +overtake Lone Wolf. + +The savages plainly could not understand his encumbering himself with +the child. The custom had always been to seize such a victim by the +ankles, whirl it once about the head to get a good swing, and then to +dash its skull violently against a bowlder. They saw no reason why the +rule should be departed from in this case. Neither did Lafond; but the +queer, zigzag intuition of the half-breed had caused him to feel dimly +that he should preserve the child, and as he was in the habit of +gratifying his whims, he proceeded to carry out his intention in this +case. Once his decision was expressed in emphatic form, his companions +acquiesced. The child was Michaïl's captive; with his own captive he +could work his will. That is the Indian code. + +So little Miss Prue was carried for seven days on the back of a horse. +She did not cry much, and this saved her from violence. Her two years +of outdoor life had made her constitution robust, and this helped her +in inevitable privation. At the end of the week, the band caught up +with Lone Wolf and his camp, and Miss Prue was given over into the care +of Lafond's two young squaws. With them she underwent the customary +two days' jealousy, and then entered fully into the heritage of +kindliness which every Indian woman squeezes, drop by drop, from her +arid life and lavishes on the creatures who are gentle with her. + +She had, to be sure, to learn the Indian virtues of silence and +obedience. She had to do the little tasks that are set to girl babies +everywhere among the savage tribes. And, above all, she had to learn +to endure. But, in recompense, the two Indian women adored her. They +decked her out in beaded work and white buckskin; they put bright +feathers in her hair and bright beads about her little neck; they saved +choice bits for her from the family kettle; and when night came they +lay on either side of her and softly stroked her hair as she slept. +Over her head, among others, hung her mother's scalp. + + + + +XII + +THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS + +It is not the purpose of this story to describe the battle of the +Little Big Horn in detail. That has been done many times. There is +little about it that is remarkable, excepting always the heroism of the +men who fought so desperately. The scene itself must have been +impressive, as viewed by the non-combatants of the Indians from the +bluffs near at hand--the swirl of brown about the melting patch of +blue. After Custer fell, the savages turned eagerly down the valley to +attack Reno, leaving the dead as they lay. Lafond did not accompany +them. The sight had aroused certain reflections in his breast, and he +wished to work the thing out. + +After sunset, he went alone and on foot over to the battlefield. The +troopers lay as they had fallen--first, Calhoun's company in line, with +its officers in place; then Keogh's; finally, on the knoll, the +remnant, scattered irregularly among the dead of their enemies. In the +cold light their faces shone white and still, even yet instinct with +the eagerness of battle; an eagerness which death had transmuted from +flesh to marble. Near the centre lay Custer, his long yellow hair +framing his face, his hands crossed on his breast. He alone was +unmutilated, save by the shot that had taken his life. + +The half-breed did not hesitate on the outer circle of the combat, but +picked his way among the corpses until he stood on the summit of the +little knoll. Then he folded his arms and looked steadily down on the +white man's inscrutable face. + +Whatever might be Lafond's intellectual or moral deficiencies, lack of +perspicacity was not among them. Through the red glory of this +apparent victory, the most sweeping ever accomplished by the plains +Indians, he saw clearly the imminence of final defeat. The dead man +before him lay smiling, and Lafond perceived that he smiled because he +saw his people arising to avenge him. The beat of the muster drum +calling the avengers to the frontier now sounded in prophecy to his +hearing, and the echoes of the last battle shot merged into the clang +of an iron civilization, which was destined to push these exulting +victors dispassionately aside. It was a striking picture of light and +of shadow--this dark, savage figure silhouetted against the softened +brightness of the sky, this bright-haired warrior lying bathed in the +glorification of a Western night; the white man humiliated, defeated, +slain, but seeing with closed eyes that at which he smiled with deep +content; the savage, proud in success, triumphant, victor, but +perceiving somehow, in the very evidences of his achievement, that +which made him knit his brows. How little was this great victory +against the background of the people whom it had outraged, and yet how +mightily it would stir that people when once it became known! + +Michaïl Lafond the savage stood before the body of Custer the fallen, +for an hour, moving not one muscle all the time. At the end of the +hour Michaïl Lafond the civilized turned slowly away, and walked +thoughtfully toward the lodges on the other bank of the Little Big Horn +River. The sight of a brave man, who had died as he lived, had +reformed Lafond, but whether moralists would have approved of the +reformation is to be doubted. + +The night ran well along toward morning. The squaws, who had been +plundering and mutilating the dead, had long since returned to hear the +report of the warriors who had gone to attack Reno. The attack had +failed, but the fight had been desperate and the losses on both sides +heavy. Six of Custer's command, captured alive, were burned to death. +At last, the entire camp, with the exception of the women sentinels, +had gone to rest. Toward daybreak, even these became drowsy. + +Lafond arose quietly. He gathered a few necessaries into a pack, +placed them outside the doorway of the lodge, hesitated a moment, and +then returned. His two squaws slept, as usual, one each side of the +little girl. Lafond lifted the child carefully in order that he might +not awaken her guardians or herself, and wrapped her closely in his +blanket. At the doorway he again hesitated. Then, chuckling grimly, +he deposited the child by the bundle he had already prepared, and +returning, took down from the tent pole the string of scalps which went +to show how successful and how savage a warrior he had been. By the +light of the stars he selected one of these and laid it carefully +between the two sleeping women. It was the scalp of the little girl's +mother. Then he rehung the string on the tent pole, and went outside +immensely pleased with his bit of humor. + +It was his good-by to the wild life. From that time on he dwelt in the +towns, where in a very few years his name became known as standing for +a shrewdness in management, a keenness in seizing opportunities, and an +inflexibility of purpose rarely to be met with among his Anglo-Saxon +competitors. His present objective point, however, was the Spotted +Tail Agency, which was, from the valley of the Little Big Horn, an +affair of five days. Michaïl Lafond did it in four; or at least at the +end of the fourth he was within a few miles of the agency buildings. +By the evening of the third day, he had transformed both himself and +the little girl into an appearance of civilization, reclothing her in +the garments she had worn at the time of her capture, and himself in a +complete outfit which he had collected piece by piece on that last +night with the savages. The change was truly astonishing. + +His last camp in the open was pitched within sight of the Spotted Tail +reservation. The darkness was almost at hand. He had fed himself and +the child, had put the latter to rest under one blanket and was just +about to wrap himself in the other, when he became aware of a prairie +schooner swaying leisurely across the plains in his direction. He at +once sat up again. Every man was to him an object of suspicion. + +Not until the wagon had halted within a few feet of him could he +distinguish the occupant. Then he perceived that the latter was a +gentle-faced, silver-haired individual of mild aspect, dressed decently +but strangely, and possessed of introspective blue eyes, which he +turned dreamily on Lafond. + +"May I camp here?" he inquired deprecatingly. + +The half-breed considered. + +"I s'pose so," he said without enthusiasm. + +The old man descended and uncoupled his two animals. After he had +picketed them, he returned, and, extracting from the wagon body the +materials for a meal, he proceeded to make himself at home over +Lafond's fire. + +"I never did like to camp alone," he confided to the latter. + +Lafond watched him intently. No further words were exchanged until the +stranger had finished his supper and had restored his kit to the wagon. +Then the younger man offered the hospitality of the plains. + +"Yo' smok'?" he inquired, tendering his tobacco. + +"Thank you, no," replied the old man with a tone of breeding which +Lafond felt but could not define. + +The half-breed could not make out the newcomer, and the conversation +failed to enlighten him. That was an epoch when all the world turned +to the West; but it was a practical world. There one might in time +meet all sorts and conditions of men, from the English lord to the +turbulent Fenian; from the New York exquisite fallen on hard times to +the "bad man" who had never been east of the Mississippi. One never +betrayed surprise at anything one might bring ashore from this flotsam +and jetsam of the human race. But all these odds and ends were at +least made of tough material, strong enough to run wherever a rapid +current might dash them, capable of supporting hard knocks against one +another or the obstructions in the way; while this placid old man +seemed to Lafond like a crystal vessel, of rare quality, perhaps, but +none the less fragile. At the last he asked bluntly, "What do you +here?" + +The old man fell silent for a minute or two and gazed into the coals of +the dying fire. + +"My name is Durand," he said at last, with an infinitude of sorrow in +the tones of his voice. "I am an entomologist. I am here to get +specimens--butterflies; but it is not here that I belong. My place is +elsewhere, and that I know. But it is not in my country, and----" he +broke off. Lafond looked on curiously, for the dreamy haze had faded +from the speaker's eyes. "My friend," Durand went on, "there are times +when one cares not to see the face of man except in the bosom of the +great nature. I do not know that you understand that. It is with the +bitterness of a wrong that such knowledge comes, and with it comes the +hate of cities and of the things men do. Some men have had their will +of me, and I am come to the wilderness. They called it revenge to +drive me here." + +"Revenge! But you still live!" repeated Lafond in wonder. + +"And is it that you think the taking of life is revenge?" cried Durand, +with sudden energy. "They who take their revenge in killing are +actually the merciful ones, and they cheat no one but themselves." + +"Yes?" asked Lafond, his soul in the question. + +The other turned in surprise at his companion's vehemence. He saw a +stolid; dark-skinned man gazing impassively into the fire. + +"They are fools," went on Durand bitterly, after a moment; "just fools. +These others were of more ingenuity; they knew what would hurt, what +would avenge them better than the killing." + +"I do not understand," said the half-breed, feeling his way slowly, for +the fear of damming this flow of confidence. He looked away, for his +eye glowed, though his voice was steady. "W'at is it? If one kills, +if one takes that life, w'at is worse?" + +"Worse, worse?" cried Durand, flinging his hands impotently upward. "A +thousand things!" He suddenly became calm, and turned to Lafond with +impressive forefinger. "Listen, my friend. Life is a little thing. +Anyone can take it who has a gun, or a knife, or even a stone. But the +true revenge is in finding out what it is that each man prizes the +most, and then taking it from him. And that requires power! power! +power! + +"Few there are who have not something they prize more than life," he +added gloomily. The fire died from his eye. He became once again the +timid old butterfly hunter, pushing blindly out into the wilderness, +wondering at himself for thus exposing an old wound to a chance passer; +and yet perhaps feeling in some dim fashion--so inscrutable are the +instincts of these half-childish natures--that in so doing he was +following for a moment the lines of greater destinies than his own. + +And certainly, long after the dipper had swung below the pole star, +Lafond sat staring into the ashes of the fire, just as four days since +he had stared into the ashes of a brave and chivalrous life. In his +history there were the two crucial hours--one after the greatest battle +of the plains; the other after a dozen sentences exchanged with a +half-crazy old entomologist. From the potent reflections induced by +these one hundred and twenty minutes it resulted that Michaïl Lafond +became civilized and a seeker for wealth in the development of the +young country. In wealth he saw power; in power the ability to give or +take away. + +The depriving each man of that which he prizes the most! + + + + +XIII + +THE DISSOLVING VIEW + +While things have gone on, we have conducted our business and returned +each evening to our armchairs by the fire. There we have sat at ease +and reviewed the world. Events have come to pass. Diplomats have +quarrelled gravely over the wording of a document. From our evening +papers we have gathered a languid interest in the controversy. Six +months later we pick up the paper and find that the dispute is still +going on. A German and an Englishman play a game of chess over the +cable. This too is reported in our journal, and we follow its progress +with attention through the weeks of its duration. Somebody agitates +the establishment of a new industry in our native town. It will raise +the value of our real estate, so we attend meetings for some months and +talk about it, after which the industry is assured. Two years later it +is in operation and we congratulate ourselves. Friends of our younger +days marry; and before we know it their houses are noisy with the +shoutings of children. Leisurely we grow older. Our ideas become +fixed, often by the most trivial of circumstances. Africa means +tangled forest; India, a jungle; Siberia, broad snow plains; all South +America, a dripping stillness of tropical verdure; simply because +somewhere, some time, a book or paper, the woodcut of a child's lesson, +has so generalized them for us. Against these preconceived notions the +events we read about are cast. + +In very much this way the constant facts of the West have been to us +the Indian and the buffalo. Before our eyes the Master Showman has +held insistently this picture. Against the background of the +occidental hills or the flat reach of the grass-nodding prairies has +posed in solemn gravity the naked warrior, leaning from his pony upon +his feather-bedecked lance; or, in the choking dust of its own +progression, has lumbered heavily the buffalo myriad. These have +seemed permanent--the man and the beast. + +Then, before our protesting conservatism, the scene has dissolved in a +mist of strange shapes and violent deeds, only to steady a moment later +into a new picture. The mounted figure has disappeared, and in his +place, against the glow of sunset, the sturdy form of the husbandman +grasps the shaft of his plough, gazing past the tired horses, and +brooding the slow thoughts of his calling. The last rays catch the +sheen of grain--a sea of it--and shimmer lightly until they lose +themselves in contrast with the square of ruddy light that marks the +windows of a farmhouse. + +This is the new West. We rub our eyes and wonder. The diplomats still +squabble; the chess game dawdles its languid way; the factory is +getting ready to pay its first dividend; our friends' children are +about to enter the high school. Everything has developed along the +usual lines of growth, and yet this greater change has come about in a +night. We turn back the files of our paper, and find that it has +occupied in the world's history just fifteen years! In that little +space of time the institutions of untold ages have been overthrown and +new ones substituted for them. + +Deadwood was founded in 1876. In 1890 Sitting Bull and his tribe were +utterly destroyed in the mid-winter fight at Wounded Knee. Between +those dates, the Dakotas have manufactured at home an article of quite +adequate civilization. + +To be sure, the product is perhaps a little crude. Although enormous +grain fields attest indubitably that the farmer has tamed the soil, +equally enormous Indian reservations as indubitably dispute too +sweeping an assertion of it. Electric railways may be instanced in +some towns. The sprightly six-shooter is in others the quickest road +to the longest journey. Hot Springs has a modern hotel and an improved +bar; a scant thirty miles north is the unsheriffed log-mining camp +where the "bad man" terrorizes in all his glory. + +These things are true, but they count for little. The great facts +remain, and they are these: a cowboy named Tenney tried to lasso the +last buffalo some years since and got himself yanked over several +irregular miles of country; the Sioux are herded nicely on their +reservations and shoot at nickels with bows and arrows for the +amusement of passing tourists. The old frontier conditions have gone. +If you want trouble, you must go out to look for it; it no longer comes +to you unsought. In a word the broad sea of the wilderness has +shrunken to bayous and bays surrounded and intersected by dried areas +fit for the cultivation of paper collars and tenderfeet. The frontier +still exists, but exists in its isolation only because it is not as +commercially desirable as the rest. + +This is true of the country at large. It is also true of Pah-sap-pah, +the Black Hills. Already a railroad has pushed its way up the main +valley. The folders show a map with the usual blood-red artery of +mathematical straightness, passing through myriads of small-type towns, +clinging desperately by their noses to the blessings of commerce, and +sundry dignified, large-type cities, standing more aloof on their own +merits. It all looks imposing enough on paper; but in reality the line +does little more than keep itself warm in the narrow valley of its +route. On closer inspection the myriads of towns disappear. +Minnekahta is a station in the midst of a vast plain, Pringles a +sawmill, Stony Point just nothing at all. For the Black Hills are +great of extent, and one county of the Dakotas could swallow an eastern +State. + +All this, from border warfare to comparative order--say from Canute to +Elizabeth--not in a thousand years, but in the brief age of a man-child +growing out from his kindergarten into his college! + +To one who has lived with the country, the process has been an +education more thorough than that usually vouchsafed men. It has +lacked in the graces and accomplishments, perhaps, but it has brought +to the highest pitch the two qualities of self-reliance and of power of +insight into men's characters. Whatever blunders a frontiersman may +commit when visiting his neighbor cities in the East, they are never +the bashful blunders of a countryman. Bunco men can clean him out in a +gambling joint, but who ever heard of their selling him a gold brick? +He has lived through all this hundreds of years ago, when Wild Bill was +killed at Deadwood, or perhaps a century or so later, when, the year +following, Alfred took the Caldwells to the Hills and was so nearly +rushed by the Sioux. His life has been an epitome. He has met most +conditions at one time or another, and is no longer afraid of them. + +In a tale dealing with this period of the dissolving view--when in +changing from one slide of the lantern to the other the Master Showman +has permitted us a little glimpse of hurrying, heroic figures and +dazzled us with the clouds of great deeds swiftly done--the teller must +adopt one of two methods. He must either generalize, or be content to +spend his space on single episodes. In that period, every day was a +book. Men counted as nothing experiences filled with an excitement or +a pathos or a beauty intense enough to render significant the whole +life of a quiet New Englander. Acts were many, and trod close on one +another's heels, yet to each act there was a sequence of motive, of +desire, of logical effect, as well capable of being sought out and +described as though they were not entangled and confused in the rush of +the moments. The story teller could find his task in the dissection of +these, and the task would be interesting. But to one who is concerned, +not with a period, but a life, this is impossible. + +The fifteen years saw a marked change in the fortunes of the half-breed +known as Michaïl Lafond. During all that time he had led an apparently +honest and law-abiding life. No man could say that he had been cheated +by him or that he had been favored; but one and all with whom the +half-breed had come into contact could speak with admiration and fear +of the latter's power of seizing the best of the main chance. He had +left the child at the Spotted Tail reservation, giving her name as +Molly Lafond and making arrangements for her maintenance. He turned +some gold claims to advantage, but abandoned that sort of thing as too +uncertain. He participated mildly in the prosperity of several of the +mushroom towns of the period, but soon drew out of booms as possessing +also too much of the element of luck. + +He did the hundreds of other things to which men in a new country can +always turn their hands, and in each he made his profit; but in each he +found something lacking to the elaborate scheme of power he had builded +one evening before a prairie camp fire. Finally he hit upon whisky and +dance halls and there he stayed. Abandoning all other enterprises, he +gave his individual attention to these two, for he found in them not +only the surest and largest monetary returns, but the certain +popularity which men accord to those who minister to their pleasures. +From Deadwood to Edgemont there gradually grew up a string of saloons +bearing the name of Lafond. Some of them were paying, some on the +point of paying, some merely lying latent for the boom which Lafond +thought to see in the near future. For, as of old, he delighted in +discounting the future. He liked long shots in his investments. + +Over each of these various establishments their owner was in the habit +of placing a man chosen according to the needs of the place, and this +man fell more or less under Lafond's personal supervision according as +the exigencies of the case seemed to demand it. The half-breed's +policy was to keep in actual touch with the most prosperous, and to +give personal effort to the most promising. The others could take care +of themselves until their time came. So at Mulberry Gulch, where the +camp consisted only of a number of grub stakers, he owned a little log +cabin which he had never seen. At Deadwood, an old and prosperous +camp, he was proprietor of a begilded and bemirrored splendor so well +established that it needed only a periodical supervising visit to keep +it running smoothly. At Copper Creek was also nothing but a log-cabin +saloon; but Copper Creek bade fair to amount to something. Perhaps the +spirit of the three kinds was best indicated by the signs over their +counters. Mulberry Gulch exhibited a rudely lettered device informing +the public, "Pies, Whisky and Pistols for Sail Here." Deadwood thirsty +ones learned that they should "Ask for Our 1860 Old Crow; the Finest on +Earth." Copper Creek sententiously remarked: "To Trust is Bust." + +All this symbolized nothing more or less than the commercial history of +a successful man in the West. It meant nothing except that Lafond had +the instinct and the cleverness, and so was getting rich. More +interesting than the change of his fortune was the change of the man +himself. + +In the old days he had been crafty in a subtle way; but he had been +impulsive, eager, excitable, inclined to jump at the bidding of his +intuitions. Now his character seemed to have expanded and modified. A +powder explosion had slightly bent his straight figure, halted his +gait, and seamed his face with powder marks. To hide these last, he +wore a beard. The effect was one of quiet responsibility, and a +certain geniality, though a keen observer might have hesitated to call +this geniality kindly. + +His manner was very quiet. He never reproved his subordinates or +addressed a hasty word to anyone, unless he became thoroughly convinced +of the culprit's incapacity. Then his anger was at white heat. He +could forgive deliberate attempts to evade his commands or conscious +efforts at rascality, for with them he could cope; but mistakes he +never condoned. An occasional slight inversion of the natural order of +words or phrases was all that remained to him of his old accent. + +Altogether he was a personage whose public position was +unexceptionable. In the West no man has a past, unless that past is +personified and carries a rebuking six-shooter. He had wealth, +popularity, an acquaintance as wide as the Hills themselves. All that +meant power, especially when combined with a shrewd ability to read +men's characters. + +But of the old order one thing remained--his religion. In the storm +and stress of a period hot with events, his life work was conceived and +laid out. The lines of its plan had been seared into his soul by +crime. He no longer felt the smart, but the cicatrix was there, and he +daily bowed to its symbolism, often without a thought of what it really +meant. His was like the future of a boy who has entered the army; his +line of conduct was all prearranged, and his independence of it never +occurred to him. There was no glowering hate in this; only a certain +sense of inevitability. In other words, it was his religion. + +[Illustration: "COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..."] + +Certain things were to be done. First of all he must become wealthy. +Very well; wealthy he became. He must become popular. Agreed; he +cultivated his fellow men. He must know how to read character and to +hit upon weaknesses. Exactly; he bent his cleverness to the task. +There was a larger end to which these three were but the means; but +that would come later. Just now life meant quiet, earnest compassing +of the three things. Until they were quite within his grasp, he could +afford to shut into the background what their ultimate signification +should be. Lafond lived tranquilly a perfectly moral existence. + +But without his volition the great idea crystallized into some sort of +shape. It was always in the background, to be sure; but, after all, a +background fills the picture. _That which men hold to be most dear_! +The years had taught him what it was, without his actually demanding it +of them. Men hold most dear property, reputation, honor among their +fellow men, and the love of women. Women hold most dear virtue and a +good name. + +About fifteen years after he had quitted the Indians, Lafond suddenly +realized that he had gained the power and knew how to use it. Quite +dispassionately he looked ahead to the next step. + +There were Jim Buckley, Billy Knapp, Alfred and the doctor's family. +The latter now included only the girl, whom Lafond had himself caused +to be raised to young womanhood. Of the others, Jim Buckley and Alfred +had long since left the country--Alfred for Arizona, where he had gone +into cow punching; Buckley for Montana and Idaho, in whose mountains he +was supposed to be prospecting. These two, then, were out of the way +for the present. They would never be difficult to find, and in +comparison with Billy they had held quite a secondary place at the time +of the half-breed's molten state, before he had cooled into the fixed +forms of his conduct of life. + +The reason for this throws not a little light on Lafond's character. +The feminine streak in him hated Billy Knapp personally, simply because +that individual was loud in talk, great in size, and blustering in +manner. He could restrain his resentment against the bashful Alfred or +the imperturbable Jim; but not that against a man who seemed always, to +the high strung half-breed, the potential bully. He would have +followed Billy Knapp to China, if necessary. + +But it so happened that that individual, after a checkered career, had +settled down in the village or camp of Copper Creek, not forty miles +from Lafond's headquarters at Rapid. Billy's vicissitudes were those +of many of his class. Trained in the liberal give and take policy of +the early frontier times, he found himself, on their ebb, stranded high +and dry without appropriate means of progression. Billy was used to +relying on his plainscraft, his courage, his skill with firearms, and +his personal strength. Such qualities as economy, accuracy of +estimate, frugality, and patience in the overcoming of abstractions +would have been, to his early life, practically useless. He came to be +a big-hearted, generous fellow, without the slightest idea of the value +of money or the burden of debt. He was apt to be seized by many whims, +which he was wont to gratify on the spot. + +"Know Billy Knapp?" ruminated an old plainsman once. "Billy Knapp? +Seems to me I do; he's the feller that would buy the co't house yonder +if he could get trusted for it, ain't he?" + +It described him. And as in the old days his prestige had depended on +individual prowess of a rather spectacular order, it came about that +Billy was just a little fond of strutting. He liked to play the +patron, he liked to distribute favors, to treat to drinks, to stand as +the representative of great unseen forces, whether of military power in +the old days, or of extensive capital in these latter. + +For a great many years this vanity had remained ungratified. Billy had +not the virtues to succeed in the rising commercialism of the new West. +After the last great campaign against the Sioux, he found his usual +occupations almost wiped from the slate. The plains were as safe as +Illinois. He picked up a livelihood still, mainly by reason of his +wonderful gift of persuasion, for Billy could talk black white, if only +the particular shade and the discussion were situated in the West. He +drove stage, broke horses, bossed cattle outfits, and finally drifted +into prospecting. + +There his chance came. By a lucky stroke of trading he became +possessed of some really good quartz claims and a small sum of ready +cash. Two weeks later he was in Chicago. It was his first trip east +of the Mississippi, but he knew just what he wanted, and he got it. +Three days of Billy's golden oratory led to the purchase by an Eastern +syndicate of an option on his group of claims, and the understanding +that toward the middle of the following summer a committee of owners +should visit the property in order to discuss ways and means of +developing the various quartz leads. + +The delighted Billy returned to Copper Creek. There at last he found +himself the important figure he had always dreamed of being. He posed +to himself and to everybody else. The camp gradually filled, and the +claims round about were snapped up greedily. + +Lafond had easily kept himself informed of all this. It was +sufficiently notorious. Now when he came to a realization that the +next move in his game of life was due and that he should put to its +appointed use the power he had so long amassed, he decided to study +Billy Knapp in order to see which of the four--property, reputation, +honor or love--that volatile individual held most dear. He could make +a shrewd guess, but he wanted to be on the ground. And as he thought +about it, there came to him a great wave of enthusiasm and eagerness +over this game he was about to play; a delight in the magnitude of the +stakes and the power of the instruments employed, an intellectual +glorying quite different and separated from his personal feelings in +the matter, or that religious obligation of it which lay at the back of +his soul. + + + + +XIV + +INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS + +The first thing Michaïl Lafond did in pursuance of his new +determination was to visit the Spotted Tail reservation in order to +reclaim the girl henceforth to be known as Molly Lafond. + +No one knows why he had followed out his first impulse to preserve her +life and bring her up. After a time, however, she came to symbolize, +in his half-mystical perception of such things, the first cause of all +that had happened. Personally he liked her because she was such a +free, independent, fiery little creature. He liked to talk to her and +be ordered about by her. He liked also to watch the graceful, decisive +movements of her lithe young body and the sparkle of her hair. She +looked a good deal like her mother. + +He even listened with what would appear to be close sympathy to her +complaints of the agent's wife and the life to be led at a reservation. +She and the agent's wife never did get on well. The latter was a +stern, commonplace, fat woman without sympathy. And the life! There +were no men, nothing but Indians. All you could do was to read all day +and all the evening, or ride straight out in any given direction that +led nowhere. Michaïl Lafond, in his semi-annual visits, was inclined +to agree with her and even to pity her a little. His personal likings +were on the surface, and had nothing whatever to do with the deeps of +his nature. + +Just as the surest way of satisfying his thirst for revenge upon Billy +Knapp was to deprive the man of his reputation and his property, so he +had determined to make of Molly a dance-hall girl, like Colorado Jenny. +It would deprive her of virtue and good name, the things a woman holds +most dear. He also felt keenly, in his instinctive dramatic sense, the +fitness of throwing this fine-fibred daughter of a nobler race to the +hungry passions, of watching her reversion little by little to the +brute type; but a formulation of it never came to the surface of his +mind. And yet, I must repeat, there was in one sense nothing personal +in this. Lafond felt no aversion to the girl herself. He took no +pleasure in the thought of cursing her or beating her, as might a man +seeking a hotter revenge. It was just cold, malignant, calculating +hate of something in opposition to him, which she symbolized. + +This intellectual form of hatred is a peculiar characteristic of +half-breeds. + +When Lafond suggested to Molly that she should leave the agency and +take up her residence with him in Copper Creek, she assented very +gladly, for she felt her present life insupportable. The day before, +she and Mrs. Sweeney, the agent's wife, had come into violent collision. + +"Where was you yesterday afternoon?" Mrs. Sweeney had asked, as Molly +came into the kitchen. + +It was before breakfast, so Molly shrugged an impatient shoulder. + +"Riding," she replied briefly. + +"Riding where?" insisted Mrs. Sweeney with heavy persistency. + +"Over west." + +"See anybody?" + +"No." + +"Sure?" + +"Yes." + +The old lady wound her hands in her apron and fixed her charge severely +with her eye. + +"Strange how blind some folks is," she went on after a moment. "Now, I +was indoors washing an' I see that young sergeant over there scoutin' +'round." + +The words were simple; the tone was not. + +"What do you mean?" cried Molly sharply. "Do you mean to say I was +riding with him?" + +Mrs. Sweeney wagged her head with aggravating sagacity. + +"Nobody needn't put on no shoe that don't fit 'em," she said, and +sighed with the air of a martyr who has discovered all and is +disappointed. + +Molly knew that her question had been justified by the woman's +insinuation, that she had put on no shoe, and that if there were a +martyr in the room it was not the agent's wife. Thereupon she said +things excitedly. The agent's wife assumed an injured placidity, than +which there is nothing more aggravating. Finally Molly flounced out of +the room. + +The agent's wife, being utterly in the wrong, sulked after the manner +of women for the rest of the day, and had to be sued for forgiveness. + +And yet next day, when Molly and the half-breed drove away, Mrs. +Sweeney remembered that the girl had been with them nearly fifteen +years, and wept; and the agent booted a trespassing Indian from his +office with unwonted energy. + +Molly, on the other hand, was as happy as a lark. Every man knows the +thrill of anticipation when he stows the gun case under the seat and +induces the pointer to curl up in the straw, just as every woman knows +the delight of an entrance to a room which her presence brightens more +than any other's. Molly experienced the same thrill, the same delight. +She had the instincts of the coquette; the confidence of inexperience; +the false ideals of a knowledge drawn from books and speculation; and +her heart had not yet awakened her conscience. She looked forward to +her own power over men, for she was intelligent, and realized the +extent both of her charms and of her knowledge. The latter was not +inextensive, for in her reading she had enjoyed the overwhelming +advantage of heredity. Heredity is a little scheme by which, to a +great extent, one recognizes knowledge, instead of acquiring it. + +They drove along for some distance without speaking. The girl was too +happy and the half-breed too preoccupied to talk. + +"Mike," she commanded suddenly after a time, "quit that smoking. I +don't like it." + +The half-breed hesitated, narrowing his brow, and looking straight +ahead. Then he silently knocked the ashes from his pipe and slipped it +into his pocket. Molly's eyes flashed with triumphant amusement. The +game had begun. After a time the sun sank into the dark hills, and the +great shadow of Harney crept out of them. + +The wagon rattled down a short incline to the broad, shallow bed of the +Cheyenne. Molly turned it aside into a little grass plat. + +"We'll camp here to-night," she announced. + +"There is better water two mile further, on the trail, on Fall River," +said Lafond, without moving. + +"I said we'd camp here!" repeated the girl sharply. + +The half-breed descended and began to unharness the horses. + + + + +XV + +IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL + +The camp which was to be the scene of Lafond's operations and of the +girl's anticipated triumphs, lay between Ragged Top and Tom Custer. It +consisted of a double row of log cabins situated in the V of the deep +ravine. The men generally ate in the long dining-room of the hotel, +worked at prospecting in the hills, and spent their evenings in the +centrally situated Little Nugget saloon, the property of Michaïl Lafond. + +The night of the half-breed's arrival the usual crowd was carrying on +the usual discussions on the usual subjects. + +One fresh from the East entering the building would have been struck +first with the strangeness of the room. It was long and low, and on +three sides dark. Against the fourth wall was stretched tightly a +white cotton sheet, imitating plaster, in front of which stood the bar. +The bar was polished, narrow, with a foot rest in front and two towels +hanging from metal clasps just under the projecting eaves of it. It +had been brought in sections, by wagon, at considerable expense. Some +three feet behind the bar, stretched a shelf of the same height, towel +covered, on which stood four bottles in front of a little mirror. The +shelf was piled symmetrically with glasses of all shapes--tumblers, +ponies, fine-stemmed wineglasses--arranged in pyramids and squares. +They glittered in the glare of the lamps, and the indirect light from +the white sheet. A dim pink reflection was given back by the +mirror--dim and pink because the glass was draped with pink mosquito +bar. Overhead hung the sign which read, "To Trust is Bust." + +Beneath the reflector of the largest lamp lounged the barkeeper reading +a paper. He had spread the paper on the bar, and, having crooked his +elbows out at wide angles around its margin, was bending his head of +straw-colored hair close over the print. He was dressed in white as to +the upper part of his body. Occasionally he read aloud in a monotone +from the paper. At other times his lips moved slowly, shaping the +invisible words as they took form in his sluggish brain. + +"The latest creations in ties," he read, "are described by our buyer as +being natty effects in the narrow plaids." + +Outside this glare of light from the white-dressed man, and the +glittering pyramids and squares and glasses, and the dim pink +reflections, and the white sheet imitating plaster, the rest of the +room seemed dark by contrast. Near the door and the small front +window, glowed a red-hot stove. Along the walls were ranged chairs. +In the chairs sat many men smoking. Above the men a few cheap pictures +were tacked against the rough walls. One of them represented an +abnormally slim and smooth race horse against a background of vivid +green. Another showed an equally green landscape, throwing into relief +a group of red-coated men on spider-legged horses, pursuing a huddle of +posing white hounds. One of the spider-legged horses had fallen, and +the rider, being projected horizontally forward, was suspended rigidly +in mid air, like Mohammed's coffin, and with as much apparent prospect +of coming to earth. Still another presented the sight of an +exceedingly naked woman descending from an exceedingly flat and marble +couch. One foot was on the floor, and the other knee rested still on +the flat and marble couch. It was labelled "Surprised." + +Three large lamps with reflectors illuminated this part of the room. +Then came a strip of comparative dusk; then another hanging-lamp +disclosed a smooth-topped table, on which was a faro lay-out. + +The men in the chairs smoked industriously and spoke seldom. The air +was thick with the smoke of strong tobacco, such as "Hand Made" and +"Lucky Strike." Very near the stove sprawled old Mizzou, +low-foreheaded, white-bearded, talking always of women and the merits +of grass-widows and school-ma'ams. + +"They is nothin' like 'em!" he asserted with ever-fresh emphasis of +tone. "Back in Chillicothe, whar th' hogs an' gals is co'n-fed, they +is shore bustin'! When one of them critters comes 'round, I feels jest +like raisin' hell and puttin' a chunk under it!" + +"Th' _hell_ you do!" snorted Cheyenne Harry, scowling his handsome +brows, "th' _hell_ you do! Give us a rest with yore everlasting +females." He pulled his hat over his eyes, and drew savagely on his +pipe, his right hand over the bowl, his left clasped tight under his +armpit. + +Billy Knapp was telling about his mine. + +"On that thar Buffalo lode," he said impressively, "I got a lead twenty +foot wide. _Twenty foot_, I say! And it holds out; it holds out a +lot. It's great. I says to them Chicago sharps, I says, 'You won't +find sech a lead as thet thar nowhere else in the Hills,' and by gravy +I believe that's right! I do for shore! An' I says to them, I says, +'It only takes a little sinkin', an' a little five stamp mill, t' put +her on a paying basis to wunst. Ain't no manner of _doubt_ of it! I +tell you it's a chance! that's what it is!'" + +He breathed hard with the enthusiasm into which his words lifted him. +He vociferated, telling over and over about his twenty foot lead. He +held his great hand suspended in the air through whole sentences, +bringing it down with a mighty slap as he came to his conclusions. The +men about him listened unmoved. They believed what he said, but they +had got over being excited at it. Jack Graham, his hat on his knees, +twisted his little moustache and smiled amusedly. As the scout +appealed to him from time to time, he nodded silent assent. Over +beyond the bar of dusk, two men were staking small sums at faro. The +keen-eyed dealer was monotonously calling the cards. "All ready; all +down; hands up; jack win; queen lose!" he drawled. + +In the corner nearest the door, a youth of eighteen huddled on the +floor asleep. Here and there wandered an active wire-haired dog, +bigger than a fox terrier and of different color, but with the +terrier's bright eyes and alert movements. It was a strange beast, +brown and black on the head, black on the body, badger gray on the +legs, with sharp white teeth, over which bristled gray whiskers of the +stiffness of a hair brush. As it passed the various men, it eyed them +closely, ready to wag its stump of a tail in friendship, or to circle +warily in avoidance of a kick. It was a self-reliant dog, a dog used +to taking care of itself. Men called it Peter, without abbreviation. + +Peter was possessed of the spirit of restlessness. He smelled +everything, first with dainty sniffs, then with long, deep inhalations. +Thus he came to know the inner nature of table legs and chairs, of +men's boots and of dark corners. Between investigations he would stand +in front of the bar and stretch, sticking first one hind leg, then the +other, at stiff angles behind him, and then, fore feet far in front, +pressing the chest of his long body nearly to the floor. + +These things irritated Cheyenne Harry. He attempted to command Peter +harshly, but Peter paid no attention. + +"Off his feed," observed Dave Williams to young Barker in an undertone. + +"Yeah," agreed the latter. + +About eight o'clock Blair and the stage drew in and drew out again, +after warming at the red-hot stove a little cross man who cursed the +whole West--climate, scenery, and all--with a depth and heartiness that +left these loyal Westerners gasping. Billy Knapp had attempted to +reply, but had not held his own in the interchange. + +After the stranger had gone out, the pristine calm broke into a froth +of recrimination. The room shouted. It blamed Billy. It cursed the +stranger. It thought of a dozen things that might have been said or +done, as is the fashion of rooms. Billy vociferated against the +tourist. + +"Little two by four prospec' hole!" he cried. "He may be all right +whar he comes from, which don't rank high anyhow, but when he comes out +yar makin' any sech fool breaks as that, he don't assay a cent a ton +fo' sense!" + +"Oh, hell," growled Cheyenne Harry. "You-all make me tired!" + +"Shake yore grouch, Harry," they advised good-humoredly. Cheyenne +Harry was popular, fearless and a good shot. He had a little the +reputation, in some quarters, of being a "bad man." + +Billy went on with his tirade. The men shook their heads. "You wasn't +ace high, Billy," said they. Billy insisted, getting more and more +excited. They looked down from the calm of superior wisdom. Their +anger vanished in Billy's. He was angry for the whole crowd. + +"Moroney ought to have been here," they observed regretfully. "He's +th' boy! He'd have trimmed th' little cuss good. Can't get ahead of +Moroney nohow." + +Billy denied that Moroney could have done better than he, Billy, did. +The men championed Moroney's cause with warmth. A new discussion arose +out of the old. With a prodigious clatter every man drew up his chair +until a circle was formed. Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, the +barkeeper, leaned his head on his fists across the bar, trying to hear. +The two men at the faro game cashed in and quit. The faro dealer, +imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like, shuffled his cards. Around the +outside of the word-hurling circle Peter wandered, sniffing at chairs +and the boots of men. + +Then on a sudden Molly and the half-breed arrived, to the vast +astonishment of Copper Creek, which had no women and expected none. + +The newcomers appeared in the doorway, apparently from nowhere, pausing +a moment before entering the saloon. Molly leaned a hand on each jamb, +and calmly surveyed the room. Lafond blinked his eyes at the light, +imperturbably awaiting the girl's good pleasure. After a moment she +stepped inside, and again looked the apartment over, slowly, +searchingly. She saw in that long sweeping glance everything there was +to be seen--the men and their various attitudes, the bar, the glasses, +the mirror draped with mosquito bar, the white cotton sheet, the lamps, +the faro table, even the three sporting pictures on the wall. + +In that moment she made up her mind what to do. Her heart was beating +fast and her color was high. She experienced all the sensations of a +man going into battle, but not a timid man, or one not sure. Rather, +she felt a new access of force, a new confidence, a new imperious power +that would bend conditions to suit itself. She knew in a flash just +how to tame these untamed men. + +Then she stepped swiftly forward and marched up to the bar, against +which she leaned the broad of her back, running her arms along the rail +on either side and resting one heel against the foot rest. She tossed +her curls back, and again looked coolly at the silent men. + +An observer might have found it interesting to note how the different +inmates of the room took this unexpected appearance of the First Woman. +Billy Knapp stared with round, gloating eyes, in which a hundred +possibilities awoke. Cheyenne Harry, aroused from his slouching +attitude, thrust his pipe into his pocket and furtively smoothed his +moustache. Graham looked the newcomer over with cool inquiring +scrutiny. Frosty began to polish a glass, finding relief from his +embarrassment in accustomed and commonplace occupation. The faro +dealer shuffled his cards, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like. Peter +sat upright on his haunches, sniffing daintily, first in the girl's +direction, then in the man's, watching, bright-eyed and alert. Peter +was the only being in the place who noticed the girl's companion. The +latter, in turn, inspected the room deliberately, with a crafty +calculation. + +"Well," said Molly Lafond, with slow scorn, "how long are you going to +sit there before you take care of a lady's horses?" + +Then they suddenly became aware of the half-breed and of the +white-covered schooner, dimly visible through the door. They began to +regain control of their wits. The arrested currents of life moved once +more. Who was this girl? Why should she command? Above all, why did +not this little black hairy man take care of his own horses? Men +helped themselves in the West. + +They stirred uneasily, but no one responded. The girl's eyes flashed. + +"Move!" she commanded, stretching her arm with a sudden and regal +gesture toward the door. + +The three men nearest jumped up and hurried out. The girl stood for an +instant, her arm still outstretched; then she dropped it to her side +with a rippling laugh. + +"You boys need someone to make you stand 'round, that's all," she said. +"Next time I speak, you _rustle_!" + +She placed her hands behind her on the bar, and jumped lightly upward, +perching on one corner and swinging her little feet to and fro. She +sat in the focus of one of the larger lamps, seeming to radiate with a +strange hard brilliancy. Her eyes sparkled and her curly golden hair +escaped from under her old peaked cap in a bewildering tangle of +twisted and glittering fire. She went on easily, without +embarrassment, chattering in so assured a manner that the men were +silenced by the very shyness that should have been hers. + +"We got here a little late, boys," she said, conversationally, "on +account of a hot box, but here we are--me and Mike. You don't know us +though, do you? Well, this is Mike Lafond." She looked toward the +half-breed, and a sudden inspiration lit her eye. "Black Mike!" she +cried, clapping her hands. "That's it; Black Mike." She paused in +happy contemplation of the appropriateness of this nickname. It seemed +to fit; and it stuck forever after. "He owns this joint here, he says, +and I reckon he says right," she went on after a pause. "He ain't +pretty, but I'll tend to that for the family." She perked her head +sideways, proving the point beyond contest. + +Peter, who had been watching her, his own head in the same attentive +pose, took this as a signal. He barked sharply. "Shut up, dog!" +commanded Molly. She seized a pretzel from a tin pan at her side and +threw it at Peter. Peter considered the pretzel as a contribution, so +subsided. + +"Well, boys, I'm glad to be here. I'm going to stay. You might look +more pleased." She cast her eye along the group of men, each in a +tense attitude of uneasiness. Graham's nonchalant and lounging +self-poise struck her. "Aren't you glad?" she asked, pointing her +finger at him. His quizzical smile only deepened. Failing to confuse +him, as she intended, Molly hastily abandoned him. "You ought to be," +she asserted, skilfully turning the remark in the direction of Cheyenne +Harry. "Come here and let's look at you. I want to know your name. +You ain't bashful, are you?" + +Harry put on an appearance of ease and sauntered over to the bar. He +would show the boys that he was used to society. He grinned at her +pleasantly. + +"Can't no one look purty nex' to you!" he said boldly. + +"Well, well!" cried Molly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. +"That's the first pleasant word I've had, and after I've told you I was +coming here to live, too!" + +Billy Knapp bounced up, eager to retrieve his reputation. + +"Th' camp bids you welcome, ma'am, an' is proud and pleased that such a +beauteous member of her lovely sect is come amongst us!" he orated. + +The men moved their chairs slightly. One or two cleared their throats. +The constraint was beginning to break. + +"Thank you," replied Molly prettily. "This is an occasion. Mike here +asks you all to have a drink. Don't you, Mike?" + +The half-breed nodded. He was watching the progress of affairs keenly. + +Frosty set out glasses, into which the men poured whiskey from small +black bottles. Harry gave his own to the girl, and then procured +another for himself. Mike sat by the stove. Peter approached +tentatively, but decided to remain at a wary distance. At the other +end of the room the faro dealer shuffled his cards, indifferent, +imperturbable, cat-like; a strange man, without friends, implacable and +just. The men who had gone to stable the horses entered and received +their glasses. The girl raised hers high in the air. + +"Now," she cried, "here's hoping we'll all be good friends!" + +The men drank their whiskey. They were slowly developing a certain +enthusiasm over the new girl. Constraint was gone. They lounged +easily against the bar. Two stood out near the middle of the floor, +where they could see better, their arms across each other's shoulders. +Molly touched her lips to her glass, and handed it to Billy, who stood +on the other side of her. "Drink it for me," she whispered +confidentially in his ear. + +"It'll make me drunk," he said in mock objection. She looked +incredulous. "You have touched it with yore lips," he explained +sentimentally, and drank to cover his confusion. He felt elated. He +had made a pretty speech, too. + +The girl laughed and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. At +either knee was one of these great men; about were many others, all +looking at her with admiration, waiting for her words. This was +triumph! This was power! And then she looked up and found Graham's +calm gray eyes fixed on her in quizzical amusement. She turned away +impatiently and began to talk. + +Never was such airy persiflage heard in a mining camp before. The +prospectors were dissolved in a continual grin, exploded in a perpetual +guffaw. Now they understood the charm of woman's conversation, which +Moroney had so often extolled. They spared a thought to wish that +Moroney were here to take part in this. "Moroney can do such elegant +horsing," they said. What a pair this would be! How she glanced from +one member to the other of the group with her witty speeches! She +rapped each man's knuckles hard, to the delight of all the rest, and +yet the fillip left no pain, but only a pleasant glow. They laughed +consumedly. + +And then, after a little, she asked them if they could sing; and +without waiting for a reply, she struck up a song of her own in a high, +sweet voice. With a gripping of the heart and a catching of the +breath, they recognized the air. Not one man there had ever heard its +words in a woman's voice before. It was "Sandy Land," the universal, +the endless, the beloved, the song that brings back to every Westerner +visions of other times when he has sung it, and other places--the night +herd, the camp fire, the trail. With the chorus there came a roar as +every man present sang out the heart that was in him. The girl was +surrounded in an instant. This was the moment of which she had +dreamed. She half closed her eyes, and laughed with the gurgling +over-note of a triumphant child. + +Cheyenne Harry straightened from his lounging position at the girl's +left, slipped his arm about her waist, and kissed her full upon the +lips. + +The room suddenly became very still. Peter could be heard scratching +his neck with stiffened hind leg behind the stove. Graham half started +from his seat, but sank back as he saw the girl's face. Mike never +stirred or missed a puff on his short pipe. + +The girl paled a little, and, putting her hands behind her, slid +carefully off the edge of the bar to the floor. Then she walked with +quick firm steps to the offender and slapped him vigorously, first on +one side of the head, then on the other. He raised his elbows to +defend his ears, whereupon she reached swiftly forward under his arm +and slipped his pistol from its open holster; after which she retreated +slowly backward, holding both hands behind her. Cheyenne Harry turned +red and white, and looked about him helplessly. + +"You ain't big enough to have a gun!" she said, with scorn. "When you +get man enough to tell me you're sorry, I'll give it back." + +She crossed the room toward the street, dangling the pistol on one +finger by the trigger guard. + +"I reckon I'll go now," she said simply. She passed through the door +to the canvas-covered schooner outside. + +A breathless but momentary silence was broken by Cheyenne Harry. + +"I know it, boys, I know it," he protested. "Don't say a word. +Frosty, trot out the nose paint." + +Billy was fuming. + +"_Hell_ of a way to do!" he muttered. "Nice _hospitable_ way to welkim +a lady! _Lovely_ idee she gets of this camp!" + +Harry turned on him slowly. "What's it to yuh?" he asked malevolently. +"What's it to yuh, eh? I want to know! Who let _you_ in this, anyway?" + +He thrust his head forward at Billy. + +"For the love of Peter the Hermit, shut up, you fellows!" cried Jack +Graham. "Don't make ever-lasting fools of yourselves. That girl can +take care of herself without any of your help, Billy; and it served you +dead right, Harry, and you know it." + +"That's right, Billy," said several. + +Harry growled sulkily in his glass. "Ain't I knowin' it?" he objected. +"Ain't I payin' fer this drink because I know it? But I ain't goin' t' +have any ranikahoo ijit like Billy Knapp rubbin' it in." + +"Billy didn't mean to rub it in," said Jack Graham, "so shake hands and +let up." + +The threatened quarrel was averted, and the men drank on Harry. Then +Mike set up the drinks to the furtherance of their friendly relations. +They talked to Mike at length, inquiring his plans, approving his sense +in choosing Copper Creek as a residence, congratulating him on his +daughter, commending her style. Mike hoped they would make the Little +Nugget their evening headquarters. They replied with enthusiasm that +they would. Mike made himself agreeable in a quiet way, without saying +much. Everybody was "stuck" on him--everybody but Harry. Harry sulked +over Billy's insults. His sullen mood had returned. Finally, late in +the evening, he pushed his chair back abruptly and went up to the bar. + +"I'm goin'," he announced. "Give me that bottle." + +He poured himself a stiff drink, which he absorbed at a toss of the +wrist, and turned away. + +"Mr. Mortimer," called Frosty, "did you pay for this?" + +"Chalk it down to me," called Harry, without looking back. + +Frosty caught the snake eye of his proprietor fixed upon him. He +twisted his feet in terror beneath the bar. "It's agin the rules," he +called at last, weakly, just as Harry reached the door. + +The latter turned in heavy surprise. Then he walked deliberately back +to the bar, on which he leaned his elbows. + +"Look yere," he said truculently, "ain't I good fer that?" + +"Why, yes, I reckon so," cried poor Frosty in an agony. "But it's agin +the rules." + +"Rules, rules!" sneered Harry. "Since when air you runnin' this joint +on rules? Ain't you chalked drinks up to me before? Ain't you? +Answer me that. Ain't you?" + +"But it's different now," objected Mudge. + +"Different, is it? Well, you chalk that drink up to me as I tell yuh, +or go plumb to th' devil for the pay. And don't you bother me no more, +or I'll have to be harsh to yuh!" Harry loved to bully, and he was +working off his irritation. The men in the room stood silent. Harry +liked an audience. He went on: "I'll shoot up yore old rat joint yere +till you ain't got glass enough left to mend your wall eye, you +white-headed little varmint." + +Lafond had come softly to the end of the bar. "Naw," he interrupted +quietly, "you are not shooting up anything." + +Harry turned slowly to him and spread his legs apart. "And did you +address me, sir?" he begged with mock politeness. "Would you be so +p'lite as to repeat yore remarks?" + +"You are not shooting up anything," reiterated Mike, "and it is you who +will settle for this drink. Behold the sign which you have read!" + +Harry turned to the room wide eyed. "Did you hear the nerve of it?" he +inquired. "Tellin' me what I'll do! You damn little greaser," he +cried in sudden fury, "I'll show you whether I'm shootin' up anythin'!" + +He reached for his gun, remembered on the instant that his holster was +empty, and sprang for Lafond. The half-breed calmly lifted a whiskey +glass, near which he had taken the precaution to stand, and slopped its +contents full in the other's eyes. Harry, blinded, struck against the +corner of the bar. Mike slipped to one side and produced his revolver. + +Several sprang between the two men. The room was in an uproar. Peter +barked, clamant, frantic. Everybody tried to talk at once. In the +background the faro dealer ceased shuffling his cards, and began +imperturbably, indifferently, to pack together his layout. He had made +little that night. After a moment he went out, without a glance toward +the excited group. + +The men were forcing the blinded and raving Harry toward the door. +Mike leaned over the bar, watching with bright eyes, his arms folded +across his chest and the pistol barrel peeping over the crook of one +elbow. + +When they had all gone out, most of them shouting good-natured +farewells, he turned savagely on the pale-faced Mudge. The native +cruelty of the man blazed forth. He scored the barkeeper with a tongue +that lashed like a whip, vituperating, crushing with the weight of his +sarcasm, frightening with the vividness of his threats. Mudge shrank +back into the corner of the space behind the bar, spreading his arms +along either side, watching the half-breed with wide-open fascinated +eyes, as one would watch a dangerous wild beast. + +After a little the storm passed. Lafond asked in surly tones where the +bunk was. Frosty showed him his own, behind the saloon, in a little +shack of hewn timbers. Without a word Lafond turned in, dressed as he +was, and closed his eyes. For a time he ruminated slowly. He had seen +his man, and already he could put his finger on one weak point in +Billy's personality--love of the spectacular, of bombast. A blow to +his vanity would hurt. The half-breed had also taken fair measure of +most of the other men in the room. He knew how to ingratiate himself, +and his bold move in the case of Cheyenne Harry had had that object +directly in view. He did not as yet see clearly just what form his +blow to Billy's vanity was to take, but that would come with time. +Lafond's calling and his position in the new town gave him unlimited +opportunities for observation, and he was in no hurry. After waiting +fifteen years, another twelvemonth would not matter. + +"Go slow," said Black Mike to himself. + +His doze was abruptly broken by Frosty's scared voice asking a +question. The barkeeper's thick wits could not take in the situation. +He was frightened almost out of his senses, and incapable of +consecutive thought. + +"And where shall I sleep, sir?" he asked stupidly in a timid little +voice. + +Mike turned over explosively. "You can sleep in hell for all of me!" +he shouted angrily. "Get out!" + +Frosty returned to the main room of the saloon. There he spread a +horse blanket, redolent of the stables, on the floor behind the stove. +After a time Peter lay down beside him. The barkeeper, frightened, +stupid, vaguely nervous, in his slow nerveless way, gathered the +strange intelligent dog to him, and the two slept. + +The men took Harry to the creek, where he washed out his eyes. They +had many comments to make, to none of which Harry vouchsafed a reply. +But his sulkiness was gone. Suddenly he paused for a moment in his +ablutions, and laughed. + +"Damned if they ain't a pair!" he asserted. "And that gal----" + +"She shore beats grass-widders and school-ma'ams!" said Old Mizzou. + + + + +XVI + +AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN + +The girl had seen all that Lafond had seen and more. She knew now that +Billy Knapp was easily the most important figure in the camp; that +Cheyenne Harry was the most admired and feared; that Jack Graham was +the most likely to be heard from in the future. The other men fell +into the background behind these three figures. The situation was +simplified by the fact. All she needed now for complete triumph was, +to discover the vulnerable points of these three, attack them craftily, +and the game was hers. + +She thought she knew the way. She fell asleep dreaming of it. She +awoke in the early morning with the day's plan clear and perfect in her +mind, each move in the game she was to play clearly outlined before +her. It had come to her in the night without conscious effort on her +own part. + +She dressed herself in the semi-obscurity of the wagon-body, and +stepped out into the morning. The brook was not far away. She +discovered it, and bathed her face and throat in its ice-cold waters. +Then she returned to the wagon, where she made breakfast of a huge +irregular chunk of bread and slices of cold bacon, sitting on the wagon +tongue and swinging her feet carelessly back and forth while eating. +Occasionally she threw a remnant to the few silent Canada jays that +drifted here and there in the sleeping town, fluffed out like milkweed +pollen in the summer, searching for scraps. They swooped to her +offerings on swift motionless wing, and then retreated to a distance, +whence they abused their benefactor with strident voice. The girl +watched them idly. + +How to impress her personality in the most agreeable way on the +greatest number of men! The problem was many faceted. She must not +show favoritism; therefore the method must be general. She must render +herself and not merely her sex agreeable: therefore it would have to be +personal. It must appeal to the men's sense of protection rather than +to their mere admiration; therefore in it she must efface herself, and +exalt them. This was all apparently contradictory. But no; she saw it +clearly in a flash. She must let them do her a favor. Instinctively +she realized, though she did not formulate the thought, that this is +one of the sure ways of gaining a man's good will. She cast back over +the necessities of the case, and saw that it would suffice. In doing +something for her, they would at once stand well in their own eyes, +because of a certain consciousness of unselfish effort; they would +expand protectively toward her, because of her weakness, implied in the +fact that they could do her a kindness. What was the favor to be? The +wagon behind her answered the question. They should build her a house. + +All this passed through her mind, as a drift setting in from upstream, +gliding before her consciousness, and floating on down stream in +unhasting progression. She did not realize that she was thinking out a +problem; at least she made no effort to do so. It came to her as she +needed it. To all appearance she was watching idly, with unruffled +brow, the tenuous threads of smoke which indicated that the camp was +awakening. The number of these smoke signals suggested a new problem. +She could hardly enlist the entire population of a camp the size of +Copper Creek in the task of building one little log cabin. The idea of +the swarming multitude struck her as so funny that she laughed aloud. +She must choose; and the choice must be judicious. The men selected +must represent the influential element, the leaders of opinion; while +those denied the privilege of serving her must be the sort who always +follow with the majority. Here her intuition balked, and her scanty +knowledge could not help it out. She was frankly puzzled. + +As she sat there knitting her brows, a boy came up the street. He was +bare-foot, straw-hatted, freckled. He had wide gray eyes, a snub nose, +and an impudent mouth. His clothes were varied and inadequate. Over +his arm he carried a little rifle. About him, at a wary distance, +frisked Peter, escaped from the Little Nugget through some mysterious +back exit. + +The boy occasionally threw an impatient stick at Peter, whereupon Peter +would suddenly place two paws in front of him and bend his back down, +with every appearance of delight. Then the boy would issue commands to +Peter anent returning home, to which Peter paid not the slightest +attention. So absorbed was he in his effort to get rid of what he +evidently considered an undesirable companion, that he did not notice +the girl until he was within a few yards of her. He then gave his +entire attention to her inspection. He stood on one spot and stared +without winking, digging a big toe into the dust. His unabashed eyes +took in every detail. He was without embarrassment, and evidently gave +not a thought to the effect of this extended scrutiny on the object of +it. + +"Hello, kid!" called Molly. + +The boy completed his leisurely inspection. Then, "Hello," he +answered, with reserve. + +"Won't you come over and see me?" + +He weighed the point and drew nearer. + +"Who are you?" he asked bluntly. + +"My name's Molly; what's yours?" + +"Dennis Moroney. They call me the Kid. What-chew doin' here?" + +"I'm going to live here." + +"Oh," said he, and looked her all over again. "This rifle's a +flobert," he observed. + +"Is it? Let's see. What do you shoot with it? Is there much game up +here?" + +"Don't snap it; it's bad for it. They's lots of game. I got a fox +squirrel the other day. He was so long. He was up a big pine, and I +hit him right through the head." + +"You must be a good shot. Will you take me hunting with you some day?" + +"I dunno," he replied doubtfully. "Girls ain't much good." + +"Try me," urged Molly, smiling. + +"I'll let you shoot her off anyway," he said magnanimously. "But you +gotter help clean her. If you don't clean her, she gets rusty and +won't shoot straight. Here's the catridges." + +"What little bits of things! Will they kill anything?" + +"Hoh!" replied the Kid with contempt. + +"Is that your dog?" hastily inquired Molly, conscious of her error. +Peter was busily engaged in acquiring an olfactory knowledge of the +four wheels and two axles of the wagon. + +"Him? Naw. He's the bigges' fool dog I ever see. He goes along +unless you tie him up. And he keeps rummagin' around, and he scares +all the game there is. _I_ can't _make_ him stay home." + +A cabin door opened quickly, and a miner issued forth. + +"There goes Dan Barker," said the Kid. + +In twenty minutes Molly knew the history of everyone of any importance +in town. She found the child's primitive instinct of hero worship an +unerring touchstone by which to judge of each individual's influence in +this little community. He reflected the camp's opinion, and this was +exactly what she wanted to learn. She encouraged the boy to talk--not +a difficult matter, for his attentions had hitherto been quite ignored, +saving by Frosty and Peter. Frosty had proved valuable always in the +matter of skinning game or extracting refractory shells, but he had +never, even in his youngest days, been a boy. Between Peter and the +Kid was waged a perpetual war on the subject of hunting methods. The +Kid believed in stalking. Peter held the opinion that the chase was +the only noble form of the sport. The child had been lonely, strange. +Now he chatted to Molly with all the self-reliant confidence which +pertains of right to healthy boyhood, but which heretofore he had been +denied. He boasted with accustomed air. He spoke lightly of great +deeds. Molly did not laugh at him. His heart warmed to her, and he +fell in love with her on the spot. This was perhaps the most important +conquest the girl was destined to make, for there is no devotion in the +world like that of a boy of thirteen for a girl older than himself. + +[Illustration: "WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!"] + +In a little time, Molly had gathered a number of men about her, and was +holding them by sheer force of charm. + +"How are you?" she called pleasantly to the first. + +"Purty smart," grinned the man, slouching past awkwardly. "How's +yourself?" + +"Good. Come on over and see me and the Kid for awhile." + +She talked to him lightly, while he lumbered along after with his slow +wits. Other men came out, to all of whom she called a greeting, and +some of whom she summoned to her. She held them easily. It became an +audience, a court. They had a good time. There was much laughter. No +one grudged the delay. Each man held his axe shouldered, expecting to +go on to work in a moment or so, but still lingering--because she +willed that he should. + +After a time, the hotel began to give up its inmates. The gambler came +forth into the sunshine and lit a cigarette. Graham joined him, +casting an amused eye at the men about the wagon. Two or three others, +including the proprietor, leaned against the hitching rail watching the +animated group. Finally Cheyenne Harry sauntered carelessly forth. +His broad hat--straight-brimmed in a lop-brimmed camp--was pushed to +one side. He swaggered a little. + +The girl saw him and jumped down from the wagon tongue, breaking off +suddenly in a remark she was making. + +"Hi, you!" she called. + +He paid no attention. + +"Hi, you!" she repeated, jumping up and down with a pretty impatient +flutter of the hands. "Hi, you! Come here! You're wanted!" + +He looked up surprised. + +"Come here!" she repeated. + +And he went. + +"Now, boys," she said, when he had joined the group, "I'm going to live +with you, and if I live with you, I must have a place to live in. So I +want you to build me a shack. Will you do it?" + +The men looked at one another. + +"All right," went on Molly, taking their silence for consent, and +assuming a small air of proprietorship which became her well. She +specified site and size. "And you," she commanded Cheyenne Harry, "are +to boss one gang and I'll take the other. You stay here and level up, +and I'll go with some of the boys to cut the timber." + +She knew Harry would not refuse because his pistol holster was empty +and all the camp knew why. And yet levelling up is a most disagreeable +job, for it is a question of pulverized rock and wood blocks, in soft +ground; and of blasting with dynamite, in hard ground. + +Molly issued her orders rapidly. Axes were found, log chains exhumed +from the warehouse dust, horses harnessed. She waited long enough to +see the gang under Cheyenne Harry well started in its work; and then, +herself mounted on one of the horses, she and the other men took their +way down the ravine in search of timber. She was satisfied with having +been able to give Cheyenne Harry just the position of authority in the +little undertaking which he now held, but she confessed to a feeling of +disappointment that Billy Knapp had not been forthcoming, for he too +should have had a place in her scheme. She had observed Jack Graham +near the hotel, but she had other ideas in regard to the management of +that refractory individual. + +But it so happened that, in regard to Billy, chance helped her out. +The route selected ran up the valley, and about the bend was situated +the Great Snake lode, Billy Knapp's famous claim, before the shack of +which its proprietor was at that very moment fuming savagely over the +non-arrival of certain men he had hired to build more fitting quarters +for the new company's inspection. Billy blew a big cloud from his +pipe, and swore, when he finally caught sight of a group of axemen and +horses headed in his direction. + +The men saw him too. They began to laugh. "Good one on Billy Knapp," +they agreed. "He must be pretty hot when his axe gang don't come any." + +The girl overheard them. + +"What's that about Billy Knapp?" she asked sharply. + +"Didn't mean y' to hear, ma'am," replied the speaker. "Don' matter ez +fur's we's concerned. But Billy, he aims to put up a shack to-day, +gettin' ready for them tenderfeet that's comin' from Cheecawgo to look +over th' property; an' he hires a lot of th' boys t' put it up fer him, +an', you see, you runs off with 'most the hull outfit yere to build you +a shack. So, natural, we thinks it makes Billy hot." + +"I see," said Molly. She reflected a moment. "Where is it?" she asked. + +"That's it, right to the lef'. And that's Billy walkin' 'round loose." +They laughed again. + +Without a word she turned the animal she was riding sharp to the left, +and began to mount the little knoll. The men followed in +consternation. Billy's patience was not noted for its evenness. + +"Hullo, Billy!" she cried when she was near enough. "Good morning!" + +Billy had not at first caught sight of her, and was now plainly a +little nonplussed over his unexpected guest. Clearly he could not at +this moment "cuss out" the delinquents as they deserved. He removed +his broad black hat. + +"Good mo'ning! Good mo'ning!" he replied to the girl's greeting. +"Come up t' see th' wo'ks?" + +"Whoa!" called Molly. The men stopped. "No," she said flatly, "I +didn't. Not to-day, that is. I'm busy. I'm hunting for good timber." + +Billy looked puzzled. "Timber?" he repeated. + +"Yes, timber. I'm going to have a shack built, and these boys are +going to put it up for me." + +Thus she broke the news gently. Billy looked the men over one by one. +He turned a slow red. + +"Huh!" he observed at last. "I thought they was goin' to wo'k fo' me!" + +"Did you?" asked Molly sweetly. "Well, they're not; at least, not now." + +That was categorical. Billy's wits did not respond to this sort of +emergency very quickly. He did not want to be rude; he did not care to +lose his men. Molly looked down. + +"Come here and tie my shoestring," she commanded, holding out her foot, +and gripping the harness with both hands. + +Billy did not remember that he had ever seen so small a foot. He +looked, fascinated. + +"Well!" she said impatiently. + +He raised his head and gazed plump into the imperious depths of a pair +of blue eyes. His anger melted. He approached and attempted to tie +the shoe. + +None but Molly ever knew how hard that horse was kicked by the other +little shoe. Indeed, no one knew at all how it happened. Some of the +eye-witnesses theorized concerning bumblebees. Others said horseflies. +As to the main facts, there was no doubt--that he, the horse, gave a +sudden startled plunge; that she, the girl, screamed slightly and +started to fall; that he, Billy Knapp, caught her full in his arms, +held her the fraction of a second, and set her lightly back on the +again motionless animal. + +Molly caught her breath and steadied herself on Billy's shoulder. +Three men officiously held the horse's head. + +"My!" she gasped. "I'd like to be as strong as that!" + +Billy whirled on the axe gang with a great bluster. + +"Yere, you fellers!" he shouted. "What 're y' standin' around yere +for? Take them hosses up in th' brush behind my shack, an' cut th' +lady some timber!" + +"Go ahead, boys," said Molly. She slid down from the horse. "I'll be +'long in a minute. I'm a little scairt." + +They clambered on up the hill, grinning. A clank of chains told when +they had stopped. A moment later the ring of axes was heard. The Kid +and the rifle had disappeared in the direction of Peter's rapid and +scrambling exit. The boy and the dog hated each other apparently, and +yet they could not bear to be long apart. + +The girl sat down on the ground and made Billy talk about himself, +which was the obvious thing to do. Billy was one of those expansive +sanguine individuals without much ability in what we call practical +affairs, and yet with a certain dexterity in gathering unto himself the +means with which to be impractical. Because of this, he had a good +opinion of himself, which at the same time he was much given to +doubting. Molly induced him to flatter himself, and then deftly agreed +with him. + +After a time they went up through the pines to where the workmen were +felling trees. Toward noon the whole party returned to town, dragging +behind the horses a number of tree trunks chained together with steel +chains. These were slid to the site of the house, and left in the road. + +The men in camp had nearly finished their job of levelling up. +Cheyenne Harry had worked hard with his own hands. In the shade of the +Little Nugget, Black Mike and Graham sat, chair tilted, contemplatively +watching the process. Through the open door could be perceived a gleam +of white that indicated Frosty; otherwise the street of the town was +empty. The prospectors were all out in the hills, preparing a suitable +showing for the inspection of the boom which they felt sure must be +close at hand. + +The united forces rolled the foundation timbers in place, straining, +sweating, grunting, for it was no easy work. The sun stood straight +overhead. After a little, observing this, Molly called a halt for the +noon hour. To each man she addressed a word of thanks, and a reminder +that the job was but half over. The reminder however was unnecessary, +for, under the stimulus of concerted effort, public sentiment had +crystallized into the opinion that the housing of a "first woman" was a +public duty. + +In a few moments the street was deserted, save for Cheyenne Harry and +the two men under the eaves of the Little Nugget. From the chimneys of +some of the cabins the smoke of cooking arose. + +Cheyenne Harry, volatile, changeable, fickle, stood still in the middle +of the dusty road and cursed himself for a fool. He had blistered his +hands, overheated himself most uncomfortably, and made his muscles ache +with unwonted lifting. For what? For a girl who, the evening before, +had boxed his ears and stolen his gun. Fascinated by a pair of pretty +eyes and a petty display of courage, he had worked himself like a +horse. He dropped his head in a brown study, moodily digging away at +the ground with his heel, ruminating bitterly over his egregious folly. + +"Thank you very much," said a soft little voice, breaking in on his +irritation like a silver bell on a moody silence. + +He raised his head, and beheld Molly standing before him, looking up at +him with grave sweet eyes. There was a hint of weariness in her +drooping eyelids that appealed subtly to his own weary spirit. She +seemed, standing there in the deserted street, to typify for the moment +the aloofness of his mood. + +"You've been good to me this morning," she went on in a quiet monotone, +"mighty good!" + +She stepped nearer to him until her breast almost touched his. + +"I want you to look up at that pine over there until I tell you you can +quit," she said as gravely as a child about to bestow a sugar plum. + +Harry turned his eyes to the hill. + +She stooped swiftly and drew the band of a holster and belt around his +hips. Unmindful of his promise, he looked down on her in surprise. + +"Don't be mad," she pleaded. "I got Frosty to get it for me from your +shack, so I could put your gun in it. And now you'll wear it for me, +won't you? I said you couldn't have it till you told me you were +sorry. Well, you have told me you were sorry, in the best way--by +doing something. I know how it is. I've had to work. It's no fun to +be laughed at; and you'll always be as good and brave as you were this +morning, won't you?" + +A rush as of something beautiful swept over him. His eyes filled and +he tried to speak, but turned away. + +"Now, run along," she exclaimed gayly, giving him a little pat on the +shoulder, "and don't forget you've got a job for this afternoon!" + +She stood for a moment in the middle of the road watching him. + +Graham, sitting under the eaves of the Little Nugget, surveyed the +little scene with cynical eyes. He watched the girl walk toward the +saloon. She had taken off her sunbonnet and the noon sun was gilding +her hair. She was pensive and thoughtful, and looked down. He told +himself that she did this because it was a becoming pose. Graham was +the sort of man whom pretence, craftiness, guile, always roused to +arms. So long as he was antagonized, or thought he was, his bitterness +and scorn were unappeasable; but once his ascendancy was freely +acknowledged, he threw away its advantages with the utmost generosity. +He thought he saw through this girl, and so he despised her and her +tricks alike. + +As she approached, Lafond arose and went inside the saloon, where he +began to inquire of Frosty in regard to dinner. The girl sat down in +the vacated chair. Beyond a curt little nod to Graham she did not +notice his presence. + +Over Tom Custer an eagle was wheeling slowly to and fro, barking with +the mere delight of being on the wing. Molly fixed her eyes dreamily +on the bird, but without apparent consciousness of more than the mere +fact of its wide motion. Graham imperturbably whittled a pine stick, +and whistled at the sky. + +This state of affairs continued for some time. + +"How do you keep the dirt from coming through the roof?" asked Molly +suddenly, her mind, to all appearance, entirely on the work in hand. + +Graham explained briefly. + +"Thank you," said Molly. + +After a few minutes more Graham shifted his knife into his left hand, +and began idly to stab the bench with it. Several times he opened his +mouth to speak. + +"You've got him well trained," he observed finally, with a slight curl +of the lip. + +"Who? What do you mean?" she cried, genuinely surprised out of the +indifference she had assumed. + +"Him--Lafond. He knows when to go away. Why did you want to get rid +of him?" + +"I didn't want to get rid of him. It was so I could be alone." + +"That's consistent! It was nothing of the kind. It was so you could +be alone--with me." + +She looked him over, flushing angrily. Then she deliberately turned +her shoulder to him. + +"You are very impudent," she remarked coldly. "You seem to forget that +I don't even know you. I don't know why I sit here and listen, except +that I am comfortable, and don't care to be driven away." + +"You wanted to capture me some way or another," he went on musingly, +catching a glimmer of the truth; "same as those poor fools out there in +the sun. I'd just like to know how you meant to do it and what you'd +have done to me. Would you have flattered me, or coaxed me, or what?" + +The girl did not reply. + +"How?" he urged, expecting an angry outburst, but profoundly +indifferent to it. + +"You are cruel," she answered softly, after a pause, "and very unjust." +Her cheeks were glowing and there was a glint in her eye, but he could +not see that. "They are only kind and good, not fools." + +"Of course they're good, but they are good because you fool them into +it," persisted Graham, spitefully pressing home his point. "You want +to win 'em all, just like a woman, but you're too clumsy about it. +Anybody can see through that sort of tommyrot, if he isn't a fool. So +I call them fools, and I stick to it." + +"With you it's different," she replied, hesitating almost before each +word. "You ain't the same kind. I know it's foolish, but I can't help +it, and I don't think I'm so much to blame. Perhaps I _am_ trying to +make them like me. Is there so much harm in that? Nobody has ever +liked me before. I have no mother and no sisters--only Mike. I want +to be liked, and--and--I'm _sorry_ if you don't think I ought to, but +it can't be helped." + +She looked out again at the eagle slowly circling over Tom Custer, with +eyes vaguely troubled. Graham could examine her closely without the +danger of detection. He did so. + +There was something pathetically child-like about her after all, +something delicate in the oval of her face and the sensitive modelling +of her chin, which appealed to a man's protective instincts. Her eyes +were so wide and blue and wistful, and again so pathetically young, +like those of a little child gazing upon the shower-wet world from the +safety of a window. Graham suddenly realized that this was no +self-sufficient, capable woman whom he was so bluntly antagonizing, but +only a pinafored innocent playing with forces of which she did not know +the meaning. He began all at once to feel sorry for her. Against her +probable future in this rough camp, how small the present looked, how +little were her coquetries, her innocent wiles! + +She sighed almost inaudibly. The eagle folded his wings and dropped +like a plummet from the upper air, only to swoop upward on outspread +pinions a moment later. + +Graham began to be ashamed of himself. His thoughts took a new +direction. He wondered what her previous history, her education, could +have been. Her face was pure, her eyes clear. Could she have lived +always with the half-breed? Both spoke English of an excellence beyond +the common--in that country, at least. Then he began idly to watch the +sunlight running nimbly up and down a single loose tress of her hair, +as the wind lifted it and let it fall. + +The girl turned and caught his eyes fairly. + +"What is it?" she asked simply. + +"I was wondering," he replied with equal simplicity, "whether you had +always lived with him." + +"No," she replied, without pretending not to understand the purport of +his question. Then, in the same little voice, in which was a trace, +just a trace, of an infinite dreariness: "I have lived all my life at +an Indian agency. He came and took me away a little while ago. He is +good to me," she said doubtfully, "and I am glad to be away. The agent +was good to me, but there were only a few people, and I only read and +read and read, or rode and rode and rode, and knew nothing at all of +people. I got tired of it. Nobody cared for me there. Nobody cares +for me anywhere, I reckon, except Mike, and his caring for people +doesn't count so very much." + +She turned upon him again that vaguely troubled gaze, which seemed to +see him, and yet to look beyond him. + +"Poor little girl," said Graham, on a sudden deeply moved. + +"Poor little girl!" he repeated with infinite tenderness, and took her +idle hand in both of his. + +"Poor little girl!" he said for the third time. She put her other hand +before her eyes; then, releasing herself gently, she rose and glided +through the door without a word. + +Once inside the portal her eyes cleared with a snap. She laughed. + + + + +XVII + +BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION + +In the course of this same morning, Lafond had discovered an old +acquaintance. + +He arose early, and spent some time after breakfast investigating and +criticising the premises. Frosty's administration had, it must be +confessed, been rather slack, and there were many loose ends. These +Black Mike gathered into a cat o' nine tails with which to lash his +subordinate. After he had done more for Frosty's character in sixty +minutes than that young man, unaided, could have accomplished in as +many months, he left the scene of his reorganizations behind, and +strolled about in the one narrow street of the village. + +He soon saw all there was to be seen there. With a vague idea of +finding his way to the famous Great Snake Mine, he rambled out from the +double row of log cabins, around the bend, and into the lower gulch. +He had defined to himself two things very clearly--that Billy Knapp was +now easily the most important figure in the community, and that a +continuance of this importance depended entirely on his effecting a +combination of his group of claims with Eastern capital. In the Black +Hills nearly all of the promising leads are of quartz, requiring in +their development more expensive machinery than any ordinary man is +able to afford. Until the good angel arrives, they are so much +crumbling red rock or white crystal; but with the erection of a stamp +mill, within wagon distance, they become valuable. Mike had set +himself to the task of depriving Billy Knapp at once of his property +and of his prestige; but since he could not hold him up at the point of +a pistol, as might have been done had it been the question of a watch +or a scarf-pin, he did not at present see just how it was to be +accomplished. Ruminating these matters, he found himself all at once +in a cañon much grown with underbrush, full of birds, and possessing a +general air of the gentler aspects of nature. + +Immediately before him stood a double cabin, its two parts connected by +a passage way. The foundations of its timbers were encircled by broad +bands of red geraniums. Behind the buildings, chained to posts, he +perceived three wild animals. One was a short, comical, and shaggy +bear; the second, an equally furry but more eager-looking raccoon; the +third, a bobcat with tasselled ears. + +Mike paused and surveyed them with amusement. As he stood there the +door of the cabin opened and the owner stepped out into the sunshine. +The half-breed never forgot a face which a vital incident had impressed +on his memory; and though this old, white-haired, mild-eyed man had +passed in and out of his life in the space of one evening fifteen years +ago, Lafond recognized without difficulty the stranger whose words had +given him so powerful an impetus toward his new way of life. It was +Durand, the butterfly hunter. + +He was little changed. And again the coarser man felt, as fifteen +years before, the air of gentle and quaint courtesy, which a keener +observer would have associated with an old-fashioned society now quite +passed away. It should have gone with ruffles and silken hose, with +powdered hair and silver shoe buckles. + +The naturalist caught sight of the newcomer and approached. + +"They are quite gentle," he assured, explaining the beasts. He rubbed +the heavy fur of the raccoon the wrong way. "Ah, Jacques," he said to +the little animal, relapsing quaintly into a sort of old-time speech, +"thy hair doth resemble in stiffness of texture the bristles of thine +own curry brush." + +The raccoon uttered his high, purring over-note, and seized the man's +fingers with his little black hands, almost human. The bear waved his +paws appealingly. The bobcat danced back and forth at the end of its +leash. "Peace, my children," chided the old man, bestowing on each a +pat. "It is not yet the hour of noon." He stooped to unsnap the +raccoon's chain; and then, as though recalling the half-breed's +presence, he turned with an air of apology. + +"You are a stranger here?" he asked. "Yes? And you walk this morning +for your pleasure? Yes? That happens not often in these parts." He +went on, conversing shyly but easily, with the obvious desire of +pleasing the half-breed rather than himself. Lafond had opportunity to +observe the great solidity of the logs composing the cabin walls, and +to recognize that the structure must belong to the earlier period of +the primitive architecture of the Hills--for there are such periods. + +"You have lived here long," he suggested, following out this inference. + +"Yes," laughed the old man softly, "very long. The camp there came to +me. I was an old timer when the first house was built." + +After a little, they entered the cabin together, and Lafond found +himself in a sheet-ceiled room, strewn with all sorts of literary and +scientific junk. The imagination could discover much food for +speculation in the curiosities literally heaped about the apartment, +but most wonderful of all, seizing the eye, holding it from all else, +were the scores of shallow glass-fronted boxes hanging everywhere on +the wall. They were lined with white paper pasted over a layer of +cork. In them, row after row, were impaled butterflies of many colors. +Thousands of the pretty insects were there outspread, varying in size +from the tiny blue _Lycaena_ to the great _Troilus_ or the gorgeous +yellow and black _Turnus_. They were exquisitely prepared, with just +the right lift on the wings, just the proper balance of the long +antennae, until it seemed that they must be on the point of flight, and +one almost expected that in another moment the air would be filled with +a fluttering, many-hued splendor. + +The men seated themselves in two home-made chairs. The raccoon, +evidently from old winter-time habit, waddled in a dignified fashion to +the fireless stove, where he curled up like a door-mat with keen, +bright eyes. Mike's gaze roamed about the apartment. + +"You are a great scientist," he observed, intending the remark for a +compliment. + +"In a way, in a way," replied the old man humbly. "One must occupy the +mind when one is alone, and what task more fitting to our highest +faculties than that of investigating, with all due reverence, the +workings of God's mechanism?" + +He said it with a simple piety which could not provoke a smile. +Michaïl Lafond caught himself wondering what he did there. Surely +there was nothing to interest him in stuffed insects and a garrulous +old man, especially as the conversation insisted on retaining its +formal footing. + +"You are not a miner?" the entomologist inquired, after a moment's +pause. + +"No," replied Mike. + +"I am glad to hear it. I like not this eager scrambling for what does +so little good. I too once---- But now I am content; yes, content. +There is always good if one will but find it. I myself might with +justice be accused of being a miner. I find my leads, I develop them, +I assay my ores; but always in miniature--on a small scale." + +Then, in a flash, Michaïl Lafond saw at least the outlines of his plan, +and he knew why he had come in here to talk to the garrulous old man. + +"You know the assay, then?" he inquired conversationally. + +"In a modest way--a few simple tests." + +"But that is much. Do you not know that it is at Rapid, in the School +of Mines, that the nearest assayer is? You have a profession here at +your lands." + +A sudden scream broke through the apartment, a rush of wings, a growl. +The old man ran nimbly to the stove, and rescued the little raccoon +from the savage attacks of a magpie. The magpie sailed back to his +perch on one of the butterfly cases, where he ruffled his feathers +indignantly. The raccoon curled up in the old man's lap. + +"You are French?" inquired the latter, with more interest than he had +hitherto shown. + +"I have some French blood," replied Lafond cautiously. + +"I knew it," said Durand, immensely pleased. "I am rarely mistaken. +It was a twist of your words that suggested it, an idiom. _Et +maintenant nous pouvons causer_," he added in the purest Parisian +accent. + +"_Oui, oui, oui,_" cried the half-breed, suddenly swept up by an +uncontrollable excitement he could not himself understand. "_La belle +langue!_" + +He felt an unwonted expansion of the heart at thus hearing once more +the language of his youth. The formality of the interview was gone. +They conversed freely, swiftly, animatedly. Durand had been educated +in Paris, and had a thousand reminiscences to impart. He told of many +quaint customs, and Lafond, with growing emotion, recalled similar or +analogous customs among his own expatriated branch of the race in the +pine forests of Canada. His sullen, taciturn manner broke. He became +the Gaul. He gesticulated, he overflowed, his eye lighted up, he said +a thousand things. + +After a time Durand opened a chest at the foot of the bed, from which +he abstracted a bottle and two long-stemmed glasses. These he placed +on the table with a quaint little air of ceremony. + +"Sir," said he, "we must know each other better. We speak each the +language we love. We talk of old days. Sir," he concluded, bowing +with stately grace as he poured the red wine into the glasses, "I ask +you to drink wine with me to our acquaintance. My name is Durand." + +He inclined, his hand to his heart, and somehow there seemed to be +nothing ridiculous in the act. + +"I am Michaïl Lafond," replied the half-breed simply. + +A silence fell. The realities came back to Lafond's mind. + +"I would ask you a favor," he said abruptly. + +"Name it; it is yours." + +"I want you to teach me how to make an assay." + +"It would be a pleasure. I will do it gladly." + +"Is it difficult?" + +"Not very." + +"When shall we begin?" + +"When you say." + +Lafond reflected. "Well, I will bring some ore in a day or two." +Then, after a pause, as though in deference to the attitude he knew the +old man held in regard to such things, he added, "It must be very +interesting, this making of gold from the rock." + +"And more interesting still," supplemented Durand gently, "is the +thrill of a shared thought." + +The raccoon stood on his hind legs in his master's lap, and began +deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets, deftly +inserting his little black hands, almost human, and watching the man's +face with alert eyes. Durand took the animal's small head between both +his palms, and smiled at him affectionately. + +"Ah, Jacques, _polisson_! Thou art a rogue, and dost learn early what +thy master's race doth teach. See, Lafond, how the little villain +would even now rob the very one who doth give to him his daily bread +and all that which he hath." He softly rubbed the small, black nose +with the flat of his palm, much to its owner's disgust. Jacques backed +off deliberately to the floor, where he sneezed violently, while Durand +gazed at him with a kindly smile. + +After leaving the cabin, Black Mike no longer slouched along unseeing. +He burned with the inspiration of an idea. Just where the idea would +lead him, or how it would work out in its final processes, he did not +know; but he had long since grown accustomed to relying blindly on such +exaltations of confidence as the present, sure that details would +develop when needed. He believed in letting the pot boil. + +Through the town he walked with brisk, business-like steps, out into +the higher gulch. There he soon came upon signs of industry. Up a +hill he could hear the ring of axes and the occasional rush of a +falling tree, sounding like grouse drumming in the spring. He followed +the sound. Half way up the knoll, he discovered a cabin and three +shafts. A rude sign announced that this represented the surface +property of the Great Snake Mining and Milling Company. Lafond halted +abruptly when he saw the sign. For perhaps half an hour he looked +over, with the eye of a connoisseur, the three piles of ore at the +mouths of the three shafts, approving silently of the evidence of slate +walls, crumbling between his strong fingers the oxygenated quartz, +putting his tongue to the harder specimens to bring out their color by +moisture, gazing with some curiosity at the darker hornblende. Finally +he selected a number of the smaller specimens, with which he filled the +ample pockets of his shooting-coat. After this he returned to town and +the Little Nugget saloon, where he emptied his pockets on the bar. + +"Get some of that packin' stuff out behind," he commanded Frosty, "and +with it construct a shelf there by the mirror." + +He stood over Frosty while the latter, frightened into clumsiness, +hammered his fingers, the wall, the rude shelf, anything but the nail. +Finally, Lafond thrust him aside with a curse, and finished the job +himself. On the completed shelf he ranged about half of the specimens +which he had picked up from the ore dumps. Beneath these he tacked a +label, indicating that they were from the Great Snake Mine. + +Then he joined Jack Graham outside, and settled down to watch the group +of men engaged in laying the foundation timbers of a new log shack. + + + + +XVIII + +TIRED WINGS + +In spite of the fact that she had laughed at Graham's blindness in +falling into her trap, Molly Lafond felt enough curiosity to induce her +to enter into several conversations with him during the course of that +afternoon. He sat by the door whistling. Out in the sun the men cut +logs, notched ends, heaved and pushed. The girl alternated between +personal encouragement of the workers, and a curious examination of the +idler. + +Graham interested her because he puzzled her. The young man no longer +held to the quizzical and cynical attitude he had assumed in the +morning, but neither did he at once manifest that personal interest +which she had imagined inevitable. He caught at her statement that she +had done nothing but "read, read, read." In the course of twenty +minutes he had made her most keenly aware of her deficiencies, and that +without the display of any other motive than a frank desire to discuss +the extent of her knowledge. He opened to her fields whose existence +she had never suspected; he showed her that she had but superficially +examined those she had entered. Authors she had much admired he +disposed of cavalierly, and in their stead substituted others of whom +she had never heard. + +"I like Bulwer," she remarked, secure in her classic because it had +been the only one of Sweeney's collection to come in a set and bound in +brown leather. + +"Bulwer, yes," said Graham, pulling his little moustache, and speaking, +as his habit sometimes was, more to himself than to his companion. "We +all go through that stage, but we get over it after awhile. You see, +he's superficial and awfully pedantic. There is much beauty in it, +too. I remember in one of his novels--I forget which--there is a +picture of a child tossing her ball skyward, with eyes turned upward to +the skies, that is worth a good deal." + +"It's in _What Will He Do with It?_" cried Molly, aglow at being able +to interpolate correctly. + +"Yes," assented Graham, indifferently. "It has something to do with +youth, I think. Before our critical judgment grows up and finds him +out, there is a peculiar elevation about Bulwer's themes and treatment. +His world is blown; but it is big, and his figures have a certain +scornful nobility about them. If I were to compete with the gentleman +under discussion," he concluded, with a slight laugh, "I would say that +he throws upon the true gold of youthful ideals, hopes, and dreams, the +light of his own tinsel." + +Molly was subdued, humbled. She was deprived at a stroke of all her +weapons. For the first time she found herself looking up to a man, and +wondering whether she could ever meet him on terms of equality. She +caught herself covertly scrutinizing Graham to see if he too realized +his advantage. He was genuinely interested; that was all. He seemed +to take it for granted that she was already on his level. This +encouraged her somewhat. + +Whenever she again joined the group of sweating men at work on her +house, she felt subtly that she was returning from a far country. She +had brought back with her something new. The nature of the +conversation had lifted her to the contemplation of fresh possibilities +of human intercourse. With a defiant toss of the head she indulged +herself to the extent of imagining several Bulwer-like conversations, +in which she dealt out brilliant generalities to the universal +applause. It was the first flight her wings had essayed; the first +charm not merely physical that she had experienced with one of the +other sex. She felt she was going to like this man Graham. + +And yet that very elation was one of the reasons why, after dinner in +the "hotel," she walked with Billy Knapp, although Graham was plainly +waiting for her. It had been her first flight; her wings were tired. +The reaction had come. + +The dinner itself, and its manner, had much to do with bringing this to +her consciousness. Entering at one end of the hotel dining-room, she +first became aware of the cook stove at the other, and, behind it, +tins. Down the centre extended the three bench-flanked board tables, +polished smooth by the combined influences of spilled grease and much +rubbing. At certain short intervals had been stationed tin plates, +over each of which were stacked, pyramid fashion, an iron knife, fork +and spoon. Tin cups spaced the plates. Down the centre of each table +were distributed thick white china receptacles containing sugar, lumpy +and brown with coffee; salt; and butter on the point of melting. At +dinner-time the cook placed between these receptacles capacious tins, +steaming respectively, with fried and boiled pork, boiled potatoes, +cornmeal mush, and canned tomatoes; besides corn bread, soda biscuits, +and a small quantity of milk for the coffee. Then, wiping his +glistening face on the red-checked little towel that hung at his waist, +he entered the "office" and, seizing a huge bell, clanged forth, now to +the right, now to the left, that his meal was ready. + +The men ate in their shirt sleeves, those farthest half obscured by the +clouds of steam from the uncovered dishes. The cook stove, the dishes, +and the men heated the low unventilated room almost to suffocation. +They gobbled their food rapidly, taking noisy swigs of the coffee from +the tin cups. As each finished, he wiped his plate clean with the soft +inside of a soda biscuit, drew his knife across the bread once or +twice, swallowed the gravy-laden biscuit at one mouthful, and departed +without further ceremony into the outer air. + +It was all thoroughly Western, thoroughly material, thoroughly restful +to tired wings. + +As the meal progressed, the exaltation faded slowly. Molly received +the assiduous attentions of everybody. After dinner, as has been said, +she and the wonderful Billy Knapp disappeared into the twilight, +leaving the disconsolate miners to find their way to the Little Nugget +when it pleased them to do so. + +Billy talked. He poured out his confidences. He told how great was +Billy, how bright were Billy's prospects, how important were Billy's +responsibilities. He was glad to show this young girl the town; it was +Billy's town. He was pleased to tell her the names of the hills +hereabouts; these hills concealed within their depths the veins of +Billy's lodes. He delighted in giving the history of the men they met; +for these men looked up to Billy as the architect of their future +forties. He spoke enthusiastically of the prospects. + +"Thar is a lode," said he earnestly, "over on the J.G. fraction that's +shore th' purtiest bit of quartz lead you ever see. The walls is all +of slate, running jest's slick side by side, with a clear vein between +'em, and she'll run 'way up, free millin'. I tell you what, Miss +Molly, thar's big money in it, thar shorely is! When I get those +Easte'n capitalists interested, and ready to put a little _salt_ in, +and git up a few mills and necessary buildin's, you'll jest see things +hummin' in this yar kentry." + +Out of the darkness a silent little figure glided and fell in step with +the girl. + +"Hullo, bub," said Billy indifferently, and went on to tell what he was +going to do. Billy had great plans. + +Molly said nothing to the new member of their party, but she reached +out her hand and patted the little cotton-covered shoulder. She looked +about at the dark town and the hills, and drew a deep breath. This was +real, tangible. She felt at home in it, and she was adequate to all +that its conditions might bring forth. Above all, she was confident +here. Graham and his ideas seemed to her at the moment quite nebulous +and phantom-like. + +"Let's go to the Little Nugget," she suggested suddenly. + +They turned to retrace their steps. As they passed an open doorway, a +big man darted out with unnatural agility and seized the Kid by the +scruff of the neck. + +"I beg your pardon, miss, whom I am overjoyed to meet. Standing as I +do _in loco parentis_, the claims of the rising generation constrain me +to postpone that more intimate acquaintance which your attractions +demand of my desire. Come along here, you!" and he dragged the Kid, +struggling and crying out, into the dark cabin. + +"Ain't he great?" cried Billy, with real enthusiasm. "Ain't he just? +They ain't a man in th' whole Northwest as can sling the langwidge that +man can when he tries. You just ought to see him when he cuts loose, +you just ought." + +"Who is he?" asked Molly. + +"Him? What, him? He's Moroney!" + +His tone denied the need of further question. They entered the saloon. + +The first half hour of Molly's evening in the Little Nugget was +constrained. Up to this point she had met the men of the camp under +extraordinary circumstances. Now she was called upon to face them in +their time of relaxation and accustomed comfort. Such moments of +leisure crystallize for us men everywhere our opinions of people. +Anybody is welcome to sail with us, hunt with us, fish with us, ride +with us, work with us, provided he is personally agreeable and +understands the game. We are not so undiscriminating when it comes to +a study fire and an easy chair. Translate the study fire and the easy +chair to the Little Nugget and a quiet game, and you will see one +reason for the constraint. No unkindness was intended. The situation +was merely, but inevitably, awkward for everybody. + +In such emergencies as this, where a creature of coarser fibre would +fail, Molly's hereditary fineness of instinct stood her in good stead. +She saw intuitively the attitude she should take. In the first place, +she held herself in the background, left the lead to others, behaved as +if she suspected herself of being an intruder; so that the men suddenly +felt themselves very paternal and adoptive. + +In the second place, she encouraged them to show off; which they did +with the utmost heartiness. The first embarrassment wore away before +long, and Molly took her place in the corner of the bar with the tacit +approval of every man in the room. + +The remainder of the evening was enjoyable. Some features of it would +scarcely have impressed a refined Easterner favorably, for these were +rough men, with crude tastes and passions. Once having accepted the +girl as one of themselves, they lapsed to some extent, though not +entirely, into their accustomed manner. It is a little difficult +sometimes to interpret the West in terms of the East. An act which in +the older country would be significant of too licensed freedom, on the +frontier is a matter of course. Everything depends on the point of +view and the attitude of mind. + +Around Molly Lafond seethed a constantly changing group of men. They +joked boisterously at one another and at her. The standard of wit was +the saying of insulting things with a laugh that showed that the remark +held in itself something of facetious sarcasm. Through thinner skins +it would have bitten cruelly. Behind this lively group sat another, +more silent, smoking the amused pipe of contemplation, all alert to the +chances of conversational battle, ready to jump up and enter the lists +whenever a bright idea suggested itself. In the corner just behind the +bar, lurked Black Mike, keeping a sinister eye on Frosty's +dispensations. The faro dealer called his cards imperturbably over his +scantily patronized game. Occasionally someone, glowing with the +good-natured excitement of jesting, would break away from the laughing +group, and, standing the while, would stake a few red chips on a turn +or so of the cards. + +Peter, obsessed of some sudden and doggish affection, ceased his +restless wanderings. He took up his position, resting on one hip, both +hind legs to one side, directly beneath Molly's feet. There his shaggy +head was of such a height that the girl could just reach it with the +point of her shoe. From time to time, when the exigency demanded such +a pose, she looked down prettily, and stirred the animal's button ears +with her little foot. On such occasions Peter gravely rolled his eyes +upward and wriggled his stump of a tail. + +A young fellow by the name of Dave Kelly stood nearest her. He was a +handsome young fellow, with a laughing boyish face. As time went on, +he became more and more elated and sure of himself. Occasionally, when +the press of men behind would push him forward, he would reach across +the girl to regain his balance. Once he put his hand lightly on the +point of her shoulder. He paused, with a strange delicious thrill at +the feel of the round young arm under the loose stuff of the gown, +which slipped beneath his grasp to emphasize the smoothness of the +skin. Aware of the touch, she looked toward him for a minute, +laughing. Somehow it gave him a strange feeling of intimacy with her, +inexplicable, subtle. Without knowing why he did so, he felt his own +shoulder underneath his loose flannel shirt. It gave the same +impression, only rougher, coarser. + +There suddenly sprang into his mind a sense of physical kinship between +himself and her. He took frequent opportunities of repeating the +contact, always lightly, always with the same delicious thrill. At +each touch the girl turned to him for a vaguely smiling instant. She +was absorbed in the men about her. The youth at her side had fallen +silent, but her good nature extended to everybody. + +Late in the evening somebody suggested that Frosty had been singularly +unemployed. Glasses were filled. Molly's was handed to her. + +"I don't want any," said she. + +"It'll do y' good," "Try her," "Aw, come on!" urged a dozen voices. + +She sipped a little. It tasted to her like liquid fire, with a strange +gagging property as it reached the region of the epiglottis. She +sputtered and choked. + +"Ugh!" she shuddered. "Ugh! I couldn't get a glass of that stuff down +if it killed me." She shut her eyes and shivered with a pretty +disgust. "I simply can't," she repeated. + +"Ain't ye got anything else, Frosty?" they cried reproachfully. "That +stuff's purty rank fer a lady, that's right. Skirmish around thar, an' +see what y' kin discover." + +Frosty skirmished around, and finally bobbed up, red-faced, with a +bottle of some light wine. Molly drank this slowly, with little more +satisfaction. Some people never care for the taste of anything with +alcohol in it, and the cheap wine had more than the suspicion of a wire +edge. But she liked the warm glow that followed, and she found that in +a moment or so she was much pleased with herself. + +"Give me another of those," she smiled to Frosty, holding out the empty +glass. The men chuckled. This was something like. + +Molly drank the other glass. In a few minutes she felt sleepy. "I'm +going to turn in," she said abruptly, and slid down on the unsuspecting +Peter. They disentangled the trouble with merriment. Molly consoled +Peter. The room was full of noise and light. + +"May I take you over?" Kelly was asking in her ear. She nodded assent. +The other men looked chagrined. It had not occurred to them. + +Dave Kelly and Molly stepped gayly from the heated, garish saloon into +the still night. The contrast made them feel yet gayer. They remarked +on the stars and the moon, to do which it became necessary to look +upward and slacken their steps. He was very close to her. He slipped +his arm about her waist, his great hand resting firmly beneath her +small bust, and they stumbled on together in breathless silence. He +felt very bold and elated and happy. + +Suddenly she looked down with an air of mock surprise. "What is this?" +she cried, lifting one of Dave's fingers and letting it fall. "Why, it +looks like your hand!" + +"That's so!" grinned Dave. + +"I wonder how that could have got there!" + +Dave, finding himself unequal to persiflage, made no reply. She +nestled up to him a little and sighed. She liked it. She had not the +slightest idea that there was anything out of the way in it. Why +should she? Morals, as we understand them, she had never been taught. +They slowly approached the wagon, which during the day had been dragged +to a less conspicuous but more distant locality. + +Ah, Molly, Molly, those wings are very tired! + +At the moment when Kelly first pressed the girl to him, he experienced +a sudden lessening of her charm. It was not that she was less +feminine, or that, in his eyes, she had lost any moral excellence by +her easy surrender. Dave had probably as rudimentary ideas of the +finer moralities as Molly herself. But one very definite element of +her attraction had been given up--that of mystery, of remoteness, of +difference between herself and him. She was no longer a creature of a +wonderful and other sphere; she had become the female of his species. + +All this was subtle and slight and quite unappreciated and unanalyzed +by Dave himself. But the keen intuition of the girl discovered it. +She felt the difference. Suddenly she became aware of the fact that +whatever a woman gives to a man takes something from her attraction, +and adds something to his. With the discovery, she resolutely put his +hand away. + +"That's enough of that," she said in the sensible voice which some +women use so effectually. + +Dave, unwilling to let the sensation go before he had drained it, +attempted to seize her by force. She slipped away and ran like a deer +to her wagon, gleaming white through the darkness. Dave sprang in +pursuit. At the instant Peter, who had followed unperceived, leaped +with a growl and fastened his teeth into Dave's cowhide boot. The +miner paused a moment undecided, and then, his natural good nature +coming to his rescue, he laughed. An answering laugh echoed from the +direction of the wagon. + +"That's a pretty trick," he called, trying to disengage Peter's jaws. +Peter shook his head savagely and growled. + +"You ought to learn to run," came the voice from the safety of the +wagon. + +"Run!" laughed Dave. "Run with a dawg hangin' to you? Call him and +see if you can get him to leave go." + +"Dog?" repeated the voice in puzzled tones. + +"Yes, dog--this yere Peter. He seems to have took up with you-all. +He's got me by th' laig!" + +Molly reappeared cautiously. Then she saw Peter, and advanced boldly. +The two young people looked at the eager and determined little dog, and +laughed with great good nature. Their crisis had passed, fortunately +without harm to either. Molly took Peter by the collar. Peter at once +let go. + +"Good night," said Molly decidedly to Dave. + +"Good night," said Dave, and turned back. + +Molly walked on to the wagon, closely followed by Peter. As she +climbed in, she turned and caught sight of the little animal, eyeing +her wistfully. + +"Want to come in?" said she. + +Peter jumped to the whiffletree, then upon the seat, then into the +wagon. Molly followed. + +"Peter," said she, "we won't do that any more. I don't believe it's a +good scheme. What do you think, dog?" + +Peter wagged his stump of a tail, but as it was quite dark, this +expression of approval was lost. "I hope he won't say anything about +it," she went on reflectively. "But if he does"--she tossed her +head--"much good may it do any of them!" Then, after some time, +"Peter, let's go to sleep." + +Peter whined with content. + + + + +XIX + +THE BROAD WHITE ROAD + +Copper Creek had begun as a half-way house, and had ended as a camp. +Thus the hotel was its oldest structure. + +Situated about half way between Rockerville and Custer, on the old +Spring Creek trail, it often happened that the stage running from Rapid +to the last-named town would stop for the evening meal, or even for the +night, at the little log structure which Bill Martin had been sagacious +enough to erect there. The soil was good for potatoes, which was +lucky, for Bill Martin could never have prospered as a hotel keeper +pure and simple; because purity, simplicity, and temperance principles +have nothing to do with a Western inn. Bill cooked, made beds, and +raised potatoes. Then a fortuitous "grub staker" discovered the Great +Snake lode. A town sprang up in the night, so Bill Martin hired Black +Jack and built additions. And finally, since his food was good and +cheap, it came to be the proper thing to eat late dinners at two +dollars a week in the long dining-room of Bill Martin's new building. +After the Little Nugget, a later but more enterprising venture, Bill +Martin's Prairie Dog, with its small office, its big eating room, its +little square bedrooms above the office, and its ancient and musty +copies of distant journals, was acknowledged to be the most important +institution of the place. + +From the narrow, roofless stoop its proprietor looked out tranquilly on +the growth of the camp. He was a tall, cadaverous, facetious +individual, slightly stooped, with thin impassive face, deep eyes, and +a beard that seemed always just two days old. He spoke with a drawl +that was at first natural, but later, as the quaint old fellow grew to +appreciate its humorous qualities, it took on a faint color of +affectation. He adopted always the paternal attitude, as was clearly +his right. + +Bill Martin was probably the only man who could have told you the +history of Copper Creek, for he had been, through all of its changes of +population, the one stable character. First came the original "grub +staker" and a score more like him--impecunious, giving, many of them, +their labor and experience, in exchange for tools and provisions +furnished them by a speculator in the towns. The speculator took half +of what was found. These men were hardy, bold, enduring, skilful. +They grubbed about in the hills with the keen restless instinct of ants +over a mould of earth, moving rapidly, pausing often, lighting finally, +with an accuracy that to the outsider would have seemed something +preternatural, on the one quartz vein of the many, or the one +significant lead in the multitude of systems that seamed the country in +all directions. Thereupon they staked out claims with white pine +posts, and blasted little troughs to show milk-white quartz or red ore +filling. And finally they disappeared, like bats before daylight, +leaving not an echo of themselves to recall their presence to the hills +in which they had toiled. + +Their places were taken by the speculator, the miner with a little +money, the small capitalist willing to invest and not unwilling to work +with his own hands. These men paid a certain modest amount to the +first discoverers for the chance to take chances on the embryo mines. +The prospector never had the patience to wait, or scheme, or develop, +to the justification of a better price. The excitement of the chase +was his. He was a master who sketched, in bold comprehensive strokes, +the design of a work which men patient in the little details must fill +in with color and value. Having thus outlined the lifetimes of men, +the prosperity of the whole great industry that was to be, he was +content to move on to where a new and virgin country offered a fresh +canvas to his creative genius. He was always poor, but he never pitied +himself. + +The new owner, then, represented the investor. He expected no +immediate returns. He was willing to wait. Meanwhile he spent as much +time in going over the fifty thousand square yards of his one claim as +his predecessor had in examining the whole twenty-five hundred square +miles of the district. He carefully analyzed the lead, its tendencies, +its virtues, its defects. When he had fully satisfied his mind, he +sank neat, square-timbered shafts, from fifty to two hundred feet in +depth, from which ramified tunnels, both across and along the drift. +The débris he piled outside, without attempting to save its value. In +this manner, gradually, he came to possess points of view from which +the next purchaser of the claim could plainly see its worth and +possibilities. + +For this second proprietor never expected to make his profit from the +ore. That accrued later, and to another man. When the country became +a little known, the other man would happen along; he, in his turn, +would be willing to invest; and the present holder of the property, the +middleman in this queerly constructed industry, could measure the +success of his undertaking by the difference between the price he had +paid to the original "grub staker" and the price he now received from +the future developer. Meanwhile, he worked hard with his hands. + +Thus the camp presented the phenomenon of a community prospering on +nothing more tangible than hope. When the cabins began to crowd +thicker and thicker between the walls of the little gulch, Bill Martin +had been forced to give up agriculture because of lack of room; so that +Copper Creek produced absolutely nothing, not even potatoes. Every +cent of its present and actual value came from outside, either with the +men themselves, or with some investor who brought in the price of wages +for a contemplated improvement. Only as long as there existed in men's +minds the comparative certainty of a future stamp mill, by which the +quartz could be made to give up its treasure, would the machinery of +life run well. Hope depended on confidence. + +The miners built themselves cabins in which to live, and so there came +into being a town. It was a dusty, new little town; but venerable in +its age--old air from the first. The cabins themselves were low and +dark, flanking the street closely, a sort of monotone of brown, by +which the stable, the saloon, and the hotel were thrown into stronger +relief; the one by virtue of its wide-open door, the other two because +of their porch and painted front respectively. These structures held +the eye. One noticed the cane chairs on the stoop; the bench outside +the saloon; the dumped down saddles, the hay dust, the lazy loafers +about the stable. And always one drew aside instinctively to the edge +of the broad, white, dusty street, as if to let pass a horse race, or a +train of cars, or something equally swift and irresistible. + +The camp lived on each side of that river of blinding white; never in +it. Later, perhaps, when Copper Creek reached the industrial or +producing stage, and became domestic, it would be a Rubicon over which +contending armies of small boys would dispute the supremacy of the +north and south side of the town. Now it wore a constant air of being +quite empty. Perhaps nothing was more characteristic, struck the eye +more forcibly, lingered longer in the memory as the dominant note in +the impressionistic picture of the place, than this single silent road; +not even the sombre cabins, or the great pine-clad hills, or the clear +mountain air imparting a quality of its own to the very appearance of +things, or the little singing brook that ran behind one row of cabins +and the stable, or the eagles wheeling and screaming so far up in the +blue Western sky. The town seemed to draw back on either side of the +road to avoid spoiling its effect, over-awed by it, humbled by its +dignified solemnity. Copper Creek would have been willing to have its +history recounted by that road, which was primarily, indeed, the cause +of its being. + +And Bill Martin, in the cane chair of his stoop, the only man capable +of recounting that history, owed most of his unique knowledge of events +to the ancient thoroughfare. Men came from the lower gulch, abode +their brief hour, and disappeared into the thin air of the upper curve. +From one wing, across the white stage, out by the other wing, the +actors changed; the setting remained always the same. + +Now each morning early the old innkeeper saw defile before his windows +the Optimist, intent on developing his dream. A motley crew, these +Optimists, having little in common with one another but the inner +spirit of hope. There was Old Mizzou, short, squat, grizzled, +good-natured, with back-sloping, bald forehead, and a seven dollar suit +of clothes, from which he suffered severely, because it was "store +made." He owned a little claim over beyond Ragged Top, on which he +made infinitesimal progress. No one seemed to believe it amounted to +much, Old Mizzou least of all, but he was old, and he had lived the +life, and so he liked to amuse himself still in playing at the game; +contented to chip away a few slivers of rock in order to persuade +himself that he was a miner, to sip a little whiskey so that men might +honor him as a drinker, to talk so loudly from his warm corner in the +Little Nugget that the sound of his voice might persuade him he was a +bold bad man; although everyone knew that Old Mizzou had never harmed a +fly. + +And then again, there was Jack Graham, the Easterner, but never the +tenderfoot. His selections of claims had been judicious. He was not +afraid of work. He had the good sense of the timely word, so the men +trusted and liked him, even though he was college-bred and +quiet-mannered and a little aloof. + +And again, there was Dave Kelly, who was red-cheeked, and blushed, but +was a good man for all that; and Cheyenne Harry, who owned two claims +and never did any work on them; and Houston, the strongest man in the +camp; and, of course, the great Moroney. These, and a hundred like +them, were actual miners, wielding sledge, drill and pick. Besides +them were others--Frosty, and the faro man, and Bill Martin, and the +stable boys, and the proprietor of the New York Emporium, all of whom +lived in ministering to the wants of a prosperity that was still in the +air. + +Each morning the camp emptied itself into the hills. The claims were +usually held in partnership; when they were not, two of the men "traded +work," so that they could labor in pairs. At rude forges near the +shafts they sharpened their heavy steel drills, resembling crowbars, +beating the red-hot point out with the sledges. Then one held, while +the other struck--crash! Turn, crash! Turn, crash! And so on, in +unwearying succession, until the hole became so clogged with the +powdered rock and the water poured in to cool the drill, that it had to +be spooned out with a special T-shaped instrument. + +After a time the hole would be deep enough. The operators would load +it, touch the fuse, scamper for shelter. The earth would become +cumbered with broken vein matter, and this had to be removed +laboriously with pick and shovel. When the shaft grew deeper, the fuse +was cut a little longer, and the miners would climb out as fast as they +could on a notched pole. Cases have been known when that was not fast +enough; as the time old Brady, the paralytic, was blown out along with +the vein filling, and died almost before the horse was saddled to go +for the doctor at Custer, fifteen miles away. + +The rock was hard and the immediate results invisible. Well earned was +the title of Optimist, for that these coarse, untrained men should so +devote themselves to a futurity certainly indicated optimism, and of a +fine sort. If the capitalist should not come! The net result would be +a few acres of hilly stony land, a well hole where there was no water, +and an exhausted pocket-book. + +At noon some of the miners ate a lunch which they had brought with +them, heating coffee over the little fire used to warm the powder; +while others picked up something in their own cabins. Bill Martin's +table entertained only the gambler, Graham, Cheyenne Harry, and two +other men, whom the camp laughingly designated as "proud." About four +or five o'clock, the workers returned from the claims. At six sharp +Black Jack served dinner to the entire camp. Then came the Little +Nugget, a quiet smoke, a glass or so of whiskey, and a sound night's +sleep. + +Sometimes there was a celebration. One or two members of the little +community were inclined to become a trifle over joyous too often for +their health. The standard of humor and manners was not one of the +most quiet and delicate. But, on the whole, Copper Creek was no worse +nor better than a hundred other similar prospecting camps in the West. + +Naturally, to such a community, in the hobbledehoy stage of its +development, as it were, the advent of so strange a phenomenon as a +woman was in the nature of an event. Later, when it had become used to +the sex and its possibilities and limitations, the personal relation +might become the motive of much very complicated action; but now it +accepted Molly as a bright spot of color on a gray canvas, as a +holiday, as a fortuitous bit of music, as an unexpected burst of +sunshine in the winter. For all her strong feminine charm, she was to +most of them as sexless as a boy. They were too many; and she was +alone. The spectacle of one gigantic rivalry for her favor would have +been grotesque, and no one has a keener instinctive sense of the +ridiculous than the Westerner. They accepted her fascination as a real +but impersonal influence. In her they honored the great abstraction, +woman; and in himself each individual saw, not his own single +personality, but the blended apotheosis of the man of Copper Creek. +Molly was held in partnership, each miner making not only his own +impression for her good graces, but the camp's as well. + +And this without mawkish sentimentality or comic opera delicacy of +conduct. It must not be understood that the newcomer became any +romantic idol of the camp, or that the men displayed the old-fashioned +courtesy affected by the miners in Western romances. These were +pioneers. Their lives were rough, and their conduct matched their +lives. When angry, they said very emphatic things in inelegant +language. When facetious, their jokes were apt to be as broad as the +prairies themselves. When at their ease, they chewed tobacco, or ate +with their knives, or forgot to wash their shirts that week, or sat in +their shirt sleeves with the collars of said garment wide open. But +they never equalled the frankness of a Parisian soirée in talking of or +joking at some natural but usually unmentioned functions of life; nor +were they ever without that solid bedrock of good nature which is the +American's saving grace. Molly Lafond led a safe life among them +because she trusted them. In the face of that trust no one of them +conceived the possibility of harming her. This feeling was personal +however. Nobody would have felt called upon to protect her against +anyone who did conceive the possibility. In other words, she took just +the independent position in the community which would have been +accorded to a man coming in from outside. She was a good comrade. + +In her elation at finally escaping the restrictions and petty +bickerings of her life at the Indian agency, Molly had turned eagerly +first of all to the conquest of the masculine heart. This was theory, +built up from a long course of romantic reading. The heroine always +"ruled her little court." Molly would like to rule her little court +also. She felt the genuineness of her fascination, the possession of +which she realized to the full degree--that sort of fascination which +succeeds where beauty, intellect, spirituality fail. It was a power, +great, untried, unmeasured. Naturally her first impulse was to test +it, to use it. She luxuriated in it. Nothing could be more delightful +than to command and be obeyed; to smile into answering, smiling faces; +to frown and see swiftly, as in a mirrored reflection, the countenances +about her become dark. That was natural. + +But after a little she found herself tiring of it. The game was too +easy. Even from the first evening, when she had astounded and subdued +the whole community at one fell blow, she had never experienced the +slightest difficulty in getting these men to like her. Why should she? +She was young and pretty and dainty, and delicately commanding and +winsome, and she knew instinctively each man's weak point. One and all +gave her unqualified approbation. There is no fun in asserting +yourself, if everyone agrees with you; and to be a queen you must +maintain your dignity and aloofness. It was a pose. You cannot be +hail-fellow with your subjects. + +So little by little, as the joy of out door life got into her veins, as +it does into the veins of every healthy young creature in the open air +of the Hills, she dropped the coquette. Then she first began to +appreciate the real charm of things, and she was perfectly happy. Not +a tiny cloud of regret veiled the tiniest corner of her skies. + +The cabin had been finished within the week, but under the advice of +the builders she did not move into it until nearly a month later. + +A new shack never dries thoroughly in less than three weeks; and, +besides, the sawdust from the new insect borings always pours down from +the walls and ceilings in aggravating abundance. A dozen other houses +were placed at her disposal. The men were only too glad to double up +temporarily. But the summer air was warm, and Molly was by now as used +to the narrow confines of her canvas-top, as a yachtsman to the cabin +of his boat. She declined their offers and continued to live in the +wagon. She was quite content to wait thus. In the meantime she took +much delight in fixing up various curtains, chaircovers and tablecloths +from light fabrics unearthed at the New York Emporium, and in +cultivating carefully boxes of geraniums, almost the only garden flower +in the hills. Curiously enough she enjoyed this. Perhaps it was a +hereditary bequest from her unsuspected New England ancestry. + +Jack Graham lent her many books, which she perused greedily. She had +never seen a large city, or a boat, or a trolley car, or a tailor-made +gown; but that counted little. Such things are not so much matters of +actual experience as of natural aptitude. Some people can go to Europe +and get less out of it than do those who read steamer advertisements at +home. Molly Lafond was keen of intellect and vivid of imagination, by +the aid of which two qualities she constructed for herself a +culture--real, in spite of the fact that it was somewhat ill-balanced. + +She spent much of her time out of doors, but the road and the gulch saw +little of her. Her delight was to strike directly back across the +brook, and up the overgrown hill, to the vast pine-clad heights above. +There the castellated dikes frowned like mediaeval ramparts; the pine +needles were soft and slippery and fragrant underfoot; the breeze swept +by on swift wings, humming songs of the distant prairie; the little +squirrels chattered and the big squirrels barked; the sun shone silver +clear; and below, far down, the summits of other hills dropped away and +away like the tiers of some enormous amphitheatre, until the brown +prairie suddenly flowed out from underneath and rose to the level of +the eye. It was very far from everything up there. And then one could +go through the dikes down into Juniper Gulch, where one would find a +whole group of claims and one's friends at work on them. + +Molly grew to be an expert in the dip of quartz. She was accustomed to +perch on a neighboring dikelet, near a claim, where she could enjoy the +breeze, and converse without too much effort. There she looked +charming, and bothered the workers a little. All workers like to be +bothered a little. It is a wise woman who does not bother them too +much. The attention is flattering as long as it is not annoying. When +the men were below the surface of the ground she shouted down the shaft +and insisted on a ride in the bucket. Or she rambled long delicious +hours with Peter and the Kid, from whom she learned the philosophy of +hindsights and the pregnant possibilities of holes under tree roots. +These two adored her beyond all measure. The homely, bristle-whiskered +animal was always at her heels; the Kid was ever ready to waste +precious cartridges on her behalf. + +They did much elaborate stalking after grouse, rabbits, and squirrels. +Most of these approaches failed, for the reason that they were too +elaborate and too eager. Wild creatures seem to be sensitive to +telepathic influences. A stolid Indian, whose fatalism does not permit +him to become much excited, can often walk directly up to a flock of +ducks, when a white man with a breech-loading gun and a desire for a +bag could not sneak within fifty rods. Instance also the well known +and uncanny knowledge of the common crow as to your possession of +firearms. His proneness to distant flight when you are armed, and his +sublime indifference to your approach when you are not, may arise not +from a recognition of the instrument, but from a reading of the desire +for his slaughter. + +Be this as it may, the bagging of game was a rare enough event to throw +all three into wild excitement. Usually, a grand rush was made in the +direction of the fallen. Peter arrived first, and danced, tip-toed, +bristle-backed. Molly and the Kid were not far behind. Then came +shouts of proud joy and feminine shrieks at the gore. The story was +detailed again and again of just how the shot was made. Peter agonized +that he could not talk. Finally the grouse or squirrel was borne +proudly down to fierce-moustached Black Jack, the cook, who +expostulated and grumbled. + +"G' 'way, you two!" he growled. "Git out; don't want you around! +Goin' t' bake! Vamoose! Ain't hired t' skin no squirrels or pluck no +birds. Cyan't be bothered. G' 'way, you two." Black Jack always +talked like this--in short, disconnected sentences. + +Then the girl would beg prettily, while the Kid, fully aware in whom +dwelt the most effective persuasion, stood by, and Peter snuffed around +in the forbidden kitchen. And finally Black Jack would yield, with a +vast show of bad grace. + +"All right, all right!" he would cry, shaking his great head. "Just +this once. Never again, mind you, never again. Cyan't be bothered. +Wouldn't do it now, only just t' get rid of that dawg. That's it. +Cyan't have no dawg around. Cyan't nohow." + +He took the partridge or squirrel, still grumbling. + +"Oh, thank you, _dear good_ Mr. Black Jack!" cried Molly. "And you'll +save me the wings and tail or the skin, won't you?" + +At this point Black Jack always exploded violently and bundled them +out, taking a neatly avoided kick at Peter. Then he would watch them +quite out of sight, after which he would expend the utmost care in the +concoction of wonderful stews or potpies. + +These clear, sunshiny, healthy days tanned Molly's skin to a golden +brown, brightened her eye and her smile, and filled her strong young +body with abounding health and vitality. Even her evenings did not in +any way cloud her spirits. They were of bad influence, but why should +she know that? She was a delicious little animal, keen, shrewd, of +good impulses, though her moral nature was quite untrained. She +possessed instincts--strong instincts--which seemed arbitrarily to +place a limit beyond which she did not dream of going; but that, she +thought, was because she did not care to go. The question of right or +wrong, consciously chosen, never entered her calculations. Her only +standard was her desire--and, perhaps a little, what Graham would think +of her--but she did not bother her head one way or the other. She was +happy, and was doing nothing she regretted. That was enough. + +And yet the evenings were not good--not good at all. They were bound +to exercise a certain deleterious influence. + +By habit, Molly spent her time after dark on a corner of the bar at the +Little Nugget saloon. There she received attention. The peculiarity +of her position lay in the fact that her good comradeship had +dissipated constraint. The men talked and drank and gambled about as +usual. It must be repeated that the girl was in no sense a romantic +"idol of the camp." The miners would have been well enough pleased if +she had drunk her whiskey with them as freely as they did with each +other. As she did not, they merely put the fact down to personal +idiosyncrasy, like Dave Williams' horror of cooked rabbit. Rough men +do not demand the finer virtues, and she was treated to the reverse +side of this idea. She saw what men call life. She learned the game +of faro and how men act who have won or lost at it. She gained a +knowledge of the strength of whiskey and what men say who have drunk of +it. She heard loose speech; she saw loose conduct. All this is not +nice for a young girl. + +The men felt especially drawn to her because she smoked paper +cigarettes gracefully. About ten o'clock she went to bed. + +These few days, between her first triumphant arrival and her +establishment in her new cabin, were the most care-free and happy of +her stay at Copper Creek. She lived thoughtlessly, conducting herself +exactly as she pleased, entertaining no regrets, conscious of no sense +of wrongdoing, and therefore of no sense of guilt. Then a little +incident stirred into wakefulness that fine-wrought conscience which is +an element of so many natures that draw their life from New England. + + + + +XX + +THE EATING OF THE APPLE + +One morning Molly found herself awakened very early by the sound of +whistling just outside. She opened her eyes to discover Peter, who had +occupied one end of the wagon, sitting, head and ears up, listening to +the same sound. The whistling was young, tuneless. Finally she peered +through the crack in the canvas. + +Outside, on the wagon tongue, sat the Kid patiently waiting, his little +rifle across his knees, one bare foot digging away at the dust, his +lips puckered to cheerful sibilance, his wide gray eyes turning every +once in awhile to the canvas cover of the schooner. He discovered +Molly looking out. The whistle abruptly stopped. + +"Come on out, Molly," said he. "I ben waiting for you a long time." + +"My! it's so awful early!" yawned Molly. "What do you want to do?" + +"I'm going to take you hunting," confided the Kid. "We perhaps can get +a squirrel down the gulch, or perhaps a cotton-tail. Come on, hurry +up!" + +"Why, I ain't dressed yet," objected Molly. + +"Well, dress!" said the Kid impatiently. + +By this time she was well awake, and the glorious morning was getting +into her lungs. Her eye disappeared, and in a few minutes she emerged +fully clothed. The Kid looked her over. + +"Y' ain't going that way?" he asked incredulously. + +"Course not. You wait till I come back." + +She stepped down on the whiffletree, her heavy waving hair falling in +masses of curls and crinkles over her shoulders. + +"Oh, Lord!" cried the Kid pathetically. In the entrance stood Peter, +his head on one side. Molly laughed. + +"I thought I'd got rid of _him_," complained the Kid, "and here he is!" + +"Never mind," said Molly soothingly, "I can make him stand round. Come +here, Peter!" + +At the pool of the lower creek Molly knelt, turning back the sleeves +from her white arms, loosening the dress from about her round young +throat. After a little she leaned back against the mosses and piled +the strands of her hair, watching the interested Kid with shining eyes. + +"My, but you're purty!" he cried. She nodded to him, laughing. + +They took their way down the gulch, walking soberly in the road, while +Peter skirmished unrestrained among the possibilities of the thickets +at either hand. In the judgment of the Kid, this was too near town for +the best hunting. The Kid talked. + +"You never been down here, have you?" + +"No," replied Molly, "I've always been up in the hills, you know; it's +more fun, I think. Do you think we'll find anything down here near the +road?" + +"Not just yet; but after we get by Bugchaser's--Say, you've never seen +Bugchaser, then, have you?" + +"No," laughed the girl, "I should think not. What in the world is +Bugchaser?" + +"It isn't a 'what'; it's a 'him.' He's crazy. He has a 'coon, and a +bear, and a bobcat. I'd like to go up an' see 'em, but I'm scairt of +him." + +"Is he dangerous?" asked Molly. + +"Pop says he eats little boys. Hoh! that ain't so, of course. But +he's crazy, you know." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"He chases bugs with a fishnet." + +"Oh!" cried Molly comprehendingly, and began to laugh. + +The Kid looked at her with offended reproach. + +"Well," he remarked finally, "you can do what you want; but you betcher +life I'm keepin' away from him!" + +His eyes were wide with childish wonder, strangely incongruous in this +solemn, lonely little creature with his ways of early maturity and his +ridiculous cut-down clothes. + +"There, there," laughed Molly soothingly. "I wonder what's up with +Peter!" + +Peter was barking like a bunch of fire crackers. + +"Sounds exciting!" said she. "Maybe it's a squirrel up a tree. Let's +see!" + +The Kid threw his rifle into the position of a most portentous ready, +and the two entered the bushes. Peter was discovered, his hair +bristling between his shoulders, jumping eagerly around some object +which lay, invisible, on the ground. He snapped with excitement. The +Kid ran forward with a shout. Molly picked her skirts up and followed +with equal rapidity and considerably more grace. They nearly ran over +a large coiled rattlesnake. + +The Kid yelled and leaped to one side. Molly stopped stock-still and +uttered a piercing scream, after which she climbed rapidly to the top +of a near-by bowlder, where she perched, her skirts daintily raised, +her eyes bright with excitement. Peter leaped madly about. The Kid +discharged rapid but ineffectual pea bullets at the reptile. + +"I imagine you need a little help," said a voice so unexpected that +Molly nearly fell from the rock. The Kid gave one look at the newcomer +and fled with a howl of terror. "A most peculiar youth," observed +Durand reflectively as he advanced. "Most peculiar--seemingly obsessed +of an unwarranted terror for my person. Strange! I have never acted +in any way brusquely toward him." He picked up a stick, and, advancing +without the slightest hesitation, killed the whirring snake with a +single blow. "You may now descend," he assured her, turning with +exquisite grace to offer his hand. + +He led the way out to the road. Peter followed until within sight of +the animals chained to the posts, and then he quietly disappeared in +search of the Kid. This was not cowardice on Peter's part, but he had +long since tested by experiment the futility of challenging barks. + +Molly had recognized the newcomer from the Kid's description; and her +first glance assured her that her surmise as to his calling had been +true. She had been reading the _Life of Wilson_, the naturalist, +recently; and so knew of the existence of such men. To her they seemed +rather romantic. + +"Oh!" cried she on catching sight of the chained animals. "Are they +tame? Are they tame enough to pet?" + +The old man smiled a little at her enthusiasm. He had been looking her +over with pleasure, but without surprise. Michaïl Lafond, his new +friend, had mentioned his "daughter"; but never, Durand now thought, in +fitting terms. This girl was really beautiful. The little interview +became an audience to which Durand brought his exquisite court manners. + +"Jacques, the little raccoon, certainly is," he replied to Molly's +question, "but the others--I do not know--they are tame enough for +me--but a stranger----. We can try, cautiously." + +Molly had run forward and fallen on her knees before the 'coon. She +was delighted with his grizzled, round body, with his bright eyes, his +sharp little nose, the stripes across his back, his bare, black hands, +almost human, and above all with the clean, fresh woods-smell that is +characteristic of such an animal when not too closely confined. +Finding him quite gentle, she took him in her arms. Jacques proceeded +at once to investigate busily the recesses and folds of her dress. + +"He seeks for sweetmeats," explained the old man, who was looking on. + +From Jacques they proceeded to Isabeau, the lynx. Isabeau spat a +little and looked askance, but under reproof permitted a dainty pat on +the tips of his tasselled ears. Patalon, the great clown bear, was +good-natured, but rough. He desired to be rubbed here and there, he +wished affectionately to return this young lady's attentions with a +mighty hug. He smelt rank of the wild beast. Molly returned soon to +little Jacques. + +"How did you get them?" she asked, tapping the end of Jacques' nose to +see him wrinkle his face. + +"It is not difficult. One captures them young, when they are mere +cubs; and so, although they never will lose their wild instincts, they +become as you see them." + +"But the mothers----?" + +"Ah, that is the pity," replied the old man simply. "Sometimes it +becomes necessary that they die." + +Molly looked on him with new wonder, this slayer of bears and wild +cats, who nevertheless appeared so gentle, whose eye was so mild. It +was indeed a marvellous world. She forgot the Kid and the hunting +party, and gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment. + +From the pets they wandered to the flowers. These interested Molly +exceedingly, for she herself was struggling with the boxes of +geraniums. It was fully half an hour later when Molly finally said +farewell to her host and continued on down the gulch in the direction +taken by her little companion. + +The Kid was waiting with all the heart-rending impatience of youth. +The precious time before breakfast was slipping away in futility. He +had made a sacrifice in taking this girl. Never would he do it again! +never! never! And then he saw her coming, and forgot everything except +his relief. + +"Took you long enough to break away," was his only complaint as he rose +to conduct the party. + +"Have we got time to hunt now? Ain't it 'most breakfast-time?" +inquired Molly dubiously. "Don't you think we'd better let it go for +this morning?" + +"Lord, no! Come on! For heaven's sake don't let's waste any more +time!" cried the Kid with a gusty impatience that surprised his +companion. She did not realize the humiliated disappointment that had +this last hour seethed in the little breast. "I s'pose we might 's +well get up on the ridge," suggested the Kid, still grumbling. + +They turned sharp to the left, through the thicket, where the birds +were already hushing their songs, and the early dew was quite dried +away. The Kid pushed ahead with almost feverish rapidity. Here and +there in the brush Peter scurried, head down, hind legs well drawn +together beneath his flanks. He snuffled eagerly into the holes and +forms, doing his dramatic best to create some game, if necessary. +Every once in awhile his bristly head, all alert, peered, cock-eared, +over a bush, searching the hunter's face for directions, and then +plunging away suddenly as his own judgment advised. It was most +scienceless and unsportsman-like. The Kid peered eagerly to right and +left, holding the muzzle of the little rifle conscientiously at an +angle of forty-five degrees, as he had been taught, and vainly striving +to avoid dry twigs, although Peter was making enough noise for a circus +parade. The girl followed a step or so in the rear. It was +breath-taking, this excitement. Every stir of the bushes needed +examination, every flutter of wings was a possibility, every plunge of +Peter might send a covey whirring into the pine tops, or rouse a +squirrel to angry expostulation. As they went on up the side hills, +still without result, but therefore with expectation the more +sharpened, and as Molly's cheeks became redder and redder under her +brown skin and her eyes brighter and brighter, and as she bit her under +lip more and more, and as the straight level line of her brows grew +straighter and straighter with the concentration of her thoughts, it is +to be doubted if the most enthusiastic lover of scenery could have torn +his eyes from the pretty picture even for the sake of the magnificent +sweep of country below. So at least thought Cheyenne Harry, on his way +across the ridge to his claim. + +He surveyed the eager three with some slight amusement. + +"Hullo!" he called suddenly. + +The boy and girl started. + +"Hullo!" answered Molly after a moment, when her intent hunting +expression had quite fled before her cheerful look of recognition. +"That you?" + +The Kid too paused, but evidently under protest, and with the idea of +moving on again at the earliest polite moment. + +"How's hunting?" inquired Harry facetiously. "Killed all the game down +below there?" + +"All we've seen," replied Molly promptly; "and the hunting's very +good." She put ever so slight a stress on the word "hunting." "We're +going over the ridge now. Want to come along and help carry the game?" + +Harry looked speculatively at the Kid, who was standing first on one +bare foot, then on the other. "Naw, guess not," he replied. The Kid +brightened at once. "I'm going over to the Gold King for a while. +You'd better come along with me." + +"Haven't had any breakfast," objected Molly. + +"Oh, that's nothing. Neither have I. I'm just out to look around. +Come ahead." + +Molly did not care a snap of her fingers about the Gold King claim, +except that it belonged to Cheyenne Harry; and, owing to the rarity of +that individual's visits to his property, she had never seen it. +Besides this, she had been a good deal the last few days with Graham. +That young man had been interesting her greatly with a most condensed +and popularized account of the nebular theory, which seemed to Molly +very picturesque and intellectual. She was much taken with the idea of +thus improving herself and she gave herself great credit for the +effort, but it was so far above the usual plane of her intellectual +workings that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. The evening +before, she had gone to bed keyed up to wonderful resolves. To-day the +pendulum had begun ever so slowly to swing back. All the influences of +out-door life had drawn her to the earth; the clear freshness of the +early morning, the rank smell of the wild beast, the incipient +hero-worship in her admiration of the old man's supposed prowess as a +slayer of bears, the actual physical contact with the slapping clinging +brush through which she had passed. She breathed deep of the crisp +air. She broadened her chest, and stretched her muscles, and drank the +soft caressing sun warmth. She felt she would like to get down near +the grass, to breathe its earthly smell, to kiss it. It was the +gladness of just living. + +And to her in a subtle manner Cheyenne Harry symbolized these things, +just as Graham symbolized that elusive intangible humiliating power of +the intellect. He was strong and bold and breezy of manner, and +elemental of thought, and primitive in his passions and the manner of +their expression. He appealed to that spirit in her which craved the +brusque conqueror. + +So for the moment the idea of a scramble with him over these rough +dike-strewn ridges seemed to her the one idea in perfect tune with the +wild Western quality of the newborn day. And therefore, to the +consternation of the waiting Kid, she replied-- + +"Why, yes. I think it would be good fun, though I don't believe there +_is_ any Gold King claim. I believe it's just an excuse for your +loafing around, for you certainly never spent much time on it." + +"It's the finest thing ever," Harry assured her with a laugh. "I'll +show you." + +The Kid stood stock-still in consternation. + +"Oh!" cried he, when he could get his voice, "and how about our hunt?" + +"You come along with us," invited Cheyenne Harry good-naturedly. "It's +good hunting all the way." + +But the Kid knew better. This heedless climbing and loud talking would +be quite different from the careful attention necessary for the +destruction of the wily "chicken" or experienced squirrel. He looked +very sad. + +"Yes, come on," urged Molly; "we'll get something over in 'Teepee.'" + +The Kid shook his head, unable to trust himself to speak. Cheyenne +Harry turned away a little impatiently. + +"I'm sorry," continued Molly with hesitation. "I think you'd like it. +But we've had quite a hunt already, haven't we? And we can go another +time." + +She joined Cheyenne Harry. Peter stood looking first at the Kid, then +at the two retreating forms. He was plainly undecided. Molly's +gingham dress fluttered for the last time before she turned the corner +of a bowlder. Peter suddenly made up his worried mind. The Kid was +left alone. + +He sat down on a rock, and rested his chin in his hands, and looked +away across the valley to the peak of Tom Custer. A tiny white cloud +was sailing down the wind. He watched it until, swirling, it dissolved +into the currents of air. Far back in the forest of pines a little +breeze rustled, faint as a whisper: then it crept nearer, ever waxing +in strength, until, with a murmur as of a throng of people, it passed +overhead, and vanished with a last sigh in the distance. The Kid +listened attentively to the birth and death of the voice. A squirrel +directly above him broke into a rattling torrent of chattering rage. +The Kid sat, his chin in his hands, looking out over the valley with +unseeing eyes, his little rifle resting idly against his knee. The +moments passed by, one after the other, distinct, like the ticks of a +great clock. + +A soft muzzle nosed its way gently between his wrists. He looked down. +Peter's homely, gray-whiskered face with the pathetic eyes looked up +into his own. The Kid flung both arms about the dog's coarse-furred +neck, and burst into a passion of tears. + +From the top of the ridge, where she had paused a moment to take +breath, Molly saw the whole of this little scene. She suddenly felt +very irritated. + +That Kid was certainly the most unreasonable of children! Why, she +spent three-quarters of her time doing nothing but amuse him. She had +got up cheerfully at an unearthly hour, walked several miles without +breakfast, followed him uncomplaining through a lot of damp grass and +underbrush, and now, because she wouldn't spend the rest of the day +with him, he sulked. Forsooth, was she to give up all her friends, her +amusements, for the sake of that boy? Molly was most impatient--with +the Kid--and she became so preoccupied in pitying herself that she +hardly answered Cheyenne Harry's remarks, and was a very poor +companion. She deceived herself perfectly; yet in the background of +her consciousness was something she did not recognize--something +uncomfortable. It was an uneasiness, a heaviness, a slight feeling of +guilt for something which she could not specify, quite indefinable, and +therefore the more annoying. It made her feel like shaking her +shoulders. There seemed no valid reason why she should not be as +light-hearted as she had been a few minutes ago, for her reason saw +nothing in her conduct to regret. And yet she was uneasy, as though +she had done something wrong and was on the point of being found out. +She could not understand it, but it was very real, and, because she +could see no reason for it, it made her angry, with a sense of +injustice. + +It was the first manifestation of another phase of heredity--the New +England conscience. + + + + +XXI + +LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND + +Michaïl Lafond made much less of a stir in the life of the camp than +had his ward. He fitted in quietly. + +Behind the Little Nugget was a room and a shed. Lafond took possession +of the room, and relegated Frosty to the shed. His position as +proprietor of the saloon sufficiently explained his idleness, if +anybody's idleness ever needed explanation in a mining camp. He seemed +to do nothing, merely because he was to be seen almost any hour of the +day either smoking contemplative pipes near his place or Bill Martin's, +or wandering with every appearance of leisure from claim to claim in +the Hills, or disappearing in the direction of Durand's cabin in the +lower gulch. That was a mistake. He really did a great deal. + +For instance, he made himself agreeable in a cool, drawling fashion to +anybody who cared to talk to him. He kept his eyes wide open, no +matter where he went. He puffed as many speculations into his brain as +he did smoke-clouds into the air. That was not much perhaps; yet, by +the time the Chicago men came to Copper Creek, the half-breed knew just +about everybody's business in that camp. The student of character +never needs to ask blunt questions. + +He soon discovered that his first surmise as to Billy's peculiarities +was correct. The man was above all things spectacular. He liked to +fill the stage. If Lafond could strip him of his property--the Great +Snake--his prestige as promoter of the camp would be gone. Black Mike +could imagine nothing more galling to one of Knapp's temperament. + +He soon discovered that it would be no easy matter to do this, however. +He had felt sure that he would have no difficulty in taking advantage +of the proverbial carelessness of Westerners in general, and Billy +Knapp in particular, as to some of the finer points of mining law. +There are many technicalities to be observed before a claim belongs +indubitably and for all time to the man who occupies it. A "discovery" +of certain specification must be made; the measurements and stakes must +conform to definite regulations; the development work must be carried +on and reported according to the letter of the law; and so in a dozen +other trivialities which the miner is like to honor only in the most +general fashion. But Billy's requirements were all fulfilled. The +claims were undoubtedly his in the fullest sense of the word. At +present he could not be deprived of them legally; and as it was no part +of Lafond's scheme to allow Billy even the smallest comfort of +self-pity when his humiliation came, he did not care even to consider +the possibilities of chicanery. + +The only glimmer of light he could discern lay in the chance that +something might offer at the time of the transference of the property +from Billy to the Eastern capitalists. This was the inspiration that +had occurred to him in Durand's cabin. He had come to know Billy's +sanguine temperament, his enthusiastic predilection for seeing things +rose-hued, and he thought it very possible that the Westerner's +representations to the capitalists might not bear too searching +analysis. Overpraise of property might easily be construed as false +representation. Too graphic a description of natural advantages might +easily be twisted into an attempt to obtain money under false +pretences. A skilful man might be able to discredit Billy so far that +the transaction would fall through; and with the failure of this sale, +on which the hopes of Billy's companions were built, the promoter's +prestige would collapse entirely. + +With this sketch of a plan in mind, Lafond applied himself diligently +to acquiring a thorough knowledge of the property. That, at least, was +not difficult. All he had to do was to go to Billy, and say, "Look +here, Knapp, they tell me you've got quite an outfit here. Show me +around, won't you?" The Westerner was only too glad of the opportunity +to expatiate. He took Lafond down every prospect shaft, over every +surface indication. He explained them all minutely. When he had +finished, he gave Lafond carefully selected samples from all of the +vein fillings. The half-breed told him he wanted them for the purposes +of exhibition. + +"I got a first class shelf down in the Nugget," he said; "an' I think +if we'd jest put a line of samples along it from all the claims, and +label 'em, it would be a pretty good 'ad,' don't you?" + +Billy did. So the two "sampled" as carefully as for an assay test in +the School of Mines at Rapid. About half of the result Lafond +exhibited as he had suggested, but the rest he preserved carefully for +assay tests of his own. + +To be sure, Billy had quite freely shown him his own official tests +made at the School of Mines, but Lafond wanted his information more +direct. He could not doubt the accuracy of the reports. But there was +always a possibility that the sampling had not been fairly done. He +was sure of these other "averages," for he had helped take them. He +liked to have things under his own eye, and it was for this reason he +had first suggested to Durand that he would like to take lessons in the +art of assaying. + +At first he had intended to use the old entomologist merely as a +convenience, but later, as he became more intimate with the man through +his work, he actually began to entertain for him a friendship--his +first in over fifteen years. With all men he had been friendly; with +none had he been friends. Here he proved a really generous emotion, +opening his heart to the soft influences of affection and memory, +allowing himself in this one instance an intimacy absolutely without +ulterior motive. It all dated from the first day, when a chance +question of Durand's touched the springs of the half-breed's youth. + +They had adjourned that afternoon to the workshop, where Durand built a +charcoal fire in a little furnace and gathered about him a choice +assortment of curious implements. After the furnace was well heated, +he roasted the ore Lafond had brought with him, heating it through and +through, until finally the fumes of sulphur, antimony and arsenic +ceased to arise from the chalk-lined iron basin. While the process was +going forward Durand explained pleasantly the various steps of the +chemical change, interspersing much extraneous information--as, for +instance, how Winkler, Tcheffkin and Merrick claim that there is here a +loss of gold, which Crookes denies--to all of which Michaïl Lafond lent +but an inattentive ear. He was little interested in theory; but +observing the old man's delight in the scientific aspect of the +experiment, he feigned corresponding pleasure on his own part. + +Then they spread a flux of granulated lead over a crucible, in +appropriate juxtaposition with the roasted ore. For nearly two hours +it was fused; and as there was nothing to do until the slag of +impurities had formed about the bright metal in the centre, the men +talked much to each other while waiting. + +When the ore was completely fused, Durand seized the result in a pair +of forceps. With a small hammer he broke away the great masses of +clotted slag. A small bright metal button remained. + +"This is the lead, the silver and the gold," explained Durand, "and it +is here that we exercise care. All else is as child's play." + +He flattened the button on an anvil, and cut it into several pieces. +These he placed in the little porous vessels made of compressed bone +ash, called cupels, which had been slowly heating in the furnace. The +surface of the lead filmed over. In a moment it turned bright. Then +fumes began to arise. + +Durand's attention became fixed. His hand was constantly at the +furnace valve, admitting or excluding more air according as he desired +the temperature to rise or fall. + +"It is this which is difficult," he explained from the corner of his +mouth. "If the heat is too great, some precious metal escapes with the +lead. If the heat is too little, the lead is not all driven away." + +Lafond was attentive enough to this. He desired above all the +practical knowledge. + +"Observe the fumes," said Durand; "that is the true test. When they +whirl above the molten metal, then is everything well. When the fumes +do creep slowly like the mist on a stream, then the heat is not +sufficient. If, on the other hand, they do rise straight upward, then +it is necessary to reduce the heat at once." + +After a time the remaining impurities, under Durand's skilful +manipulation, were absorbed by the cupels. The little vessels were +drawn from the furnace and placed to one side to cool. A small yellow +button was finally detached with pincers. + +"That then is the gold!" cried Lafond. + +"And silver," corrected Durand gently. He weighed the button with +great care. Then with nitric acid he ate out the silver. The result +was weighed. The assay was finished. By comparing the weights of the +original ore, the cupelled button and the final product, statistics +were obtained. + +The men drew a long sigh of relief now that the task was quite finished. + +"It is hard work," observed Durand. + +"It is very good of you to take so much trouble for me," replied +Lafond, for the sake of politeness. + +"I like you," explained the old man simply, "because you speak French +and because there is something in your face that shows that you too +have been wronged, and that perhaps, like myself, in your youth you +have been light-hearted and were loved by maid and man with the love +that is given the reckless--and foolish," he concluded with a little +bitterness. + +Inexplicably this appealed to Lafond, so that he almost wept with the +sheer joy of it. + +"It is true, and you are my brother to have seen it thus," he cried, +lapsing unconsciously into the idiom of the Sioux. + +They washed their hands and went into the other cabin, where they sat +in the chairs made of barrels, and Lafond talked, talked, talked, until +the dusk of twilight descended upon them and stole away even the white +butterfly cases. + +He spoke swiftly and animatedly and with much gesticulation. Men will +tell you to-day that his speech was deliberate, scant, reserved. + +It was all of his youth. He described with abandon and fire the tall +pines, the still darkling river running beneath the cedars and birches; +the cabins, antler crowned, and the little gardens of their dooryard. +He related tenderly the life of those old days--the dance in winter to +the music of a single fiddle, and the snow shoe journey homeward under +the white stars, with mayhap a kiss upon a rosy cheek and a slap from a +mittened hand at the end of it; the wild exhilarating dangers of log +running in the spring; the canoe journey, the camping, the fishing, +through all that watered north country of the fir-girdled lakes and +trout-haunted streams in summer; the calling of the moose under the +round harvest moon, the stalking of the white-tailed deer, the corn +frolics whereat were more of the full-blossomed low-voiced chatterers +not unwilling to be wooed under that same great moon, through whose +shower of silver light the bull moose called to his mate, also not +unwilling. These things the half-breed told in that marvellous musical +voice which, with his expressive eyes, was now his greatest charm. He +told also more personally of his own youth. There had been a time when +Michaïl Lafond had been straight and clear-eyed and handsome. At the +dances and the corn frolics the fairest of the maidens was not so very +coy to him. In the log running Michaïl Lafond was the man always +called upon to skim over the bobbing logs under the very imminence of +the jam; his was the peavy that moved the bit of timber which locked +the whole; his the merry laugh as he had lightly escaped the plunging +foaming death. On and still on the voice rolled, until suddenly the +room was silent and dark, and the man in the corner had arisen abruptly +and gone out, and the white-haired naturalist was left alone, one hand +on each arm of his chair, looking straight before him, beyond the cabin +walls, beyond the years. + +Next day Lafond came again, and the next and the next. The assays were +all finished and tabulated. Still he continued to come, as usual, each +afternoon, for an hour or so at least. Durand did not smoke himself, +but he kept a pipe and a package of tobacco always on the table for his +visitor. They clasped each other's hands with fervor when they met and +parted. They called each other "mon vieux." And, what is more, they +could sit quite silent for hours without embarrassing each other in the +least. + +The men in the camp noticed this intimacy and commented on it. + +"Clar case of millennium," said Bill Martin, "Lion an' th' lamb. Ain't +no other way to explain it, fer what good Mike ever gets out of that +nutty old Bugchaser is beyond me!" + +Not that anyone cared. Everybody was at this moment speculating +earnestly on all possible results, good, bad, or indifferent, of the +pending visit of the Chicago tenderfeet. Although, strictly speaking, +their decision had only to do with the Great Snake, it was well +understood that it fixed also the value of every other piece of +property within a circumference of fifty miles. Little did those three +tenderfeet realize, as they dutifully changed cars at Grand Island, +Edgemont and other way stations, how much their holiday jaunt, as it +was to them, meant to a whole community of reasonably hard-working men. + +Lafond was the most interested of all, because, to his disgust, the +assays had been good, so good that the "false pretence" scheme would +have to be given up. He found himself, as usual, facing a situation +with not much more than luck to depend on. But he always had good luck. + + + + +XXII + +IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND GLORIFY PETER + +The most important event in the history of Copper Creek was indeed at +hand. The long-awaited Easterners were to arrive that very day to look +over the property. Billy Knapp had already driven to Rapid to meet +them, and their coming was momentarily expected. + +The camp had discussed long and heatedly the method of their reception. +Billy Knapp, and with him a strong contingent, advocated best clothes, +an imported brass band, and a generally festal appearance of evergreens +and bunting. But this, Moroney, Lafond and Graham decidedly opposed. + +"The way to make men give you things," said the last, "is to pretend +you don't want them." + +But it was Moroney's eloquence that carried the day. In fervid +rhetoric he pointed out that men were more apt to join an already +prosperous community than to furnish prosperity to one sadly in need of +it. He also pointed out many other things, including the Battle of +Bunker Hill and the Bird of Freedom. But that was what he meant. + +So when Billy and the buckboard drove dashingly up to Bill Martin's +stoop, the white road was to all intents and purposes +deserted--unnaturally so, for not a living thing was to be seen from +one end of it to the other. + +"Look's if your town was dead," remarked one of the Easterners, with a +laugh. + +"Oh no!" reassured Billy, seized with a sudden anxiety lest the thing +had been overdone. "But the boys is all off in th' Hills workin'." + +As a matter of fact the boys were doing nothing of the kind. They were +behind the cracks of doors and the darkness of windows, watching +eagerly every move of the disembarkation, on which they whispered +excited comments. Bill Martin was there outside, of course; Lafond +sauntered over from the Little Nugget; the gambler sat chair tilted, +blowing cigarette rings toward Ragged Top, never even turning his head +to see the arrivals, imperturbable, indifferent as ever; Graham and +Moroney were on hand by especial request; and of course no one could +keep Peter and the Kid away. The men in the cabins were satisfied with +their representatives. They need not worry about Graham and Moroney +anyway. + +[Illustration: JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT.] + +The first of the newcomers rolled out over the wheel, stood up on two +fat legs, and shook himself in a manner which proclaimed to the dullest +that his round face did not belie his good humor. He at once looked +about him and laughed. The second was seen to be a tall spare man, +gray-faced, deep-lined, but with the wrinkles of laughter about his +eyes. He wore a long linen duster and was evidently of the sort that +seasons its most serious transactions with a dry and facetious humor. +The third was short, small, and irrepressible. He looked as though he +should be named Frank, as in fact he was. Although all three were +dressed for travelling, they carried with them a solid air of financial +responsibility quite foreign to Copper Creek's experience, a certain +shrewdness which no new circumstance could ever abash to the extent of +forgetting the swiftest means to the main chance. But over this +shrewdness now was brushed a film of optimism, the over-abundant +hilarity of a business man on a holiday outside his accustomed +surroundings, expanding in high spirits, persiflage, and practical +jokes. During their stay in Copper Creek this never left them. They +were as delighted with the country as children with a new toy, and took +it about as seriously. + +The concealed onlookers saw the little group stand talking a moment, +and then turn into the hotel. Black Jack unloaded from the back of the +buckboard several substantial leather-bound valises. Billy drove the +horses home and returned on foot. He was pounced upon eagerly. Billy +was still glowing with self-induced enthusiasm over Copper Creek. + +"It's all right, boys!" he cried exultantly. "They shore has the right +idee! They tells me they thinks this is shore the finest kentry they +ever see!" + +"What to do next?" they inquired anxiously. + +"Do? Nothin'! This ain't no circus. When the grub bell rings, mosey +on over as usual, and a'ter feedin' we institutes some sort of a game +outside." + +When the grub bell rang, the miners filed solemnly into the +dining-room, darting covert glances at the three visitors, already +seated with their entertainers. Some nodded solemnly. The Easterners +were laughing and joking each other in the most childish fashion. + +"By Jove, there's a girl; only one I've seen!" cried the little man +named Frank, as Molly came in and took her seat at another table. + +"What of it?" asked Stevens, the tall man, with his mouth full of Black +Jack's boiled potatoes. + +"But she's a pretty girl." + +Murphy, the fat jolly one, carefully removed his butter and soda +biscuits, of which the visible supply seemed limited, beyond Frank's +reach, and ventured a glance. + +"She is pretty," he agreed, firmly thwarting the little man's attempt +to steal the butter in spite of his precautions. + +He turned to Dan Barker and resumed a labored discussion of the +country's game and fishing. The tall man took up his conversation with +Billy. + +"Yes," said he, "I go through that every morning. I find it +invaluable. It keeps me as hard as nails. Feel there!" + +He doubled his arm, and Billy placed his huge fingers gingerly over the +Easterner's biceps. Down the long table the miners and prospectors ate +uneasily, with frequent glances toward the noisy strangers, exchanging +rare low-voiced comments, and twisting their feet. Between Molly and +the man whom the others called Frank there sprang up an incipient +flirtation of glances. + +After dinner everybody went outside into the open air, where the +gathering relaxed its formality and men breathed mere freely. Murphy +conversed with several on the subject of Colt's forty-fives. He +expressed a desire for a shooting match, to which end he borrowed +Billy's six-shooter, and handled it so recklessly that everybody wanted +to duck. + +Finally he planted the muzzle firmly between his fat legs, rested both +hands on the butt, and looked about him triumphantly. + +"What'll I hit?" he asked. + +"God knows!" ejaculated the tall man; "but you can shoot at this." He +drew an envelope from his pocket, and turned toward a small board box +resting against the stump of a tree. Bill Martin started forward in +alarm. + +"Hol' on!" cried he, "I got some chickens in that thar coop!" + +The tall man turned and wrung his hand in a mock access of gratitude. +"Thank you! thank you!" he cried fervently. "To think how near I came +to having the blood of those innocent chickens on my head! I shall +never cease to feel grateful to you, sir!" + +He marched over to the coop and pinned the envelope square in the +middle of it. + +"There," said he, stepping back with an air of satisfaction. "Now the +chickens are perfectly safe!" + +The proprietor grinned very doubtfully. Several men laughed, one after +the other, as the joke penetrated. + +"You go to hell, Steve," said the fat man, bubbling all over. + +He raised the long six-shooter with an easy gesture. + +"They're just as good as meat!" he asserted confidently as he squinted +over the sights. A breathless pause ensued. + +"Always cock your pistol before shooting," Frank finally admonished in +a soft and didactic voice. + +Murphy, red-faced, muttered something about self-cockers and tried +again. This time the pause was succeeded by a deafening report, and +the pistol leaped wildly. From the coop burst a single frightened +squawk. Murphy beamed. + +All crowded about the box, examining for the bullet hole. On the +instant, Frank became wildly and triumphantly excited, dancing about +the motionless end of an index finger which pointed toward the +unscratched coop. The marksman looked nonplussed for a single instant. +Then his face cleared. + +"It went right in through that!" he claimed arrogantly, pointing the +barrel of the revolver toward a small knot hole. The other two men at +once gave vent to snorts of derisive contempt. "Prove that it didn't," +insisted the fat one. "Just prove that it didn't, and I'll pay up." +He tucked his thumbs into the lower pockets of his waistcoat, +supporting the revolver pendent on one forefinger, and smiled broadly. + +Billy's straightforward mind saw no diplomacy beyond the inexorable +logic of the situation. "Thar ought t' be a bullet hole in th' other +side of th' coop then," he suggested in a modest voice. + +Murphy cast upon him the glance of reproach. + +"I give up," he confessed with grieved dignity, and, without awaiting +an investigation, turned toward the saloon. "It means drinks," he +observed laconically. "All of you!" he added to the crowd. + +Near the door Peter fell in with the procession. The tall man seized +upon him before even that experienced animal could escape. After an +ineffectual lunge or so backward toward his haunches, the homely dog +seemed to realize that no harm was intended, and so became quiet. +Stevens passed his hands rapidly down Peter's back and haunches, lifted +him first off his fore legs, then off his hind legs, watching carefully +the exact position he assumed when he touched the ground again, pushed +his gums away from his teeth, and moulded through the fingers the +outline of his head. + +"It's a genuine Airedale," he asserted with interest. "Who does he +belong to, and where did he come from?" + +Nobody knew. + +"I don't suppose there's another west of the Mississippi," he went on. +"It's a peculiar breed, built for scrapping." The men gathered about +with a new interest in Peter. "Don't know just what the strain is, but +it's bred in the valley of the Aire, in England. The laboring classes +there mostly make furniture, and as they work by the piece, they can +take all the time off they want. Consequently they're a sporty lot, +and go in for cock fighting and racing and badger baiting, but, most of +all, dog fighting. They evolved this strain from something or other. +A good Airedale can lick anything except a Great Dane, and he falls +down there only because the Dane's too big for him." + +"I know of a bull terrier--" began Murphy. + +"Your bull wouldn't be ace high. Look at the teeth on him! Get on to +the thickness of those bones! Do you think teeth would stick on that +slippery bristle coat of his? or, if they did, do you think they would +get into that tough loose hide very hard?" He suddenly released Peter +and stood up. "Frank," said he, "come here and size up this pup." + +Peter shook himself and walked gravely into the arms of the adoring +Kid. The Kid had listened open-mouthed to every word of the expert's +statement. + +But Frank had disappeared. The incipient flirtation had developed. + + + + +XXIII + +A FOOL FOR LUCK + +When it is a question of mining, the most cautious business man loses +his head. + +It is very difficult to realize the fact that the Western property must +not be judged by Eastern standards. + +These two short paragraphs state the main reasons why, in the first +place, so much capital is sown in waste places; and why, in the second +place, Western gold mines have so bad a reputation among investors. +Nine out of ten of the legitimate mines of our Western States would be +good investments if they could be run as carefully and intelligently as +is any wholesale grocery. The expectation of big gambling returns +seems to render men careless as to the smaller details. + +Why this should be so, it would be difficult to say. Of the truth of +the statement there is absolutely no doubt in the world, as anyone who +knows the history of the West can testify. + +During the three days' duration of their stay, the Easterners looked at +facts, incomprehensible to the eyes of such as they, through the +explanations, honest enough in intention, of Billy Knapp. He led them, +perspiring but pleased, from prospect to prospect, from shaft to shaft, +from hill to hill. He showed them leads, fissure veins, red quartz, +white quartz, water supplies, timberings, hanging walls, country rock, +pan tests, and he talked about it all with that easy fluency of +eloquence, that flattering assumption of the other man's +sophistication, which is so peculiarly a talent--nay, a genius--of the +Westerner. + +Some trades there are for which all men imagine themselves qualified +without especial training--such as horse buying, writing stories, +judging pictures, and mining. This is a little strange when one +reflects that other things, such as painting, skating, keeping +accounts, or making a horseshoe, while not a whit more difficult, are +acknowledged to require a certain amount of technical education and +practice. Perhaps it is because the initial concept is so simple; as, +in this case, the digging of ore from the ground, and the reduction of +it. Details come, not from observation, but from actual experience. +Anybody, on the other hand, can see, without understanding, the +complexity of double-entry bookkeeping. + +On the afternoon of the third day, the Easterners, Billy Knapp, and +Michaïl Lafond gathered formally to talk it over. The latter contrived +to be included because he was a man of experience. After some little +preliminary discussion, in which the Easterners showed by their airy +familiarity with the topic just how much of the local color had soaked +in, Stevens rapped on the table. + +"Although this is not strictly a business meeting," he began, "perhaps +we can get at what we want better by putting some little formality into +its discussions. The question before us is this: Mr. Knapp here +possesses certain property which he wishes to dispose of. We have been +over it thoroughly in the last few days, we have examined the figures +relating to its assays and the gross value of the claims. They have +been satisfactory. We have next, as it seems to me, to figure on the +probable working expense, in order that we may, with some intelligence, +estimate the margin of profit." He sorted over some papers on the +table before him. "Let us take up the Great Snake lode first. What, +in your idea, would be necessary for its development?" + +"Wall," began Billy, rising formally. "They is practically two leads +on th' Great Snake; an' if you-all decides to work 'em both, you'd want +a shaft on each. A plain-timbered shaft costs you yere about twenty to +twenty-five dollars a foot. Then you needs cross-cuts, and drif's at +about five or ten a foot besides--that includes everythin'--men, tools, +powder. Then yore pump an' hoist is worth about two or three thousan'. +includin' minin' expenses for two months. That's all th' actual +expense connected with th' Great Snake itself; but of course you has to +have yore stamp mill and washer for all the group of claims. A good +stamp mill costs you ten thousan' dollars, but it's good forever." + +"How much shaft and tunnel would you have to sink before getting to a +paying basis?" asked Frank briefly. + +"That would depen'. You wants to get to water level, of course, afore +yore shore; but it might pay right squar' from th' surface. Count on a +hunderd foot." + +"And when you get to pay level, what capacity a day would you have?" + +Billy laughed. "That depen's too. You can put on more or less men. +Call her from fifteen to twenty ton a day." + +They bent their heads together over the figures. After a little +Stevens read the following tabulation:-- + + 2 shafts of 100 feet each @ 20.00 . . . . . . . $4,000.00 + Cross-cuts and drifts, say . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200.00 + Pump and hoist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000.00 + 1-10 of the cost of mill (there were ten + claims) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000.00 + -------- + Initial expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8,200.00 + + +"That thar figger," observed Billy, "brings her right up to date +without no squealin' whatever. Yere you figgers on taking good hard +rock out of four hunderd foot of tunnel an' shaft. Lots of that is pay +quartz. You got to figger that you gets some return out of it all. +They's a good many ton of ore in four hundred foot of shaft!" + +"That is true," said Murphy. "There won't be eight thousand outlay +without any return." + +"Yore dead right!" agreed Billy. + +"Let that go for now," interrupted Stevens. "We can call that +'velvet.' Now what we want to know is, what will be the working +expense of converting the ore into gold when the initial expense is +over?" + +"Call her about five dollars," replied Billy promptly. + +Stevens consulted the assay table. "The ore on the Great Snake as +shown by samples taken from various spots in the prospect shaft +averages $8.55," said he. He figured for a moment. "Allow $3.00 a ton +profit at twenty tons a day, it would take only a little over four +months to catch the initial expense." + +"Of course there's your running expenses of a camp," suggested Frank. + +"Oh yes, but look at the margin to cover them." + +They went on to the next, and the next, until the ten claims were all +figured over. Not all showed as alluring a prospect as the Great +Snake, for that was admittedly the banner claim of the group, but all +yielded a good margin of profit. It was simple as a proposition in +algebra. Assay value minus cost of production equals profits. There +was no unknown quantity in sight. Lafond alone saw one, and he held +his peace. + +One more item the Easterners had to include, and this, falling within +their business habits, and out of Billy's, they arranged to their own +satisfaction. It was Billy's price for his claims. + +"Now what are your ideas on the subject, Mr. Knapp?" asked Stevens +briskly. + +Billy hesitated. "Mebbe it's funny," he confessed; "but I hadn't +settled on a price. I know you gentlemen 'll do what is right. But I +would like to stay with her a bit." + +"Stay with her?" + +"Yes," explained Billy, embarrassed. "Keep a holt; sort to be +interested myself, you know." There spoke Billy's vanity. + +The three talked together low-voiced for a moment. They had conceived +a vast respect for Billy's capacity in the West, however +unsophisticated he might appear in the East; and they had long before +talked out in anticipation just this point. Stevens voiced their +decision. + +"We have decided, Mr. Knapp," he began, "to ask you to be our +superintendent, provided of course the company is formed. We feel sure +that your best efforts will be expended in our behalf, because your +interests will be ours." Then he went on briefly to flatter Billy +exceedingly, until that individual was ready to weep with joy. "Our +proposition is this," he concluded. "We intend to form a stock company +of two hundred thousand shares at one dollar a share, non-assessable. +Of this amount a majority will be held by the promoters of the company, +some other smaller amount will remain in the treasury, and, say, fifty +thousand will be floated on the market. Our offer is, to make you +superintendent at a nominal salary of five thousand, and to give you in +addition thirty thousand promoter's shares as your price of the claims. +These shares you may either sell or keep. Thus you may either take a +certain sum of money, or you may pool your interests with ours, +confident that every good showing made by you as superintendent will +increase the value of your holding as participator in the enterprise. +In other words it gives you a personal interest in your work here. +What do you say?" + +"Heads I win, tails you lose," said Lafond over in the corner, but he +said it under his breath. + +To Billy it was all gorgeous. He saw only that he was offered thirty +thousand dollars and five thousand a year, in addition to keeping the +position of prominence he coveted. To him the paper dollar shares +looked as good as paper dollar bills. + +"What do I say?" he cried, "I say 'put her thar,' and thank you. Let's +go have a drink!" + +So the meeting adjourned, wonderfully inspirited, especially Michaïl +Lafond, for at last he saw a chance. + + +As he looked up at the stars that night before turning in, he made a +quaint little sign on high. It was the Indian gesture of worship. +"Lafond," he purred to himself, "you are a fool for luck. Rippling +Water used to say you were born under a lucky star, and by the Turtle, +I believe she was right!" + +For though the Easterners thought they had done well in paying Billy +with a paper futurity, Lafond saw two sides to the question. The +meeting had been conducted, apparently, in the most business-like and +painstaking manner, yet it was to be noted that the fundamental facts, +the facts on whose accuracy depended the whole value of the subsequent +figuring, were accepted on Billy's mere say-so, without an attempt at +outside verification. Billy was honest, but he was superficial. His +temperament did not force him to search out the little details. +Michaïl Lafond was in the habit of searching them out very thoroughly. + +He saw that one claim, because of its peculiar situation, would require +an ore bin of equally peculiar construction; that it might perhaps be +necessary to flume water to another; that a third, though its surface +showing was good, gave indications of being nothing but a blow-out; +that though the assay of a certain ore was high, the actual working +value might be low, because of the refractory character of the rock. +In regard to mere externals of camp-building, his experience taught him +that the Easterners' estimate would turn out to be superficial. His +view from the inside showed him that every last article of equipment +for the buildings, and every pound of machinery, would have to be +brought in on mules; that men might not always be easy to get in a new +country; that hay for horses came from a distant prairie, at prices +that corresponded to the distance; that the enthusiastic promoter is +rarely or never the careful, painstaking superintendent. And so with a +hundred other items, which the Easterners had entirely overlooked. It +is marvellous that they should have done so. Translate gold into +button hooks, the Hills into a factory, Billy Knapp into an impecunious +small proprietor anxious to sell, and not one of the three would have +gone into the affair so blindly. But it is true. And more, the +history of this operation at Copper Creek is the faithful history of a +myriad of exactly similar enterprises in the West. Ask your broker +friend, or anyone in a position to watch the floating of schemes on +Change; he will tell you. + +Having settled the business of the trip, the Easterners spent a few +ridiculously juvenile days in pleasure. Billy worked himself nearly +blind to get them a shot at deer, but without success. They visited +Custer. On their way back to the railroad, they took in the Pine Ridge +Reservation, where they saw five thousand Sioux, and bought beaded +moccasins and short ill-made arrows. Finally they piled on the +Pullman, vastly pleased with their sunburn, and a little inclined to +swagger in the presence of these clean-shaven, quietly civilized +travellers who had not just left the exciting dangers of a pioneer +country. + +Billy accompanied them. His presence was necessary in Chicago where +the new company was to be "floated" and its final organization brought +about. + +None of the results of the visit were as yet known officially, but of +course a well verified rumor had got about that the Easterners were +really going to "take hold" and every man in camp was at the hotel door +to bid the visitors farewell. Michaïl Lafond was the last man at the +hub of the wheel before the horses started. + +"I am glad you came," said he, holding Stevens' hand while he spoke, +"and I am glad you are going to invest here. It will help us all, and +I sincerely hope it will help you." + +Stevens looked at him suddenly, as if to discover whether the lack of +confidence in the words was reflected in the man's face. Apparently +satisfied, he replied easily, "Course it will." + +"Always figure on the safe side," suggested Lafond. + +"You're dead right there," responded the other, "and that is just what +we've done. We've put down that fifty thousand as dead clear outlay +for a starter, without any offsets by way of return, and surely some of +that ore will pay something before we get down two hundred feet. Oh, +we're all right on that. You'll see us booming before spring!" + +Lafond watched the wagon out of sight with a smile in his inscrutable +eyes. Then he went down to spend his afternoon with Durand, humming +the remnants of a little Canadian _chanson_. + +"A fool for luck," he repeated to himself; "a regular fool for luck, +Lafond. All you have to do is to sit right still, and it comes to you +without the effort on your part." + +Between him and his object there now intervened but fifty thousand +dollars. And fifty thousand dollars was not an unlimited sum of money. + + + + +XXIV + +BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND + +Billy was gone almost a month. + +During that interim Lafond had absolutely nothing to do but wait, for +his affairs, both domestic and foreign, were doing well. + +"A fool for luck, a fool for luck," he got into the habit of saying to +himself, but with somewhat of a congratulatory ring to it, as though he +were a little inclined to attribute fortune's favors to that lady's +appreciation of his shrewdness. If luck had not favored him, he would +have had to accomplish the same results himself. It was a labor-saving +device. Nevertheless, as time went on, the strong underlying mysticism +in his nature came to make of this luck of his a fetish of no small +power. Lafond went about in a continual state of elation. Things were +coming his way. Nothing could stop them. They were fore-ordained. +All he had to do was to stay awake so as to take advantage of the +circumstances which chance so nicely arranged for him. He had such +confidence in the fortuitous moment that he almost ceased to plan +ahead, sure that the crisis would bring its own solution. + +Fifty thousand dollars stood between Billy's credit and Billy's +downfall. Lafond had those fifty thousand dollars to get rid of. The +sum was not great, but neither was it small; and to induce another to +spend fifty thousand, in a few months, without any encouraging return, +might have seemed, to an ordinary man, a project worthy of careful +foresight. Not so Lafond. "A fool for luck," he repeated and awaited +Billy's reappearance. + +There was Molly's affair with Cheyenne Harry, for instance. What could +be better? Lafond had known Mortimer by reputation for a great many +years. He was acquainted with the details of the transaction of +Mulberry Gulch, and how he and a man named Dutch Pete had swindled all +Custer City; he knew too of Harry's various wild escapades in the early +Indian skirmishes--on both sides some men said; of his wonderful +fortitude in enduring hardship, and his equally wonderful periods of +relaxation when back again in the towns; and he knew, best of all from +his point of view, Harry's reputation as a man among women. Since this +flirtation had lasted so long, to Lafond's mind it must already have +passed the limits. The natural sequence would be followed out. In +time Cheyenne Harry would have a mistress the more. + +In other words, without the slightest trouble or encouragement on his +part, the girl would be debauched. Then, through artfully colored +vague hints, he would let slip the real facts of her breeding. He was +student enough of character to know that she would gnaw her heart out +with a passionate remorse, the more intense because of that very innate +purity of instinct which now made Harry's task a difficult one. Lafond +had absolutely nothing to do but congratulate himself, smoke his pipe, +and spend long hours with his friend the entomologist. + +After the first flutter over the Easterners' visit had subsided, the +camp settled back with wonderful celerity into its accustomed habits. +At first it expected Billy's reappearance within a few days. The +return was postponed to the end of the week. The end of the week gave +Copper Creek to understand that it would have to wait a short time +longer. Then came another postponement. And so on, until the little +community had taken up its usual prospecting, work o' day, play o' +night existence, and the return of Billy was looked upon as an +inevitable event, but hazily in the future, not imminent enough +immoderately to disturb the current of men's thoughts. + +Then all at once Billy was among them, splendid, powerful, energetic, +in a hurry, whirling the stagnant waters this way and that, until the +spirit of enterprise awoke within them, and a nervous atmosphere of +progress replaced the old monotony. + +Billy had credited to him fifty thousand dollars; Billy sported a new +hat and new clothes; Billy had vast enterprises to accomplish before +the ground froze up; Billy drew a salary; Billy possessed an engraved +certificate of shares, which he displayed; Billy had a new watch; Billy +was looking for men; Billy was deep in complicated plans which required +above all things haste, haste, haste; until the narrow little cañon +rang with the name of Billy, which was esteemed great in the land. + +The new superintendent entered at once into the discharge of his +duties. His first care was to sink the shafts mentioned at the first +informal meeting in his own shack. There were ten claims, on which +eleven shafts were planned. The very evening of his return, eleven of +the handiest prospectors in the camp were summoned to Billy's cabin, +where they found awaiting their signatures eleven contracts to sink on +the various claims a specific number of feet at a specified price. +Next morning they looked the ground over. Next noon they signed. Next +afternoon they hired two helpers each, bought powder and fuse, and +sharpened drills. The day after, thirty-five men were busily at work +on the new company's group of claims. It looked like business. + +The same noon, Billy's effects began to come in from the East. He had +received a liberal advance on the account of his salary, and the +results were various. Among them were new saddles, a new buckboard, a +new rifle, silver-mounted harness, and a quantity of clothes of rather +loud pattern. But most marvellous was a clean-limbed, deep-chested, +slender running horse, accompanied by a sawed-off English groom. Billy +spent a good share of the next week with this individual, constructing +a corral of small timber in which the new horse might roll about. Each +morning the groom led the animal, astonishingly hooded, blanketed, and +leather-banded, up and down the hundred yards or so of level road which +was all that strip of rugged country offered fit for such delicate +hoofs and fine limbs. The beast always progressed teetering a little +sideways, nearly dragging the groom from his feet. The camp speculated +that Billy had designs on the next great prairie "fair" in the spring, +but the truth is the Westerner had little idea of what his designs +were. He had been pleased with the horse, and had bought it, without +bestowing a thought on expediency. After the novelty of possessing so +thoroughbred a creature had somewhat worn away, he confessed to himself +a slight bewilderment as to what to do with it. + +Other interests claimed his attention now. The work on the mines +themselves no longer needed his care. After the hundred feet of shaft +had been quite finished and timbered, he would inspect them in his +official capacity. If the job came up to specifications, he would sign +its acceptance; if it did not, the contractor would have to remedy the +defect. In the meantime he had on hand the building of the camp +itself, for which he had already planned largely. + +Lafond climbed the gulch and the knoll, after activity had been well +under way for about a week. He found Billy paying the freight-bills on +several loads of heavy red-painted machinery, while the teamsters spat +and swore just outside the little shack, which he now used as an +office. Billy was signing slips from his new check book. Until he +should have finished, Lafond strolled about examining the grounds. + +Around the mouths of the shafts themselves the débris had accumulated +astoundingly, showing that the contractors too had been industrious, +but Lafond paid little attention to them. He was more interested in +the clearing, levelling, trimming and digging which seemed to indicate +the undertaking of rather extensive works above ground. Perhaps a +dozen men were at work. Some were engaged in "trueing" the four great +foundation beams of what was evidently to be a large building. Others +squared smaller timbers near at hand. The remainder were measuring and +indicating with a shovel the outlines of other and less pretentious +structures. In a moment Billy came out ready to dissertate at length. + +"That thar is the boardin' house," he explained, "I thought at first +I'd only make her big enough for thirty, 'cause that's as big a gang as +I starts with; but then I figgers it out, an' it won't be long before I +takes on more, so I thinks it jest as well to start where I ends. So +she's goin' to accommodate sixty, two-story, you know. Then yere's the +cookee's shack. I aims to have th' kitchen separate yere--don't like +that Prairie Dog game nohow." (The "Prairie Dog" was the hotel; and +the "game" was the inclusion of the kitchen and the dining-room in the +same apartment.) "Then yere's to be the office. I uses my old shack +for an office now. I aims to have three sleepin'-rooms, an' a +dinin'-room and kitchen." + +"What for?" asked Lafond, a little puzzled. + +"For me." + +"For----?" + +"I don't aim to eat with the men. And over yander 'll be th' stables; +and thar th' blacksmith's shop; and then the powder house is on th' +other side of the gulch. The chicken house is beyond th' blacksmith's +shop." + +"The what?" asked Mike. + +"The chicken house." + +"Oh," said Mike. + +"I ain't got the ground all broke yet," pursued Billy; "but the plans +is all ready, and it ain't takin' long when once we git started. The +stuff fer th' mill is comin' along slow," he observed, pointing to the +red-painted machinery; "but I ain't aimin' to put her up till nex' +spring. Can't do much with her till I gets th' shafts sunk." + +"No," agreed Lafond. + +"But I got th' plans fer that too. Come on in an' I shows them to you." + +He led the way into the little shack, and began to rummage in a valise +full of papers. Lafond found the place in a litter of confusion. +Scattered about in the wildest disorder were clothes, weapons, saddles, +harness, knick-knacks and mining tools. Among the latter the +half-breed noticed the sections of a pump--an expensive machine used +only after a shaft has penetrated below the water level, but which +Billy had already purchased. Lying half open among the dusty quartz +specimens, empty ink bottles, rusty pens and old pipes, which cumbered +the table, Mike perceived a large wooden box. + +"What's this?" he asked. + +Billy looked up red-faced from his search. + +"That?" he replied. "Oh, that's a stamper," and dived back into the +valise. + +Lafond drew the box toward him. He found it to contain a vast quantity +of rubber types of all sizes and styles, figures, ornaments and +ornamental rulings. The box itself was perhaps some thirty inches +square. It was a most elaborate outfit, whose use is confined almost +entirely to large department stores where there is much marking of +prices. + +Billy now stood upright, having found his roll of plans. + +"What did you say this is?" asked Lafond again. + +"A stamper." + +"What do you do with it?" + +"You sticks the types in this rule this way." Billy took out the rule +and some of the types, fumbled unskilfully with them for a moment, and +threw them impatiently down. "Anyway, they goes in; and then that +keeps them in a straight line." + +"Yes," persisted Lafond, "but what's it for?" + +"Why, to stamp things with, of course." + +"What things?" + +Billy hadn't thought of that. + +But his discomfiture was only momentary. He spread the plans out on +the rapidly cleared table, and discoursed concerning them. Lafond lent +an attentive ear, but said little. Billy's ideas were comprehensive. +They included every adjunct of use or expediency which the prospector +remembered to have seen in any of the numerous successful camps which +had fallen under his observation. In fact, when finished, the external +Great Snake would be a composite of the desirable features of many +other camps, including the great "Homestake" itself. It was evident +that before Billy's mind's eye, the Great Snake was already as +prosperous and as well entitled to its graces of mining luxury as any +of the older enterprises. After a little appeared a man who had some +horses to sell, so Lafond took his leave and retraced his steps to +town. Near the foot of the knoll he happened across still further +evidence of Billy's wandering activity in the shape of an ivory-handled +clasp knife of five-inch blade. Mike remembered that Billy had shown +it about in the Little Nugget the evening before as another example of +the Easterners' generosity; and he remembered further the Westerner's +delighted laugh over the inscription, "William Knapp." + +"Don't know myself that way," he had cried. "I clean forgets that +'Billy' does stand for 'William.'" + +Lafond's first impulse was to reclimb the knoll for the purpose of +returning his find to its owner, but on second thoughts it hardly +seemed worth the trouble. He slipped it into the side pocket of his +canvas coat, where, of course, he speedily forgot all about it. + +When he reached the Little Nugget, empty at this time of day, he sat +down in his chair and laughed aloud, peal on peal, wagging his head and +rubbing his eyes. Frosty, happening in, withdrew with celerity, firmly +convinced that his master had gone crazy. + +"A fool for luck, a fool for luck!" cried Lafond, "Why, the idiot is +playing right into my hands!" + + + + +XXV + +JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT + +The morning when the hunting party had so unhappily terminated on the +slope of Tom Custer, proved to be the turning point in Molly's +relations with the camp. + +The Kid forgave her in two hours, but her troubled conscience would not +let her forgive herself. Therefore she was irritated with the Kid. +Therefore her old innocent joyful trips into the hills in his company +suddenly came to an end. That is good psychology; not good sense. + +With the first realization of evil, slight though it was, her moral +nature began the inevitable two-sided argument. She was no longer +naïve, but responsible. As a consequence her old careless, thoughtless +manner of life completely changed. In the beginning she had come full +of confidence to subdue a camp. Speedily she had discovered that it +was not worth the trouble, and that she infinitely preferred to play +out in the open with the winds and sunshine and the diverse influences +of nature. Now a subtle, quite unrealized sense of unworthiness, drove +her back to a desire for human sympathy, the personal relation. This +personal relation took the outward form of an entanglement with +Cheyenne Harry, complicated by her intellectual admiration of Graham. + +From the first, Cheyenne Harry had possessed for her a certain +fascination which had distinguished him from the rest of the men by +whom she was surrounded. It had dated from the evening when he had +kissed her. At the time he had been shown his place swiftly and +decisively enough, but it was a forceful deed, such as women like, and +its impression had remained. Besides this, Molly's spirit was +independent; she respected independence in others; and he, with the +exception of Graham, was now the only man in camp who was to some +slight extent indifferent. He showed frankly enough, with the rest, +that he liked her company and her good opinion; and yet he showed, too, +that if her presence and regard were not freely offered as he demanded +them, he could wait, secure in their ultimate possession. + +At first this fascination had been weak and unimportant. Now, however, +it rapidly took the ascendancy over everything else. The mere chance +that its influence had been the one first to touch the girl's moral +nature counted for much; as did, curiously enough, the fact that, in +her relations with Cheyenne Harry, Molly always felt a little guilty. +She resented her imperceptible retrogression, and the resentment took +the reckless form of a desire to go a step further. This was mainly +because she did not understand herself. She had done nothing wrong, as +she saw it; and yet They had put this heavy uneasy feeling into her +heart. Very well! If They, the mysterious unthoughtout They, were +bound to make her unhappy without her fault, she would enjoy the sweets +as well as the bitter of it! + +Harry had such a way of forcing her to act against her conscience. + +"But I can't do that!" she would object to some proposition of his. +"I'd like to. I think it would be great fun. But you know very well +I've promised Dave Kelly to go up with him this afternoon to look at +his claim." + +"That doesn't matter," replied Harry cavalierly. + +"But it _does_ matter," she persisted. "I've promised." + +"Oh, shake him. Tell him some yarn. _Do_ something. It isn't every +day I get an afternoon off this way." Though why he did not, it would +be difficult to say. + +"I know, but I've _promised_." + +"Oh, very well," said Cheyenne Harry, with cold finality, and began to +whistle as if the question were quite disposed of. This did not suit +Molly at all. + +"There isn't anything I can do, is there?" she asked after a moment. + +"You know best." + +"Oh, dear, I don't _want_ you to feel like that." + +"Why shouldn't I feel like that?" cried Harry in sudden heat. "Here I +look forward to a whole afternoon with you, and I'm thrown down just +because of a kid. I suppose you'd rather trot around with him than +with me. All right. Go ahead." + +He began to whistle again. He never said what the result would be if +she did "go ahead," and this very mysterious indifference had its +effect. Molly, genuinely distressed, knit her brows, not knowing what +to do. + +"Now look here!" commanded Harry, after a minute, with great decision; +"you go find that Kid, and send him up to Kelly's claim to say you +can't come this afternoon. You can fix it to suit yourself next time +you see him," and then he would himself find the Kid and despatch him. + +Molly always acquiesced, but with inward misgivings. She must now do +her best to conceal from Dave Kelly the real state of affairs; he must +not by any chance see her with Harry; he must not hear from outside +sources of her afternoon's excursion with that individual. An element +of the clandestine had crept into it. The idea oppressed her, for, in +spite of her store of spirits and her independent temper, she was not +of a combative nature when she felt herself at all in the wrong. The +necessity saddened her, brought to her that guilty feeling against +which she so sullenly rebelled. She was uneasy during all the +afternoon, and yet she was conscious of an added delicious thrill in +her relations with Harry--a thrill that first tingled pleasantly +through all her veins, then struck her heart numb with vague +culpability. In due course, she came to transfer the emotion from the +circumstances to the man. She experienced the same thrill, the same +numb culpability, at the sight of his figure approaching her on the +street. + +This tendency was emphasized, perhaps, by the fact that their walks +together--projected so suddenly, undertaken with so strong a feeling of +blame on her part--consisted always of continual skirmishes as to +whether or not Cheyenne Harry should kiss her. The interest of the +argument was heightened by the fact that the girl wanted him to do so. +This he was never allowed for a moment to suspect--in fact, by all +means in her power she gave him to understand quite the contrary--but +he could not help feeling subtly the subconscious encouragement, and so +grew always the more insistent. She held him off because her instincts +had told her the act would cheapen her. Molly always obeyed her +instincts. They were strong, insistent, not to be denied. They came +to her suddenly with a great conviction of truth, which she never +dreamed of questioning. Among other things they taught her that +without love each kiss adds to the woman's regard for the man, but +takes away from his desire for her. + +Cheyenne Harry used all his arts. He tried force only once, for he +found it unsatisfactory and productive of most disagreeable results. +Diplomacy and argument in themselves, as eclectics, contained much of +the joy of debate. The arguments in such cases were always deliciously +ingenuous. + +"Now, what harm is there in my just putting my arm around you?" he +urged. + +"There just is, that's all." + +"I'll have it around you when we dance." + +"That's different; there's people about then." + +"It's just a question of people, then?" + +"I s'pose so." + +"Will you let me put my arm around you to-night in the Little Nugget?" + +"Of course not." + +"But there's people there," triumphantly. "Now what's the harm? It's +different with us. Of course you ought not to let anyone else, but +we're different." + +They were sitting near together, and all this time the Westerner's arm +was moving inch by inch along the rock behind Molly. As he talked he +clasped her waist, gingerly, in order not to alarm. She shivered as +she became conscious of the touch, and for one instant gave herself up. +Then she sternly ordered Cheyenne Harry to take his distance. The +latter tried to temporize by opening an argument. The half-playful +struggle always ended in Molly's gaining her point, but the victory was +laughing, and so Cheyenne Harry was encouraged to reopen the attack on +new grounds. + +As one of the inevitable results, the emotion which Molly experienced +in at once denying herself and combating Harry was gradually translated +into a fascinated sort of passion for him. Then, too, since naturally +the interest of these indecisive encounters increased with each, the +two came to see each other oftener and oftener, until the habit of +companionship was well established. This habit is very real. The +approach of the accustomed hour for meeting causes the heart to beat +faster, the breath to come quicker, the imagination to kindle; while +the foregoing of a single appointment is a dull loss difficult to bear +with patience. It counterfeits well many of the symptoms of love, and +for a short time is nearly as burning a passion. + +Sometimes the attack would be more direct. Cheyenne Harry's stock of +sophistry would give out, as well as his stock of patience. + +"Oh, come on, Molly," he would cry, "just one! I've been real good, +now haven't I? Oh, come on!" + +"You've been nothing but a great big brute, Mr. Cheyenne Harry!" she +cried in a tone that implied he had not. + +Harry advanced a little, holding out his hands, much as one would +approach a timid setter dog. She put one finger on her lips, and +watched him, bright-eyed. When he was near enough, she boxed his ears, +and twisted her slender young body out of reach, laughing mockingly, +and wrinkling her nose at him. + +But then when they had returned to camp, and once more she found +herself alone, the delicious questions always came up; how far did he +intend to go? Did he see through such and such a stratagem? Was he +really vexed at such and such a speech, or was he merely feigning? In +what manner would he dare accost her when next they met? And so +another meeting became necessary soon--at once. They saw more and more +of each other, to the neglect of many real duties. + +For a time the influence of Jack Graham did something to stem the drift +of this affair, but that lasted only until he himself fell in love with +her. + +With him her first emotion had been of eager intellectual awakening; +her second, that of piqued curiosity; her third, of reactionary +dulness. As time went on she came to pass and repass through those +three phases with ever increased rapidity, until at the last their +constant reiteration might almost have relegated them to the category +of whims. She liked to be with him, because he made her aware of new +possibilities in herself. She could not understand him, because his +attitude toward her was never that of the lover. She experienced +moments of revolt, when she cried out passionately but ineffectually +against an influence which would compel her to elevations rarer than +the atmosphere of her everyday, easy-going pleasure-taking life. +Ineffectually, I say, for something always forced her back. + +Not that Graham ever preached. Preaching would have presented +something tangible against which to revolt, something orthodox to be +cried down. In fact, reformation of Molly Lafond's manners of mind or +body was the farthest from Graham's thought. He merely represented to +her a state of being to which she must rise. The rise was slight, but +it was real. It meant the difference between thinking in the abstract +or in the concrete. It meant that she was compelled to feel that to +men like him, or to women like her, this animal existence, with its +finer pleasures of riding, climbing, flirting and sitting on bars, +while well enough in its way, was after all but a small and incidental +part of life. If the girl had been requested to formulate it, she +would not have been able to do so. She apprehended it more in its +result; which was to make her just a little ashamed of her everyday +manner of existence, without, however, furnishing her with a strong +enough motive to rise permanently above it. This, in turn, translated +itself into a certain impotent mental discomfort. + +As long as Jack Graham preserved the personally indifferent standpoint, +the mere fact that he caused her momentary disquiet did not antagonize +Molly Lafond against him. Rather it added a certain piquancy to their +interviews. He threw out his observations on men and manners lazily, +with the true philosopher's delight in rolling a good thing under his +tongue. None of them possessed an easily fitted personal application. +And his utter indifference as to whether she talked or listened, went +or tarried, always secretly pleased her. She liked his way of looking +at her through half-closed lids, in the manner of one examining a +strange variety of tree or fern; the utter lack of enthusiasm in the +fashion of his greetings when she came, or his farewell when she +departed; his quite impersonal manner of pointing truths which might +only too easily have been given a personal application. And this was +the very reason of it, although again she might not have been able to +formulate the idea; that although his methods of thought, his mental +stand-points, his ways of life constantly accused hers of inertia, +carelessness and moral turpiture, nevertheless his personally +indifferent attitude toward her relieved them of too direct an +application. She enjoyed the advantages of a mental cold shower, with +the added satisfaction that no one saw her bedraggled locks. + +But when in time the young man went the way of the rest of the camp and +began to show a more intimate interest in her, the conditions were +quite altered. We may rejoice in anathema against the sins of +humanity, in which we may acknowledge a share; we always resent being +personally blamed. + +Graham indeed went the way of the rest of the camp. His progress from +indifference to love he could not have traced himself, although he +might with tolerable accuracy have indicated the landmarks--a look, a +gesture, a flash of spirit, revealing by a little more the woman whom +he finally came to idealize. That her's was a rich nature he had early +discovered. That it was not inherently a frivolous or vicious nature, +he saw only gradually, and after many days. Then his self-disguise of +philosophic indifference fell. He realized fully that he loved her, +not for what she did or said, but for herself; and with the knowledge +came an acuter consciousness that, whatever her possibilities, her +tendency was now to pervert rather than develop them. For the first +time he opened his eyes and examined her environment as well as herself. + +She spent half of her day alone with Cheyenne Harry. The other half +she was restless. The evening she passed in the Little Nugget saloon, +where the men, convinced that she was now the mistress of Cheyenne +Harry, took even less pains than formerly to restrain the accustomed +freedom of their words and actions. Graham viewed her indifference to +all this, and her growing absorption by Cheyenne Harry, with some +alarm. He conceived that the state of affairs came about more because +of a dormant moral nature than because of moral perversity; and as to +this he was partly right. But he could not fail to perceive the +inevitable trend of it all, no matter what the permitting motive. He +would have been less--or more--than human, if he had let it pass +without a protest. + +At first the protest took the form of action. He tried to persuade the +girl to spend the evening in other ways. While the novelty lasted, +this was all very well. He epitomized and peptonized his knowledge on +all subjects to suit her intellectual digestion. They called it their +"lesson time," and he made the mistake of taking it too seriously. He +was very much in earnest himself, so he thought she should be so. They +talked of nothing but the matter in hand. After a little, there came +an evening when she was a trifle tired. The matter in hand did not +interest her as much as it should. She leaned the back of her head +against her two clasped hands, and sighed. + +"I'm stupid to-night," she confessed. "Let's talk. Tell me a story." + +Graham was much in love, and so incapable of readjustments. He had +thought out carefully several new and interesting things to say. + +"I thought you said you were really in earnest about this," he +reproached her. "If you are going to improve yourself, you must work; +and work cannot depend on one's mood." + +All of which was very true, but Jack Graham could not see that there +inheres in truth no imperative demand for its expression. + +But when another night came, her enthusiasm was less marked, for she +saw no escape. After a time she skipped an evening. Then at last she +gave it up altogether. + +"I'm afraid I'm not intellectual," she confessed, smiling doubtfully. +"I told you I'd be a disappointment. It is all interesting and very +improving, but--well, I don't know--it seems to make us both cross. I +guess we'd better quit." + +Jack Graham seemed to indicate by his manner that he was disappointed. +A good deal of his disapproval was because he saw that her renunciation +of these "improving" evenings meant not only the loss of the +improvement, but her exposure to worse influences; but of course Molly +Lafond did not know that. She took the young man's condemnation +entirely to herself, and consequently, when in his presence, felt just +a little inferior. She concealed the feeling with an extra assumption +of flippancy. + +Because of these things, as time went on, she came to see more and more +of Cheyenne Harry and less and less of Jack Graham. The latter's mere +presence made her ashamed of her lack of earnest purpose. He, for his +part, viewed with growing uneasiness the augmenting influence of the +dashing Westerner; for he knew the man thoroughly, and believed that +his attentions meant no good. In that, at least for the present, he +did him a wrong. Cheyenne Harry merely amused himself with a new +experience--that of entering into relations of intimacy with a woman +intrinsically pure. The other sort was not far to seek, should his +fancy turn that way. But to Graham these marked attentions could mean +but one thing. + +His resolve to speak openly was not carried into effect for a number of +days. Finally, quite unexpectedly, he found his chance. + +Toward evening, as he was returning from a day's exploitation on his +three claims in Teepee, he came across her sitting on a fallen log near +the lower ford. The shadows of the hills were lying across the +landscape, even out on the brown prairie. A bird or so sang in the +thicket. A light wind breathed up the gulch. Altogether it was so +peaceful; and the girl sitting there idly, her hands clasped over her +knees, gazing abstractedly into the waters of the brook, was so pensive +and contemplative and sad, that Graham had to spur his resolution hard +to induce it to take the leap. But he succeeded in making himself +angry by thinking of Cheyenne Harry. + +She saw him coming and shrank vaguely. She felt herself in some subtle +way, which she could not define, quite in the wrong. What wrong she +could not have told. When, however, she saw that plainly his intention +was to speak to her, she smiled at him brilliantly with no trace of +embarrassment. + +They exchanged the commonplaces of such a meeting. + +"Why are you so solemn?" she broke in finally. "You look as if you'd +lost your last friend." + +He looked at her. "That is the way I feel." + +"Oh," said she. + +They fell silent. She did not like at all the gloomy fashion of his +scrutiny. It made her nervous. She felt creeping on her heart that +mysterious heaviness, the weight of something unknowable, which she had +lately been at such pains to forget. She did not like it. With an +effort, she shook it off and laughed. + +"What's the matter?" she cried with forced gayety. "Didn't he sleep +well? Don't he like my looks, or the freckle on my nose, or the way I +wear my cap?"--she tossed the latter rakishly on her curls, and tilted +her head sideways. + +"What is the matter?" she asked with a sudden return to gravity. + +"You are the matter," he answered briefly. + +"Oh dear!" she cried with petulance; "has it come to that?" + +"No, it has not come to that, not what you mean. But it has come to +this: that your conduct has made every true friend of yours feel just +as I do." + +She stared at him a moment, gasping. + +"Heavens! you frighten me! What _have_ I done? Come over here on this +log and tell me about it." + +Graham's vehement little speech had vented the more explosive portion +of his emotion. Whatever he should say now would be inspired rather by +conviction than impulse; and the lover's natural unwillingness +deliberately to antagonize his mistress made it exceedingly difficult +to continue. He hesitated. + +"You _must_ tell me now," she commanded; "I insist. Now, what have I +done?" + +"It isn't so much what you have done," began Graham lamely, "as what +you might do. You see you are very young, and you don't know the +world; and so you might walk right into something very wrong without +realizing in the least what you are doing, and without meaning to do +wrong at all. Everybody owes it to himself to make the best out of +himself, and you must know that you have great possibilities. But it +isn't that so much. I wish I knew how to tell you exactly. You ought +to have a mother. But if you'd only let us advise you, because we know +more about it than you----" + +The girl had watched him with gleaming eyes. "That doesn't _mean +_anything," she interrupted. "What is it, now? Out with it!" + +"It's Cheyenne Harry," blurted Graham desperately; "you oughtn't to go +around with him so much." + +"Now we have it," said the girl with dangerous calm; "I'm not to go +around with Harry. Will you tell me why?" + +"Well," replied Graham, floundering this side of the main fact; "it +isn't a healthy thing for anybody to see any one person to the +exclusion of others." + +"Yourself, for instance," stabbed the girl wickedly. "Go on." + +Graham flushed. "No, it isn't that," he asserted earnestly. "It isn't +for the benefit of the others that I speak, but because of the effect +on yourself. It isn't _healthy_. You are wasting time that might be +very much better employed; you get into an abnormal attitude toward +other people; you are laying stress on a _means_ to which there is no +_end_, and that is abnormal. I don't know that you understand what I +mean; it's philosophy," he concluded, smiling in an attempt to end +lightly. + +"No, I do not understand in the least. All I understand is that you +object to my seeing a certain man, without giving any particular reason +for your objections." + +"It isn't especially elevating for you to sit every evening in a bar +room crowded with swearing and drinking men who are not at all of your +class," suggested Graham. "The language they use ought to teach you +that." + +"They are my people," cried Molly with a sudden flash of indignation, +"and they are honest and brave and true-hearted. They do not speak as +grammatically as you or I; but you have been to college, and I have +been blessed with a chance to read. And whatever language they speak, +they do not use it to talk of other people behind their backs!" She +reflected a moment. "But that isn't the question," she went on, with a +touch of her native shrewdness. "I understood you to make a request of +me." + +Graham had not so understood himself, but he had a request ready, +nevertheless. "That you be a little more careful in the way you go +about with Mortimer, then," he begged. + +"And why?" she asked again. + +"Because--because he means to do you harm!" cried Jack Graham, driven +to the point at last. + +She rose from the log. "Ah, that is what I wanted to hear!" she +returned in level tones--"the accusation. You will tell him this to +his face?" + +Graham paused. His anxiety was a tangle of suspicions born of his +knowledge of men, his intuitions, and his fears. Looking at it +dispassionately from the outside, what right had he to interfere? +Graham was much in love, brave enough to carry through the inevitable +row, and quite willing as far as himself was concerned, to do so; but +he could not fail to see that, however the affair came out, it would +irretrievably injure the girl's reputation. No one would believe that +he would go to such lengths on suspicion of merely future harm. To the +camp it would mean his proved knowledge of present facts. So he +hesitated. + +"You will not, I see," concluded the girl, moving away; "rest easy, I +shall say nothing to Harry about it. I don't know what he would do if +he heard of it." + +She began to walk toward the ford, every motion expressing contempt. +She believed she had proved Graham a coward, and this had rehabilitated +her self-respect. She was no longer ashamed before him. At the +water's brink she turned back. + +"And remember this, Mr. Jack Graham!" she cried, her repressed anger +suddenly blazing out; "I may be young, and I may not know much of the +world, but I know enough to take care of myself without any of your +help." + +She picked her way across the stepping-stones and disappeared, without +once looking back. + + + + +XXVI + +AND HAS TO GO TO WORK + +From that moment Graham ceased to be an integral factor in the girl's +history. His only hold on her imagination had been his moral +superiority, and it was now gone. She treated him thenceforth as an +admirer whose sincerity deserves the consideration which his insistence +makes difficult to give ungrudgingly. He was not discouraged or +frowned on. He was forgiven promptly as a child is forgiven. But he +was kept always scrupulously to his place. The girl now held the whip +hand. After a little, when he became too insistent, she cut him +cruelly in punishment and only deigned to smile on him again when, to +sue forgiveness, he had quite abandoned his attitude of fault-finding. + +As for him, the girl's actions soon became hateful. He saw them all +wrong, yet he felt his powerlessness to alter them in even the +slightest degree. This aroused so powerful but so impotent a rage that +shortly he came to react irritably against everything Molly did whether +right or wrong. He instinctively arraigned himself in the opposition. +He did not want to do this, and his common sense accused him strongly +of unreasonableness, but he could not help it. It was greater than he. +No matter what the plan, discussion or even conversation, his morbidly +sensitive consciousness of the girl's error impelled him to object. + +"Let's go over to Rockerville to-day," she would suggest. + +"The horses aren't here." + +"But it's no great matter to get them. Let's send the Kid." + +"I don't know where the Kid is." + +"Well, Frosty then." + +"Frosty's busy." + +"It wouldn't hurt you any to get them yourself." + +"One of the saddles is broken." + +"You know very well it's only a cinch ring. It can be fixed in five +minutes." + +"We'll---- Don't you think it is going to be pretty hot?" + +"No, I don't; and if I can stand it, I should think you could." + +"And----" + +"Heavens and earth! It's harder than climbing trees to get you to do +anything. Never mind! _I_ don't want to go to Rockerville or anywhere +else if it's all that trouble!" + +And then Graham would wonder at his stubborn fit. Why shouldn't they +have gone to Rockerville? In five minutes he could have got the +horses, fixed the saddle. And the day was beautiful. What real reason +did he have? He did not know; only he felt an irresistible impulse to +object. This was because he loved her, disapproved of her, and was +quite powerless over her. + +When he was not merely contrary, he was urging strong advice on an +unwilling recipient. It was offered in either the pleading or the +blustering spirit. If in the former, Molly merely teased him. If in +the latter, she became very angry. It was always on the same subject. +The girl was wearied with it. + +And yet, if it were any consolation, Jack Graham could have comforted +himself with the truth that, next to Cheyenne Harry, he claimed a +greater share of her thoughts than any other in camp. His offices were +ungrateful, but they had a certain sincerity which prevented their +being ignored; and, not forgotten, their acid-like drop of truth ate +into that conscience of which she did not yet realize the existence. +Her horizon was becoming banked with thunderclouds, looming huge and +black and heavy with portent. Graham, as an ideal, had stood for a +higher existence. Now, however shrunken his image appeared, the ideal +itself remained as something tangible in her collection of moral +standards. She acknowledged to herself fiercely that she had fallen +from it. She told herself that she did not care. + +She was dreadfully alone. Lafond was always kind to her, but she never +felt that she knew him. Graham, in spite of his frequent presence, was +in reality quite estranged. The Kid and Peter and Kelly and Houston +and even old Bill Martin had fallen away from her somehow. She did not +know that the reason the older men were less intimate was because she +was supposed to be Cheyenne Harry's mistress, and the rule of such +cases is "hands off!" And then there was always the stifling formless +weight at her heart which she did not understand. She was very +unhappy. That with her meant that she was reckless. She threw herself +passionately into her affair with Cheyenne Harry as the one tangible +human relation left to her in its entirety. + +The days followed each other in a succession of passionate exaltations +and dumb despairs. Harry kissed her whenever he pleased now. She had +long since got beyond mere coquetry. It meant much to her hereditary +instincts so to yield, but she gave herself up to it with the abandon +of a lost soul delivering itself to degrading wickedness. For in spite +of her life and companions she was intrinsically pure, so pure that +even Cheyenne Harry, with all his extraordinary influence, did not +somehow care to go too far. He kissed her, and at the first, when the +long resistance had enhanced her value, he was persuaded that he loved +her--that these interviews meant to him what lovers' meetings mean--and +so he responded to her passionate devotion with what seemed to be +corresponding ecstasy. + +But then after a little insensibly the flood ebbed. In the old days +she had amused him with her bright laughter, her gay speech, her +mocking superiorities, her little coquetries of manner or mannerism. +Now she had thrown these weapons away. Her surrender was complete. +Her life had simplified to one phase, that of dewy-eyed pleading +adoration. At first it pleased his masculine vanity. After a time it +cloyed ever so little; Cheyenne Harry missed the "comic relief" in all +these heroics. He would have liked occasionally to have climbed hills; +or taken long walks; or even run a short race, say to the bend of the +road; or to have had played on him a small practical joke; or +experienced some other such indication that man is a laughing animal. +The girl seemed capable of enjoying nothing but slow and aimless +saunterings. In the beginning he had experienced the nameless ecstasy +and thrill inherent in the personal contact of the kiss. Now he missed +something of those qualities. It seemed no longer strange to him to +feel her body near his, to watch her wide eyes half-closed, to press +his lips against hers, half-parted. It was still delightful above +everything in the world, but there had been one thing better--the kiss +of yesterday. In a word Cheyenne Harry's experience was beginning +dimly to trace the word "satiety." + +Not that either he or the girl realized it. To their thinking minds +everything was as usual. But their subconsciousness appreciated it, +and interpreted it according to its value. Cheyenne Harry, as has been +pointed out, turned instinctively toward a desire for lighter phases in +their relationship. Molly Lafond clung the more blindly to her +passion. Her only excuse to herself for her abandonment of the better +ideal was the reality of that passion. When it should go, her +self-respect would vanish with it. + +Harry found a certain amusement, too, in seeing Graham jumping around +the outer circle like corn in a popper. Graham was usually possessed +of so much innate dignity. Now his self-abandonment to the essentially +undignified attitude of begging for the petty favor of a quarrelless +ten minutes or even a little good-humored smile tickled the other's +sense of the incongruous and pleased his vanity. To an extent he was +held to the girl now by his pride. A man likes to have a rival when +perfectly secure himself, especially when the girl tells him what the +rival says to her. This may not be honorable in her, but it is very +human. So amusing was it that Harry did not get angry over the reports +of Graham's repeated warnings against him. + +The latter seemed unable to keep off the subject. He knew that his +suspicions only strengthened the girl's obstinate opposition, but he +could not help their expression for all that. Sometimes he pleaded, +sometimes he threatened, sometimes he assumed the prophet's mantle and +foretold all sorts of dire disasters. The girl laughed, or became +angry. It would have puzzled Graham to tell which of these moods he +preferred: perhaps it would have depended on which of them he was +experiencing at the moment. + +His saving grace was a sturdy sense of his duty to himself. He felt +that sense to be sadly shaken in many ways; but he clung to his work +tenaciously, perhaps a little feverishly. + +"Nuthin' like a woman to make a man work," observed Bill Martin sagely, +"whether she's _fur_ him, or agin' him." + +"How about Billy?" inquired Old Mizzou. + +Bill Martin laughed. "Billy? Oh, he's _playin'_," he replied. + + + + +XXVII + +PROSPERITY + +Billy did not think so, however. He posed to himself as the most +industrious man in the territory. He had so much to see to that year, +for throughout the mild winter that succeeded he had pushed forward +with the greatest rapidity all work on the Great Snake and its sister +claims. The log structures, the plans of which he had displayed to +Lafond, were completed, so far as the mere erection of them went, +within a fortnight. Billy gave a great deal of personal direction to +this work; but after all it was simple enough, so he managed to chink +in a moment here and there for the completion of certain bargains which +came to him. For instance, a man in Spring Creek Valley offered eight +draught horses at a marvellously low figure. That made two teams. +Billy did not need two teams just then; but of course later, when the +mill was up, he would need a great many more than two teams for the +purpose of carting ore; and it seemed criminal to let such a bargain +go. Then he found he required a man to take care of them. Some days +later he came to the conclusion that it would be good economy to buy +the ore wagons now instead of waiting until later, for the following +ingenious reason: the horses must be fed; hay costs fifteen dollars a +ton in the hills and five on the prairie; with wagons the horses could +be utilized to haul their own forage from the plains at a net saving of +ten dollars a ton on all consumed. So Billy placed an order for two +heavy wagons, and dismissed the matter from his mind until they were +delivered. During the interim he sat on top of a ladder and dabbed +contentedly at a scroll-work cornice with a small red paint brush. + +From that elevation he bought a whim, also a bargain. The man was +anxious to sell, and it was a very good whim. To be sure one might +have argued that inasmuch as whims are machines for hauling ore from +depths which Billy's operations would not attain for a year at least, +the purchase was a little premature; but then it is equally certain +that all mines own whims, and another opportunity for getting one so +cheap might never again present itself. + +When the wagons came, he and the man drove fifty miles to Rapid, where +they hobnobbed with Tom Sweeny and looked over his establishment. +Billy bought his household goods. He also took a fancy to some large +brass-bound collar hoods for the horses which he had marked with the +company's initials "G. S. M. & M. Co.," also in brass. The return trip +was made with difficulty on account of the low-hanging branches of +trees. Then Billy spent an ecstatic week distributing things to suit +him. + +The work in the shafts went steadily forward. Billy was willing to +offer a bonus on the contract price for a quick job, so the contractors +took on extra men. They averaged almost a foot and a half a day, which +is wonderfully good. The work indeed went on so well that Billy saw he +would need the mill sooner than he had expected, so he resolved to +begin its erection at once. He hired all the available men, but soon +found that he would have to seek elsewhere for a gang adequate to such +an undertaking. He imported one from Rockerville. As the winter came +on, he found it expedient to start the boarding house in order, as he +said, "To get those cusses up in the mornin' afore the sun sets." The +move necessitated a cook and "cookee," and the weekly purchase of +provisions. Since he had the men handy, he argued, there was no reason +why he should not finish up the small details and odds and ends of the +camp in a respectable manner, and so he made many little extraneous +improvements, such as a flag pole and a rockery of pink quartz from the +Custer trail. Three or four were always away from the mill, levelling +up, clearing out or decorating. From Kansas City he imported some +chickens with crested heads and a number of pigeons of ancient lineage. +The latter promptly flew back to Kansas City. As the novelty of them +had worn off Billy took their loss philosophically. In regard to +externals the camp began to wear a very prosperous air. + +Copper Creek too was busy. Over forty men were hard at work on the +Great Snake itself. Upward of fifty claims were in the course of +development near at hand. With the completion of the mill would begin +the crushing of ore; with the crushing of ore would begin the camp's +commercial output; with that, provided it were satisfactory, would come +more capitalists anxious to invest. It behooved the claim owner to +have his exhibit of shaft and tunnel ready for the public inspection. +When you reflect that three men usually worked on a claim and that +Copper Creek's entire population at that date was a little over two +hundred and fifty, you can readily see that it was indeed a lively +camp. Even those who were not actually engaged in prospecting +operations found their time fully occupied in providing for those who +were. Black Jack had an assistant now. Moroney's paper came out as +often as once a fortnight and was beginning to be mentioned by the +_Deadwood Miner_ as "our esteemed contemporary." Bill Martin had been +seen sweeping out his own office. The dozen of women and girls who had +drifted in with newcomers, scrubbed, cooked, washed and sewed in a +struggle to keep even with muddy boots, miners' appetites, and the +destructive demands of miners' work. Even Frosty improved his +customary mooning slouch. + +The men who seemed to enjoy unlimited leisure could be counted on the +fingers of one hand. Cheyenne Harry laughed at it all. His one claim +was known to be a mere excuse for existence, a symbolic reason for his +connection with Copper Creek. Everybody knew really why he stayed. He +was supposed to be independently rich, though none claimed any +knowledge of how he came to be so. Then there was the gambler, the +faro man, who sat on the hotel "porch" all the morning smoking endless +cigarettes, his broad straight hat tipped a little sideways, his +moustache brushed neatly away to show his white teeth, his fine +inscrutable eyes looking cynically from his equally fine clear-cut +face, speaking seldom, smiling never, imperturbable, indifferent, +cat-like. And there was Durand, but he did not count. And there was +Michaïl Lafond. + +To be sure the half-breed was building a new dance hall, to which the +camp entire looked with anticipatory delight, but that was a matter of +four walls and a smooth floor. He needed only to give his orders. +After a perfunctory morning inspection he had the day to himself. + +The work at the Great Snake interested him, as it did everybody. He +occupied the morning about the works, poking into odd corners, +questioning the workmen, making suggestions to Billy. He sent the +horse dealer to Billy, and mentioned to the whim man that he might find +a purchaser there. He often was enabled in his vaster leisure to +perceive the little things that lacked and to point out their necessity +to Billy, which individual was of course always duly grateful and +hastened at once to remedy the defect. After a more or less lengthened +visit the half-breed returned to camp. If it happened still to lack +some time until dinner, he called on Moroney in the editorial rooms or +exchanged sententious comments with Bill Martin, or chatted with one or +the other of the visitors who happened to be in town. After dinner he +disappeared until supper. The time was spent with Durand. The +assaying was long since finished, but the two men had grown fond of +each other's companionship. It was a silent companionship for the most +part. Lafond smoked interminably his short black pipe, turned upside +down, watching the naturalist setting carefully the delicate wings of a +butterfly or arranging in a paper cylinder the skin of a bird, or +searching, spectacled, in black volumes of Government reports. +Occasionally, when Durand looked up from his absorption, they exchanged +a few swift remarks, elided, compressed, telegraphic; for they +understood each other so well that the unabridged form of speech was no +longer necessary. On fine days they beat the brushy creek bottoms for +the _Nitra_, the rare _Papilo_ which men supposed to be extinct. And +then, after the early darkness of winter fell, they would be seized by +strange obsessions of loquacity. Jacques, the raccoon, a ball of fur +under the faint red stove, blinked at them shrewdly, wondering what it +was all about. + +In the evening, of course, Lafond had the Little Nugget to take care +of. The saloon had as yet no rivals. The size of the town perhaps +warranted another establishment, but Lafond was a monopolist by nature. +He treated the men well, with a geniality behind which were unsounded +depths of reserve. Therefore they respected him. The space about the +iron stove before the bar came to be the Town Hall. Matters of public +importance were discussed every evening. Billy there told things he +ought not to have told. The atmosphere was expansive, encouraged one +to show off. After one had recounted the obvious, one was inclined in +the heat of the moment to fall back on the confidential, merely for +lack of something else to say. The camp to a man knew the amount of +Billy's expenditures, the number of his shafts. It heard extracts from +all his letters to and from the East. It was acquainted with all his +and the Company's plans. A good many of the cooler heads felt the +intrinsic injudiciousness of this; but after all there could be no +traitors among them, because in the end the prosperity of every man +present depended on Billy's success. + +But while the Great Snake was the main topic of conversation, and +always remained ultimately the most important, its present interest, as +spring drew near, became overshadowed by that of the new dance hall. + +The Westerner loves to dance. A street organ sets him shuffling. He +will drive twenty miles in a springless wagon and twenty miles back +again in the grayness of dawn to stamp his feet to the sound of an +accordion. Every camp has its organized dance joint, a sort of hall +mark of its genuineness as a camp. Now with the approach of the date +for formal opening this long musicless community woke up to its +deprivation. All the details of the new establishment were enjoyed in +anticipation. It had a planed floor. The boards had been brought by +wagon from McGuire's mill at Hermosa. It was to be lighted by real +locomotive lanterns of an impressive but meaningless number of candle +power. It was to be entirely draped with flags. The musicians were to +be imported from Spanish Gulch. Lafond dispensed this and similar +information sparingly, in order that it might be made the most of. He +promised the "opening ball" for May if possible. + +"That depends, of course," he always concluded his statements, short or +long. + + + + +XXVIII + +LAFOND GOES EAST + +About the middle of February Lafond varied the monotony of his daily +programme. He ceased to visit the Great Snake camp, on which work was +proceeding as rapidly as ever, and took to writing letters. He wrote a +great many, and always mailed them himself with Blair, the driver of +the stage. He announced one evening in the middle of March that he was +about to leave for a short trip. + +"I have the round to make," he said resignedly. "There are many places +which each year I must visit. I go to Deadwood, Spearfish, Custer, +Sheridan, Edgemont, Rapid, Buffalo Gap, many others. I may be gone a +month." + +"But yore comin' back, ain't you?" asked someone. + +"But yes," assured the half-breed. "Have we not the opening of the +dance hall?" + +So the very next morning he boarded the stage for Rapid. At Rapid he +bought a return ticket to Chicago. This was one of the results of the +correspondence he had been carrying on for a month past. His first +letter had run about as follows: + + +"Mr. Frederick Stevens, Chicago. + +"DEAR SIR--You will perhaps remember me as one of your hosts during +your late visit to this camp. If you do, you will remember also that I +am interested financially, and so the good of the camp is my good. You +will further recollect that I was present at the meeting held in +Knapp's shack for the purpose of settling with him. For that reason I +happen to know your plans and expectations. The expectations were that +your first investment of fifty thousand dollars would complete the +works to a paying basis. I have no means of knowing the exact amount +of Knapp's expenditures to now, but they must be considerable, and I +feel that my interests and yours require that you know just what the +returns are. + +"The results you should get with your fifty thousand dollars are, that +you should have, on each claim, shafts to below water level with +cross-cuts and drifts, a mill set up and ready, a pump and hoist on +each shaft, a month's fuel, a month's wages for men with food and +expenses and a camp in good working order. + +"The shafts are almost done, but they are sunk on contract and are not +paid for yet. The mill is half up; there is one pump and two hoists +not up yet. That is all that is done. It seemed to me Knapp has not +spent his money well, because there is much about camp which he does +not need. + +"I tell you this because I am interested." + + +Here Black Mike paused and tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the end +of his penholder. Then he smiled cynically to himself and went on--"To +speak plainly, I think the waste has gone beyond what you can afford. +Only a man living here and knowing mining well could make it pay. I do +not ask you to believe this, but see for yourself how you stand, and I +may be able to make you an offer." + + +By return of post Lafond was frantically called upon to explain. He +did so. Billy had been wasteful and extravagant. It was not Billy's +fault perhaps, but he was evidently not the man for the place. Lafond +had had but a vague idea of how things were going, but lately he had +been at more pains to gain an accurate knowledge of affairs. He had +found things as above stated. He did not write at all as a friend of +the Company, but because he believed he could perhaps make something by +taking the property himself. Instinctively the half-breed knew that an +insistence on his own selfishness was the surest way of impressing +these Easterners with his sincerity. For that reason he demanded his +expenses when he was asked to go East for consultation. + +The Chicago men were badly frightened. Lafond repeated clearly at +greater length what he had told them in his letters. It had been a +case of a man unused to the handling of money. He insisted that in +actual value there existed not one quarter of the sum Knapp had +expended; and he further claimed that affairs were in such shape West +that as much more would have to be invested before the mine could be +put on a paying basis. + +"Then," said he, "you have your cost of production and your camp +expenses always. From your profits above them you have to make up what +Knapp has spent and what you will have to spend. That takes your close +attention and many years. For that I think you will not wish to go +ahead; and for that I come to make you an offer that will make it for +you not an entire loss. I do not ask that you believe me. +Investigate." + +"Would you be willing to wait here while we investigate?" asked Murphy. + +"Always, for my expenses," replied Lafond calmly. + +The Easterners consulted. + +"Very well," said Stevens. "Call it that." + +Lafond in the little room at his hotel looked at himself closely in the +glass. + +"A fool for luck! a fool for luck!" he cried at the imaged reflection, +repeating his old formula. + +Stevens was gone just ten days. Of course he said nothing of Lafond's +presence in Chicago. He had merely dropped in to look over the +property, as was natural. Most of the men wondered why he had not done +so before. He was cordial to Billy, looked over what had been done, +asked many questions, listened attentively to all Billy had to say and +departed in the most friendly spirit. When he arrived in Chicago, he +went directly to his office in the Monadnock Building, where he had +already assembled his associates by telegraph. + +Stevens was brief, business-like and coldly impartial. In a man of his +sort that indicated that he was very angry and chagrined. + +"I have the following figures to submit," said he, taking up a paper. +"They are accurate, as I consulted with an expert as to the items of +future expense before leading Rapid. + + 10 horses at 105.00 . . . . . . . $1,050.00 + 10 sets harness at 60.00 . . . . . 600.00 + Mill machinery . . . . . . . . . . 6,500.00 + Pumps, hoists . . . . . . . . . . 1,250.00 + 4 months' wages at 4.00 a day . . 4,800.00 + 2 1/2 months' boarding expenses . 610.00 + Hay, tools, implements . . . . . . 1,165.00 + Wagons, household goods . . . . . 2,560.00 + Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . 2,112.00 + Building roads . . . . . . . . . . 829.00 + ---------- + $21,476.00 + + +"That is what has been spent up to date according to Knapp's accounts." + +"But hold on!" interjected Murphy; "he has drawn six drafts. That +makes thirty thousand. Has he eight thousand in hand? Why did he have +to draw the last draft?" + +"He doesn't know," replied Stevens grimly. "His bank balance," he +declared, consulting the paper again, "is just $1,126.40. He says he +doesn't know where the balance is." + +"Do you think----?" + +"Not at all. He is perfectly honest. That is the way he does things." + +"Here," went on Stevens after a moment, "is what remains to be done +before we can even start to work. It is an estimate, but it is a close +one; for, as I told you, I had assistance in making it out: + + Mills, pumps, hoists . . . . . . . $12,000.00 + Sheds, ore-dumps, etc . . . . . . 1,500.00 + 20 horses and harness . . . . . . 3,200.00 + Men, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 + Wagons and tools . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 + ---------- + $26,700.00 + +That is to bring us up to the efficient working point. Now here are +our liabilities: + + Miscellaneous bills . . . . . . . $850.00 + Contract on 1,100 feet of shaft and tunnel + at 20 a foot . . . . . . . . . 22,000.00 + ---------- + $22,850.00 + +That is what we owe, gentlemen," concluded Stevens, slapping his papers +on the table and looking about him. "Now if you want to throw good +money after bad, you can do so," he continued after a moment; "but this +is a limited liability company and I am done. I am strongly in favor +of pulling out some way to save our names as promoters of such a fool +enterprise, but I think we should pull out. This man Lafond thinks he +can do something with the property if he has a fair show, and perhaps +we can save something through him. Our fifty thousand is _gone_--and +more, after we've paid our debt to those men--and anything we can save +out of such a mess seems to me clear gain." + +And so with equal haste they scrambled out. + +The first inexplicable phenomenon is the sanguine blindness such men +show in going into mining; the second is the headlong thoughtlessness +with which they draw out. Anything to get back to daylight apparently. + +Again the parallel of the button-hook factory. In case of failure +these men would have first looked the ground over well for possible +retrenchment along the old lines of expenditure: that failing, they +would have examined closely for a possible new plan. But in the +present case they never even conceived the possibility of any scale of +operation different from that grand vision of eleven contiguous mines +all going at full blast which Billy's vivid imagination had called into +being. Lafond saw it clearly enough. Had he been so minded, he could +have set the whole matter right; just as, if he had been so minded, he +could have turned the trend of Billy Knapp's extravagance with a little +timely advice. + +"Gentlemen," he could have said, "has it ever occurred to you to start +on a small scale and work up gradually to a larger? You can mine one +shaft on one claim with one cheap five-stamp mill. In that way you +could at least pay expenses from the very surface. After a little you +can pay more. Then you might open up another claim. That would take +time to be sure; but what business does not take time?" + +His actual speech was of quite different tenor. When called before the +meeting by a special messenger, and asked to name the terms he was +willing to offer, he replied quite simply-- + +"Fifteen thousand dollars." + +This was, of course, quite unthinkable. An animated discussion ensued. + +"We have spent over twenty thousand dollars," said Stevens, "and we owe +twenty-six thousand more. Then the claims are worth something, surely. +It would be better to hold the property just as it stands, on the +chance of some future sale." + +"Of the twenty thousand you have spent," retorted Lafond, "fifteen has +been spent uselessly. I mean not that it was all waste, but that if I +had been running the mine I could have bought all I would need for five +thousand. And as for the twenty-six thousand you owe, what with +bonuses for fast work and contracts at a high price, it ought all to +have been completed for fifteen thousand. And besides, if it was I who +had developed the property, I would not have sunk all these shafts +before making the mill to work. I would have my mine to pay before. I +am making you the offer of five thousand for the mine and ten thousand +for the works." + +This argument carried some weight. It availed to induce an acceptance +of Lafond's final offer of five thousand cash, and the assumption of +the twenty-six thousand debt. A man in his position and in his +business could easily reduce the latter item. + +"Of course this is merely informal," explained Stevens. "We have to +call a directors' meeting yet to take official action." + +"We hold controlling interest," added Murphy, for the purpose of +reassuring Lafond. + +"I understand," said the latter. "And now another thing. What are you +going to do about the camp itself?" + +Stevens hesitated. "I suppose we'll shut down and give Knapp his +walking papers," he answered at last. + +"That is just it. I want that you look out for my interests in that. +If you shut down, that gives the camp a bad name, and a bad name is of +all things in the West the worst. And you know not that man Knapp. +You discharge him. Eh, well? He is angry; he is without law; he is +reckless. He is able to do that which he wishes. He can burn the +buildings, break the machinery. Who is it that will stop him? No, +when Knapp is discharged, it must be that the deeds are in my hands, so +that I can protect my property." + +All saw the justice of this argument. + +"What would you suggest then?" asked the chairman. + +"How is it that you intend to discharge him?" returned Lafond. + +"What do you mean?" + +"What is the formality? Do you just write and tell him he is +discharged?" + +"Oh! No; we call a directors' meeting, and pass resolutions to that +effect, a copy of which we send him. We will do that at the same time +we authorize the sale to you." + +Lafond drummed for a moment on the polished table near his hand. + +"Eh, well," he announced at last, "let it be like this. When it is +that you have had your directors' meeting and have passed your +resolutions, then you send your copy to me, and I will give it to +Knapp. Thus I will be on the ground to see that he makes no trouble. +And at the same time you send the deeds to this man"--he rapidly +scribbled an address--"he is a notary public at Rapid. You will have +time to look up his reliability. He can hold the deeds until I pay to +him the five thousand dollars and sign a contract to take the debt we +spoke of. Is that satisfactory?" + +"Quite," they agreed. + +"How long will it be before you finish your meetings?" + +"Ten days. It takes a week's notice for a special meeting." + +On the way to South Dakota again Lafond stared out of the windows with +unseeing eyes in which lurked laughter. "Ten days," said he to +himself, passing the fingers of one hand softly over the palm of the +other. His dark bearded face in the twilight lost its outlines against +the upholstery of the Pullman. A nervous little bride on her wedding +trip to California grasped her husband's arm. + +"What is it, dear?" inquired the latter. + +"Foolishness," she laughed, a little forcedly. "But see that man's +eyes. Aren't they uncanny?" + +"Looks a bit like a maniac," admitted the groom, "but it's this queer +light. Odd fellow. Looks as if he might have one of those interesting +Western histories you read about." + +"A fool for luck! A fool for luck!" Black Mike was repeating to +himself. "Ten days! I can fix the date for that dance-hall opening +now!" + + + + +XXIX + +BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES + +As has been hinted, the outward and visible signs of prosperity had to +some extent increased the feminine population of Copper Creek. Molly +Lafond had long since lost the distinction of being the only woman in +camp. Some of the newcomers were blessed with wives, one or two were +favored with daughters. All told, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty +of the gentler sex scattered among the new and old log cabins of the +valley. + +But from them Molly had little to fear in the way of rivalry. The +older women were either buxom and decisive, representing the sturdier +pioneer race, or dyspeptic and drawling, as typical of the effects of a +high altitude on nervous and underfed organizations. The young girls +were angular, awkward and shy, especially so when in the presence of +Miss Molly's breezy self-possession. They would all make good +"filling" at the new dance-house ball, but they would never obtrude +into the foreground. + +Then Bismarck Anne came to camp. She conceived the idea quite +suddenly, late one afternoon, and without so much as a word to anybody +she strapped her most becoming ball-gown inside a poncho and rode +across from Spanish Gulch on her little pinto pony. + +Bismarck Anne was at that time in the heyday of her youth and +prosperity. She was of the dark-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed +type, so "common" when it falls just short of attractiveness, but so +abundantly vital when, as in the present case, it does not fall short. +Bismarck Anne was instinct, charged with life. Into everything she did +she threw a verve and abandon that carried the adventure well through +with something to spare. And she was afraid of nothing. She denied +the possibility of nothing. + +About three o'clock of the afternoon she galloped in. A number of men +recognized her and ran to help her down from her horse. Everybody knew +her by sight or reputation, but few had ever dared attempt her +acquaintance, for ordinarily Bismarck Anne chose her coterie from the +powerful and wealthy. Now, however, there seemed to be little cause +for anxiety on that point. Bismarck Anne had come over for a good time +and she was going to have it. If the men who surrounded her on her +arrival felt any momentary restraint or trepidation, they were almost +immediately set at ease by the warmth of her manner. + +It was Old Mizzou, I believe, who steadied her stirrup, and Dave Kelly +who helped her from her horse and held her a moment longer than was +necessary, and, to his vast astonishment, instead of being slapped was +heartily kissed for his temerity. There was a breathless element of +unexpectedness in this which appealed to the miners' sense of humor, +and they all laughed consumedly and felt good comrades at once. Old +Mizzou mentally added another exception to his sweeping rule about +"grass widders and school ma'ams." There sprang up a rapid fire of +good-humored joking back and forth in which no man was favored, where +each had a chance to enter the lists, and in the course of which each +conceived an inner conviction that all he needed to "win out" was a +chance unhindered by the crowd. Bismarck Anne stood in the centre of +the group, flashing her black eyes back and forth from one to the other +and showing her white teeth in a series of dazzling smiles. + +Just at this moment Cheyenne Harry and Molly Lafond, returning from one +of their numerous expeditions, caught sight of the animated group near +the hotel, and naturally turned aside to investigate its cause. + +Bismarck Anne faced toward them. + +"Why, Harry!" she cried, holding out both hands, "you here? I didn't +know you-all hung out in this camp. You look just the same as ever. +'Spose you're goin' to take in th' dance to-night. Yes, that's what I +came over for; that an' nothing else. We'll have to stir this camp up +a bit and make her seem like old times. I'm afraid you boys have been +getting a little slow," she flashed good-humoredly at the others. +"Harry, you ought to have seen them when I kissed that boy over there, +just for a 'kid,' you know. I don't believe you've got a girl in this +camp who knows beans, and it's about time you did. I'm _mighty_ glad +to see you. But you got to watch out, though! This is a pretty +good-looking lot of boys, and you'll have to hustle to hold your job." +She said this still holding both his hands in hers, and alternately +smiling now at him, now at the men about her. She had taken rapid +stock of Molly--whom she now ignored for the moment--and had as rapidly +come to the conclusion that if a rival were to appear at all, it would +be Harry's companion. She hoped her speech would at the same time +attach Harry to herself, and render assiduous his devotions by a fear +of rivalry. + +"You bet we will!" cried Harry. His manner was enthusiastic, not so +much with joy over seeing Bismarck Anne, as with instinctive relief +from the tension of his rather sentimental interview with Molly. He +remembered the latter and performed some sort of an introduction. + +The two women looked each other in the eye. + +"How do you do?" asked Molly coolly, without moving an inch. + +"Very well, my dear," replied Bismarck Anne smiling, "and very glad to +get here." + +The endearing epithet relegated Molly at once to the category of little +girls. + +The conversation continued for some moments longer, the men standing as +silent spectators. Molly continued very reserved. The newcomer did +not appear to notice it, but chattered on unconcernedly in a +light-hearted fashion, appealing to the other just often enough to +convey the idea that there was nothing noticeably repellent in her +manner. In fact she did it so well that the group gained the +impression that Molly carried her share of the small talk, which was +not true. But in spite of the apparent good-feeling Cheyenne Harry +felt uncomfortably that something was wrong. Searching about for the +cause, he at last discovered it in Molly's attitude. + +So on the way to the cabin he was vexed, and showed it. And Molly felt +so strongly the innate justice of her position and appreciated so +keenly the skill with which she had been made to appear sulky and +unreasonable, that when she had finally shut her own door behind her, +she threw herself on her bed and cried as though her heart would break. +Then her blood told. She dried her eyes and in her inmost heart she +declared war against this woman, war to the knife and to the uttermost. +The momentary defeat dashed her at first, then it nerved her. After +all nothing definite had occurred. This creature had planted several +stinging thrusts which had hit home because Molly, in the innocence of +her heart, was not expecting them. She was on her guard now. It would +not happen again. Cheyenne Harry had known the woman before, +evidently, and surely it was natural that in the first surprise of +seeing her so unexpectedly, he should display a certain enthusiasm of +recognition. But his relations with her--Molly Lafond--were too +intimate, too long-continued, to be lightly broken. + +As the twilight fell she saw, through the oblong of her sliding window, +that men were hurrying by to dine early, in order that they might +prepare for the festivities of the evening. Across the square she +could make out the dim shape of the new dance hall, a long low +structure trimmed with evergreens and bunting. Frosty was even then +lighting the lamps in the Little Nugget. She sat there motionless, +staring out into the night, fingering the soft white stuff of the gown +lying across her lap, until a certain peace came to her and a +conviction that all would be well. + +The night was warm and balmy with the odors of early spring. Molly had +slid back the halves of her narrow window, and over the boxes of +flowers that fringed this little artificial horizon the mellow notes of +the first whitethroat, that nightingale of the north, floated in on the +tepid air. Beyond the nearer silhouette of the flowers another dimmer +silhouette of the hills wavered uncertainly beneath a few uncertain +stars. The girl watched these stars idly, dreaming in tune with the +plaintive notes of the bird. Then silently another bulkier silhouette +interposed itself, almost filling the window. + +"What is it?" she cried, starting. + +"It's I," came the voice of Jack Graham. The silhouette rested two +black-outlined elbows against the sill. + +"My, how you frightened me!" she cried pettishly. "What in the world +do you want? Why aren't you at dinner?" + +"Molly," said Graham solemnly, "I don't suppose you'll listen to me. +We haven't gotten along very well lately, have we? But I want you to +know that I am asking this for your sake, and that I believe it." + +She was impressed by the sincere quality of his tone. "Why, Jack," she +said softly, "I know you mean well, and I suppose I _am_ very frivolous +and careless. What is it?" + +"I wish you would not go to the dance to-night." + +There fell a pause. She was evidently in a softened mood and she +wished to conduct the interview considerately. "But, Jack," she +hesitatingly asked at last. "Do you think there is going to be +trouble?" + +"It will only give you pain. You are going to be forced against things +you have never had to combat before." + +"I don't understand you." + +"I am going to talk very plainly, Molly; I hope you won't get angry. I +can't help it if you do. It's because I love you so, girl; I love you +so!" + +His voice was deep and rich with emotion, so poignant and compelling +that it forced her attention in spite of herself. This was a +declaration, she dimly felt, and yet its import as such was somehow +lost in the more pregnant subject-matter to which it but added emphasis. + +"Go on," she said breathlessly. + +"You are well liked by everybody here," he continued, carefully +avoiding more pointed personalities, "and you have grown so used to +being liked by everybody that it would hurt you cruelly if you were +not. Isn't that true?" + +"Yes," assented Molly gravely, after a moment's consideration. + +"You want to hold first place in their thoughts and in their goodwill. +You want to be first with them and you want them to show to you and to +each other by their actions that they are your best friends and are +going to stand by you. Do I read you right?" + +"Yes, of course I want all the boys to like me. I've known them so +long, and I should feel dreadfully if they didn't. But what do you +mean by it? I don't understand." + +The silhouette moved uneasily. "Now don't get angry," he pleaded. +"Take to-night. To speak plainly, you want to be the woman who +receives the most attention at that ball. Answer frankly." + +"Well," confessed the gill after another moment's hesitation, "frankly +then, I do." + +"You will not." + +"Why?" + +"Because the woman who came this afternoon, Bismarck Anne, will take +your place." + +Molly Lafond would have become angry if her experience of the afternoon +had not already made her uneasy on just this point. + +"Do you consider her more attractive than me?" she asked a little +resentfully. + +"A thousand times No!" assured the silhouette. + +"Has she known the boys as long as I? Is she as good friends with +them? Can she talk better? Is she brighter?" + +"No." + +"Then I don't believe I quite see." + +"It's just this. The men all like you and admire you, and would do +anything for you, but at the same time they look up to you a little. +You are better than they are, so, more or less, they are a +little--well--a little _restricted_ with you. This woman is their +sort. She isn't a bit better than they are. When they are out to have +a good time, like at the dance to-night, they want somebody they can +have their sort of fun with. _You are too good for them_." + +"That is very theoretical." + +"It is very true." + +"And supposing, just supposing, it were. You want me to lie down and +quit without making a fight. Do you call that being game? What would +you think of a man who would run away because the other man was a +little stronger? Don't you think I'd fight?" + +"That's just it. You'd fight too well." + +"I don't----" + +"She has ways of drawing men to her which you know nothing about. They +are her weapons. I know you'd fight. You'd fight to the last because +it is in you to, and I'm afraid, very much afraid, that when you found +your weapons were not enough you'd use hers." + +There fell between them a long silence, while Molly slowly pondered +these last words and gradually apprehended their meaning. In the +darkness she could feel the blood tingeing her face, forehead, and +neck. At first she was inclined to be angry and to show it, but the +man's evident sincerity, coupled with the fervor of his incidental +declaration of love, softened her. + +"I don't believe I ever had anybody tell me such things before," she +could not restrain herself from saying, "and I don't know whether I +ought to thank you for your lack of trust in me. However, you'll be +there, and I can rely on your protection against these awful dangers." + +"I will not be there," contradicted Graham bluntly. + +"Well, then, there's Harry." She said the name out of bravado to show +that there was no reason why she should not say it. + +"Yes," cried Graham, with a burst of anger that astonished her. "It is +he I mean." + +It was the red flag to them both, the idea of this man. "I think you'd +better go now," she replied coldly. + +Graham turned away with a little curse. + +She sat down again and tried desperately to regain her confidence of a +few moments before, but it would not come. She was angry and insulted, +and she was vexed at herself that she could not throw off the +uneasiness which lay behind these emotions; but she could not. It grew +on her as her nervousness increased. She sat staring straight before +her into the dark, clasping and unclasping her hands, and striving with +all the earnestness of which she was capable to seize and formulate the +vague fear that seemed unreasonably to weigh on her spirits. Analyze +it as she would, she could find no adequate reason for it. It was +therefore the more terrible. The dinner hour passed quite unnoticed. +The nervousness increased until she could have shrieked aloud. And +then with a sudden start she recognized it--this old formless causeless +sense of an indefinite guilt, as for something left undone; the voice, +although this she did not know, of her inherited New England conscience. + +At the discovery she rebelled. She had always rebelled, and heretofore +she had succeeded in putting it down, in stifling it underneath mere +surface moods. But now the surface moods proved inadequate. The +uneasy guiltiness increased until it almost overflowed in tears. Molly +was afraid, just as a child is afraid of the dark. + +She lit the lamps and looked at herself in the mirror. This must not +go on. To-night, the one night when she needed all her powers, it was +foolish to allow a whim to weaken them. She shook her head at herself +and smiled. The smile was not a success. She turned away wearily and +thrust her hands through her hair. Why had Graham taken it into his +head to bother her this one evening of all others? It was his fault. +She stamped her foot angrily. All his fault. In spite of his denial, +she believed he would be there and would set everything. The thought +stung her pride and the desire for tears left her. She would show him +just how much his advice and his fears were worth. On the impulse she +spread her white dress out on the bed, and began hastily to smooth out +the wrinkles in its pleats. After a moment she turned decisively to +the mirror, and began to take down her hair. + + + + +XXX + +ANCESTRAL VOICES + +Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, dressed in a clean white apron, stood +behind the bar and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. It had +gone well, and for this one day his master had been in an unwontedly +good humor. + +Directly opposite, a wide door opened into the new dance hall. From +where Frosty stood one could see that it was a long low room, +flag-draped, with few windows, and furnished only by an unbroken line +of benches against the wall. One standing in the doorway, however, +could have perceived that at one end were placed for the musicians a +number of tall "look-out" stools--tall in order that the performers +might at once overlook the performance of the square-dance "figures," +and early prepare to avoid possible hostilities. A number of large +lamps with reflectors illuminated the apartment with crossed shafts of +light. + +Frosty polished glasses in anticipation of the evening's business, +which would be lively, glancing complacently from the fresh-scrubbed +floor to the lately renewed sheets, imitating plaster. As the outer +door was now closed, he was relieved from the necessity of ejecting +Peter. It did no good to tie Peter up: either the animal was ingenious +at escapes, or the men were mischievous in their desire to bother +Frosty. This was one of Frosty's many troubles. He led a life of care. + +After a little, the door opened, and three men came in. They steered +to the bar at once, as a sort of familiar haven in strange +surroundings. From its anchorage they took their initial view of the +hall. After subsequent arrivals had braced them to the point of +confidence, they made a first awful tour of that apartment, but soon +returned to more familiar surroundings. The saloon filled with a +heterogeneous gathering. All types were there in their best clothes, +from the spotlessly immaculate faro dealer, dressed in a black +broadcloth frock coat, to Dave Kelly, with his new red handkerchief and +his high-heeled boots. The main gathering remained crowded in the +saloon, whence small groups occasionally ventured into the hall, but +only for the purposes of temporary inspection. A hum of low-voiced +talk went up, which fell to expectant silence every time the door was +opened. The musicians from Spanish Gulch arrived and began to tune up. +They were closely followed by the first woman, a red-cheeked awkward +country lass, who took her position on the bench near one corner and +began at once to dispense smiles and loud small talk to the men who +followed her there. The assistants' spirits rose. They had known this +girl as Sal Jenks, of rather drab-colored disposition and appearance. +To-night, in the glamour of a light-colored dress and the illumination +of a ball room, she had suddenly become transformed into something +quite different and infinitely more attractive. The musicians played a +tune. The other women came in, gayly dressed and accompanied always by +a red-faced swain. Black Mike took his stand at the side of Frosty, +and began to assist that individual in dispensing drinks. Black Mike's +democracy was no small element of his popularity. At about half-past +eight those near the door saw him talking with Cheyenne Harry. A buzz +swept over the room. Copper Creek had been waiting in suppressed +excitement to see whom Cheyenne Harry would accompany--Molly Lafond or +the newcomer--and lo! he had come alone. + +Then, before the astonishment had subsided, the outer door opened again +and Molly entered, looking very pale and sweet and serious. + +She walked directly by the bar into the dance hall, where she seated +herself near the door and looked calmly about her. She was dressed +entirely in white. Cheyenne Harry was leaning over the bar talking +attentively, so that he was perhaps the only person in the room who did +not see her come in. A dozen men at once surrounded her and began to +chat. She answered them good-humoredly enough, but indifferently. + +The door once more flew open and Bismarck Anne, standing on the sill, +cried out in her clear, high voice, "Well, boys!" She paused a moment. +Cheyenne Harry, turning at the sound of her voice, remembered how, +about a year ago, Molly Lafond had stood there in just that attitude. +But he felt a great difference. + +Cheyenne Harry had for some time, as we have said, been growing a +little tired of his affair with Molly. The mental ingredients of +satiety were all present, but he had as yet received no conscious +notice of their existence. He imagined himself as much fascinated as +ever. If something lately had seemed to lack, he had laid it to +circumstances and not at all to the state of his relations with the +girl. But for all that, the satiety had been real. He only needed to +be told of it to realize it himself very plainly. Bismarck Anne had +told him. + +He saw now absolutely no attraction for himself in Molly Lafond, and +that without attempting to deny her intrinsic attraction for others. +He simply did not care for her any more. It seemed perhaps like a +sudden revulsion, but it was not so really; it had been inevitable from +the very first, and from the very first it had been slowly maturing. +Not even the results were sudden: only Cheyenne Harry's knowledge of +them. + +He had always felt his relations with Molly Lafond as more or less +restrictive, because the good is always so. He had dimly caught the +truth that, without a deep moral incentive, restriction is always +irksome; that although pure love is the most ideal condition in the +world, its simulation is the most wearisome after the novelty has worn +off; and all the rest of the long psychological train of emotion and +reasoning common to the trifler. But now for the first time he knew +it. He knew it because, standing in the doorway, looking at him with +bold black eyes, was the exact opposite of all this, and he recognized +a mighty relief. + +Bismarck Anne knew enough to dress all in black. She had the taste to +appreciate the effect of one red flower in her hair as her only +ornament. She had the sense to wear her dress cut neither too low +above nor too high below. And so she was exceedingly handsome as she +stood there, the devil of excitement in her eyes. + +Cheyenne Harry abruptly ceased his conversation with Lafond to shake +hands with her. They turned in company. Harry linked his arm through +hers, and they entered the dance hall close together, and took their +seats in a corner far removed from the musicians, where they continued +engaged in such earnest conversation that none of the men ventured to +approach them. After a time, when the music struck up for the first +dance, she seemed to be commanding something to which Cheyenne Harry +seemed to be objecting. Then the latter arose slowly and asked Molly +Lafond to dance the first dance with him. She accepted with a sharp +pang at her heart. The newcomer had scored. + +Owing to the scarcity of the gentler sex, it had been decided that no +one "set" was to be blessed with more than one girl. Thus they would +go around better. Molly, glancing across at her rival, saw that she +was surrounded by a laughing group of men. The woman was joking +broadly at each, wriggling her white shoulders, darting side glances, +half promising, half denying. In a moment the group broke, and the +members of it rushed in her own direction. They were already +quarrelling for places in her set. The matter was arranged somehow +after much wrangling. Then, too late, Molly saw that the other woman +had scored again. Bismarck Anne had not only selected her partner, but +also the other six members of the set. Thus she had made seven men +happy and none jealous. + +A Western dance is a sight worth seeing. The musicians call off the +figures. The head fiddler does it until his voice gives out. Then the +second fiddler and the accordion take a try at it, after which further +calling is unnecessary owing to the fact that most of the dancers are +very drunk. This comes to pass because, at the end of each dance, all +are supposed to visit the bar. The most heinous crime, next to horse +stealing or sluice robbing, is "shying drinks" at such times. As some +men can hold more than others this enforced equality of quantity +consumed brings about unexpected variation in the hilarity of the +consumers, all of which adds to the variety of the occasion. + +The interims between drinks are occupied by square dances. The men go +through some set of monkey shines which they call figures, the +principal object of which seems to be at once the tripping up of such +male and the prolonged squeezing of such female dancers as they may +come into intimate personal relations with on their grand rounds, which +is conducive to hilarity of the loud-mouthed variety. The exercise +itself is rather violent, and as the room is low, lit by lamps, and +comparatively windowless, the air soon becomes heavy with the reek of +perspiration and the fumes of tobacco. The floor acquires a heaving +motion and the lights sway back and forth. The homeliest of the +dance-hall girls somehow looks like a fairy through the haze--a rather +elusive fairy, with a rather heavy unfairylike gait. At this period +there is usually a good deal of noise. Then all at once it is morning, +and somehow the scene has changed to the ravine, and there is a tomato +can poking itself into the small of the back. + +Molly tripped gracefully and easily through the figures of the opening +dance, seeming scarcely to touch the floor. Bismarck Anne leaned +heavily on each man in the swing, and pressed her bosom against his +arm. Twice she half slipped and caught by the shoulder of her partner +of the moment, and her breath was hot against his throat. She said not +one word the whole dance through. + +With the last quaver of the fiddle came the harsh command-- + +"S'lute yore pardners! All promenade to th' bar!" + +They obeyed. The sets went in two by two, the men treating their +masculine partners with humorous politeness in the matter of assistance +in crossing the sill of the door. The non-dancers crowded after them +in a confused mob. + +At the bar Frosty had the drinks all ready on the back shelf. Black +Mike assisted him, and together the two, their sleeves rolled back and +their faces glistening with the sweat of honest toil, passed over +brimming little glasses of "forty rod" and jingled two-bit pieces into +the drawer. Bismarck Anne drank with the best of them, leaning +familiarly against the men nearest her, bandying jokes that were more +than doubtful. Molly sat on her corner of the bar but did not drink. + +At the beginning of the next dance the aspect of things was a trifle +changed. A bigger crowd gathered about Bismarck Anne soliciting places +in her set, and it was more familiar. Some one snatched a kiss of her. +She merely laughed and pushed him away. There seemed to have suddenly +sprung up between them and her a _camaraderie_ in which Molly had no +part, as though they and the newcomer had some secret to keep to +themselves which thrust the younger girl without the circle. + +Cheyenne Harry did not come near her again. He seemed wholly +fascinated by the stranger. The sight of his attentions to the other +aroused Molly. A bright red spot burned in either cheek. She was all +animation. Her laughter rang true, her eyes flashed with merriment. +For every one she had a joke, a half-tender, half-sympathetic aside. +She saw that as long as they were in her actual presence the men were +wholly hers. And yet she felt too the subtle growth of this other +woman's influence, and realized that eventually it would beat her down. +In spite of her brave appearance her throat choked her. Only by a +great concentration of the will could she prevent herself from lapsing +into silence, and then into tears. As the strain began to tell on her +nerves, the old feeling of unknowable guilt came to oppress her heart, +and with it a growing longing to get away, to hide somewhere; to begin +all over again humbly, below the lowest; to claim nothing, to attempt +nothing, to do nothing in opposition to that accusing Thought which +seemed greater than herself. All at once she was tired of struggling. +She was ready to give up this life, if only they would let her feel +like something besides a breathless naughty child, fearfully expecting +every moment the grave reproving voice of the Master. + +She chided herself for this. It was not game. Pluck she admired above +everything; and yet here she was, ready to run away at the first taste +of defeat. She smiled ravishingly on Dave Kelly, until he began to +speculate on the possibility of repeating that delicious experience +which Peter had so inopportunely cut short. + +[Illustration: "ARE YOU STILL MAD?"] + +As the evening progressed, the "forty rod" began to show its effects. +Williams had to have the full width of the floor whenever he tried to +walk, and his enthusiastic imitations of an angry catamount were most +creditable. Some one was always disgustedly repressing him. Several +others were in like condition with different symptoms. The soberest +manifested increased vigor of limb and fertility of imagination. A +happy combination of these two effects brought about the proposal of a +turkey walk. A ring was formed on the instant. + +Into the ring two men, chosen _vivâ voce_, were pushed. They began at +once to strut back and forth like turkey cocks in the spring. They +hollowed their backs in, stuck their chests and rumps out, slapped +their thighs, toed in, puffed their cheeks, ducked their heads, uttered +sundry gurgling whoops, and hopped about, first on one foot, then on +the other in a charmingly, impartial imitation of a Southern cake walk +and a Sioux Indian war dance. These performances tickled the crowd +immensely. When it came to noisy vote on the relative merits of the +performers, it vociferously shouted unanimous approval of all. +Therefore the contest was pronounced a tie. At this moment Dave +Williams staggered forward. His muddled brain had room for only the +most evident facts. He saw the ring and his drunken shrewdness had +retained cognizance of the evening's rivalry. He mixed the two ideas +up to effect a proposal. + +"Hyar," he shouted, "lesh do this ri'! I secon' Bismarck Anne!" He +let out a wild-cat yell--"Whe-ee!! Two t' one on Anne!" + +Some one hit him on the chest and sent him staggering backward. He +gyrated unevenly toward the corner, stumbled over his own feet, and sat +down heavily on the floor, where after feeling vainly for his gun he +relapsed into good humor. But his suggestion hit the popular fancy. + +The idea ran like fire. In a second the ring was formed again. Those +in front knelt; those behind looked over their shoulders. Even Frosty +and Black Mike deserted the bar and stood leaning in the doorway. The +girls were urged forward into the ring, which closed after them, and +the music was ordered to proceed. + +Bismarck Anne walked calmly into the circle and stood looking about +her. Molly had an instant of doubt. Then a revulsion against her easy +surrender got her to her feet and into the ring. The gauntlet was +down. She would accept the challenge. It was a duel. + +There was a moment's squabble between two self-appointed officials in +regard to precedence. It was settled, and Molly was beckoned to begin. +The fiddles started up a squeaky, lively air to which the men kept time +with hands and feet. The young girl, her cheeks burning, stepped into +the centre of the ring and struck the first graceful pose of the +_cachucha_, learned years before at the Agency from a little Mexican +serving-maid. The men recognized it in a swift quickly silenced burst. +The fiddles changed their measure to suit the dance. + +The _cachucha_ is a beautiful dance when rightly done. It is a +combination of airy half-steps, sinuous body movements, and slow +languorous and graceful weavings of the arms. It has in it all the +enchantment of the lazy South. There is not an abrupt movement in it, +but one pose melts into another as imperceptibly as night into day. +Molly did it well. Her supple figure was suited to it, and the very +refinement of her actions enhanced the charm of the dance. The men +applauded vehemently when she stopped. The other woman laughed aloud +in scorn. + +With a final sweeping curtsy the dancer turned to go. The flush of +triumph and excitement burned on her cheeks and in her eyes. Finding +the ring solidly closed so that exit was impossible, she accepted a +seat on the knee of one of those in the front rank. The man put his +arms around her and drew her close in a drunken embrace, which the girl +only half noticed. + +Bismarck Anne sprang to the centre of the ring at one bound, the sneer +still on her lips. She turned abruptly to the musicians. + +"Quit that damn stuff!" she snarled. "Play somethin'!" + +The musicians hurriedly swung into a lively air. + +Bismarck Anne's dance was not especially graceful. It consisted mainly +of high kicks and a certain athletic feat known as the split. But it +was magnificent in its abandon, and fierce in the crude animal energy +of it. Besides its mere suggestiveness and appeal to the passions, it +had too a swing, a fire, a brute-like force which could not but hit to +the hearts of men at bottom strong, crude, and savage. They went +crazy. They shouted encouraging things at her with open straining +throats. They stamped and cheered until the lights wavered. They +clapped each other delightedly on the back. And Bismarck Anne danced +ever the more furiously. She kicked with enthusiasm, with abandon, +holding her short skirts still higher to gain the greater freedom. The +tiger-lily fell from her head and was snatched up almost before it +touched the floor. Her heavy black hair came down, and hung in strands +across her face, and fell in vivid contrast upon her white shoulders +and her heaving bosom. She shook it back with a savage movement. + +And she in the corner, who was nothing but a woman, with little of the +savage in her to appeal to savage men, and, for all her independence, +little of this bold reckless spirit of the frontier in her to appeal to +pioneers, felt herself growing sick and faint as she saw these greater +forces slipping beyond her control roaringly, as would a mountain +torrent. Her rule was over, and this woman's had begun. The room +swayed before her eyes. Some one behind her handed a brimming glass of +whisky over her shoulder, and she seized it eagerly and gulped it down. + +The unaccustomed stimulant cleared her vision. The room stood still, +the different objects in it became distinct. She looked on the +whirling figure of the woman in the centre, the open-mouth +turmoil-stirred crowd in the background, with dispassionate eyes. She +was deadly cool. To her memory came Graham's words of that same +afternoon. "_Because you are too good for them!_" She remembered the +very emphasis of his tone. Well, he was right, and yet not right. She +had been too good for them, but she world show them now! With the +sudden flash of resolve, the first unnatural hardening effect of the +whisky passed, and in a whirl the exhilaration came. She laughed and +responded convulsively to the man's embrace. + +Bismarck Anne gave a final kick, and fell in some one's open arms. The +men, shouting frantically, began to stir preparatory to regaining their +feet. Then they sank back again with a fresh cheer. Into the centre +of the ring Molly tripped unsteadily, and stood for a moment looking +about her with uncertain foolishly smiling eyes. Her cheeks were a +glow of red. She glanced toward the musicians, and, with the tip of +her fingers, raised her dress to her knees, waiting for the music to +begin. + +The room was deadly still. She could see, looking at her excitedly, +all the men she had met and come to know in the last year. She saw +them dimly, as through a haze. Would the music never begin? What were +they waiting for? A draught blew cold along the floor. She felt it on +her legs. Why was it? Oh, yes, she was holding her skirts up to +dance, to show them that she was no better than this woman, Bismarck +Anne. + +And then the black cloud that had been gathering so long, the undefined +guilty feeling at nothing, broke over her. She wanted to go on--the +music had begun now--but she could not. Twice she tried. Something +held her, something real, something stronger than herself. She did not +recognize them, these ancestral voices, but they laid upon her their +commands. She dropped her skirts, and covered her eyes with her two +hands, and burst through the ring of men, and ran out through the night +to her own cabin, where she threw herself on her bed weeping bitterly. +She was ashamed. + + + + +XXXI + +LAFOND'S FIRST CARD + +Lafond, in the meantime, had left the dispensation of drinks almost +entirely to Frosty. He darted here and there in the crowd, a light of +unwonted excitement in his eye. + +"That thar Mike's shore waked up," commented Old Mizzou. "Never see +him so plumb animated. He shore looks nutty. Dance halls is mostly +too rich fer his blood, I reckon." + +But Tony Houston and Jack Snowie and a dozen others by now knew better +than to attribute this excitement to dance halls. Lafond possessed in +his pocket a copy of Knapp's dismissal, and he had told them of it. + +He told them of it mysteriously, in half-limits, pointing out +tendencies and solutions to what they already knew, leaving them to +draw deductions, sowing anxieties that there might spring up a harvest +of distrust. + +Through the woof of gayety he rapidly ran a dull thread of angry +suspicion. Men made merry, and forgot all the past and all the future. +Other men talked low-voiced in corners, and tried, from the distraction +of drink and gayety, to draw clear plan and reflection. And always +Lafond took other men aside and whispered eager little +half-confidences, and went on quickly to the next. + +His spirit was upheld by a great excitement, such as it had never +experienced before, not even in his early and adventurous days. He +seemed to himself to be mounting higher and higher on the summit of a +great wave of luck, as a swimmer is lifted by the sea. And yet, behind +it all, again for the first time in his life, he felt a portent in the +air. It was as though the wave were rearing itself, only to curl over +and break upon the shore. He laid this to nervousness, and yet it +affected him with a certain superstitious awe. + +So occupied was he, that he quite missed the girl's sudden exit, and +was drawn from his brown study only by the sudden hush that succeeded +it. In the silence a drunken voice uplifted itself loudly. + +"M' work 'sh done," it vociferated. "I wan' m' pay!" + +Everybody turned, prepared to laugh at this "comic relief!" Jack +Snowie was addressing Billy Knapp. Billy at once became conscious of +an audience, and the usual desire to appear well seized him. He smiled +with the good-humored tolerance of a drunken man. + +"I suppose you want me to take it right out of my pants pocket, eh, +Jack?" he inquired paternally. "Of co'se you wants yo' pay! Come +around in th' mornin' an' get it." He smiled again at the group that +surrounded him. It appeared to be listening to this colloquy with +unusual interest. + +"I wan' m' pay!" reiterated Snowie sullenly, but then apparently lost +the thread of his ideas and lurched away. Billy considered the +incident closed. He was mistaken. The group did not dissolve; it came +closer. The men had a strangely unfriendly look about the eyes. Billy +did not understand it. He stepped toward one side of the circle about +him. It closed the tighter to keep him in. + +"What's the joke, boys?" he asked, still smiling. + +The room was breathlessly still. Many of those within it did not +understand the trouble, but trouble was in the air. Across a wavering +line of heat could be dimly discerned the musicians, poised to start +the next dance, but uncertain whether or not to begin. They did not +begin. The silence was startled even by Peter's doggy yawn from the +far corner of the saloon proper. + +"Ain't no joke!" "That's what we want to know!" "Damned poor joke!" +"You'll find out soon enough!" cried the men angrily, and then paused +and looked at each other because of the jostle of words that meant +nothing. + +Billy flushed slowly, and his jaw settled into place. + +"I'm jest as willin' to play 'horse' as anybody," he said, trying to +find calm utterance; "and if this is a joke, I wishes some +fellow-citizen to let me in. But, damn it!" he cried in a burst, +"don't you get too funny! What the hell does you-all want me to do to +carry out this yere witticism, anyway?" + +The coolest and most determined looking man in the group made two steps +across the floor, and confronted Billy squarely. At this evidence of +earnestness, Billy lost his excitement and became deadly cool. + +"Oh, it's you, Tony Houston, is it! Do you want your pay too?" + +"Yes, I do," replied the man, "and I'm going to have it." + +"Well," said Billy, "here's a pretty-lookin' outfit! Snowie was drunk, +but this gang 's sober enough to know better, anyway. You come around +to my office in the mornin', and I pays the bunch, every damn skunk, +and don't you ever any of you show your faces there again. That's all +I got to say." + +"It ain't all _I_ got to say," retorted Houston, standing his ground +doggedly, "not by a long shot! You-all talks well, but has you got th' +money?" + +"What the----" cried Billy, choking. + +"Hol' on thar! I repeats it"--and Houston thrust his face at Billy +evilly--"has you got th' money? That's a fa'r question in business, I +reckons. Has you got th' money? No, you hasn't. You got just an +hundred and fifty-two dollars, and that's every red cent you has got." + +Billy's immediate act of homicide was checked by this astounding +knowledge of the total of his bank account. "Damn you, Tony Houston," +he said slowly, at last, "I believe you're drunk too. You come in the +mornin' and get paid, an' you'll find yore money comes along all right. +This is a hell of a gang," he went on with contempt, "a hell of a gang! +I gets you a job that lasts you all winter, and you wants your damn +money in a dance hall and raises a row because I ain't carryin' a few +thousan' dollars in each pants pocket. Don' think you makes anythin' +by it. I lays myself out from now on to see that yore little two by +four prospect holes ain't worth th' powder to blow 'em up, and I reckon +I has a little influence as superintendent of this game." + +"Superintendent?" cried Houston, and the men about laughed loudly. + +Billy was plainly even more bewildered than angry. He considered the +crowd all, as he expressed it, "plum' locoed"; but his passions, never +of the most peaceful, were rising. In another moment he would have +knocked Houston down and drawn his gun on the crowd which surrounded +him, but that Michaïl Lafond shoved his way through the press. Billy +caught sight of him with relief. Besides the plain bare fact of a row, +the situation was complicated by the presence of so great an audience, +before whom Billy naturally wished to conduct the affair correctly. + +"What is the trouble? Here, this won't do!" cried Black Mike, as +though in the capacity of proprietor preserving the respectability of +his establishment. + +"That's what I wants to know," cried Billy. "This (sulphurous) outfit +of ranikaboo ijits has gone plum' locoed, and they stan's around yere +howlin' for tha'r money as though I carries th' Philadelphy mint in my +clothes!" + +Lafond did not reply. He motioned the men aside, and, with the utmost +gentleness, led the wondering Billy to a far corner of the room. + +"I'm sorry that I have this to do, Billy," said Lafond. "I don't want +to. It's none of my lay-out. But these men of yours sent them to me +because I am notary public and I must do it." + +Billy did not understand, but he caught the apology in Lafond's tone. + +"That's all right, old man," he assured the latter, moistening his lips. + +Without further preamble, the half-breed drew some papers from his +breast pocket, and handed them to Billy. + +The first was a review of the work done on the Great Snake group of +claims, and a detailed analysis of it, carried out with astounding +minuteness of technical knowledge for one so ignorant of mining as +Stevens. It outlined also the work that should have been done; and it +ended with a general conclusion of incompetence. The second contained +his formal dismissal as superintendent. The third returned Billy's +shares as his portion in the Company's dissolution, said Company having +dissolved without assets. + +Billy sat very quietly and read the papers over three times, while his +fellow townsmen stood silent and watched him. The first perusal +bewildered him, and turned him sick at heart with disappointment and +recognition of the estimate in which men held him. The second brought +to his consciousness that his companions were regarding him; and that, +in turn, caused him to realize that his prestige was crumbled, his +integrity dishonored, his abilities belittled. The third impressed on +him the desperate straits in which he found himself--without money, +holding a doubtful interest in claims whose bad name was by this +established so firmly that no Eastern capital would ever take hold of +them again, the moral if not legal debtor to these men who had worked +all winter for him. The iron turned in his soul. Michaïl Lafond, +sitting there in the rôle of sympathizer, was well satisfied with his +handiwork. For the moment, Billy Knapp was a broken man. + +He arose slowly, and passed out of the door in the dead silence of +those about him. + +After his exit, the dance was forgotten and an earnest discussion +raged. It was no light matter. Eleven men had invested heavily in +powder, fuse, drills, and windlasses for the purpose of fulfilling +their contract with Knapp; and they, and twenty-two others, had put in +their time for a number of months. Many of them owed for board or +materials. Others, though out of debt, had spent nearly all their +ready cash. They all seemed desperately close to bankruptcy, for +Lafond said nothing whatever respecting his agreement to pay the +contracts himself. And then again, as has been pointed out, the +well-being of the whole camp had depended intimately on the success of +its big mine, for the success of one enterprise like the Great Snake +draws other capital to the district, rendering possible the sale of +claims; while its failure always gives a bad name to a whole section. + +So the ensuing discussion had plenty of interest for everybody. +Lafond, as the bearer of the tidings, was besieged with questions. He +was reluctant, but he answered. Besides, the facts were plain, ready +for interpretation. Nobody could help seeing that it was all Billy's +fault. After a time, poor Billy loomed large as a symbol of all the +camp's misfortune. After a little time more, when the bar had more +thoroughly done its work, a number became possessed of a desire to +abate Billy. + +They seized torches and a rope, ran up the gulch, and beat in the door +of the office, only to encounter Billy enraged to the point of frenzy. +That individual rushed them out at the muzzle of a pistol, with such a +whirl of impetuous anger that it quite carried them off their feet, +after which he planted his back against the building and stood there in +the full light of the torches, reviling them. Why he was not shot I +cannot tell. Billy was something of a dominant spirit when roused. +That was the reason why, in the old days, he had made such a good +scout. After he had called them all the names he could think of, he +slammed the door on them. They went away without knowing why they did +so. + +When they got back to town, they gathered again in the Little Nugget +saloon, drinking, swearing, shouting. The morale of the camp was +broken. It was a debauch. They cried out against Billy, and they +feared him for the moment. They made a stable-boy hide in the brush +with a bottle of whisky, to watch the works, to spy on they knew not +what. Lafond drank with them. He had never done so before. As they +became more noisy, he fell into a sullen fit, and went to sit over +behind the stove where he crooned away to himself an old _chanson_. He +stopped drinking, but the effects remained. It seemed to his befogged +mind that the wave had broken and that he was falling through the air. +Shortly he would be cast up against the beach. "A fool for luck!" he +muttered to himself, trying to rehabilitate his denuded confidence. He +took out the Company's letter to him, saying that the deeds were at +Rapid awaiting his action, and read it. Then he put a stick of wood on +the fire. He shivered and rubbed his eyes. Finally he went over to +the hotel, where he washed his head again and again in cold water. +After a time, he returned to the Little Nugget, feeling somewhat better. + +It was now daylight, although the sun was not up. The stable-boy came +in from the upper gulch to say that Billy Knapp was hitching his horses +to the buckboard. The news sobered them somewhat. Ten minutes later, +the stable-boy again returned with the news that Knapp had loaded his +buckboard, and was on the point of driving through town. A dozen men +at once ran out into the street and concealed themselves behind the +corners of buildings. + + + + +XXXII + +IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING + +Billy sat in a chair and boiled. He did not calm down until after +daylight, and then he found that his depression had vanished. He was +full of vigor. He went out and looked over the property very +carefully. The entire lay-out, he found, had weighed on his spirits, +and this last ungrateful episode had made him sick of the whole +miserable business. He ought never to be tied down. He could see his +mistake clearly enough now. If he was going to stick to gold hunting, +it ought to be as a prospector, not as a miner. A prospector enjoyed +the delight of new country, of wilderness life, of the chase, and then, +when civilization came too near, he could sell his claims to the miner +and move on to a virgin country. A miner, on the other hand, had to +settle down in one place and attend to all manner of vexatious details. +Billy felt a great impatience to shake himself free. With the thought +came a wave of anger against the men of the town. After all, what had +he to gain by staying? This outfit was a fizzle; nothing could be done +with it in the future. He might save something of the wreck by +grubbing about in the débris, but grubbing was exactly what he wanted +to get away from. + +He looked over the works again. He was astonished to find how little +of it he cared for personally. There remained not much more than the +Westerner's outfit, when it was winnowed--four good horses, the +buckboard, his saddle, clothes, his weapons, and the beautiful trotting +horse. Billy could not let that go. The camp outfit they could have +and welcome. He kicked the rubber stamper into space, scattering +potential literature about the landscape. Many things he hesitated +over, but finally discarded. The heap was not very large when all was +told. + +He began to experiment with the buckboard. Billy was a master of the +celebrated diamond hitch. After an hour's earnest work, he drew back +triumphantly to observe to himself that all he wished to take with him +was securely packed on the vehicle. Then he coupled in his grays, and +led out the beautiful trotting horse. He was glad that he had lately +paid the English groom his wages; which individual he remembered +seeing, the night before, dead drunk in a corner. Billy made himself +some coffee in the empty cookee's shack, and was ready to start. + +He did not know exactly where he would go; that was a matter of detail, +but somewhere West in all probability--somewhere in Wyoming, where Jim +Buckley was hidden up in the mountains, living a sane sort of a life, +removed from the corroding influences of civilization. He did not +realize that in this impatient shaking off of responsibility, he was +little better than a moral coward. Even Billy's worst enemies would +have denied the justice of that epithet. + +He climbed in, deliberately unwound the reins from the long brake +handle, clucked to the horses, and took his way, whistling, down the +narrow trail. The beautiful trotting horse followed gingerly, tossing +his head. At the entrance to town, Billy's whistling suddenly ceased. +The street was quite bare and silent. Not even from the Little Nugget +saloon or the new dance hall came the faintest sound of human +occupancy. A tenderfoot might have argued that this was indicative of +deep sleep after last night's festivities, but Billy knew better. At +seven o'clock in the morning, after excitement such as that of a few +hours before, the normal ensuing pow-wow would still be raging +unabated. He reached under the seat for his Winchester, the new 40-82 +model of his prosperous days, and laid it softly across his lap, and +caught the end of the long lash in his whip hand. Then he resumed his +tune exactly where it had been broken off, looking neither to right nor +left, and jogging along without the slightest appearance of haste or +uneasiness. No one could have called Billy Knapp a coward at that +moment. + +Near the first cabin the whistling broke off again. A little figure +stumbled out into the deserted street, weeping and afraid. Billy +pulled up. It was the Kid. + +"They're goin' to shoot you," he sobbed, "from behind the Little +Nugget, without givin' you a chanst! I had to tell you, an' they'll +most kill me!" he wailed. Billy's eyes began to sparkle. The Kid +tried to hold within the other's reach his little 22 calibre rifle, his +most precious possession. "Here, take this!" he begged. + +Billy laughed outright, a generous, hearty laugh with just a shade of +something serious in it. "Thank ye," said he, "I got one. And let me +tell ye right yere, you Kid. Yore a white man, you are, and yore jest +about the only white man in the place." He cast his eyes about him in +the buckboard at his feet. "Yere ye be," he said, tugging at a pair of +huge silver-ornamented Mexican spurs and leaning over to give them to +the boy; "jest remember me by them thar; they has my name in 'em; and, +look yere," he went on with a sudden inspiration, "you-all gets up +gulch to my camp and takes what grub you finds and lies low until yo' +paw an' th' rest gits over bein' mad. I don't know but what they +_does_ kill you, if you shows up afore that." And he laughed again to +see the boy's face brighten at this prospect of escaping the immediate +wrath to follow. + +The little scene had been enacted in the middle of the silent street, +so silent and so empty that the principal actors in it experienced an +uncomfortable emotion of publicity, perhaps a little like that of an +inexperienced speaker before the glare of footlights. The Kid, +followed friskily by Peter, scuttled up the gulch, Billy stood up in +his buckboard and faced the inscrutable row of houses. + +"Yo' damn coyotes!" he yelled, "thar goes the only _man_ in the whole +outfit. Shoot! yo' Siwashes, shoot!" and he brought his long whip like +a figure 8 across the flanks of all four horses at once. + +_Bang!_ reverberated a shot between the hills, and a bullet splashed +white against the brake bar. + +Billy dropped the reins to the floor of the buckboard, and planted his +foot on them. He steadied his knee against the seat, and threw down +and back the lever of his Winchester for a shot. The beautiful +trotting horse was pulling back in an ecstasy of terror at the end of +his long lariat, shaking his head and planting his forefeet. Billy +cursed savagely, but jerked loose the knot, and the beautiful trotting +horse, with a final snort of terror, turned tail and disappeared in the +direction of the mine. + +_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ went other shots from behind puffs of white +smoke. The hills caught up the sound and rolled it back, and then back +again, until it was quite impossible to count the discharges. + +There were perhaps a half-dozen men with rifles and a dozen or so with +six-shooters, all pumping away at it as fast as they could. The +buckboard was struck many times. One horse was hit, but only +slightly--not enough to interfere with, but rather to encourage his +speed. Billy fastened his eyes on the spot whence the first bullet had +sped. Suddenly he threw his rifle to his shoulder. + +_Crack!_ it spoke, strangely flat out there in the open against the +fuller reports of the other pieces. + +The bullets which undershot kicked up little puffs of dust, like +grasshoppers jumping, while those that passed above, ricochetted +finally from rocks and went singing away into the distance. It was a +wonder, with so large a mark, that neither the man nor the horses were +hit. It must be remembered, however, that the marksmen were more or +less drunk, and that Billy's speed was by now something tremendous. + +_Crack!_ went his Winchester again. + +At the end of the straight road was, as has perhaps been mentioned, a +turn of considerable sharpness, flanked by bold cliff-like rocks. In +the best of circumstances, this bit of road requires careful driving. +With a runaway four and a light buckboard, a smash up was inevitable. +The hidden assailants and spectators of the strange duel realized this +suddenly. In the interest of the approaching catastrophe, the +fusillade ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Billy maintained his +first attitude, one knee on the seat, the other foot braced against the +floor, keenly expectant. The silence became breathless, and one or two +men leaned forward the better to see. + +"_Crack!_" spoke Billy's rifle for the third time. The man who had +fired the first shot pitched suddenly forward from behind his +sheltering corner, and lay still. + +With one swift motion the scout dropped his Winchester in the seat, +grasped the four reins, and threw his enormous weight against the bits. +The grays had been ranch-bred. They bunched their feet, hunched their +backs, and in three heavy buck jumps had slowed down from a breakneck +run to a lumbering gallop. Billy Knapp gave vent to the wild shrill +war cry of his foster parents, the Oglallah Sioux, and jogged calmly +out of sight around the bend of the road. + +A great crowd pressed about Tony Houston, prone on the ground. They +discovered that the ball had passed through the point of the shoulder, +not a dangerous place in itself, but resulting in a serious wound +because of the smashing power of the express rifle. + +"Damn fine shooting!" they said, looking at each other with admiration. +"_Damn_ fine." + +They began to feel a little more kindly toward Billy on account of this +evidence of his skill. They set about bandaging the wounded man. + + + + +XXXIII + +FUTILITY + +And around that lower bend, half a mile beyond Durand's cabin, Billy +encountered in the person of Jim Buckley the very man he intended to +search for, and that by not so very strange a chance when all is +considered. + +After the scouting days were quite over, not long ago, by the way, Jim +Buckley had struck out for Wyoming, where he looked about him and +finally settled in the Crooked Horn district all alone. He was +prospecting. And as he was a great big leisurely sort of fellow, never +in a hurry, and quite unconvinced of the necessity for being so, it +took him a great many years to complete the prospecting to his +satisfaction. In fact it was only recently that he had fully convinced +himself and others of the value of what he had found. At first he had +worked the surface over inch by inch Then he had staked out his more +experimental claims. Then he had burrowed and grubbed and delved, +single-handed, through a network of shafts, tunnels, and drifts. It is +slow work--single-handed. In the morning you make little holes with a +hand drill, and fill them with powder. At noon you blast. In the +afternoon you cart away débris by means of an inadequate little bucket. +This takes time and patience, both of which Jim Buckley possessed. +Once a month he went to town, riding one horse and leading another, for +the purpose of buying supplies. The rest of the time he lived alone. + +That is, he lived alone except that directly opposite the window, where +the light always struck it fair, he had carefully fastened a small +colored portrait on ivory. It was the picture of a woman, delicately +tinted, young with laughing blue eyes and a mouth whose corners turned +upward in so droll a manner that you would have sworn its owner had +never known a care in her fresh young life. It was the picture of +another man's wife. She had known care, of the bitterest, blackest +kind, and in her darkest days she had been murdered, mercifully +perhaps. After he had hauled the last little bucket of broken rock up +to the surface of the ground, and had ranged all sorts of utensils in +the open fireplace for the evening meal, Jim Buckley used to light his +pipe and sit looking at this little portrait for a long time. For, you +see, he was simply made, with no complexities--a few simple purposes, a +few simple ideas, a few simple friendships, a few simple passions--but +they were the stronger and deeper and more soul-satisfying for that. +He did not need incident or sorrow or regret to round out his life. It +was well poised and sufficient. + +So he used to look upon the face of this other man's wife from under +sombre brows, but through clear eyes. No one could have guessed what +his slow deep thoughts were at such times, nor what he found, whether +of peace or unrest, in his contemplation of a portrait of the past. He +said it made him better. Perhaps it did. + +But there came a time when the windlasses over the rabbit-burrow +prospector's shafts had made their last necessary revolution. Jim +Buckley knew the cross section of that country as well as you or I know +the cross section of an apple we have just cut in two. Then, having +satisfied his purposes, he looked to his friendships. He had never had +many. Alfred, Billy Knapp, Hal Townsend, Charley Fanchild--why you +could count them on the fingers of one hand--and two of these were +dead, and another was so far away in the cattle country of Arizona that +he might as well have been so. Jim would have liked well to have +gathered this old band of comrades about him and said, "Here, boys, is +what I have. It is more than enough for me: it is more than enough for +all of us. Let us share it, just as we used to share our bacon or our +coffee in the old days, and so we can grow old together in the way that +suits us best, the way of the pioneer." As he sat in the cabin now, or +stalked the hills with his rifle, this old comradeship took more and +more shape from the mists of the past, and there grew up in his breast +a sharp craving for old times, old faces, old friends. It was a +peculiarity of his nature that his ideas possessed a sort of cumulative +force. They gathered added reasons for their carrying out as a rolling +snowball gathers snow. Toward the end of that month, he packed a +strange old valise with clothes for the journey, strapped on his best +six-shooter, put his cabin in order, and rode his horse down to Crooked +Horn. There he left the animal with Billy Powers and took the train +for Edgemont and thence to Rapid. + +He knew that Billy was somewhere in the Hills. At Rapid he learned of +that individual's new importance. His heart sank a little at the +thought that this prosperity might forfend his own scheme of +comradeship, but nevertheless he took Blair's stage for Copper Creek +and Custer. + +Near Rockerville the axle gave way. The brake was repaired at a +miner's forge with some difficulty, but the job carried on so late into +the afternoon that Blair refused to go farther that night, and the +party slept at Rockerville. The next morning they pushed on again +about daylight, in order that Blair might start back from Custer before +noon, thus reducing his delay by a few hours. A half mile below +Durand's shack the axle again gave way, this time with a sudden +violence that sent flying the baggage which had been piled on top. Jim +found his valise in the bushes. The catch had snapped when the bag hit +the ground, so that it lay half open; but fortunately its contents had +not emptied. Jim closed it with the two end-clasps, and set it by the +side of the road. He did not notice that the ivory miniature had +dropped out, and now lay face downward at the roots of a _mesquite_. + +Blair looked up from his inspection. + +"Bad break!" he said, with a string of oaths. "Copper Creek's under a +mile ahead. You'll save time by pushin' on afoot. I'll be in as soon +as I can get this sulphurated axle tied together with a strap." + +"No hurry," replied Jim; "I'll help you." + +He began to unhitch the horses while Blair went to borrow an axe of +Durand. The driver's intention was to splice the broken axle with a +bit of green wood. In a little time, he and the old man returned +together. + +So Billy found them, straining away with an impromptu crowbar. When he +and Jim saw each other, they agreed that they'd be tee-totally chawed +up! After a time the stage moved doubtfully on toward Copper Creek. +Billy and Jim went the other way in the buckboard. + +Billy explained that he was going to see Jim; and Jim explained that he +had come to get Billy. Billy elaborated on the tale of his doings +since their last meeting, and easily persuaded Jim, as well as himself, +that he was a most wronged individual. To restore his self-respect it +only needed a sympathetic listener, so that he could hear the sound of +his own voice. For the moment he had doubted himself. Now he saw +plainly that he had been misled by false pretences. If he had +understood clearly from the beginning the picayune policy expected of +him by these stingy Easterners, he would have graduated his scale of +expenditures to suit it; but certainly they had implied at least that +they intended to get up a good big mine. Served a man right for going +in with such sharpers! + +Jim merely said that he had a first-rate thing to share with Billy. + +It was a pleasant sight, the bearded solemn miner, fairly glowing with +pleasure over finding Billy unfortunate and therefore open to his own +kind offices; the eager-faced enthusiastic promoter, elated and +high-spirited because of the relief of putting quite behind him a +colossal failure; because of the privilege of starting again with a +clean slate; because of a hundred new and promising schemes for the +future. Michaïl Lafond's long planning had availed little, after all. +With all his shrewdness he did not see that in the personality of Billy +Knapp he was attempting to quench the essence of enthusiasm and hope +and faith--inextinguishable fires. That is the American frontiersman. + +At Rapid they took the train to Crooked Horn. At Crooked Horn they +reclaimed the horse from Billy Powers. Then they inaugurated the boom. +At this very day, December 24th, 1899, they are still living together +in the new town of Knapp City, Wyoming, wealthy and respected citizens. +And Billy recounts his Copper Creek experiences, generally with +tolerance, as an example of the deceit of his fellow-creatures. They +were the fruit of eighteen years of planning and waiting and working by +a man who thought he could shape greater destinies than his own. + + + + +XXXIV + +LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED + +After the vociferating group had made Houston comfortable with the +bandages and rough surgery of the frontier, it again took up the +discussion of ways and means. It was a tired crowd, haggard from +dissipation and want of sleep. And then, too, it was a cross crowd. + +A majority were savage. Their passions were aroused to an unreasoning +pitch, as is the manner of mobs. To them it was not a question of +discussion, but of destruction. They wanted to burn the Company's +buildings, and they were so set on it, and so impatient of even a word +of opposition, that Lafond began to be a little frightened for his new +property. His attempts at dissuasion were everywhere met with rebuff. +Finally, on a sudden inspiration, he sprang to his own window ledge and +signed his desire to speak. + +Such men as Moroney, Kelly, Graham, and Williams, cooler heads, whose +stake in the camp's fate was still heavy, succeeded in obtaining a +momentary silence. + +"Boys," shouted Mike, "I'll pay you myself!" + +They paused in good earnest now, to see what these astounding words +might signify. + +"I'll pay you myself!" repeated Lafond. Then--for he was too shrewd to +promise a thing of such moment without giving a plausible reason for +it--he went on, "I can't afford to let this camp bust; I got too much +in it. I can afford better that I spend a little to help it along. I +don't know what it is that the Company intends; but I will find out; +and this I promise to you, if the Company does not pay you, I will make +some arrangement for the mine and I will pay you myself!" + +Even Graham and Moroney were a little deceived. Both perceived dimly +an ulterior motive, but on the surface the offer was generous and there +could be no doubt that Lafond's word was perfectly good in such a +matter. As for the men, they were more than satisfied. + +"But of course," Lafond was saying, "you must not do any injury to the +property." + +Which went without saying, as every one could see. + +Michaïl Lafond ate his breakfast with many long pauses. He had little +appetite. His plans had gone well, and yet in their outcome rested a +little remnant of the indecisive that annoyed him out of all +proportion. Billy had been discharged from his position as +superintendent and driven from camp, yet his exit had been +melodramatically brilliant and had somehow done much to leave his +memory in good odor. He, Lafond, had the promise of the property; but +even yet the deeds were in escrow at Rapid. It was forty-five miles to +Rapid--ten hours! Much might happen in ten hours. At the thought, +which Lafond instinctively paused to note was not in his usual +confident manner, he started up and commanded Frosty to harness his +team of bays to the buckboard. He would complete the contract before +sunset. While the animals were being harnessed, he tried to smoke a +pipe. It went out. He attempted to read a paper. He could not. +Finally he went out of doors and strode rapidly up and down. He felt +chilled, for the air of the early morning was sharp. He thrust his arm +through the open window and took down his old canvas coat from behind +the door, and put it on. In spite of its protection he shivered again. + +"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!" he growled at Frosty. He snapped the +lash of his black-snake whip, making the bays dance to the hindrance of +Frosty's task. His eye caught the new dance hall. + +"She's been worth while, if she never does another thing," he commented +to himself, and then realized that he had said it, not because he +believed it, but because he wanted to keep his courage up. What was +this dread of the intangible? He could not understand it. "Getting +too old to sit up all night," he explained it to himself. + +His thoughts went back to the night. It had left with him an +impression of being unsatisfactory. Why should it? There was +something about the girl, he did not recall exactly what. Oh yes, +Cheyenne Harry! That affair had balked. Well, it did not much matter: +that was a detail. Now that the dance hall was up, the girl could be +forced to take her place. Lafond told himself that he was a little +tired of finesse and delicate planning--too tired to undertake another +long campaign of the kind merely for the satisfaction to be found in +the process. Besides, in this case it was not necessary. He would +settle the affair now, get it off his mind. + +He strode over to the girl's shack and pushed open the door. She was +lying flat on her face, fully dressed as in her first transport of +shame, but she had now fallen into a light sleep. At the creak of the +door, however, she looked up, her eyes red with crying. + +"That was a hell of a performance last night," said Lafond brutally, +"and it don't go again." + +He had never spoken to her so before. + +She sat upright on the bed and stared at him, clasping one hand near +her throat. + +"That ain't what you're here for," continued Mike. "There'll be +another dance Saturday night, and you be on hand and stay on hand. +That's your job now--understand?" + +A slow comprehension of his meaning crept into her eyes, and she +covered them with her hands. The halfbreed stood in the doorway +coiling and uncoiling the lash of his whip. He wanted some indication +of how she was going to take it. + +"Understand?" he repeated. + +She merely shuddered. + +"Damn it! can't you answer?" he cried impatiently. "What do you think +I've raised you for anyway? You're none of my breed. Answer, +you----," and he spat out an epithet. + +She lowered her hands and looked at him again with wide-open eyes from +which all expression had faded. This stony silence irritated Lafond. + +"You've had your head long enough. Now you're going to show what +you're made for. Understand? Great God!" he cried, "you've got a +tongue, haven't you? Why don't you answer when I ask you a question?" +In one of the sudden Latin gusts of passion, which generally he held so +well in control, Lafond lashed her across the breast with his +black-snake whip. Almost before the impulse had quitted his brain he +regretted it, for her scream would bring out the camp, and Lafond could +see the awkwardness of an explanation. It was better to break her in +gradually. To his relief, she did not cry out, but merely shivered +pitifully and closed her eyes. + +"That's what you'll get if you don't toe the mark," threatened Lafond, +only too glad to avoid a scene. He slouched out of the door, climbed +into his light wagon shaking his heavy head sullenly, and drove away in +the direction of Rapid. + +After he had gone and the sound of his wheels had died away, the girl +arose staggeringly from her bed. The bright world had crumbled. For +the first time in her young existence her thoughts turned to the vague +conception of a higher Being which she had built, Heaven knows how, +from materials gathered, Heaven knows where. + +"God, God, God!" she cried, "I thought this was a happy world where +people laughed. I did not know there was so much sorrow in the world. +You did not make the world to be sorrowful, did you, God?" + +She was almost blind. She knew that she must kill herself: that alone +was clear. It was that or the dance hall. She was to be like Bismarck +Anne. And she realized in a moment that she knew Black Mike, his iron +will and his cruel heart; and she was afraid of him, deadly afraid. +She began to grope about the room. There was a dim square: that must +be the window. Her hands passed fumblingly over the table, just +missing the long sewing scissors. Nothing there. Quick, quick, he +might come back! She almost fell over the cloak, which had fallen to +the floor, and was now entangled about her feet. There was another +square of light: it must be the door. She stumbled out into a glare of +merciless sunshine that filled her brain and beat on the walls of her +understanding until she covered her eyes, and still stumbled on. She +thought she heard men shouting. She was not sure. + +From his work of sweeping out the stale saloon, Frosty had seen her. +She was a strange sight, her hair half down, her face white and drawn, +her step so uncertain. Frosty was very fond of her in his stupid +silent way. He yelled and ran toward her. + +In this day of excitement, a cry brought a dozen heads to a dozen +windows and doors. In a moment the girl was surrounded. The men were +puzzled. "Plain case of bug-juice," said one, a little sorrowfully. + +She felt someone trying gently to lead her somewhere, but she resisted, +crying "Let me go, let me go. I want to get to the big rock." + +Graham pushed his way anxiously into the group. He had not been able +to bring himself to attend the dance the evening before, but he had +been told the details, and up to now had felt rather relieved than +otherwise at the turn affairs had taken. + +"Why do you want to go to the big rock, Molly?" he asked gently. + +At the sound of his voice she began to cry a little. "It is so high up +there, so high," she said over and over. + +"Of course it's high, Molly, very high; but don't you think you'd +better wait until to-morrow?" + +The men stood about with awe-stricken faces. They saw now that there +was more in this than they had at first supposed. "Nutty," they +whispered to each other in undertones. + +"Such a long way down, a long way down," went on the girl. "I could +jump from there very easily; such a long way down!" + +Graham took her quietly by the shoulders. + +"Listen, Molly, it's I, Jack Graham." + +"Yes, Jack." + +"And I want you to do just as I say. Will you do it?" + +"Yes, Jack." + +"I want you to go with me. Do you trust me, Molly?" + +She began to sob violently, almost convulsively, dabbing uncertainly at +her eyes. + +"What is it, Jack? What am I doing here?" + +"Nothing; it's all right. Will you come with me? Ah, that's better." + +She looked about her with intelligence. + +"What is it, boys? How did I come here?" Her glance wandered past +them to the dance hall, and she turned away suddenly. "Ah! I +remember!" The strained look began to come back into her face. + +"Here, here, Molly!" cried Graham in alarm, "that won't do! Here, you +must do just exactly as I say. You must come with me now, and get +something to eat and some sleep. Don't you trust me, Molly?" + +He looked steadily into her eyes, his brow contorted with anxiety. + +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried suddenly, "whom else could I trust but you? +You have been the only man whom I could have trusted from the very +first, the only man I should have trusted. I see that now. I have +known it all the while, but I would not acknowledge it." + +"Will you go with me then, Molly?" asked Graham again. + +This time it was she who raised her hands to his shoulders. "Jack," +said she solemnly, "a few minutes ago I was on the point of killing +myself because I saw nothing but death or that dance hall before me. I +had forgotten. I will never do so again. I will go with you now, +Jack, wherever you want me to; and I will go with you, Jack, forever, +to the end of the world." + +She leaned suddenly forward and kissed him, and then as suddenly fell +to weeping again, with great sobs that shook her slender body cruelly. + +Never was a stranger love scene; never was one more in keeping with the +wayward, capricious, yet intrinsically sterling character of Molly +Lafond. She did not understand it; but she felt to her inmost soul +that it was real; and that if she did not love Jack Graham now, at +least she respected him above all men and above herself, and that her +affection for him would never diminish, but rather increase as the time +went on. And this the event proved to be true. Nor did Graham +understand, but he too felt the sincerity of it. As for the men before +whose audience the curious drama had been enacted, they understood +still less. + +But it was very simple after all. + +In her nature, as in all other natures, two forces had struggled for +the mastery. With her they happened to be called heredity, or the +East; and education, or the West. Her training, her environment, her +mental atmosphere had powerfully affected her general conduct of life; +but in the great crisis her deeper nature had spoken, and she had +obeyed. + + + + +XXXV + +OUT OF THE PAST + +Michaïl Lafond drove on slowly down the valley of Copper Creek, +although, if he intended to reach Rapid before dark, there would seem +to be every reason for haste. + +He usually conducted his affairs so carefully, so shrewdly, so +calculatingly. How had he happened to give way so to an impulse? He +regretted lashing the girl with his whip, because he felt that it was +unnecessary. Doing unnecessary evil had always been against Lafond's +principles. He considered it bad luck, and somehow that spectre of bad +luck seemed to be coming very close. He had lost confidence. +Therefore he made mistakes. + +Just outside of town he encountered Blair's stage crawling along on a +mended axle. Naturally both vehicles pulled up. After explanations of +the accident, Blair remarked casually-- + +"Struck Billy down the road a piece." + +"Yes," said Mike, "he left this morning." + +"Almighty lucky happen-so for him, 'cause I had an old codger aboard +that was just on his way to visit Billy. Nice old cuss, too. Name +Buckley, or Bulkley, or something like that. Come from out Wyoming +way." + +Lafond clamped on his brake again. + +"Yes," said he, "I used to know him. He went off with Billy, you say?" + +"Yes, bag _an'_ baggage." + +"Goin' to Rapid?" + +"Near as I could make out," said Blair. "They reversed the proposition +on the spot. Place of him a visitin' of Billy, Billy he aims to visit +him. Things movin' at camp?" + +"They'll tell you up there," replied Lafond and drove on. + +What a fiendish stroke of luck! This one man in all the West who knew +of the affair at Spanish Gulch in the seventies, who would remember the +doctor's wife, who would recognize the strong resemblance of her +daughter to her, who might stir up that dust of the past which Lafond +had so carefully laid--that he should come just at this time! To be +sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to implicate him--Lafond. +But Buckley was a tenacious sort of individual; he would insist on +investigating. That would mean explanations by Lafond, a detailed +account. The details would have to be invented. And then a chill +struck his heart as he realized that he could not recall all the story +he had told the Indian agent when he had left the little girl in his +charge! + +He pulled his horses down to a walk and set himself to thinking +earnestly. He went over in sequence, as nearly as he could remember +them, every word and action, from his meeting with Durand to his +departure from the agency. It was no use. Even at the time, he had +invented the story lightly, without much thought of its importance +except as a temporary expedient. Now the matter had quite escaped him. +Jim Buckley's return West, which had before seemed merely fortunate, he +saw now had been providential. It was a narrow escape. He must visit +the agent as soon as possible, for the purpose of refreshing his memory. + +He came to Durand's cabin. The old man stood near the doorway +examining something which he held flat in the palm of his hand. At his +feet, Jacques, the little raccoon, was curled up in a bright-eyed ball +of fur, enjoying the early sun. Out behind the cabin, Isabeau, the +tasselled lynx, stepped lightly to and fro along the length of his +chain; and the great Pantalon sat drolly on his shaggy haunches +sniffing the air. Lafond stopped. He felt he must talk to some one or +give way to this incomprehensible impulse to shriek aloud. + +They exchanged greetings. At once Lafond saw something suspicious in +the old man's attitude. He was preternaturally grave. He seemed to be +thinking of something behind his actual speech. + +"I've something to show you, Lafond," he remarked after a little. +"It's very queer," and with what Lafond saw at once to be an accusing +motion he held before the latter's eyes the little ivory miniature of +Prue Welch. + +He had found it under a _mesquite_ bush. Ever since he had been +struggling vainly to place the familiarity of the features. He had not +seen enough of the girl at the camp to be able to do so definitely, but +he had succeeded in bringing his mind almost to the point of a +recognition which was continually just escaping him. + +Lafond started violently, and stared at the portrait. + +"Why, what's the matter?" cried Durand. "You look as though you'd seen +a ghost!" + +On the instant Lafond recovered his self-possession. He glanced with +side-long evil look at the old man. + +"Nothing," said he briefly. + +It was evident that the naturalist was trying to trap him. + +"Where have you seen her before?" asked the latter, returning to the +portrait. "She is old-fashioned--must have had that painted fifteen or +twenty years ago--and yet I've seen her recently." + +Lafond stiffly descended from the vehicle, both hands thrust deep into +the pockets of his canvas coat, and peered over the old man's shoulder. + +"Here, Lafond," the latter was saying, "you know more about this than I +do----" He meant that the half-breed possessed a wider circle of +acquaintances. At his words Lafond drew an ivory-handled clasp-knife +from the pocket of his canvas coat, opened it in two lightning motions +and stabbed the old man deeply in the back. The latter stumbled +forward, half turning as he fell. Lafond plunged his blade wickedly +into Durand's throat, where it stuck, twisting out of the murderer's +hands. The victim writhed twice, gasped, and died. + +Black Mike stood over the body for a moment, panting. He stooped to +recover the knife. On its ivory handle he read the words "William +Knapp," on which he remembered, and left it where it was. Then he +climbed into his wagon and insanely lashed his horses into a frantic +run. + +The little furry 'coon approached its master bristling. It dabbled its +black paws, almost human, in the blood that stood on the threshold, and +then, frothing at the muzzle, it scrambled into the house and up a high +bookshelf, where it crouched, its eyes like coals of green fire. + +On the hillside opposite a white-faced little boy rose from behind a +mesquite clasping the neck of a homely dog. He ran at once to town, +where he burst in on Moroney, crying, "Pop, pop, Black Mike's gone and +killed old Bugchaser with a knife," after which he began to cry +hysterically. It took time for the camp to arouse, to dress, to hear +the tale, to believe, to visit the scene of the deed, to believe again +after finding Billy's knife, to discuss, to decide, and finally to +saddle horses and depart, puzzled, on the trail of Lafond. It had a +rope. But it also wanted to hear more about it. Therefore its speed +was not as rapid as it might have been, had a horse thief, for +instance, been the object of pursuit. + +So Lafond, after his first impulse to get away from the scene of his +deed had spent itself, jogged along unmolested toward Rapid. His brain +was working like lightning, but always on one line. He saw himself +alone, standing opposed to this huge black Bad-luck. Everything was +against him. But they couldn't get him down. He was +Man-who-speaks-Medicine, the Sioux; he was Lafond, the half-breed; he +was Black Mike, the pioneer. Let them come on! They thought they +could corner him. He would show them. One was gone. There remained +the other two. Lafond's mind saw red; he was set on murder. No +consideration of reason, probability, or common sense obtruded itself +athwart his plan. He could perceive one fact--that three men knew his +secret, of whom one was dead and the other two were living. Why Knapp +and Buckley should have told Durand; what they expected to gain by +going to Rapid; or what benefit the naturalist imagined could accrue to +him from his insinuating the state of affairs to the half-breed, the +latter did not inquire. He only knew that he wanted to catch Knapp's +buckboard before it had left the pine belt. Ambush would then be +easier. He lashed his horses unmercifully. + +Rockerville told him the two men had passed through not half an hour +before, and wondered at the wildness of his eye. + +That was well. They could not escape him now, for their wagon was +heavily loaded, and they were travelling leisurely, having no reason +for haste. Remembering appearances, he told Rockerville that it did +not much matter, he would not try to catch up; and then drove back +toward Copper Creek, only to make a detour by a wood road into the +Rapid trail again. As he approached the foothills, he could hear +occasionally the creak of a brake below him, by which he knew that he +was drawing near. He slowed up at once, for he knew of a short cut a +mile or so ahead, which the prospectors would not attempt because of +their heavy load, but by which he could come out ahead of his victims. +Then he would lie in wait. The short cut in question dipped steeply +down into the bed of a creek, and as steeply up on the other side; +while the main stage-road made a long horseshoe curve around the head +of the cañon. Lafond decided to drive rapidly down, to leave his team +in the creek bottom, and to climb on foot to the level of the main road +on the other side. In the meantime he drew as near to the other wagon +as he could without being seen. The minutes seemed to drag. + +At last he discerned the dimly blazed trail, rocky and dangerous +enough, which dropped sheer away into the underbrush below. He locked +the brakes and turned sharply down to the right. The descent was +hazardous, bumpy, exceedingly noisy. For this reason, it was not until +he had reached the level ground at the bottom of the cañon and the +clash of iron tire against stone had ceased, that he became aware the +ravine was already occupied. A sound of voices and laughter floated up +through the thin screen of leaves. As the half-breed's vehicle pushed +out toward the creek itself, he saw that he had unwittingly stumbled on +a camp of Indians up in the Hills on one of their annual jaunts after +teepee poles. + +Once a year they make these excursions. The whole band--men, women, +children, ponies, dogs, and household goods--goes along. It is an +outing. The women fell and strip the long slender saplings. The men +loaf lazily in front of their temporary shelters or ride about the +Hills to the various camps, giving war dances for nickels and silver +pieces. The occasion is eminently peaceful. + +Of such a nature was the gathering which Michaïl Lafond came upon in +the level of the little cañon. The wigwams had been pitched either +side of the old overgrown road. Children had cut away the slight +underbrush to clear a round smooth park of perhaps thirty yards +diameter, in the circumference of which were crowded the persons and +household belongings of four score people. Near the centre stood the +chief's lodge distinguished by a shield and spear. The whole was a +facsimile of a plains camp, except that here the whole affair was in +miniature--little wigwams, little kettle-tripods, little space--for the +camp was but temporary. Perhaps a score of men were idling about, +dressed in blue overalls and old flannel shirts. Moccasins and no hats +left still a slight flavor of savagery. The women were clothed for the +most part in dirty calico prints. The children had on just nothing at +all. + +Lafond cursed a little excitedly as he became aware of this not +unpicturesque gathering. It was plainly out of the question to leave +his horses and wagon in the creek bottom as he had intended; and it was +now equally impossible to waylay the prospectors at the top of the +grade. A shot would bring out the entire band. The situation was much +complicated, for just beyond lay the rolling treeless foothills. More +bad luck! + +Still the half-breed remembered it was yet many miles to Rapid; and an +ambush would not be impossible in some one of the numerous gullies that +seamed the foothills. He must hurry his tired horses up the steep +slope in order to emerge on the main road ahead of Knapp and Buckley. + +"How!" said the nearest warrior, raising his hand palm outward. + +"How!" replied Lafond gravely. + +He drove on through the half-obliterated road, responding to the +conventional salutations of those on the right and on the left. Near +the further side of the little clearing, a tiny copper-colored boy rose +from the grass and scurried across in front of the horses, so near that +Lafond had to pull up sharply to keep from running over him. An old +woman, evidently its nurse, hurried to catch him. When she came to the +road, however, she stopped short, and stared at Black Mike wildly, and +began to scream out in the language of the Brulé Sioux. + +"'Tis he, the Defiler! 'Tis he!" + +She was an unkempt, wild old hag, and Lafond thought her mad. Her face +was lined deeply, as only an Indian's face ever is; a few ragged wisps +of gray hair fell over her eyes; and her skinny arm showed that she was +thin almost to emaciation. + +At her scream a warrior arose before the chief's lodge and approached. +From all directions the other warriors gathered. Two of the younger +men had already taken the horses by the bits. Lafond did not +understand it, and was about to expostulate vigorously against what he +thought was intended robbery until he saw the face of the chieftain, +who now drew near. Then he turned cold to the marrow. + +The chief looked him in the face for almost a minute. + +"It is not so," he said quietly. + +The hag had ceased her cries when the two young men had grasped the +horses' bits. + +"It is so, O Lone Wolf," she replied with respect. "The form is +changed by the hand of Manitou, but the spirit is the same, and I know +it in his eyes. It is the Defiler." + +"Let Rippling Water be sought," responded the savage, still without +excitement. + +About him the old-time dignity clung as a mantle. To any one in a less +desperate situation than Michaïl Lafond there would have been something +strangely incongruous and a little pathetic in this contrast between +the manner of the old wild plains savage and the habit of the modern +ward of the government. Even he was cool enough to see that the once +powerful tribe had sadly shrunk in numbers and in wealth. + +After a moment the woman called by the name of Rippling Water appeared +from a distance, where she had been cutting birch bark. In the +syllables of the beautiful name Lafond had recognized that of the +second of his Indian wives; in the prematurely aged withered squaw who +now approached he recognized nothing. + +"My daughter," said Lone Wolf, "look upon this man. Have you seen him +ever?" + +She peered at him a moment through short-sighted eyes. + +"I have lain on his bosom," she answered simply. + +"It is----?" + +"It is the Defiler," she replied. + + + + +XXXVI + +UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS + +After the massacre at the battle of the Little Big Horn, a vast number +of Indian refugees fled over the borders into Canada. There they +dwelt, drawing three pounds of beef a day from arbitrary uniformed +individuals, who were strangely lacking in sympathy, and very observant +of the few rules and regulations which a mysterious White Mother over +the sea had seen fit to impose. Three pounds of meat a day is not +much. Still it is enough to get along on, and with the necessity, and +indeed, the opportunity of the chase gone, the bucks were able to wax +lazy, drunken, and generally shiftless to their hearts' content. All +this was frowned on by the uniformed individuals, but opportunities +were not far to seek. + +There has never been a nation more warlike, brave, and hardy than the +Sioux in its native environment of war and hunting. These two +furnished every point of leverage--physical, moral, intellectual--which +the savage required to lift him to the level of his greatest +efficiency. From the buffalo itself the Sioux family obtained its +supply of wigwams, robes, food, fuel, light, harness, bow-strings, +instruments of industry--in fact almost every article of necessity or +luxury appertaining to its everyday life. From the chase of the animal +the young Dacotah learned to ride, to shoot, to risk his life. And +then in his constant strife with his neighbors, the Blackfeet or the +Crows or the Pawnees, he was forced, if he would survive, to develop to +the last degree his cunning, his observation, his strategy, his +resourcefulness, his patience, his power to endure, his personal +courage. Habituated to these two, the chase and war, from his early +youth, he came at last to be the coolest, most dangerous warrior of the +plains. He could ride anything, bareback, in any position. With his +short, powerful bow he could launch a half-dozen arrows into the air +before the first reached the ground, or could drive one of his shafts +quite through the body of a buffalo. When necessity required, he was +brave to the point of recklessness; but again, when expediency advised, +he could worm his way for miles through the scantiest cover, flat on +his face, by the laborious use alone of his elbows and toes. He could +read a whole history in a trail which another might not even +distinguish. He could sit absolutely motionless for hours in the +hottest sun or the bitterest cold. And he could bear, as he was often +called upon to do, the severest physical pain without a quiver of the +eyelid. + +But when the buffalo vanished, the Sioux passed the meridian of his +powers. No other means of subsistence offered. He was forced to +plunder, or go to the reservation for Government beef. Thence came +much whisky and much loafing. The new young man had not the training +of his father. So, in a little, the Teton nation was subdued and +brought to reservations, and herded in an +overall-plug-hat-blanket-wearing multitude, even now but half-tamed, +and fiercely instinct with hereditary ferocity and resourcefulness. +Other Indians go to Carlisle, learn to plough, and become at least +partially civilized. The Sioux, fierce, hawk-eyed, wide-nostrilled, +sits in solitary dignity before his lodge, brooding. Occasionally he +has to be rounded up with a Gatling, as witness Wounded Knee. I have +never been able to envy the agents of Dakota reservations. + +When the statute of limitations ran out, or whatever mysterious +time-limit the Government puts on its displeasure against Indian +murderers, Sitting Bull and a horde of his fellow-warriors came back. +Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill's show, where he had a good time until +he began ghost-dancing and was killed in the Wounded Knee campaign. +But some, Lone Wolf's band among them, remained in Canada. They had +various reasons for doing so. + +Lone Wolf stayed because he was in hard luck. He had barely settled +down in his new home before the great Manitou had seen fit to strike +his children with the Spotted Sickness. When finally the last case had +been buried hastily, and its clothes and belongings burned under the +distant eye of the uniformed man, the formerly powerful band found +itself reduced by almost half. By dint of sitting innumerable days +naked in a circle on the prairie and beating a tom-tom until the agent +prayed for rain, the survivors managed to secure for themselves +immunity from the Spotted Sickness at least. Then some of the ponies +were stolen. Then a schism occurred in the community; and Three Knives +took with him a dozen families and established a new clan within plain +sight of the old. Lone Wolf was powerless because of the uniformed +individual, who frowned on the Indian idea of patriarchal chastisement. +A very young man of the band killed the agent, hoping thus to earn +praise, but almost before the embers were cold and before the scalp of +Three Knives had clotted dry, there appeared an astounding number of +uniforms, who promptly decimated Lone Wolf's warriors and took away all +their arms. Lone Wolf discovered that these uniformed men were in +reality nothing but soldiers--a disgusting fact which he had not before +suspected. They hung six of his young men, and that night a number of +things happened, such as the unprovoked fall of Lone Wolf's standard +from over his lodge, which showed plainly that Gitche Manitou was still +angry. + +Lone Wolf gathered his remnants about him and journeyed south to +Spotted Tail. + +There he enjoyed the discontented tranquillity of a United States +reservation, with occasional privileges if he was good. + +Lone Wolf had gone into the north country at the head of three hundred +efficient fighting men, well armed with rifles, rich in ammunition, +ponies, and the luxuries of daily existence. He came back as the +nominal chief of thirty-five warriors, with few firearms, and less +wealth. Counting in the women, children, and old men, his original +band had numbered nearly a thousand souls--a large camp even for the +old days. Now there remained barely a tenth of that number. + +Misfortunes such as these must have a reason. Gitche Manitou is stern, +but he is not unjust. Everybody knows that. And the reason Lone +Wolf's band was so afflicted, Big Thunder, the medicine man, had +discovered, lay in the fact that the defiling of the tribe's token, +after the Little Big Horn, had been done by a member of the tribe +itself. Until the culprit should be brought to justice the wrath of +Gitche Manitou would continue to be visited impartially on the entire +band. + +The recognition of Rippling Water made a profound impression on those +standing about. There flashed into Lone Wolf's eagle face a gleam of +satisfaction so intense that Black Mike started. He had not the +remotest notion that he was in any actual danger, for his dealings with +the tribe in those old times when he had been a member of it had always +been rather to its advantage than to his own. That it was unfriendly +to him because of his unceremonious desertion of it, he did not doubt. +Nor did he hope to escape a typical Indian tirade from the two old hags +who, so short a time ago, had been his not unattractive young wives. +But beyond this, and perhaps--as he glanced over the motley indications +of their poverty--the promise of gifts, he anticipated nothing more +serious in the end than a delay. A delay, however, was what he could +not at present afford. + +"Ah, well," he acknowledged in the Indian tongue, "I am he, +Man-who-speaks-Medicine. You have known me. It is I. It is many +moons that I have not seen my brothers, but I have accomplished many +things, and I have gathered gifts for my brothers which will rejoice +their hearts. I go to the lodges of the white men near Swift-water +now, and I haste; so I cannot linger to clasp my brothers' hands; but +to-morrow I return bearing the gifts." + +[Illustration: "MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED.] + +He took up his reins with all confidence, for in those days no one was +afraid of Indians--at least when they were accompanied by their women +and children. The two bucks at the horses' heads did not move, +however; and at a signal from Lone Wolf three others leaped lightly +into the wagon-body behind the half-breed and pinned his arms to his +sides. So suddenly was it done that Lafond could not even struggle. + +His captors tied his elbows together at the back and lifted him to the +ground, where a number of others hustled him into a wigwam, and after +tying his feet left him lying on the ground. In a moment he heard the +faint sound of wheels somewhere above him, by which he knew that Billy +Knapp and Buckley were passing the point of his intended ambush. He +drew a deep breath and shouted. Instantly two young Sioux ran in and +threw a blanket over his head, nearly smothering him. The sound of the +wheels died into distance. + +After perhaps two hours he heard the hoof-beats of a large party of +horsemen. They, too, died away. The men composing the party were +looking for him, Michaïl Lafond, but this he did not know. He tried to +distinguish from the noises just outside what was taking place in the +little camp, but he could not. + +At the end of another half-hour the two young men who had been +appointed as his guards led him out to a horse, on which, after his +feet had been untied, he was compelled to mount. He asked them +questions, to which they vouchsafed no reply. Looking about him +curiously, he saw that the camp had been struck. The long teepee +poles, bound on each side of the ponies, trailed their ends on the +ground, and on the litters thus formed, the skins of the lodges, all +the household utensils, and many of the younger children had been +placed. Squaws bestrode the little animals. The warriors, +ridiculously incongruous in their overalls and flannel shirts, sat +motionless on their mounts. Lafond recognized his own team, but could +not discover either his wagon or the harness. These had been dragged +away into the bushes and left, for very good reasons. + +The cavalcade took its way directly down the narrow, overgrown little +cañon, riding in single file. Lafond could not understand this. The +road above would have been much easier. + +After an hour's hard work in dodging obstructions, getting around +fallen trees or between standing timber, the party emerged on the +broad, rolling foothills, grass-covered and bare of trees. Here Lone +Wolf led the way south-east for several miles, and finally came to a +halt on the brow of a round hill of gentle descent. The band at once +dismounted. A number of the squaws deftly relieved the ponies of their +burdens, and the younger boys led them away to the bottom-lands for +pasture. The women then began without delay to erect the lodges in a +wide circle surrounding the brow of the hill, so arranging them that +the flaps or doorways opened into the common centre. After this had +been done, they built in the middle of the circle a huge fire of wood +brought from the Hills, but did not light it as yet. Then all silently +disappeared to the bottom-lands, where they made little fires and set +about supper. + +Before each lodge a warrior established himself, crosslegged, and began +to smoke. When the sun dipped behind the Hills and threw their long +shadows silently out across to the Bad Lands, the chill of twilight +struck in, and so the Indians wrapped themselves closely in their +blankets. As by a stroke of enchantment, with the concealment of the +shirts and overalls, the Past returned. Against the sky of evening, +the silhouettes of the pointed wigwams and the suggestion of the +shrouded warriors smoking solemnly, silently, their pipes, all belonged +to the nomadic age before such men as Michaïl Lafond had "civilized" +the country. + +After a time they rose and departed silently to the bottom-land for a +while, leaving Lafond in charge of the two young men. They had gone to +eat their suppers. The half-breed had not tasted food since the early +morning, nor slept for thirty odd hours. + +The stars came out one by one, and the stillness of that great inland +sea men call the prairies fell on the world. Such occasional sounds as +rose from the creek bottom seemed but to emphasize the peace. And then +suddenly, from the shadows somewhere, without disturbance, the +blanketed figures appeared and took their places again. A squaw came +bearing a torch, and lit the fire in the centre of the circle, and +there sprang up a broad shaft of light which drew about the little +scene a great canopy of imminent blackness. From hand to hand passed a +great red-stone calumet or pipe. Each warrior puffed at it twice and +passed it to his neighbor. It was not offered to Michaïl Lafond, whose +bonds had now been loosened. + +After each of the seated warriors had taken his part in this ceremony, +and the pipe had completed the circle to Lone Wolf, that chief arose, +throwing back his blanket from his shoulders. + +With a sudden chill of fear, Michaïl Lafond saw that he was to assist +at a state council of the sort held only when the tribe is to sit in +judgment on one of its own number. + +The savage was naked to the waist. In his hair, worn loose and +unbraided after the Sioux fashion, three eagle feathers with white tips +were thrust slantwise across the back of his head; and under its heavy +mass his fierce bright eyes and hawk face gleamed impressively. About +his neck hung a fringe of bears' claws, from which depended a round +silver medal. Now as he stood there--the lithe strength of his bronze +torso revealed one arm clasping the blanket about his waist, the other +holding loosely at his side the feather-bedecked calumet of +sandstone--the stigma of sordidness and drunkenness and squalor seemed +to fall away, so that the spectator would have seen in this group of +silent men under the silent western heavens only the pomp and pride of +a great and savage people in the zenith of its power. + +Lone Wolf stood for the space of several minutes without a sign. Then +with a magnificently sweeping gesture he held the calumet aloft and +began to speak. + +At first his voice was low and monotonous, but as his speech continued +it took on more color, until at the close it responded in modulation to +every flash of his eye. He began with a recital of the tribe's ancient +glory, dwelling rather on concrete examples than on broader +generalities. He numbered its warriors, its ponies, its arms, and +lodges. He told of the beauty of its women and the greatness of its +men, whom he ran over by name. He told of its deeds in war, +enumerating the enemies it had struck, the ponies it had stolen, the +stratagems it had conceived and carried out. And then he swept his arm +and the feather-fluttering calumet abroad as he described the boundless +extent of the hunting grounds over which it had used to roam. As he +continued, the warriors' expressive eyes brightened and flashed with +pride, though they moved not one muscle of their faces or bodies. +Beyond the circle could be dimly descried another not less interested +audience of women and older children. + +"These and more were ours!" cried Lone Wolf, "these and many more. The +favor of Gitche Manitou was ours and the riches of the world. Where +are they now?" With an indescribably graceful gesture the orator +stooped to the ground and grasped a handful of the loose dry earth. +"Gone!" he said solemnly, letting the sand fall from his outstretched +suddenly opened palm. + +Then, without pause or transition, he began, in equally vivid objective +language, to detail the tribe's misery and poverty of to-day. He +recounted its disasters, just as a moment before he had recounted its +victories. He told of the Spotted Sickness, the dividing of forces, +the battle with the red coats, all the long series of oppressions great +and little which had brought them to their present condition. He +counted over by name the present members, to show how their numbers had +shrunken, and to each name he added others of those who had gone +before. So real was the picture that the orator himself faltered, +while from outside the circle rose for a single instant a long +trembling wail. The warriors had half covered their faces with the +folds of their blankets. + +"Thus our glory went and our young men are seen no longer on the war +path, but only in the white men's towns. And yet our fathers were +brave before us and we have struck well in our time. Why is this so? +Why has Gitche Manitou veiled his face from his children?" + +Leaving the question unanswered, Lone Wolf unexpectedly took up +Lafond's connection with the tribe. In the recounting of this, too, he +held to the greatest minuteness of detail, showing plainly the +half-breed's rise from despised squaw man to a person of influence in +the councils. He gave the half-breed full credit for all he did. He +even went out of his way to show that to Lafond was due much of the +power that had so distinguished the Brulé Sioux among the other tribes. +He described again briefly that power, and told of the battle of the +Little Big Horn. He dwelt on that as to some extent the culmination of +the tribe's glory. It was the last and greatest of its exploits. +After it misfortune commenced. Gitche Manitou that day veiled his face. + +"And he turned his hand against the totem of the Turtle," said Lone +Wolf impressively, "because one of its children had committed a +sacrilege. The very night of that great victory, a brave from among us +arose and took the sacred totem, the great Turtle, from the lodge of +his chief, and slew Buffalo Voice, the medicine man favored of Gitche +Manitou, and defiled the totem. + +"From that time Gitche Manitou has frowned upon his children. From +that time misfortune has visited the tribe of Lone Wolf. From that +time the man who did these things has lost his old warrior name and has +been known as the Defiler." + +He paused and looked about the circle until his eye rested on Lafond. +With a sudden fierce enmity he stretched his arm toward the captive. + +"That is he," he concluded impressively; "and it has been revealed by +Big Thunder that never will Gitche Manitou smile on his children until +the Defiler dies!" + + + + +XXXVII + +ASHES + +A light night wind had arisen from the lower prairie, and occasionally +puffed a stray wisp of smoke or heat across the westernmost curve of +the circle. Hot sparks shot up in the air swiftly, paused, and floated +dying down the wind. Above, occasionally, the clear stars peeped in +through the canopy of blackness which the firelight so jealously +guarded. There was a perceptible chill in the air. As the long speech +continued and drew to a close, the half-breed, seated on the prairie +side of the fire, shivered convulsively from time to time, for he was +now almost exhausted by excitement and lack of sleep and food. At +first he had submitted to the trial, if so it might be called, +unwillingly enough, to tell the truth, but without a suspicion that it +could result in anything more serious than a fine for desertion. It +might almost be looked upon as a ransom, and this he was willing to +pay. His principal emotion had been that of frantic chafing because, +for the present, Jim Buckley and Billy Knapp were free to make trouble +for him. He had no doubt they would do so, although he did not know +exactly how they would go at it. + +As Lone Wolf so dramatically outlined the grounds of his accusation, +however, Lafond really began to see the face of fear. He gathered that +the very night he had chosen to quit the tribe, some one had killed the +tribe's medicine man and defiled the totem in a way not to be mentioned +here. This is with Indians the Unforgiveable Sin. Suspicion had +naturally coupled the sacrilege with his own coincidental +disappearance. Probably even at the time no one had doubted his guilt +or had suspected any other cause for his desertion. The real criminal +had been able easily to cover his trail; and now, so many years would +have hardened even a slight suspicion, let alone a positive certainty, +into conviction absolute. Lafond saw that his chances were desperate, +and yet so suddenly was the knowledge forced upon him that he could +hardly realize it. But a few hours before, he had held in the hollow +of his hand more power than any other one man in the territory. Now he +was in danger of his life. + +He knew well enough that his only chance lay in keeping cool. He must +not interrupt the orator with denials. He must try to make his +eloquence tell. + +Lone Wolf ceased abruptly, drew his blanket about his shoulders and sat +down. Two squaws noiselessly entered the circle, bearing wood for the +fire. After they had withdrawn, Lafond rose to his feet. + +He was at once uncomfortably conscious of the circle of snake eyes. It +was for him the predominant note in the scene. + +He began haltingly, partly because he did not know what to say, partly +because long disuse had impaired his fluency in the Indian tongue. But +in a moment, as he began to realize that he was now in the act of +making the only plea for his life which his captors would permit him, +his speech quickened until it was as rapid as that of Lone Wolf himself. + +It was a masterly effort, for Lafond had not lost the old eloquence +which had earned him the name of "Man-who-speaks-Medicine." He +reviewed, as had Lone Wolf, his services to the tribe. He did it +modestly, stating plainly the facts and leaving the savages to draw +their own conclusions. He showed further that in so bending his +efforts to the tribe's betterment, he had been actuated by no selfish +motives, in proof of which proposition he enumerated one by one the +various opportunities he had let pass of decamping enriched beyond any +one warrior's dreams of wealth; to which proposition he further pointed +out as a corollary that he had in reality departed with but his own +weapons and the clothes on his back. This made an impression. Having +thus established his disinterestedness as regards his services to the +tribe, he went on further to show that these argued, furthermore, an +intense personal interest in its welfare. He loved his people. He +challenged them to cite one of his deeds which would bear the contrary +construction. + +And then, with a boldness that almost amounted to genius, he drew +before them vividly that night on the battlefield when he had so long +contemplated the fallen white chief, and he detailed to them the +reasons he had then for believing the Indians' warlike power was from +that moment doomed to wane. + +"I saw these things," he said, "as one to whom Gitche Manitou had +spoken, and I knew they were true. But my brothers were victorious; +they saw the blue coats scattered as the dust is scattered by the wind. +My words would have been as the water that slips away or the cloud that +vanishes in the heavens. If I had told my brothers these things, they +would not have believed. You, Spotted Dog; you, Firebrand; even you, +Lone Wolf, would not have believed. Look well within your hearts and +acknowledge that I speak words of truth. Then you would have cast me +out as one with forked tongue." + +Such being the case, Lafond argued that, inasmuch as he could do +nothing for his people by sharing their disgrace, he had left them. +"But only for a season," he explained. "You are warriors: I am a man +of craft. When your bows are broken and your arrows lost, then must I +take my weapons and strive as I can. I went forth to fight for my +brothers. Behold me; I have fought and I have won. I am rich. My +brothers are to share my riches. Now I can return to the lodges of my +brothers as one coming from a far war trail, bringing the ponies and +scalps of the enemies my hand has struck." + +Then suddenly the speaker took up the question of the crime itself. He +dilated on it with horror. He acknowledged no excuse for it. But, he +asked them, why should he have committed it? He showed them that he +could have had no motive for such a wanton insult. And, most ingenious +of all, he pointed out that if, as Lone Wolf had supposed, the tribe's +misfortunes had arisen because of Gitche Manitou's wrath over this +terrible crime, then that wrath and those misfortunes would indubitably +have been visited on him, the accused, with the rest; for he was a +member of the tribe, and according to the accusation the guiltiest of +them all. Such was not the case. On the contrary he had prospered. + +In conclusion he believed he could direct suspicion to the right +channel. From his wonderful past knowledge of inter-tribal and +individual jealousies, he rapidly constructed a plausible theory. + +His defence, as he could observe, made a profound impression. The +savages sat silent and thoughtful while the minutes slipped by, and the +wavering light from the central fire alternately illuminated and threw +into shadow the strong bronze of their faces. The argument was +sophistical enough, but for two reasons it carried conviction. In the +first place, the half-breed was pleading for his very life; in the +second place, he was in reality absolutely innocent as to the main +facts. Therefore he had faith and earnestness--two great qualities. +His only misfortune was, that the exigencies of the situation demanded +that in the web of truth one falsehood should be woven. + +Beyond the circle of light the dim forms of the women and children +showed faintly against the dimmer background of the sea-like prairie. +They had followed with great attention the deliberations before them, +but in silence and with decorum, as is proper in such cases. Now +suddenly one of them slipped forward through the circle before her +companions or the warriors between whom she passed could detain her. +Before the fire she turned and faced Lone Wolf. It was the old hag who +had first recognized Lafond. + +The warriors looked on her in cold surprise. Such a thing as a woman +intruding on a council was unheard of, unthinkable, punishable by +almost any penalty. + +"My daughter has been deceived," said Lone Wolf gravely. "This is not +a gathering of the women. She must go." + +She did not seem to hear him, but broke out panting as soon as she +could get her breath. + +"My brothers listen to forked words!" she cried, "and the spirit of +lies has blinded them, so that they cannot see the truth. They are +deceived by much lying because it is mingled with the truth, like +tobacco and willow bark. He says he has been on the long war trail and +now returns to his brothers with the ponies of his enemies. The trail +has indeed been long, for it is many moons since he took the ponies. +How long has he been rich?" she cried. "Many moons! Are the trails +closed that he could not find his brothers before, while they were +starving? Does he find them now because he calls to them from afar on +the war trail? It is lies! + +"And my brothers forget," she went on contemptuously, "the Yellow Hair +of the Hills and the little child. What was it this one demanded of my +brothers? To defile Pah-sap-pa by the slaying of his enemies. It was +for that he made us rich, for that he used his craft to bring us power. +It was _his_ power. And when he, led my brothers up into Pah-sap-pa, +the voice of Gitche Manitou spoke to them and they went away leaving +this one's enemies unharmed, and so he was angry with my brothers and +swore to do them an injury. So he killed Buffalo Voice and defiled the +totem in order that Gitche Manitou might turn his hand against us! He +speaks forked words. Why has he not brought his gifts long before, if +what I say is not true? There has been need." + +She turned as suddenly as she had come and left the circle, again empty +except for the leaping fire. In her spoke the spirit of +relentlessness, a deserted woman. She touched with unerring instinct +on the one weak spot in Lafond's defence, and thereby discredited the +rest. Her reminder of the soreness of their need, when this renegade +brother had held out no hand to help them, hardened their hearts and +brushed from their minds like cobwebs the structure of confidence which +Lafond had so laboriously spun. Without one dissenting voice they +condemned him to death. Then the sitting arose. + +The hags of the camp advanced and stripped the half-breed naked, in +spite of his frantic struggles. They were as strong as men, and they +were glad he struggled because that indicated cowardice. Lafond was +badly unnerved; his blood was partly Latin and his consciousness of +innocence was keen. When he went into a thing with his eyes open, he +was ready to take all the consequences with stoicism, should luck turn +against him; but a feeling of guiltlessness was unusual enough to +render him desperate when unjustly condemned. So he made a pitiful +spectacle of himself. + +The old hags jeered him. They told him he had a chicken's heart, and +promised themselves the pleasure of tasting it after it was torn from +his living body. They spat in his face and pinched his arms to see him +wince. When he was stripped quite naked, they staked him out to picket +pins with rawhide bands, one to each of his four limbs. + +While this was going on, the warriors, having thrown aside their +blankets, appeared in the full lithe glory of their naked bodies. To +the accompaniment of a strange minor chant, they circled slowly around +the fire and their victim, hopping rhythmically first on one foot then +on the other, stepping high, stooping low. As they passed the +prostrate man, they struck their knives deep into the ground near his +head, for the purpose of seeing him shrink. After a little, they +became sufficiently excited, and so the tortures began. + +Toward morning the squaws wrapped in a blanket the mutilated burnt +carcass, and laid it on a litter which had been preparing while the +torture was in progress. The litter was raised in the air to the +height of ten feet, bound securely to upright poles. +Man-who-speaks-Medicine had been a member of the tribe. Whatever his +sins, he must have a tribal burial. + +Then in the grayness of the dawn the little cavalcade filed away, like +muffled phantoms, toward the east. In the sky the last stars were +flickering out. On the hill top the last embers of the fire died. A +bird high in the heavens piped up clearly for a moment, and was still. +The breeze of morning rippled over the faintly distinguished, grasses, +and stirred the drying leaves of the litter that stood like a scaffold +against the sombre shadows of the Hills. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY + +GENE STRATTON-PORTER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. + +Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern +Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes +the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and +onward. + + +LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. + +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The +story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, +but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love +affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of +Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the +neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. + + +THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. + +"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had +nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. +But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance +of the rarest idyllic quality. + + +FRECKLES. Illustrated. + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which +he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs +to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. + + +A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty +of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. + + +AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. + +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The +story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. +The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and +its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. + + +THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated. + +A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and +humor. + + + +KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy +reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a +mother's experiences. + + +SATURDAY'S CHILD. + +Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. + +Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a +quest for happiness. She passes through three stages--poverty, wealth +and service--and works out a creditable salvation. + + +THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE. + +Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock. + +The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be +swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied +interests, and has her own romance. + + +THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. + +Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert. + +How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted +herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life. + + +THE HEART OF RACHAEL. + +Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. + +Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out +these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of +fiction's most appealing characters. + + +Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +THE NOVELS OF + +STEWARD EDWARD WHITE + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE BLAZED TRAIL. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who +blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines. + + +THE CALL OF THE NORTH. Ills. with Scenes from the Play. + +The story centers about a Hudson Bay trading post, known as "The +Conjuror's House" (the original title of the book.) + + +THE RIVERMAN. Ills. by N. C. Wyeth and C. F. Underwood. + +The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between +honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the +other. + + +RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lejaren A. Killer. + +The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes +into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft," and comes into the +romance of his life. + + +GOLD. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +The gold fever of '49 is pictured with vividness. A part of the story +is laid in Panama, the route taken by the gold-seekers. + + +THE FOREST. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +The book tells of the canoe trip of the author and his companion into +the great woods. Much information about camping and outdoor life. A +splendid treatise on woodcraft. + + +THE MOUNTAINS. Illustrated by Fernand Lungren. + +An account of the adventures of a five months' camping trip in the +Sierras of California. The author has followed a true sequence of +events. + + +THE CABIN. Illustrated with photographs by the author. + +A chronicle of the building of a cabin home in a forest-girdled meadow +of the Sierras Full of nature and woodcraft, and the shrewd philosophy +of "California John." + + +THE GRAY DAWN. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +This book tells of the period shortly after the first mad rush for gold +in California. A young lawyer and his wife, initiated into the gay +life of San Francisco, find their ways parted through his downward +course, but succeeding events bring the "gray dawn of better things" +for both of them. + + +Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. 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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: The Westerners + +Author: Stewart Edward White + +Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34399] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTERNERS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT=""SHE'S MY GIRL!"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="767" HEIGHT="507"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 767px"> +"SHE'S MY GIRL!" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +THE WESTERNERS +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +By +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +Stewart Edward White +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +NEW YORK +<BR> +GROSSET & DUNLAP +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +Copyright, 1900 and 1901, by +<BR> +STEWART EDWARD WHITE +<BR><BR><BR> +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +CONTENTS +</P> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE HALF-BREED</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">THE WOMAN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">THE MAN WHO STOOD "99"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">LAFOND DESERTS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">THE WOMAN AND THE MAN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">THE REINS OF POWER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">THE BROTHER OF GODS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">THE PRICE OF A CLAIM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">THE DISSOLVING VIEW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">TIRED WINGS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">THE BROAD WHITE ROAD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">THE EATING OF THE APPLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND GLORIFY PETER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">A FOOL FOR LUCK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">AND HAS TO GO TO WORK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap27">PROSPERITY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap28">LAFOND GOES EAST</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap29">BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap30">ANCESTRAL VOICES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap31">LAFOND'S FIRST CARD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap32">IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap33">FUTILITY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap34">LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap35">OUT OF THE PAST</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap36">UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap37">ASHES</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +ILLUSTRATIONS +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +"SHE'S MY GIRL!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-034"> +A SIOUX COUNCIL +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-066"> +THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!" +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-098"> +"COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..." +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-131"> +"WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!" +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-202"> +JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT. +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-282"> +"ARE YOU STILL MAD?" +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<A HREF="#img-330"> +"MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED. +</A> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE HALF-BREED +</H4> + +<P> +A tourist of to-day, peering from the window of his vestibule train at +the electric-lit vision of Three Rivers, as it stars the banks of the +Missouri like a constellation against the blackness of the night, would +never recognize, in the trim little modern town, the old Three Rivers +of the early seventies. +</P> + +<P> +To restore the latter, he should first of all sweep the ground bare of +the buildings which now adorn it, leaving, perhaps, here and there an +isolated old shanty of boards far advanced toward dissolution. He +would be called upon to substitute, in place of the brick stores and +dwellings of to-day, a motley collection of lean-tos, dug-outs, tents, +and shacks, scattered broadcast over the virgin prairie without the +slightest semblance of order. Where the Oriole furniture factory now +stands, he must be prepared to see—and hear—a great drove of horses +and oxen feeding on bottom-land grass. And for the latter-day +citizens, whose police record is so discouraging to the ambitious +chief, and so creditable to themselves, he must imagine a multitude +more heterogeneous, perhaps, than could be gathered anywhere else in +the world—tenderfeet from the East; mountaineers from Tennessee and +Kentucky, bearing their historic long pea rifles; soft-voiced +Virginians; keen, alert woodsmen from the North; wiry, silent trappers +and scouts from the West; and here and there a straight Indian, +stalking solemnly toward some one of the numerous "whiskey joints." +The court-house site he would find crowded with canvas wagons, noisy +with the shrill calling of women and children. Where Judge Oglethorpe +has recently erected his stone mansion, Frank Byers would be running a +well-patronized saloon. Were he to complete the picture by placing +himself mentally at the exact period of our story's opening, he would +find the whole town, if such it might be called, seething, turbulent, +eager, and—it must be confessed—ready for trouble. +</P> + +<P> +For all these varied swarms had gathered from three points of the +compass for the purpose of pushing on to the gold discoveries of the +Black Hills. They had rushed eagerly to this extremest point—and +stopped. As far as the border of the great wilderness it was possible +to journey individually; beyond that mysterious boundary nothing could +be accomplished alone. Trained scouts and plainsmen there became +necessary, and these skilled men declined to attempt the journey. +</P> + +<P> +Their reasons were simple and cogent. Throughout all of the previous +winter unusual snows had covered the pasturage to such a depth that +much of the range stock, on which the plainsman relied to draw his +heavy "schooners," had died of cold and exhaustion, while of the +survivors but an insignificant remnant was fit to travel. After +causing this damage, the snow had melted in four days, leaving the +streams swollen, and the trails in an awful state, especially in the +Bad Lands, where, in the deeper gullies, they must have been quite +washed out. As an incidental climax, piled on top to make good +measure, the Ogallalas were on the war-path; and of all the Sioux the +Ogallalas are the worst. +</P> + +<P> +Nobody gave a thought to the Ogallalas. That was part of the game. +But a blind man could see that those emaciated cattle couldn't stand +the racket. And so Three Rivers steadily congested, and the conditions +of life daily became more exacting. +</P> + +<P> +One of the many who had reached the frontier town, only to find himself +checked in his desire to push ahead, was a young man of twenty-two or +three. He had made a long journey, and he was correspondingly +disappointed when he foresaw, as his immediate prospect, a summer's +sojourn in a sun-baked, turbulent, unprofitable region. Not that he +was content with a superficial proof of its necessity. He sought the +preventing causes at the very sources of them: he examined the cattle +carefully; he questioned closely the men who knew the trails, the +fords, the Indians. When he had quite finished his patient +investigations, he swore briefly and gustily, and then went on a +three-days' spree, from which he sobered into a quiet cigarette-smoking +lounger, waiting for what might turn up. Nothing did. +</P> + +<P> +The days followed one another until a month had passed, which seemed as +long as a year. Men gambled away one another's small store of wealth, +drank away their own disappointments, shot each other's lives out +unmolested. Three spasmodic vigilance committees hanged six men by the +neck until they were dead, but speedily allowed themselves to dissolve +and the town to relapse, because of a happy combination of sheer +laziness and sympathy with the offenders. +</P> + +<P> +Rumors of an advance flew thick. They were always brought heavily to +earth by a charge of common-sense or investigation. Nevertheless, +others were speedily on the wing; and men looked at them. Ensuing +disappointment came in time to possess a cumulative force that amounted +to a dull, sullen anger against nothing in particular. +</P> + +<P> +The young man of whom mention has already been made, took his month +with an outward seeming of imperturbability, but with an increasing +inner tension. He was a tall, dark, straight young man, +broad-shouldered and clean built; strong, but with fine hands and feet. +His hair was straight and black; his features clean-cut and swarthy. +By his restless eye and a certain indefinable cast of expression you +knew him for a half-breed. He gave out his name as Michaïl Lafond, and +he lived much in himself. Toward the close of the troublous thirty +days, a practised observer might have noticed that his slender fingers +were rarely still. Otherwise the half-breed appeared the most +indifferent member of the community. +</P> + +<P> +His apparent idleness did not prevent him from investigating in his +painstaking manner each rumor as it took form. This was the reason +why, when finally the formation of a genuine train was undertaken by +three of the specialists known as scouts, Michaïl Lafond was one of the +earliest to know of it, and one of the first to apply for admission. +He owned four strong little horses of mustang stock, and a light, +two-wheeled wagon of the bob-tailed type. Most of his life had been +spent in the great Northern wilderness. He was expert in his own kind +of woodcraft, accustomed to hardships, and a good shot. In every +respect he knew himself fitted to become a member of such an expedition +as the present. He had no doubt of his acceptance. When he realized +that at last his waiting was ended, he saddled one of his horses, and +rode three miles out on the lonely prairie, where he jumped up and +down, shook his fists in the air, and screamed with delight. This was +the half-breed of it. Impassibility may be stupid or intensely +nervous. Then, all a-tremble, he rode back to where the three +specialists in question were camped, just on the border of the town, +and proffered his formal application. +</P> + +<P> +The three to whom he addressed himself were practically at the head of +their profession. It was not a profession of easy access, but one to +which only a long and dangerous apprenticeship gave admittance. Its +members were men who had lived their lives on the frontier, either as +express riders, hunters, trappers, army scouts, or as members of the +Indian tribes themselves. They were a hardy, bold, self-reliant race, +equal to all emergencies, and exacting from the men in their charge the +most implicit obedience. To their wonderful resourcefulness is due the +fact that so many comparatively weak forces were enabled to penetrate +in safety a hostile country teeming with the most treacherous and wily +foes. +</P> + +<P> +As with all crafts, they had their big men—the masters, as it +were—whose deeds they emulated, whose feats of skill and divination +they spoke of with awe, whose names they worshipped. Of such were Kit +Carson, Wild Bill, Jim Clarke, Buffalo Bill, Slade, and the three men +with whom we have to deal—Jim Buckley, Alfred, and Billy Knapp. +</P> + +<P> +Billy Knapp was dark, tall, broad-shouldered, long-haired, wearing a +bristly mustache and goatee. A stranger might have remarked his +frowning, beetling brow with a little uneasiness, but would have taken +heart from the energetic kindliness of the eyes beneath. In fact, +eager, autocratic energy was the dominant note in Billy's character. +He succeeded because this energy carried him through—with some to +spare. +</P> + +<P> +Jim Buckley was also tall and large, but he gave one less the idea of +nervous force than of a certain static power. He was a mass which +moved slowly but irresistibly. His seal-brown beard, his broad +forehead, the distance between his wide, steady eyes strengthened this +impression. One felt that his decisions would be hardly come at, but +stubbornly held. Success was inevitable, but it would be the result of +slow thinking, deep purpose, and a quiet tenacity of grip that never +let go. +</P> + +<P> +As for Alfred—everybody has heard of him. His place in the annals of +the West is assured, and his peculiarities of person and character have +been many times described. Surely no one is unfamiliar with his short, +bandy legs, his narrow, sloping little shoulders, his contracted chest, +his queer pink and white face, with its bashful smile, his high bald +head. Everybody knows his fear of women. Everybody knows, too, that +he never had an opinion of his own on any subject. His speciality was +making the best of other people's, no matter how bad they were; and +competent judges say he could accomplish a more gloriously perfect best +out of some tenderfoot's fool notion than another man with the advice +of experts. Some people even maintain that Alfred was the best scout +the plains ever produced, only he was so bashful that it took an expert +to appreciate the fact. +</P> + +<P> +When Lafond approached the camp of these men and threw himself from his +pony, he found only Jim Buckley, sitting in the shade of one of his +wagons, smoking his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"One says that you will tak' train through thees summer," began the +half-breed abruptly. "Ah lak' to go also." +</P> + +<P> +Buckley looked his interlocutor over keenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said he slowly, between puffs. "That's right. We aims to pull +through, but we don't aim to take no lumber with us. You married?" +</P> + +<P> +Lafond shook his head. "No! No! No!" he cried vehemently. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right. Got any cattle?" +</P> + +<P> +"Four horses." +</P> + +<P> +"That one of them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +The scout arose, still with the same appearance of deliberation, and +inspected the pony thoroughly, with the eye and movements of an expert. +</P> + +<P> +"Others as good?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Bettaire," assured Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"Wagon?" pursued the laconic Buckley. +</P> + +<P> +"Bobtail," responded Lafond with equal brevity. Though young, he +already possessed some shrewdness in the reading of character. +</P> + +<P> +Buckley sat down in the shade and relit his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you from?" he asked bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ontario." +</P> + +<P> +"Woods?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Thought you wasn't no tenderfoot. Ever hit the trail?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not on those plains. In the woods many times." +</P> + +<P> +"We ain't takin' but damn few," went on Buckley dissertatively, "and +them that goes has to be right on to their job. No women; good cattle. +That's our motto. Reckon you-all fills the bill. Cyan't tell. Got to +ask the others." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond knew that this, from a man of Buckley's stamp, was distinct +encouragement. At the moment, the other two members came up. Buckley, +in a few words, told them of the newcomer's desires and qualifications. +</P> + +<P> +Billy looked him over briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo're a breed, ain't yo'?" he inquired with refreshing directness. "I +thought so." He turned to Buckley, with the air of ignoring Lafond +altogether. "That bars him," he said, with a little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"He's got a mighty good line of broncs," Buckley objected. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't care if his hosses <I>are</I> good," stated Billy decidedly. "He's a +breed, an' that's enough. I seen plenty of that crew, and I ain't +goin' to have one in the same country with me, if I can help it, let +alone the same outfit." +</P> + +<P> +He began to whistle and rummage in the back of the wagon, with a +charming obliviousness to the presence of the subject of his remarks. +</P> + +<P> +"That settles it," said Buckley, curtly and indifferently. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed, his nervous hands deep in his side-pockets, walked +slowly to his horse. Then, in sudden access of rapid motion, he leaped +on the animal's back and disappeared. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE WOMAN +</H4> + +<P> +Barely had the dust of the half-breed's sudden departure sifted from +the air, when Buckley arose and announced his intention of "taking a +little look round." He was gone two hours, and returned looking solemn +and earnest. Billy and Alfred were cooking things over a small fire. +Buckley spat in a propitiatory manner toward seven small bushes, and +conversationally informed the northwest corner of the canvas top on a +nearby schooner that he, Jim Buckley, had decided to take along a woman. +</P> + +<P> +Billy and Alfred thereupon spilled the coffee, and could not believe +their ears. +</P> + +<P> +"She's goin', if I have to take her by myself," Buckley concluded. And +then Alfred and Billy looked up into his face, and saw that he was in +earnest. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred turned pink and wriggled the bacon, trying immediately to think +how he was going to make the best of this. It did not look easy. +</P> + +<P> +Billy Knapp exploded. +</P> + +<P> +"You go to hell!" was his method of objection. +</P> + +<P> +"She goes," repeated Jim, with even greater quietness of manner. "An' +if you-all don' like it, why, jest say so. I quits. You got to have +her, if you have me." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd jest like to know why," complained Billy, a little sobered at this +threat. +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon Jim found himself utterly at a loss. He had not thought as +far as that. He suddenly appreciated the logical weakness of his +position; but then, again, intuitively, he realized more subtly its +strength. So he said not a word, but arose lightly, and brought unto +them the woman herself. +</P> + +<P> +She was a sweet little woman, with deep, trusting blue eyes, and she +accompanied Jim without a thought of the opposition she had excited. +Jim merely told her she was to meet the other two men. She intended +only to show her appreciation of their kindness. +</P> + +<P> +She approached the fire, and assumed her most gracious manner. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to thank you both, as well as Mr. Buckley, for being so good to +me," she began, with real feeling. "I know how hard it is for you to +take me just now, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I don't +know what we would have done. You need not be afraid that we shall be +much trouble, for we will all be brave, and not murmur. Your goodness +has made me very happy, and I am going to pray to God for you +to-night," said the little Puritan with simple reverence. It meant a +great deal to her. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred, as usual, was wrigglingly shy. Billy Knapp several times +opened his mouth to object, but somehow closed it slowly each time +without having objected. The woman saw. She thought it meant that her +presence embarrassed them both, so with true tact she wished them a +gentle good-night, and went away. +</P> + +<P> +The three looked at one another. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" asked Jim defiantly. +</P> + +<P> +Billy coughed. He spat in the fire. He exploded. "Damn it! She +goes!" he roared with the voice of a bull. +</P> + +<P> +They both looked expectantly toward Alfred. Alfred nodded his head. +He was wondering how long it had been since anyone had prayed for him. +</P> + +<P> +"Thar is a man with her," remarked Jim, after a moment's silence. +"He's a tenderfoot. And a kid. The kid has blue eyes, too," he added +irrelevantly. +</P> + +<P> +"The camp'll be mighty riled," put in Alfred. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's go see the tenderfoot," suggested the practical Billy. +</P> + +<P> +They dropped everything, and went over to the "hotel," where they +viewed the woman's husband at a safe distance. He was a slight, bent +man, with near-sighted eyes behind thick spectacles, straight, light +hair, and a peering, abstracted expression of countenance. He wore a +rather shiny frock coat. +</P> + +<P> +"Gee Christmas!" ejaculated Billy, and laughed loudly. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +Jim looked grave. +</P> + +<P> +They returned to camp, and began to discuss the question of ways and +means. There would surely be trouble when the affair became known. +The inclusion of a tenderfoot from Chicago, on account of his pinto +team, had almost resulted in a riot of the rejected. Not one of the +three was fatuous enough to imagine for a moment that Jack Snowie, for +instance, who had been refused because he wanted to take his wife, +would exactly rejoice over the scouts' decision. In fact, Jack had a +rather well-developed sense of injustice, and a summary method of +showing it. And he was by no means alone. +</P> + +<P> +Jim agreed to transport the three in his schooner, which was one point +well settled. Billy suggested at least a dozen absurd methods of +keeping the camp in ignorance until the start had actually been made, +each one of which was laughed to scorn by the practical Jim. +</P> + +<P> +"She might put on men's clothes," he concluded desperately. +</P> + +<P> +"For the love of God, what for?" inquired Jim. "Stick to sense, Billy. +Besides, there's the kid." +</P> + +<P> +Billy tried once more. +</P> + +<P> +"They might meet us 'bout a hundred mile out. He could take Jim's +schooner, here, and mosey out nor'-west, and then jest nat'rally pick +us up after we gets good and started. That way, the camp thinks he +palavers with Jim and us to get a schooner, and maybe they thinks Jim +is a damn fool a whole lot, but Jim don't mind that; do you, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't mind that," said Jim, "but yore scheme's no good." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wouldn't get ten mile before somebody'd hold him up and lift his +schooner off him. They's a raft of bad men jest layin' fer a chance +like that to turn road agent." +</P> + +<P> +Billy turned a slow brick-red, and got up suddenly, overturning the +coffee-pot. A dozen strides brought him to the camp of the Tennessee +outfit. There he raised his voice to concert pitch. +</P> + +<P> +"We aims to pull out day arter to-morrow," he bellowed. "We also aims +to take with us two tenderfeet, a woman, and a kid. Them that has +objections can go to the devil." +</P> + +<P> +So saying, he turned abruptly on his heel and returned to his friends. +Jim whistled; but Alfred smiled softly, and began to recap the nipples +of his old-fashioned Colt's revolvers. Alfred was at that time the +best shot with a six-shooter in the middle West. +</P> + +<P> +Seeing this, Billy's frown relaxed into a grin. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm thinkin' that them that does object probably will go to the +devil," said he. +</P> + +<P> +In half an hour the news was all over camp. When Michaïl Lafond heard +of it, he left his dinner half eaten and went out to talk earnestly to +a great variety of people. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE MAN WHO STOOD "99" +</H4> + +<P> +The three scouts would never have been able to explain satisfactorily +their reasons for being so easily persuaded, or their obstinacy in +adhering to the determination so suddenly made. Prue Welch would have +thanked a divine providence for it. The doctor, her husband, took it +as quite in the natural course of events. +</P> + +<P> +He was a queer man, the doctor, a pathetic little figure in the world's +progress—an outgrowth of it, in a certain way of thinking. +</P> + +<P> +Born of good old New England stock, he spent his studious, hard-working +boyhood on a farm. At sixteen he went to the high school, where he was +adored by his teachers because he stood ninety-nine in algebra. +Inconsequently, but inevitably, this rendered him shy in the presence +of girls, and unwarrantably conscious of his hands and feet. So, when +he went to college, he spent much time in the library, more in the +laboratory, and none at all in the elemental little chaos of a world +that can do so much for the wearers of queer clothes and queerer habits +of thought. He graduated, a spectacled grind, bowed of shoulder, +straight of hair, earnest of thought. +</P> + +<P> +Much reading of abstract speculation had developed in him a reverence +for the impractical that amounted almost to obsession. Given a bit of +useless information and a chunk of solid wisdom, he would at once +bestow his preference on the former, provided, always, it were +theoretical enough. He knew the dips of strata from their premonitary +surface wiggles to their final plunges into unknown and heated depths. +He could deliver to you a cross-section of your pasture lot, streaked +like the wind-clouds of early winter; and he could explain it in the +most technical language. Nothing rock-ribbed and ancient escaped him +in his frequent walks. He saw everything—except, perchance, the +beauty that clothes the rock-ribbed and ancient as a delicate aura, +invisible to the eye of science—and he labelled what he saw, and +ticketed it away in the pigeon-holes of his many-chambered mind, where +he could put his finger on it at any given moment in the easiest +fashion in the world. +</P> + +<P> +It is very pleasant to know where the Paleozoic has faulted, and how; +or why the stratifications of the ice age do not show glacial scorings +in certain New England localities. To verify in regard to lamination +green volumes of obese proportions, or to recognize the projection into +the geological physical world of the thought of a master, this is fine, +is noble; this makes to glow the kindly light in spectacled blue eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Adoniram Welch left college with many honors. He returned to his +little New England village, and for a space was looked upon as a local +celebrity. This is a bad thing for most youths, but Adoniram it +affected not at all. It availed only to draw upon him, in sweet +contemplation, another pair of blue eyes, womanly, serious blue eyes, +under a tangle of curly golden hair. +</P> + +<P> +And so, although Prue Welch was a homely name, and Prue Winterborne a +beautiful one, when Adoniram accepted the chair of geology offered him +by his alma mater, the owner of the blue eyes went with him, and the +new professor's thick spectacles somehow glowed with a kindly warmth, +which even fine specimens of the finest fossils had never been able to +kindle. He settled down into a little white house, in a little +blossomy "yard," under a very big, motherly elm, and gave his days to +the earnest mental dissection of the cuticle of the globe. His wife +attacked the problem of life on six hundred dollars a year. +</P> + +<P> +Now, from this state of affairs sprang two results. The professor +evolved a theory, and Mrs. Professor, although she did not in the least +understand what it was all about, came to believe in it, to champion +it, to consider it quite the most important affair of the age. The +professor thought so, too; and so they were happy and united. +</P> + +<P> +The theory was a tremendous affair, having to do with nothing less than +the formation of our continent. It was revolutionary in the extreme, +but shed such illumination in hitherto dark corners of this and allied +subjects that its probability, <I>prima facie</I>, was practically assured. +To Prue Welch it seemed to be quite so; but the inexorable eye of +science discerned breaks in the chain of continuity, gaps in the +procession of proofs, which, while not of vast importance in a specious +argument designed to furnish with peptonized intellectual pabulum the +more frivolous-minded layman, nevertheless sufficed to destroy utterly +its worth as a serious hypothesis. These breaks, the professor +explained, could never be filled except by actual field-work. The +proper field, he assured her, was the country of the Black Hills of +South Dakota, then as distant as the antipodes. He proved this +scientifically. Prue agreed, but did not understand. A number of +years later she did understand, from hearing Billy Knapp joking with +Alfred. +</P> + +<P> +"These yar hills," said Billy, "was made last. The Lo'd had a little +of everything left when he'd finished the rest, so he chucked it down +on the prairie, an' called it the Black Hills." +</P> + +<P> +However, the mere fact of her comprehension mattered not one iota. If +Adoniram said a thing was so, to Prue its truth at once became age-old. +</P> + +<P> +So it happened that the great theory hung fire wofully, and the country +of their dreams came to lie beyond the frontier wilderness, whose tide +was but just beginning to ebb back from the pine woods of Wisconsin and +the oak openings of Illinois. This was finality. What lay beyond they +did not trouble to inquire. The professor sighed the sigh of patient +abnegation. The professor's wife believed, with beautiful trust, that +a divine providence would provide, and that with the earth-wide fame +that must accrue to the author of <I>New World Erosions</I> would come added +opportunity for added reputation. +</P> + +<P> +For a number of years the kind-hearted little professor looked +steadfastly out of the window during examinations in geology, and +turned a resolute deaf ear to the rustling of leaves as the despairing +student manipulated a cleverly concealed volume. For a number of years +he came home at four o'clock in the afternoon, and feverishly corrected +blue books until six, in order to ransom from professional duties the +whole of the precious evening. For a number of years he consulted +authorities in German and other difficult languages, and waxed ever +more enthusiastic over the new theory of erosions. During the interim +the baby learned to walk, and Prue's belief in its father strengthened, +if such a thing were possible. In time the professor and his wife grew +to be quite old. He looked every bit of his thirty, and she was an +aged dowager of twenty-five. Little Miss Prue was just two and a half. +</P> + +<P> +One day, early in the spring, the professor was called to the door of +his class-room to receive a telegram. He read it quietly, then +dismissed his class, and went home. +</P> + +<P> +"Prue," said he to his wife, "my father has just died. I must go up +there at once, for he was all I had left in the world, and it is not +seemly that I should be from his side." +</P> + +<P> +You can see from his manner of speech that the professor had by now +read a great many bookish books. +</P> + +<P> +"We will go together," replied Prue. +</P> + +<P> +So they put away mortality in the old Puritan fashion, standing +wistful, but tearless, hand in hand, on the hither side of grief; for +though in perspective the figure of the old New Englander loomed with a +certain gloomy and ascetic grandeur, in the daily contact he had always +held himself sternly and straitly in fear of God. For him the twin +lamps of Science and Love had burned but darkly. +</P> + +<P> +Adoniram Welch found himself sole heir of a few thousands and the old +home. +</P> + +<P> +On the way back to the college town, they planned the Western trip. +The professor was to resign his chair at once. He and Mrs. Prue and +little Miss Prue would travel by rail to Kansas or Iowa, there to join +one of the wagon-trains which now, in the height of the first great +gold excitement, continually braved savage warfare and brute thirst to +gain the dark shadows of the hills. +</P> + +<P> +During the next three weeks, Prue was a busy woman. The professor +resigned, becoming thereby only "the doctor"; had an explanatory +interview with the president of the college, and gave himself over to a +series of delightful potterings. He pottered about among his +belongings, and personally superintended just how everything was not +stowed away. He pottered about among the faculty, to the members of +which he talked mysteriously with ill-concealed exultation, for the +theory was also a secret. He lovingly packed his books and papers and +a small portion of his clothes, all of which Prue had to hunt out and +repack. Altogether, he had a delightful, absent-minded time, seeing in +the actual world no further than the end of his nose, but in the +visionary world of his most technical hopes far beyond the farthest +star. +</P> + +<P> +But Prue had a New England village to answer; she had the family's +belongings to take care of—no great task in itself; she had little +Miss Prue to oversee. Grave men who were professors of astronomy, or +Greek antiquities, or Hebrew, and who, therefore, knew all about it, +told her, in language of whose correctness Addison would have been +proud, that the aborigines of the American plains were bloodthirsty in +the extreme. Fluttering women detailed anecdotes of sudden death at +the hands of Indians. One and all bade her good-by with the firm +conviction, openly expressed, that she would never return; upon which +all whom weeping became wept, while others displayed their best +handkerchiefs as a sort of defiant substitute for more open emotion. +Prue saw the little town fade into distance with mingled feelings, of +which terror was the predominant, until her husband explained to her, +by the aid of an airy little octavo which he had stuffed into an +inadequate bag, that Professor Nincomb's theory of glacial action was +not only false, but would be conclusively proved to be so by the new +theory of erosion. At this she brightened. Prue owned to a vague +impression that glacial action had something to do with the North Pole, +so the argument <I>per se</I> had little weight with her. But Prue was a +New Englander, and devout in the New England fashion, and she settled +back on Divine Providence with great thankfulness. She argued that no +scheme of things could dispense ruthlessly with so wonderful an affair +as the theory of erosions. Therefore the scheme of things would take +care of the only possessor of the theory. Indians lost their terrors, +she and little Miss Prue fell asleep together, leaving the doctor still +poring excitedly over the octavo of Professor Nincomb. +</P> + +<P> +Their first serious difficulties were encountered at Three Rivers. Of +course, in the circumstances, the mild little doctor quite failed in +his attempts to secure transportation. How should he, a scientist, +know or care anything about gold excitements? The hustle confused him, +the crowd stunned him, the fierce self-reliance and lack of +consideration of these rough men alarmed him. +</P> + +<P> +He came back to the board hotel very much discouraged. "There is not a +conveyance of any sort to be found," he informed Mrs. Prue, "and there +is great difficulty in estimating the precise duration of the present +state of affairs. It may continue into next summer; or so, at least, I +was informed by a very estimable person." +</P> + +<P> +That was unbearable. Think of little Miss Prue being required, in the +third year of her diminutive life, to face the heat of the plains in +midsummer! Think of the cost of living a twelvemonth in such a place +as Three Rivers! Prue put on her hat and went out into the turbulent +camp. Until that moment she had deemed it wisest to remain in her room. +</P> + +<P> +She was greeted only with respect. Men paused and looked after her. +You see, Prue had such grave, calm eyes, that looked straight at you +with so much confidence; and such a sensitive, serious mouth, that +argued such a capacity for making up quiet opinions of people—and +acting on them—that you were always very much inclined to take off +your hat, even if you were Tony Quinn and middling drunk. It was not +ten minutes before she had corroborated the doctor's bad news; but she +had also heard incidentally of Billy Knapp, Alfred, and Buckley. The +hotel-keeper pointed out the latter—that quiet man with the brown +beard. Prue went straight to him and stated her case. +</P> + +<P> +In the statement she laid great stress on the importance of the dip of +strata. If the doctor did not get to work before long, he would be +unable to finish his explorations before his means had become +exhausted. Prue waxed quite technical. She used a number of long +words and a few long phrases, hoping thus to awe the calm and +contemplative individual in front of her. +</P> + +<P> +Buckley did not comprehend the reasons. He did comprehend the +unutterable eloquence of the eyes, for though her logic went for naught +with the scout, it succeeded nevertheless in impressing Prue herself, +in bringing more vividly before her the importance of it all. She +clasped her hands, and tears choked her. When she had finished, Jim +said gravely that she should go. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER +</H4> + +<P> +Michaïl Lafond merely spread the news, and made it a subject of +discussion. In his statements he said nothing of his own grievance, +nor did he suggest a plan. He knew that this was not a case for +violence, nor did he care that it should become such. His actions +always depended very much on how an impulse hit his queerly constructed +nature. In the present instance he might either resolve to get even +with Billy Knapp by means of personal vengeance, or his anger might +take the direction of a cold, set determination to get through the +plains journey in spite of the scout's prohibition. That the latter, +rather than the former course happened to appeal to him, was purely a +matter of chance. So, though he said little to the direct point, the +plan finally adopted in secret by a choice few had a good deal of his +desire mingled in its substance. +</P> + +<P> +The quiescence of the camp astonished and puzzled the three scouts. +They had expected an outbreak, and were prepared for it. It did not +come. +</P> + +<P> +The three days slipped by; everything was packed; and early in the +morning, before the dawn's freshness had left the air, the little band +defiled across the prairie. A curious crowd gathered sleepily to watch +it go, but there was no demonstration. Billy openly congratulated +himself. Alfred looked to see that his revolvers were still capped. +</P> + +<P> +The party comprised an even dozen "schooners," each drawn by four tough +ponies. Besides these, a dozen men rode on horseback. On occasion, +their mounts could be pressed into draft service. The men themselves +were a representative lot; tall, bronzed, silent. They had taken part +in the fierce Indian wars, then just beginning to lull; they had ridden +pony-express with Wild Bill; they had stalked revenue officers in the +mountains of Tennessee. As they strode with free grace beside their +teams, or sat, with loose-swaying shoulders, their wiry little broncos, +they drew to themselves in the early light the impressiveness of an +age—the age of pioneers. +</P> + +<P> +At their head rode Billy Knapp. At their rear rode Jim Buckley. +Alfred was a little of everywhere at once. As a matter of habit, these +three carried their rifles cross-fashion in front of them, but the new +Winchesters and the old long-barrelled pieces of the other score of men +were still slung inside the canvas covers, for the Indian country was +yet to see. Beneath the axles hung pails. The wagons contained much +food, a good supply of ammunition, and a scanty equipment of the +comforts of life. In one of them were three wooden boxes, two trunks, +the doctor, Mrs. Prue, and little Miss Prue herself, laughingly proud +at being allowed to dangle along the dew-wet grass the heavy coil of a +black snake whip. +</P> + +<P> +The men shouted suddenly, the horses leaned to their collars, the +wagons creaked, and the swaying procession began to loom huge and +ghost-like in the mist that steamed golden-white from the surface of +the prairie. +</P> + +<P> +Then, from the haze of the town, six more wagons silently detached +themselves, and followed in the wake of the first. +</P> + +<P> +This second caravan differed from the other in that it deployed no +outriders, and from the close-drawn canvas of its wagons came, once in +a while, the sharp cry of a child, followed immediately by the +comforting of a woman. The men drove from the seats, and across the +lap of each was a weapon. +</P> + +<P> +About five miles out, the first caravan halted until the second drew +nearer. Billy Knapp cantered back to it. One of the men in the +foremost wagon thereupon clamped the brake and jumped to the ground, +where he stood, leaning on the muzzle of his big mountaineer's rifle, +chewing a nonchalant plug. +</P> + +<P> +"What's this?" demanded Billy, reining in his horse. +</P> + +<P> +The man shifted his quid. +</P> + +<P> +"Nawthin'," he drawled, "'xcept that this yare outfit's a-goin' too." +</P> + +<P> +Billy's eyes snapped. +</P> + +<P> +"We settled all thet afore," said he, with outward calm. +</P> + +<P> +"This yare outfit's a-goin' too," reiterated the man. +</P> + +<P> +"The hell it is!" cried the scout angrily. "We all said no women and +no poor hosses, and that goes. Yore hosses are a lot of crowbait, +and——" +</P> + +<P> +"The women is women as is women," cried another voice, "and not yore +leetle white-faced, yaller-haired sort that'd keel over if yo' said boo +to her!" +</P> + +<P> +During the laconic dialogue, the schooners had gradually drawn nearer, +until now they were grouped in a rough crescent around the two men. +Billy looked up to see a tall woman in blue gingham haranguing him from +behind one of the seats. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon if she can go, we can; and you jest chalk that down, Mr. +Speckleface!" she went on. Billy was slightly pockmarked. +</P> + +<P> +Other canvas flaps opened, and the audience was increased by half. +</P> + +<P> +"We're goin'," went on the woman, "whether you want us to or not; an' +what's more, you got t' take care of us in the Injun country, an' if +you don't I'll curse you from the grave, you white-livered, no 'count +cradle robber, you! Folks has some rights on the plains, an' you know +it jest's well as I do, an' if you think you can shake yore ole pals +for a lot of no 'count tenderfeet, an' not find trouble, you jest fools +yoreself up a lot, let me tell you that. If Dave yere had th' sperrit +of a coyote, he'd fix you, Mr. Seoul!" with vast contempt. +</P> + +<P> +"You men are all alike! A pretty face——" began the virago again, but +Billy had fled at speed. +</P> + +<P> +The man, who had been chuckling silently, spat and threw the rifle into +the hollow of his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Good for you, Susie," he remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"You shut up!" replied Susie with acerbity, and retired within. The +man had yet to learn that one should never voluntarily step within the +notice of an angry woman. +</P> + +<P> +The two wagon-trains proceeded as before—one behind the other by about +half a mile. +</P> + +<P> +At intervals Billy or Jim went back to expostulate. They might be able +to undertake the responsibility of one woman, hardly of nine! But they +never got a hearing, as all the conversation was vituperative and +one-sided. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred led the party to a deep, swift crossing of the Platte. By the +aid of the extra ponies the ford was made without loss. The second +party had a hard struggle, but emerged dripping and triumphant. +</P> + +<P> +Billy and Jim were again put to rout in an attempt at mere verbal +dissuasion. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred took them roundabout through a piece of country, cut and gullied +by rains. Some hills they climbed by the help of long ropes. The +second party dragged their wagons up singly, using all their animals to +each wagon. They lost some time, but the evening of the day following +they strung out in the rear as imperturbably as ever. Alfred ordered +all the riders into the wagons, and, by alternating the ponies, made +forced marches, hoping thus to shake the others off. The others, +however, discovering that Alfred's party had been doubling and twisting +through the worst country, detached a single rider, whose business it +was to search out the directest and easiest route. Thus they caught +up. Alfred discovered it too late, for they were now on the borders of +the Indian country. +</P> + +<P> +Here a serious problem presented itself. The second party had, up to +now, made no attempt to close in and join forces. On entering the +Indian country, they would certainly do so. The question was, whether +they should be resisted or received. +</P> + +<P> +If they were not repulsed, could they be brought through successfully? +If they were resisted, would the resistance be effective? One thing or +the other must be decided immediately, for, whatever the policy +adopted, it must be a settled policy before entering hostile ground. +</P> + +<P> +In the contest of endurance, the score of men comprising the main party +had taken part amusedly. They were under the command of the scouts. +When the scouts ordered speed, speed was made. When they said to climb +hills, hills were climbed. When they advised difficult fords, the +difficulties of crossing were overcome. If the other train had trouble +keeping up with the procession, why, that was good enough fun. But +actual resistance was a different matter. After all, according to +their lights, these other men were entirely in the right. They had +been excluded from the expedition, on the basis of a rule which had +been agreed to after some grumbling; and now that the rule had been +broken by the very framers of it, there seemed to be no longer fair +grounds of exclusion; and therefore a certain rough sense of justice +inclined them to take sides with the bearers of the pea rifles in the +rear. At the same time, they felt the truth of Billy's statement, that +it would be impossible to get so unwieldy a caravan over the rough +country and through the dangers to come. So, seeing reason on both +sides, they maintained a guarded neutrality. +</P> + +<P> +Resistance being out of the question, the three next considered the +other horn of the dilemma. Alfred rode over to examine the prospective +addition to the party. He found the animals in poor condition, partly +because of the forced marches he had himself imposed. In his opinion +they would not last out the journey, and he so reported, to the great +consternation of the other two. +</P> + +<P> +While they lamented, Prue came up and heard a part. She demanded the +whole, and they told her frankly. The heroine of romance, realizing +herself the cause of the trouble, would have offered to return with the +other women, and so the whole question would have been resolved; but +Prue was only a very nice little woman, in love with her husband. Her +chief concern was not the triumph of eternal justice, but whether the +whole expedition would come to nothing. She pondered. +</P> + +<P> +"If you can't keep them from going with us, and if you can't get +through if they do go with us," she said finally, "it seems to me that +the only way to fix it would be to do something so they couldn't +go"—with which vague hint this Puritan looked wickedly at them all, +and went away, clinching her small hands with anger. From the hint, +they made a plan to which all three agreed. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning Jim roused the camp an hour earlier than usual, and +insisted on an immediate departure. The horses were hitched, and the +breakfast things put away. Then Alfred rode over to the other camp, +with Jim and Billy following at a little distance. +</P> + +<P> +People start a camp on the plains, in a safe country, by arranging the +wagons in a rough semicircle. Behind this semicircle the horses are +hobbled, and left to graze. In front of it the cooking-fire is built. +During the night, besides the regular sentinels, one man is assigned to +ride herd, but this is unnecessary in full daylight; so at breakfast +the horses are left to graze quite unprotected. In a hostile country, +picket ropes and more care are needed. This party had so hobbled +twenty-four animals—four for each wagon, which is a scant supply. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred cantered rapidly up to the herd from the east. He had made a +long detour, so as to approach in the eye of the sun. With the twelve +chambers of his revolvers he killed eleven horses. As I have said, +Alfred was one of the best pistol shots in the middle West; After this, +he put spurs to his mount, and shot away like an arrow in the direction +of his own camp. +</P> + +<P> +The unsuspicious mountaineers, at breakfast, did not gather their wits +until too late. Then eight of them leaped fiercely upon some of the +remaining animals, and pursued the wagon-train, which, under the +frantic urging of Billy and Jim, was already under way in close order. +A few of their bullets spattered against the wagon-bodies, and they +wounded a horse. +</P> + +<P> +This roused the other men. Neutrality was all right enough, but they +could not afford to lose horses, so they made such a brave show of +rifle muzzles that the eight fell back. Three to one was too big odds; +but their rage was great. +</P> + +<P> +Then Jim took his life in his hands, and rode a little way out on the +prairie toward them, waving a white handkerchief. Somebody shot at +him, and bored a hole through the looseness of his flannel shirt, +whereupon he dismounted and dropped two horses with his new-model +Winchester. His own horse was killed in the exchange, but Jim could +take care of himself in frontier fashion. +</P> + +<P> +Before the men could reload or move, Jim, imperturbably, arose from +behind his dead mount, and waved his white handkerchief again. There +was a moment's hesitation, then someone returned the signal. Jim +promptly advanced. His remarks were brief and businesslike, and were +received in sullen silence. +</P> + +<P> +"You fellows have got to go back," said he. "You have hosses enough +left to get your women back with, by goin' slow. If you try to shoot +us up any, we'll kill every hoof you have. So don't come any funny +business." +</P> + +<P> +He turned squarely on his heel, and walked away rapidly. He wanted to +get his distance before the reaction came. Michaïl Lafond, no longer +impassive, shook his rifle after him. +</P> + +<P> +"You damn skunk!" he shouted, hoarse with anger. "Tell your damn woman +I'll pull every hair from her head!" +</P> + +<P> +Jim did not turn his head, but ducked into the long grass, where he +wriggled along Indian fashion. Lafond, who had thrown his rifle into +position for a shot, started forward in pursuit, his face twisted with +passion, but he was dragged back by main strength. Two of the horses +bore double, and the little group turned sullenly toward the east. +</P> + +<P> +The mood of the original party, after this incident, was grim. The +bonds of plains brotherhood had been lightly broken. +</P> + +<P> +Alfred had resorted to such desperate measures in making the best of +undesirable conditions brought to pass by someone else. +</P> + +<P> +Billy Knapp had done so because he had entered into a game, and +declined to be beaten by anyone. +</P> + +<P> +Jim alone was happy. He had done it solely and simply for a woman; and +the woman had seen him fight for her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LAFOND DESERTS +</H4> + +<P> +The eight men of the attacking party returned slowly to the little dip +of land which held the temporary camp. They were defeated, baffled, +and angry. If a stranger had accosted them at that moment, he would +probably have been gruffly answered one minute and assaulted the next. +But for the present they were silent. They were Anglo-Saxons and +Tennessee mountaineers for the most part; hence they were also +adaptable, and attuned to the fatalism that comes from much +contemplating of cloud-capped peaks and wind-swept pines. +</P> + +<P> +Not so with Michaïl Lafond, who alternately raved and wept, frantically +brandishing his rifle. An impassive mountaineer sat behind him, +holding him to the party. If not thus restrained, he would, in the +heat of anger, have attacked the whole train single-handed, for he was +brave enough in his way. The sober second-thought of the Indian in him +might perhaps have caused him to pause on the brink of the charge and +sink into the long grasses to await the chance of a more silent blow; +but the impulse up to that point would have been real and whole-souled. +So it was now. The man raved as a maniac might. He called down the +curses of heaven on his companions for cowards. +</P> + +<P> +And in this, when he reached camp, he was ably seconded by the women. +They surrounded him in a voluble and indignant group, and listened to +him with sympathy, casting glances of scorn toward their passive lords +and masters in the background. In their way they became as excited as +Lafond. One or two wept. Most employed the variety of their +vocabularies in giving the world what is known as a "piece of their +minds." +</P> + +<P> +In the still air of a prairie morning their hysterical cackle rose like +the crying of an indignant band of brant. Lafond told, dramatically, +what should have been done. The women, in turn, told how effectively +they would have done it. The men were taking stock of the situation. +</P> + +<P> +The mountaineers wasted little discussion on what might have been done. +The question before them was that of the most practical method of +returning over the long miles of prairie they had traversed in their +pursuit of Alfred and his outfit. They entertained not a moment's +doubt as to the necessity of the return. Their equipment consisted now +of ten horses and six wagons. By humoring the animals they might be +able to get through with a pair to each schooner. This meant the +abandonment of one of the wagons, and the lightening of the others. It +was decided. One of the men strode to the group of women. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond was in the midst of a tirade, but when he saw the mountaineer +approach, he prepared to pay eager attention to the plan of action. +</P> + +<P> +"H'yar," announced the latter, with a little the heavier shading on his +accustomed drawl, "that's enough of this h'yar jaw, I reckon. You-all +come along and pack up." +</P> + +<P> +"And when is it that we do pursue them?" asked Lafond eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"Pursue nothin'," replied the man. "We're goin' back." +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment's silence. +</P> + +<P> +"And you intend not to get that revenge?" the half-breed inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Revenge!" snorted the man. "You damn fool—with <I>that</I> outfit?" He +swept a descriptive gesture toward the women. "Besides, what's the +good now?" Lafond fell silent, and withdrew from the group. +</P> + +<P> +The man of mixed blood is not like other men, and cannot be judged by +the standards of either race. From his ancestors he takes qualities +haphazard, without balance or proportion, so that the defects of +virtues may often occur without the assistance of the virtues +themselves. And, besides, he develops traits native to neither of the +parent races, traits which perhaps can never be comprehended by us who +call ourselves the saner people. He is superstitious, given to strange +impulses, which may unexpectedly, and without reason, harden into +convictions; obscure in his ends; unscrupulous in his means. No man +lives who can predict what may or may not suffice to set into motion +the machinery of his passions. A triviality is enough to-day. +To-morrow the stroke of a sledge may not even jar the cogs. But, once +started, the results may be tremendous, and quite out of proportion to +the first careless touch on the lever. Such passions are dangerous, +both to their possessor and to those who stand in their way. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-034"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-034.jpg" ALT="A SIOUX COUNCIL" BORDER="2" WIDTH="771" HEIGHT="503"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 771px"> +A SIOUX COUNCIL +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Now, from the gainsaying of his lesser revenge—the proving to Billy +Knapp the futility of his objections—Lafond conceived the desire for a +greater. There entered into his life one of those absorbing passions +which are to be encountered in all their intensity only in such men as +he—passions which come to be ruling motives in the lives of those who +harbor them; gathering to themselves all lesser forces which are spread +more evenly over saner existences; losing their first burning +intensity, perhaps, but becoming thereby only the more sustained, cool, +and deadly; so that at the last they lie unnoticed in the background of +the man's ordinary life, coloring, influencing every act—a religion to +which, without anger, but without relenting, he bends every +long-planned effort of even his trivial and daily deeds. You may not +understand this, unless you have known a half-breed; but it is true. +</P> + +<P> +Interrupted in the midst of his flow of anger, and deprived of the +immediate solace of shooting things at his enemies, Lafond fell into a +sulking fit. During the rest of the day he brooded. After dark that +night he wound his way silently through the grasses, crept up behind +the solitary sentinel considered necessary in this peaceful country, +stabbed the man in the back, and returned to camp. Thus his way was +clear. Then he took from the wagons three slabs of bacon, a small sack +of coffee, a large supply of powder, lead, and caps, a blanket, and a +frying-pan and cup. With these he mounted the hill, past the dead +sentinel, to the ponies. Two of the latter he drew apart from the +herd. One of them he saddled; the other he packed with his supplies. +Then the half-breed led them silently westward for a good half-mile. +Then he mounted and rode away. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE WOMAN AND THE MAN +</H4> + +<P> +The wagon-train under the command of Billy Knapp, and Alfred, and Jim +Buckley had a very hard trip before they were done with it. The only +difficulty they did not encounter was lack of water. There was too +much of that. Several times the party had to camp in one spot for days +while the wagons were laboriously warped across rivers of mud and +quicksand, with steep, slippery clay banks. How little Prue stood the +journey so well, neither her father, her mother, nor the men of the +party were able to divine; but she did, and, what is more, she seemed +to think it great fun. So cheerful was she, and so sunny, that the men +came to grudge each other her company. And as for Mrs. Prue and the +doctor, who could help loving the patient sweetness of the one, or the +pathetic, gentle, impracticable kindness of the other? +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it was a hard journey; but somehow the feeling was not entirely of +joy and relief when the stockade of Frenchman's Creek shimmered across +the broad, flat foot-hills. There they separated. The dangers were +over. +</P> + +<P> +Then, to the surprise of everyone, the doctor waked up and knew just +where he wanted to go. He displayed an unexpected familiarity with the +general topography of the hills. It puzzled Billy. And, to the vaster +astonishment of both his <I>confrères</I>, Jim suddenly announced, with +quite unwonted volubility, that he had been intending all along to +start in prospecting at the end of this trip, and that here he meant to +quit scouting and leave the society of his brothers in arms—unless, of +course, he added, as a doubtful afterthought, they wanted to join him. +They profanely replied that they did not. +</P> + +<P> +Most of the men pushed on immediately to Rockerville, whither a +majority of the former inhabitants of Frenchman's Creek had already +emigrated. Alfred and Billy decided to get over in the Limestone for a +"big hunt" before returning East. Prue said good-by to them with real +feeling, and most of them threw out their chests and were very gruff +and rude because they were sorry to leave. Prue understood. They were +kind-hearted men, after all, these rough pioneers. Billy remembered +for almost two years how she looked when she said that, which was +extraordinary for Billy. He had led so varied a life as pony-express +rider, stage-driver, scout, Indian, bronco-buster, hunter, and trapper, +that he had little room in his memory for anything short of bloodshed +or a triumph for himself. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, after all the rest had gone, Jim and the doctor made the +mutually delightful discovery that they had selected the same locality, +the one for his prospecting, the other for his scientific +investigations. So the doctor simply left his outfit in Jim's wagon, +and they all went up together. +</P> + +<P> +The little scientist was as excited as a child. To him the country was +as a document—a document which he had studied thoroughly in the pocket +editions. He now had it before him in the original manuscript, open +and unabridged. +</P> + +<P> +And indeed, even to an ordinary observer, the Black Hills are a strange +series of formations. +</P> + +<P> +They run north and south at the westernmost edge of the northern +prairie, and are, altogether, about as large as the State of Vermont. +Unlike other ranges, they possess no one ridge that serves as a +backbone to the system. The separate peaks rise tumultuously, like the +rip of seas in a tideway, without connection, solitary, sombre. +Between them lie deep gorges, or broad stretches of grass-park, which +dip away and away, until one catches the breath at the grand free sweep +of them. Huge castellated dikes crop up from the ridge-tops like +ramparts. Others rise parallel in the softest verdure, guarding +between their perpendicular sides streets as narrow and clean-cut as +the alleys of a city of skyscrapers. +</P> + +<P> +Through it all, back and forth, like the walls of a labyrinth, run the +broken, twisted, faintly defined geological systems, which cross each +other so frequently and so vigorously that all semblance of order is +lost in the tumultuous upheaval. Here are strata deposited by the +miocene tertiary; here are breakings forth of metamorphic rocks of many +periods; here are the complex results of diverse influences and forces. +Down in the south is a great cavern—of which ninety-seven miles and +twenty-five hundred rooms have, at this writing, been explored—which +was once the interior of a geyser. For ages it spouted; for ages more +its fluids crystallized and petrified into varied and beautiful forms; +and then, finally, many layers of stratified rock were slowly overlaid +to seal forever this dried-out, beautiful, lifeless mummy of a cave. +It lies there now, as it has lain through the centuries, with a single, +tiny opening by which it can be entered—a palace of vast re-echoing +halls, hung with jewels, a horror-haunted honeycomb of unsounded +depths, a solemn abode wherein not the faintest drip of water, not the +gentlest sigh of air through the corridors, breaks the eternal silence. +Only its mouth roars continually as the winds rush in or out. The +Indians assign to it the spirits of their dead warriors, and cannot be +induced to approach it. Geologists rave over it, and cannot be +persuaded to come away. +</P> + +<P> +But this is in the latter day of railroads and tenderfeet. At the time +of which this story treats, little was known of the country. It was +simply a great second-hand shop, of a little of everything in the +geological line. +</P> + +<P> +When the party arrived at Spanish Gulch, the doctor was so eager to get +into the wonderful hills that only with the greatest difficulty did he +constrain himself to help Jim erect a log cabin for the accommodation +of his family. Even then he was not of much use, although he could at +least help to lift timbers. Jim practically did it alone, and it took +him almost a month; but when it was done, it was very nice. The doctor +accepted the free gift of the scout's labor and skill quite as a matter +of course, just as he had taken the free gift of an ordinarily +expensive pilotage across the plains; but the woman appreciated, and +perhaps she understood, for she suddenly became very shy in Jim's +presence. And then, sometimes, she would gaze at him, when he was not +looking, with an adoration of gratitude filling her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +After the doctor's home was finished, Jim betook himself into another +gulch, where he constructed a less elaborate shelter for his own +occupation. Thenceforward he spent much of his time in mysterious +prospecting operations; but two or three times a week he liked to sit +perfectly silent under the tree which overshadowed the doctor's cabin, +watching Prue, if she happened to be near, playing with Miss Prue, or +trying to talk with the doctor. He never went inside the house, even +in the winter; and he never seemed to try to know Prue any more +intimately. It would have been difficult for him to say just what +pleasure he discovered in these visits. +</P> + +<P> +After a little, the routine of life became fixed. The doctor took up +his work systematically. Each morning he plunged into the hills. His +little bent form moved from ridge to ridge, following his own especial +leads as earnestly as the most eager gold prospector of them all. +Sometimes he got lost, but generally he managed to reach home at +sunset. He was entirely preoccupied. He ate his meals as they were +set before him without question, he pulled on his well-mended clothes +without noticing the new patches, he warmed himself before his fire +without a thought of whence came the wood, blazing up the mud-chimney. +</P> + +<P> +Prue at first wondered a little at this, for even in his intensest +absorption the doctor's home-life had been much to him; but in time she +came to appreciate his mood, and to rely on herself even more than +usual. She had such an exalted opinion of his work that she easily +fell into the habit of sacrificing herself to it. She watched for the +things that pleased him, or, rather, did not bother him, for his +pleasures were negative; she carefully excluded all disturbing +influences, and came to look on this lonely time as only a probation, +sooner or later to be over, after which, in the fulness of his success, +he would turn to her with his old love. To hasten this she would have +cut off her right hand. +</P> + +<P> +So, much to the disgust of Jim Buckley, the brave little woman took the +management of things upon herself. During the long days, while the +doctor was away, she schemed to make both ends meet. She raised a few +vegetables in a plot of open ground on the sunny side of the creek, +working in it daily with an old spade. Her face was hidden in the +depths of a sunbonnet, and her hands were covered with a pair of +deerskin gauntlets, for she could not forget, poor woman! that she was +gently bred, and she hated to see her skin reddening in the dry air of +the hills. +</P> + +<P> +Items of necessity she bought scantily, sparingly, of travelling +pedlars, for prices were high. Candles for the winter, corn-meal, +occasionally flour, coffee, sugar—all these counted. Things cost so +much more here than she had anticipated. Prue saw the end coming, +distant though it might be. She sometimes did little bits of mending +for passing miners, and was paid for it. Oftener she skimped on the +daily meals, pretending that she was tired and did not care to eat. +The doctor never noticed, nor did she mean that he should. +</P> + +<P> +In the presence of his work, he could think of nothing else. Once, +when they ran out of wood, she told him of it. It worried him for a +week. Material necessities drew his mind away from the attitude of +calm scientific investigation. The pile of fuel that goes with every +new shack lasted the first winter through. After that was gone, Prue +used the chips made when the house was built, as long as they held out. +Then she tried to chop down a tree herself. Jim Buckley found her +sitting on a stone, the axe between her knees, her face buried in her +hands. Beside her was a pine scarred at random with weak, ill-directed +blows. He made a few profane remarks into his thick beard concerning +the doctor, then took the axe from her, and started to work. In a week +enough firewood was piled over against the house to last the winter. +During that week he ate his noon meals in the little cabin. The woman +did her best, and used up a fortnight's provisions in the attempt to +make a respectable showing before the hungry man. But in spite of that +he saw through her pitiful efforts, and offered to let her have money. +She drew herself up and showed him the door. When he had gone, +bewildered, she went out and looked at the white shining wood-pile and +wept bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +But in spite of economy the closest, and the sacrifice of absolutely +every non-essential, the time came when the last cent had gone. The +woman stood face to face with want. And, as ill-luck would have it, at +this period the doctor was especially brimming with enthusiasm, for he +had almost achieved the one result he needed to fill out his scheme. +He worked feverishly to forestall the snow. He was full of his system, +alternating between glowing enthusiasm and a haunting fear that the +winter would set in too early. He must have uninterrupted time for +work until then, he said. On this depended his professional +reputation, their fortune. +</P> + +<P> +She set her lips firmly and looked about her. The flour and meal were +gone; there were no candles, and without candles how could the doctor +put the last touches to his book when winter fell? Little light +filtered through the oiled paper of the windows. She sold her ring to +some passing gamblers. The money soon slipped away. For a few days +she fought hard with her pride. Then she put on her sunbonnet, and, +kissing the child tenderly, went, with heightened color, down the gulch +to Jim Buckley's. +</P> + +<P> +She found him sitting on a stump in front of his dirt-roofed shack, +pounding into sand some quartz in an iron mortar. He did not hear her +until she stood beside him. Then he arose, drawing his gaunt form up +quickly, taking off his broad hat, and wiping his grimy hands on his +jeans. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Buckley," she said hurriedly, before he could speak, "I have come +to tell you how sorry I am that I was so rude to you. You have been +very kind to me, and I had no right to speak to you as I did. No, no!" +she implored, as Jim opened his mouth to expostulate. "I must tell you +that, and <I>please</I> don't interrupt me. +</P> + +<P> +"My husband is doing some very valuable work," Prue continued, "very +valuable, and when he gets it done he will be very famous and very +rich. But just now it takes all his time and attention, so that he +doesn't realize—how—poor—we—are." The little woman's cheeks +burned, and she lowered her head until the sunbonnet hid her face. "Of +course, if I should tell him," she went on proudly, "he would attend to +it at once. But I mustn't do that. He needs <I>such</I> a little time to +finish his work, and I mustn't—must I?" And she suddenly looked up +into Jim's honest eyes with an imploring gesture. +</P> + +<P> +Jim was standing, his broad hat against his knee, looking at her +fixedly. No doubt he was thinking how, when he had first seen her, her +cheeks were as full and ripe as the apples of his old home in New +England; and was wondering if the dip of strata were worth this. +Seeing that he intended no reply, she looked down again and went on. +</P> + +<P> +"I came here to see you about that. Once, Mr. Buckley, you offered to +lend me some money, and I—I—am afraid I was very rude. And now—oh, +dear!" And suddenly the poor little figure in faded and patched calico +sank to the ground, and began to sob as if her heart would break. +</P> + +<P> +Jim was distressed. He started forward, hesitated, looked up at the +sky and down the gulch. Then he threw down his hat and darted into the +cabin, returning in a moment with a buckskin bag, which he tossed +impulsively into her lap. +</P> + +<P> +"There, there!" he said distractedly. "Why didn't you say so before? +Stop! <I>Please</I> stop! Oh, the——" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up suddenly with a blinding smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, don't say anything naughty!" she cried airily through her tears. +She laughed queerly at Jim's open mouth and astonished eyes. He could +not grasp the meaning of her change of mood. Before he could recover, +she was on her feet, a roguish vision of blushing cheeks and dancing +eyes. She shook the buckskin bag in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you afraid you'll never be paid, sir?" she demanded; then, with +a quick sob, "I think you are the kindest man in all the world!" The +next instant the alders closed about her fluttering figure on the +trail. For a week after, her cheeks burned, and she was afraid to look +out of the cabin lest Jim should be coming up the path. +</P> + +<P> +As the winter wore away, however, she began to see the bottom of the +little buckskin bag. The doctor was as absorbed as ever. She could +not bring her pride to the point of asking Buckley for another loan, +and so again the terror of poverty seized upon her. Her eyes looked +harassed and worn, and her mouth had queer little lines in the corners. +She would stand watching the flames in the chimney for hours, and then +would turn suddenly, hungrily, and snatch up the little girl, devouring +her with kisses. Sometimes she would wrinkle her brow, peeping into +the doctor's manuscripts, trying to make out how near the end he was, +but she always laid them down with a puzzled sigh. She did not eat +enough, and she grew thin. She tried expedients of which she had read. +For instance, one day she went down into the creek bottom and cut some +willows. She peeled the bark from them, and from the inside rind she +collected a quantity of fine white dust, with which she made a pasty +kind of dough. The biscuits were tough and of a queer flavor. Even +the doctor, after tasting one of them, looked up in surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you call this, my dear?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +She clapped her hands gayly, and laughed with a catch in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, a queer Indian dish I've learned, that's all. You never <I>do</I> pay +any attention to what you eat, so I thought I'd make you for once." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said the doctor, smiling faintly. +</P> + +<P> +The willow flour appeared no more. +</P> + +<P> +So the long winter drew to its close, and still the brave little woman +set her face resolutely forward, striving to help the doctor with his +life-work as only a woman can. She could see no way out. The case was +hopeless, and often she shed impotent tears over her inability. He +worked so hard, and she did so little! +</P> + +<P> +And then the spring brought with it the solution. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE REINS OF POWER +</H4> + +<P> +For two weeks after, Michaïl Lafond, cut loose from the crippled +wagon-train returning to Three Rivers, travelled westward by the sun, +sleeping under the stars, living on bacon, coffee, and an occasional +bit of small game, drinking muddy water from buffalo wallows which +providential rains had filled. At the end of that time he was raided +by the Sioux. When they approached him, he led forward his two ponies, +placed his rifle on the ground in front of their noses, unslung his +powder-horn and laid it beside the weapon, and stepped back, throwing +his arms wide apart. The Indians rode forward silently, a strange, +naked band, whose fancy ran to chrome yellow, and took possession of +Lafond and his equipment. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed became a squaw man, and lived with these Indians for +some time. At first he was given drudgery to do. He did it, but kept +his eyes open, and learned the language. After a little his chance +came. +</P> + +<P> +The band captured a wagon-train, and massacred its men and women. It +found itself in possession of fifty or sixty horses, half a score of +wagons, some provisions, and a goodly quantity of blankets, axes, +utensils, and the rude necessities of life on the frontier. An Indian +cannot possess too many ponies, he is always ready to eat, and blankets +come handy in winter; but he has absolutely no use for the rest of the +plunder. So he usually puts a torch to the lot, and has a bonfire by +way of celebration. +</P> + +<P> +On this occasion, Michaïl Lafond succeeded in getting Lone Wolf to +postpone the bonfire, to lend him twenty ponies, and to detail to his +service half as many squaws. The feat in itself was a mark of genius, +as anyone who knows the Indian character will admit, and cost Michaïl +many of his newly learned words, put together with all of his native +eloquence. +</P> + +<P> +The twenty ponies, driven by the ten squaws, drew the schooners and +their contents to the Bad Lands, where Michaïl concealed them in a +precipitous gully of the deeply eroded sort so common in that strange, +rainless district. Then he returned fifteen of the ponies to Lone +Wolf. Lone Wolf's band took up quarters within striking distance of +the cached schooners. +</P> + +<P> +All this was done by Michaïl Lafond, and when it was completed he drew +a long breath. He felt that the foundations of his influence were +laid. It was no light thing thus to have drawn self-willed savages +from their accustomed ways of life. He had done it only by vague +promises of great benefits to accrue in the immediate future, said +benefits to be "big medicine" in the extreme. Lone Wolf had pondered +much; had seen an opportune shooting star; had consented. +</P> + +<P> +A month later, a half-breed returned alone across the plains from the +hill country. At Pierre he announced open trail. He had himself come +through without the least trouble, he claimed, although he had seen +many Indians. This was strictly true. He went on to say that he would +sell his outfit cheap, as he was anxious to go on east. The gold +prospects were good. He had a partner squatting on several claims, to +whom he would return the following year. He hinted mysteriously of +capital to be invested and exhibited a small nugget of placer gold. +Most of this was untrue, and the nugget he had found, not in the placer +beds, but in a small pasteboard box in one of the schooners. +</P> + +<P> +The outfit brought three hundred and fifty dollars, for the half-breed +sold cheap. With this money and the horses he departed the day +following. +</P> + +<P> +Michaïl was now richer by three hundred and fifty dollars and five +horses than he had been before his capture by the Indians. Were it not +for two considerations, he might have decamped with the proceeds. +Conscience was not one of them. In the first place, his Caucasian +instincts taught him to look ahead to larger things. In the second +place, his Indian blood would not let him lose sight of certain bits of +savagery he had in contemplation. So, instead of decamping, he +purchased with the money, in a town where he was unknown, five of the +new breech-loading rifles and nearly five thousand rounds of +ammunition. His tale here was simple. The trail was <I>not</I> open, and a +wagon-train was soon to attempt the task of opening it. He loaded the +munitions on his five broncos, and joined Lone Wolf, who was outlying +near at hand. +</P> + +<P> +In the course of the next six months a certain half-breed, with various +stores and outfits, was observed in several small towns on the border +of the frontier. In half of them he was headed east and sold his +outfit; in the other half he was headed west and bought rifles. At the +end of the year there remained no more schooners in the <I>cache</I> of the +Bad Lands, but Lone Wolfs band was the best armed in all the West. +Michaïl Lafond had let slip the chance of embezzling some thousands of +dollars, but he had gained what was much mere valuable to him—power +over an efficient band of fighting men, and the implicit confidence of +a tribe of Sioux Indians. He was respected and feared. His unseen +influence was felt throughout the whole plains country. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond was too shrewd either to repeat his venture or to become +identified with the tribe. His influence, as has been said, was unseen +and unsuspected. Lone Wolf's band was successful from the Indian +standpoint, pernicious from the white man's. That was all that +appeared on the outside. Lafond himself became a savage. He slept out +with little cover, and often rode with none at all. He ate dog and +rattlesnake, when dog and rattlesnake happened to be on the bill of +fare. He carried a knife deep in the recess of a long, loose buckskin +sheath; and from the ridge of his tepee hung five clotted horrors, torn +from the heads of the victims of his personal prowess. The number of +these might easily have been augmented, but Michaïl struck seldom in +his own person. When he did, not one of the victims escaped, for no +man must have seen Michaïl, the savage. Michaïl, the civilized, would +need a clear field before him when once again he appeared in the towns. +</P> + +<P> +The life was fascinating to such as he. He loved it, but he did not +forget his purposes. When at last he had gathered firmly the reins of +his power, he shook them, and the twin steeds of Murder and Rapine +swept destroyingly through the land. +</P> + +<P> +For the present there was peace on the plains. Wagon-trains came +across the Pierre trail, or further down along South Fork. Custer +explored. White men settled in the Black Hills, in spite of the +treaty. The Indians hunted buffalo, and their wives made robes, and +cut tepee poles from the valley of Iron Creek. +</P> + +<P> +But in spite of all the seeming tranquillity, the seeds of discord had +been sown broadcast, and Lafond, with his devilish cleverness of +insight, could see that the struggle was not long to wait. Both sides +felt aggrieved, and both sides had more than a show of reason for +feeling so. Perhaps, in the long run, this was an inevitable result of +the advance of civilization; but it is a little unfortunate that the +provisional races must be set aside so summarily. That fact serves +occasionally to cast a doubt in reflective minds on the ultimate +benefit of the civilization. +</P> + +<P> +We who look upon our tamed country, or those plainsmen who have +perforce to struggle in the thick of the avenging troubles which follow +injustice as surely as symptoms follow the disease, may not be able to +see the Indian's side of the question. We, the peaceful citizens, +enjoy the security of policed cities and fenced prairies; and we are +convinced that it is worth the price. They, the pioneers, fight, and +are maimed; they lose their worldly possessions, and their +heart-strings are twanged to the tuning of grief; and so they become +partisans, to whom the old scriptural saying that "he who is not for me +is against me" comes home with a sternness brewed of tears. +</P> + +<P> +But to those others who looked on from the height, to the men who sat +safe, but moved the pawns on the board—to them there was a real +justice, and they infringed it; a real duty, and they failed it. They +held the whip hand and spared not the lash, and it shall be visited +unto them. +</P> + +<P> +Nearly fifty years ago, a Lieutenant Warren, at the head of a small +exploring party, approached the Black Hills. He was met near the South +Fork by a friendly but firm deputation of Sioux chiefs. Pah-sap-pah +was sacred. Pah-sap-pah must not be entered. All the rest of the +country was open, by the courtesy of the red men, to their white +brothers, but sacred land must not be profaned. Warren acquiesced, and +contented himself with ascertaining the general extent and +configuration of the forbidden district. When, in the fulness of time, +the government entered into treaty with these Indians, Warren's policy +was continued, and the Black Hills were, by a special clause, exempted +from white invasion forever. According to the Indians, the place was +the abode of spirits, and each tree, each rock, each dell, had its own +especial <I>manitou</I> whom it were sacrilege to offend by the touch of +profane hands. +</P> + +<P> +For many years the treaty was respected. Then a Pawnee brought into +one of the reservations a small quantity of gold dust, which he +confessed to have found in the Hills. +</P> + +<P> +The following spring, Custer, at the head of an expedition of one +thousand two hundred men, entered into a long scout with the avowed +purpose of exploring the Black Hills for indications of gold. In this +he acted directly under his governmental orders. Thus was the treaty +first broken. +</P> + +<P> +Next year the Hills were overrun with miners, illegal miners, just as +the troops had been with illegal explorers. They scattered through the +wilderness in vast numbers, and about a hundred of them staked out, +near the centre of the Southern Hills, a town which they named Custer +City. The irony was unconscious. What followed was farcical, and was +relished as such by the participants. Bodies of troops were sent to +enforce the treaty. Legally they did so. Although inferior in numbers +to the miners, and no better armed, they succeeded several times in +sweeping all the trespassers together into one band. The latter +submitted good-naturedly. The culprits were then turned over to civil +authority. Civil authority waited only for the disappearance of the +troops to set the miners at liberty; whereupon they scurried, as fast +as their animals could carry them, back to the prospect-holes of their +choice. It was all a huge joke, and everybody knew it. +</P> + +<P> +In the meantime the Indians were becoming restive. It may not be known +to the general reader, but it is a fact, that one of the strongest +virtues of the red man's character is his fidelity to his given word. +A liar is, in his moral code, the most despised of men. He cannot +conceive the possibility of broken faith, and there are recorded +instances wherein an Indian condemned to capital punishment has been +set free on his oral promise to return for his hanging; and he has +returned. Therefore the Sioux could not understand the infraction of +the treaty. +</P> + +<P> +They had viewed with alarm the scouting expedition by Custer. On the +invasion by the horde of miners, the following spring, an outbreak was +only avoided by the prompt action of the troops in evicting the +trespassers; but now, this winter of 1875, the more sagacious of the +Indian leaders were beginning to suspect the truth, namely, that the +eviction had been nothing but a form, and that Pah-sap-pah, in spite of +the treaty, was lost to them forever. Affairs were ripe for a great +Indian war; and, realizing this, the department set on foot Crook's and +Reynolds' unfortunate expedition toward the Big Horn. +</P> + +<P> +The savages at once began to gather under a famous chief, Sitting Bull. +The storm rumbled, and Custer was despatched to effect a junction with +his brother officers somewhere north of the Hills. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE +</H4> + +<P> +Meanwhile a personal animus had sprung up against that general because +of a mild stroke of justice on his part against a singularly proud man. +</P> + +<P> +It seems that the personnel of Custer's former expedition to the +Yellowstone included two civilians, a Dr. Honzinger and a Mr. Baliran. +These men were not, of course, subject to the full rigor of military +discipline, and so were accustomed to depart from, and return to, the +main line of march at will. When they did not reappear in due time +from one of these little trips, search was made; and they were found +killed with arrows. Dr. Honzinger's skull was crushed in, but neither +man was scalped, for the doctor was bald and the other wore his hair +clipped short. Some time later, knowledge of the murderer's identity +came to light, through information stumbled upon by one of Custer's own +scouts. +</P> + +<P> +At that period, rations and ammunition were distributed regularly at +the various agencies. In return the savages promised to be good +Indians and to submit to the white men's laws. This promise they kept +faithfully enough, but according to their own standards. At the times +of distribution, when inevitably a great many of the Indians were +gathered together, the occasion was signalized by feasting and ghost +dances. The latter are uncouth exhibitions enough, consisting +decoratively of much cheap body-paint, many eagle feathers, and trashy +jewelry; musically of most unmusical pounding and screaming; and +physically of a crouching posture and a solemnly bounding progression +from one foot to the other around a circle. They are accompanied by a +recital of valorous deeds. +</P> + +<P> +Such a dance was organized at the Standing Rock Agency, below Fort +Lincoln, in the winter of 1875. As usual, besides the gathering of old +warriors and squaws, assembled to watch the dance, the audience +included a number of white men, present on business or pleasure. Among +them was Charley Reynolds, one of Custer's scouts. This man stood +exchanging idle comment and chaff with another scout, and throwing an +occasional glance in the direction of the vortex of dancers, swirling +about in gaudy confusion, like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. Suddenly +he closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward at keen attention. +He had caught a few words that interested him. +</P> + +<P> +The dancers had reached the point of frenzy. They leaped forward with +solemnity still, but it was a quivering solemnity held in leash. Their +bodies were tense, and the trailing knives and hatchets trembled with +nervous force. Each warrior, nostrils distended and eyes flashing, was +declaiming his deeds with an ecstasy that bordered on madness, rolling +out tale after tale of murder, theft of horses—the only sort of theft +countenanced by the Indian code—and fortitude under suffering. +Noticeable among these dancers was a young warrior painted in the +manner of the Uncpapa Sioux. He was of magnificent physique and +striking countenance, but the most remarkable feature of his appearance +was a huge, ragged scar across the muscles of his back. When the scout +looked toward him, he was shaking in the air the chain of a watch, and +declaiming at the top of his voice in the Sioux language. +</P> + +<P> +"And he was great in body," he chanted, "and he fell, and I killed him +with a stone, and the other fled, and I shot him, and so they died! I +killed them! I am a great warrior, for I killed two white men, and +these things are tokens that I speak the truth!" +</P> + +<P> +He rattled the chain, and went through a vivid pantomime of the slaying +of the two white men. Charley Reynolds recognized the trinket as +belonging to Dr. Honzinger. +</P> + +<P> +The young warrior was called Rain-in-the-Face, and he was at that time +esteemed as the bravest of the northern Sioux. Others, such as Crazy +Horse or Sitting Bull, might have been greater in generalship, but +neither had the Uncpapa youth's reputation for sheer personal bravery. +In the sun dance he had hung for four hours. The incisions behind the +great muscles of the back, through which the rope was threaded, had +been cut too deep, and the flesh failed to give way when +Rain-in-the-Face was suspended. For some time he hung in midair, his +whole weight depending from the loops of torn muscles, the blood +streaming over his limbs, and the hot sun beating down upon him. Then +the chiefs attempted to cut him down, but Rain-in-the-Face refused to +permit it. Four hours later the flesh rent away from his bones, and he +fell. That day made him the idol of the Sioux nation. +</P> + +<P> +Charley Reynolds lost no time in informing Custer of his discovery, for +the policy of the period was to punish as many culprits as possible, in +order that the whites might establish, as soon as might be, a moral as +well as military supremacy over the turbulent savages. The commander +resolved to arrest Rain-in-the-Face. To that end he detailed a hundred +men under Captain Yates. +</P> + +<P> +Contrary to what one unused to the Indian character might expect, no +difficulty was anticipated in finding the culprit. To be sure, the +plains were broad and the hiding places many, but Rain-in-the-Face was +at once an agency Indian and a reckless man. He drew his rations and +he drew them boldly. With his blanket wrapped about him and his rifle +peeping from its folds across his left arm, he stalked here and there +among the agency's few buildings. Any distribution day at the +reservation would discover him there. +</P> + +<P> +But, on the other hand, the captain was not at all sure of being able +to arrest him when found. A hundred men would stand but small chance +in a fight with six hundred well-armed savages; whereas the appearance +of a larger expedition would serve merely to frighten every agency +Indian out into the wilds. The situation was not encouraging. How not +to alarm the quarry, and how still to possess strength enough to seize +it, was the problem that confronted Captain Yates. +</P> + +<P> +His first move may seem, when cursorily examined, most unwise. He +detailed a lieutenant and forty of his little command, whose orders +were to proceed farther down the river, ostensibly for the purpose of +making inquiries concerning three Osage Indians wanted for murder. +Thus his available force was reduced to sixty, and with that handful he +intended to capture and take away, in the face of ten times the number, +one of the most popular fighting men of the Sioux nation. +</P> + +<P> +But, as a matter of fact, in so dividing his forces the captain was +correct in his tactics. He realized that surprise was his only +effective weapon, and his ruse made surprise certain by lulling any +suspicion as to the object of the expedition. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived at the agency, a cursory examination disclosed the fact that +Rain-in-the-Face was not among the groups of Indians camped on the +prairie. He must, therefore, be inside the agency building itself. +Captain Yates distributed his men near the little structure, and +Colonel Tom Custer went inside with half a dozen soldiers. +</P> + +<P> +The room was found to be full of blanketed Sioux warriors, muffled to +the eyes, indistinguishable in the half light, except as +eagle-feathered silhouettes. Greetings were exchanged, pipes filled, +and a grave silence fell on the little group. The minutes passed, but +no one moved. The atmosphere was dense with smoke, and still the +parties watched each other—the whites with veiled eagerness, the +Indians with unsuspicious stolidity. Finally the agent piled dry wood +on the fire, and the blaze leaped up the chimney. The heat became +oppressive, so after a moment the warrior nearest the fireplace threw +back the blanket from his shoulders. It was Rain-in-the-Face himself. +</P> + +<P> +On this rather dramatic disclosure, one of the troopers uttered an +exclamation. The Indian, always suspicious, at once leaped back and +cocked his rifle; but before he could raise the piece or pull the +trigger, Colonel Custer wound his arms around him from behind. The +other Indians rushed from the room. +</P> + +<P> +The captive's hands were tied as rapidly as possible, but by the time +he was brought to the door, the Indians were running angrily from all +directions toward the building. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Yates had succeeded in intimidating the first comers by a show +of force, but he was soon outnumbered and a struggle seemed imminent. +</P> + +<P> +However, an old chieftain began to declaim in the violent, high-pitched +monotone so much affected by Indian orators. This delay afforded the +soldier a much needed respite, but it tended also to concerted action +later. The white man seized his opportunity. Through the interpreter +he called upon the chiefs to stand forward for a parley. +</P> + +<P> +"My brothers will hear me," said the interpreter for him, "because it +is right, for they wear the Great Father's blankets and his food is in +their bellies. This young warrior is brave and his enemies are as the +feeble wind to him. But his eye became blinded. He thought he saw +before him the Pawnees, the enemies of his people; but they were old +men of my race. He killed those old men, and now the Great Father +would know why. He must tell the Great Father of his blindness. +Therefore it is well that he should go. +</P> + +<P> +"So restrain your young men and I will restrain mine. It might be that +your young men would kill many of mine; and it might be that my young +men would kill many of yours. But why kill them? It is useless, for +first of all, by my hand, this young warrior would die." +</P> + +<P> +At the advance of the chiefs, the Sioux warriors had suddenly, from the +wildest confusion, calmed to the deepest attention. They stood +motionless against the white background of the snow, only their fierce +eyes rolling from the speaker to their own chiefs and back again. One +of the latter replied— +</P> + +<P> +"It is not well to talk so," he said brusquely. "The words of my +brother are idle words and mean nothing. My young men are many, and +yours are few; yet shall your young men go unharmed if you give to us +our warrior." +</P> + +<P> +He swept his blanket over his shoulder with a sudden gesture, and +scowled. For answer Captain Yates drew from its holster his army +revolver and presented it at Rain-in-the-Face's breast. The Sioux +looked far away beyond the horizon, but his nostrils dilated. +</P> + +<P> +"It is well," said the chief hastily, "for my brother's words are words +of wisdom. Take <I>two</I> warriors to the Great Father, but leave us this +young man, that he may teach us that blindness is not wise." +</P> + +<P> +In answer to his gesture two Indian youths stepped forward, proud of +the distinction. +</P> + +<P> +"See," went on the chief, "these shall go with your young men, and all +will be well." +</P> + +<P> +Yates lowered his pistol, and turned. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell him," he said to the interpreter, "that this man goes with us. +If I see the muzzle of a rifle, I'll shoot him dead." +</P> + +<P> +The savages listened gravely. Their first burst of rage had passed, +and, as always with their race, they were loath to engage in a stand-up +fight in cold blood. The Indian is brave enough, but he likes to be +brave in his own way. The chief turned and waved his hand. Ten +minutes later bands of savages were speeding swiftly away in all +directions, and the agency was entirely deserted. +</P> + +<P> +The little command shortly after set out on its return trip. Yates +fully expected to be attacked before he rejoined his chief; but +although many savages were at various times visible, hurrying by, the +troops arrived at Fort Lincoln in due course, and Custer stood face to +face with his future slayer. +</P> + +<P> +There is little need to repeat here the details of Rain-in-the-Face's +captivity. It is interesting, but not of the story. He received +visits from great warriors representing various tribes of the Sioux +nation—Brulé, Yankton, Teton, Ogallala—all uniting to honor him. To +the surprise of the few white spectators, these visitors kissed the +young captive on the cheek, a mark of respect and affection almost +unheard of among this savage people. Two of the younger warriors asked +and received permission to share his captivity for a time. +Rain-in-the-Face bore the imprisonment well; was docile, friendly, +apparently happy. He had many talks with General Custer, and came to +be well liked. +</P> + +<P> +But he had much leisure for thought, and he was a proud man. +</P> + +<P> +After some months, two white men, grain thieves, were placed in the +same guard house. Being enterprising pioneers, they promptly sawed a +hole and escaped. Rain-in-the-Face availed himself of the opening. +</P> + +<P> +Once under the open sky, he adjusted his moccasins and struck boldly +across the prairie for the West. Rain-in-the-Face was no longer an +agency Indian, but a hostile. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE BROTHER OF GODS +</H4> + +<P> +Rain-in-the-face had no very definite idea of where he should go. The +main and pressing need was to put a certain distance between himself +and his pursuers as rapidly as possible. +</P> + +<P> +To this end, he pushed diligently north-west in a bee line. At first +he covered his trail skilfully, so that Custer's men would have to +guess his direction of flight as any one of the three hundred and sixty +degrees of the complete circle. After a little, this was unnecessary. +It became desirable to fall in with a camp of the Sioux, in order that +he might be directed to his own tribe of that people, the Uncpapa. +</P> + +<P> +But as day followed day, Rain-in-the-Face owned himself puzzled. In +the space of time that had elapsed since his escape, he should have +encountered a dozen bands, for he was intimately acquainted with the +country and with the Indian habit of life. The village sites were +deserted, the plains were empty. The Indian did not know of the two +expeditions, commanded respectively by Crook and Terry, which, the one +from the south and the other from the north, were converging at the Big +Horn; nor that in that district nearly every plains Indian had +encamped, either openly allied with Sitting Bull, or near enough to +become so should such a move seem expedient. +</P> + +<P> +So for a week he subsisted alone as only an Indian can. +</P> + +<P> +Let loose a tired pony at night on the plains, and in the morning he +will turn up well fed and full of vigor. It is the same with a savage. +He knows expedients for getting food, for preparing it, for combating +thirst, for sleeping in bad weather with some degree of comfort, which +a white man never acquires without a long and hazardous apprenticeship. +It is a case of the survival of the fittest; and the Indian always +survives. +</P> + +<P> +Toward the end of the week, Rain-in-the-Face drew near the low hills of +the Cheyenne River, in good condition, except that his moccasins were +nearly worn out. Then he became aware of a camp. As beseemed a good +warrior, he scouted carefully until he had satisfied himself that the +lodges were those of people of his own nation. Then he allowed himself +to be captured by the herd boys and escorted to Lone Wolf, the chief of +the band. +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf had been easily persuaded by Lafond that it was not good +policy to join Sitting Bull. The tribe was well fed and rich. It +could gain nothing by such a war, and could lose much. Now was the +time to prepare against the coming winter; now, in the early summer, +when the energy of the band was at its flood. War it had enjoyed but +recently with the Pawnees; so the hearts of the young men were big with +valor. Let them equally enjoy the chase, the other branch of a brave's +education. +</P> + +<P> +These, and a hundred like reasons, Lafond had urged so plausibly that +the chief had come, without difficulty, to his way of thinking. After +all, why not at least await the plum season, and the great gathering of +prairie chickens which was invariably consequent on the ripening of the +fruit? With that plan in view, the warrior had moved his band and all +its household goods to the banks of the Cheyenne, where he settled down +peaceably to a season of plenty. There Rain-in-the-Face found him. +</P> + +<P> +The camp had been pitched, after the usual rambling manner, in a broad +grass park of sandy subsoil, below hills on which wandered the ponies +in times of safety, or lurked the sentinels in time of danger. Above +the lodges, like blazoned arms, were suspended the spears and shields +of the warriors, and before the open flap of each the owner could be +seen sprawled in dignified idleness among his favorite squaws. +Children sat grave and silent near at hand, or whirled in mimic and +noisy warfare farther out over the prairie. Dogs skulked here and +there. Kettles above shallow fire holes bubbled and steamed. About +over the ground was strewn the indescribable litter of a long-used +camp. Through the early summer air rose shrill laughter, the sounds of +good-natured chaff, the yelp of dogs and the hum of lower conversation; +for, no matter how shy or stoical an Indian may seem before strangers, +he is sociable enough among his own people. Near the centre of the +village stood the lodge of Lone Wolf. At his hand sat Michaïl Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed had in the past two years reverted almost to the type of +his more savage parent. His hair was long and worn loose, after the +Sioux fashion. The upper part of his body was naked. About his neck +hung a string of bears' claws. Paint streaked his countenance. White +buckskin leggings, ornamented with beads, covered his legs. Only the +shifty character of his eye and a certain finer modelling of the bold +lines of his face differentiated him from the full-blooded Sioux at his +side. The two were conversing in the Sioux language. +</P> + +<P> +To them the boys brought their stranger. From various directions +squaws and children sidled nearer for a look. The warriors, disdaining +such an exhibition of womanish curiosity, remained placidly smoking in +the sunshine. Near at hand the sounds of laughter and of conversation +died, and the solemnity of ceremony fell. +</P> + +<P> +As he approached, the stranger raised his right hand, palm forward, in +token of peace, and then drew the edge of the same hand across his +throat from left to right. This latter is the "sign" of the Sioux, and +thus Lone Wolf was made aware that he received one of his own nation. +Lone Wolf inclined slightly, and raised his hand with the peace +gesture. The three then sat and the inevitable pipe was produced. +</P> + +<P> +Thus Rain-in-the-Face was received with all ceremony. Later, the first +dip into the kettle of boiling meat was conceded him, and in that +manner he was made free of Lone Wolf's lodge. No question was asked as +to his identity, and he vouchsafed no information; that would come +later, when the warriors gathered for a formal powwow. +</P> + +<P> +And in the meantime, Michaïl Lafond's roving French eyes took in every +detail of the stranger's appearance, and his keen French mind drew its +own conclusions. Near the close of the afternoon, he left his seat and +addressed the stranger. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother knows ponies," said he. "Will he look upon one of mine?" +</P> + +<P> +It was equivalent to an invitation to call. The savage arose and +stalked by the half-breed's side in the direction of Lafond's fine +lodge of whitened skins. As they approached, two young squaws glided +away. Lafond spoke a word to one of them, and a moment later the boys +of the camp raced eagerly in the direction of the band of ponies on the +hill. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-066"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-066.jpg" ALT="THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="610" HEIGHT="504"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 610px"> +THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The lodge of Michaïl Lafond stood just beyond the village proper and on +a slight elevation. The entire camp lay spread out before it, a +panorama to be seized by a single sweep of the eye. +</P> + +<P> +The savage paused for a moment before entering the doorway, and looked +about him with a little envy. Never had he visited a band so well +supplied with ponies, so efficiently armed, so wealthy in robes and +lodges and kettles and all the other articles of Indian wealth which go +to make up prosperity. Lafond watched him closely. The Indian turned +inside the doorway, and sat down on a heavily furred buffalo skin near +the entrance. In the background wallowed a dim confusion of skins, +robes, and utensils. Lafond placed himself beside his guest and the +pipe was lighted. +</P> + +<P> +The stir following the stranger's arrival had lulled. The women and +children, having satisfied their curiosity as to his personal +appearance, returned to their wonted occupations, so that once again +the mingled noises of the camp rose from the little valley. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +In a moment the young squaw led up a pony. The animal was fine above +the average. Its limbs were deer-like in delicacy, its nostrils were +wide, its neck slender and tapering—quite in contrast to the ordinary +Indian pony's clumsiness in this respect—and, above all, it was marked +black and white in the <I>pinto</I> fashion. This last is considered to +indicate superior spirit and is much prized. The woman had twisted +pieces of bright-colored cloth and eagle feathers into the mane and +tail. +</P> + +<P> +At the sight of so beautiful an animal, the stranger exclaimed in +delight. +</P> + +<P> +"It pleases my brother?" inquired Lafond politely. "It is his." +</P> + +<P> +The squaw led the beast forward, touching the young warrior's hand with +the end of the halter in token of proprietorship. Lafond rose and +closed the tent flap. The noises of the camp were at once muffled, and +twilight fell. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother is a great warrior," he began after a moment, "yet he has +need of ponies, for he comes on foot and his moccasins are worn." +</P> + +<P> +The stranger, impassive but watchful, made no answer. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother has come far?" went on Lafond cunningly. +</P> + +<P> +"Far," repeated the youth politely. +</P> + +<P> +"His eyes have seen the waters of the Great River?" +</P> + +<P> +The savage bowed. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps his pony was lost there?" +</P> + +<P> +"It may be." +</P> + +<P> +"The sight of the white man frightened him and he was drowned?" +</P> + +<P> +The Indian's eyes flashed. +</P> + +<P> +"It may be so." +</P> + +<P> +"On his back my brother bears great scars," said Lafond suddenly after +a short pause; "but they are the scars of a brave man. He bears other +scars on his face; they are the scars of shame." +</P> + +<P> +He ceased abruptly at the stranger's fierce ejaculation. The Indian +seemed about to spring on him. +</P> + +<P> +"But," the half-breed went on in haste, "my brother will destroy the +shame, and the scars will go." He leaned forward and touched the +savage lightly on his bare shoulder. "They are the scars from the +white man's prison," he said. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment the stranger's face was a study in livid hate. Then all +expression died from it, leaving it stolid as before. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed smoked in silence. His surmises had been correct. This +was indeed the young hero of the sun dance, the news of whose +imprisonment had, by chance, come to his ears but a short time before. +He considered. Finally, he turned to his guest once more. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother has travelled many miles," he said. "Tell me, has he seen +the lodges of his people?" +</P> + +<P> +"The prairies have been waste." +</P> + +<P> +"I will tell you why. The great white war chief has gone with his +young men beyond Pah-sap-pah. There the warriors will strike him and +destroy him. My brother's people are there." +</P> + +<P> +The hate came back into the Indian's face with a flash. He fingered +the haft of a knife that lay near his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I will join my people," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"And aid them. It is well. But will my brother go alone and without +arms?" +</P> + +<P> +"What would you?" replied the Indian bitterly. "Am I a chief that I +should go attended? Do arrows and rifles grow on the prairies?" +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed craftily permitted another impressive but momentary +silence to fall. +</P> + +<P> +"But if my brother were to ride with a hundred fighting men; on his own +pony; with a rifle in his hand—would not that be more in accord with +his dignity as a brave warrior?" he suggested suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are a hundred such?" +</P> + +<P> +Lafond arose and pulled aside the flap of the tent. The camp lay in +the half glow as a flat picture, and its noise burst in through the +open doorway like a blare of music. The Indian's expressive eyes +flashed comprehension. +</P> + +<P> +"And if they go?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I, too, have enemies," replied Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +Rain-in-the-Face smoked meditatively. If this man held the power to +sway thus the policy of the camp, why did he not use it to crush the +enemies of whom he had spoken? What added force could a young, unarmed +stranger bring him that would compensate for the trouble and expense to +which he was putting himself? +</P> + +<P> +Lafond saw the hesitation and dreaded aright. +</P> + +<P> +"My enemies dwell in Pah-sap-pah," said he simply. +</P> + +<P> +In that sentence he exposed the weakness of his position. Pah-sap-pah +was sacred, so sacred that for many years miners fled to it as to a +sanctuary, certain that once within its dark border pursuit would +cease. Hunts in it were undertaken only at certain times of the year, +and under peculiar auspices. War died into peace when it dashed +against those sombre cliffs. The winds in the trees were voices of +Soulless Ones, bewailing always their fate; the frown of sun-red +Harney—or the peak afterward known under that name—was instinct with +the brooding wrath of some great manitou, who slept lightly only when +his children disturbed him not. Even the powerful influence of Michaïl +Lafond had failed to induce Lone Wolf to enter the Black Hills on an +errand of murder. +</P> + +<P> +But the name of Rain-in-the-Face was one to conjure with in just such +matters as these. He was not only a brave man and a great warrior, but +he was favored of the gods. In the belief of the Sioux nation, his +wonderful endurance in the sun dance was at once evidence and warranty +of it. Without divine favor he could not have endured so long; +enduring so long had brought to him great abundance of divine favor. +So, without actually professing to be a medicine man, he had freely +accorded to him all the confidence a member of the priestcraft usually +enjoys. If Lafond could induce Rain-in-the-Face to lead, the warriors +of the band would follow blindly, even into Pah-sap-pah itself. +</P> + +<P> +The Indian started as he caught the import of Lafond's words. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother has looked upon the face of the angry Manitou," went on +Lafond eagerly; "and he has not been afraid. He has danced the dance +of death, and the great Manitou has stretched out his hand and held him +up. My brother is favored of the Great Spirit, and he is not afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"It is Pah-sap-pah," replied the Indian sombrely. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is Pah-sap-pah, and Pah-sap-pah is sacred. In Pah-sap-pah are +two men, and they go here and there breaking her rocks, cutting her +trees, defiling her streams. They profane the spirits. On the clouds +of the mountain Gitche Manitou frowns because his children permit it. +'Why comes not one to take these away?' he says. 'My children have +forgotten me.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Gitche Manitou is great," said Rain-in-the-Face thoughtfully. "Why +does he not destroy his enemies?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gitche Manitou destroys through his chosen. Destroy thou, and it will +be Gitche Manitou who destroys through thy hand." +</P> + +<P> +The wily half-breed had caught this doctrine of the Jesuit in his old +north country home, and his crafty use of it impressed its force +strongly on the savage's mind. Lafond proceeded— +</P> + +<P> +"And who more fitted than Rain-in-the-Face?" +</P> + +<P> +The Indian glanced at him with new respect at this knowledge of his +name. +</P> + +<P> +"For he stands near to the Great Spirit, and the warriors will follow +him." +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed paused, pretending to consider the difficulties. +</P> + +<P> +"The men are but two and there is a woman. There are here a hundred +warriors, and each warrior has a gun and much powder. When the profane +ones have been destroyed, then Rain-in-the-Face will turn northward and +enter the camp of Sitting Bull at the head of many fighting men. It +little beseems so great a warrior of the Uncpapas to go begging a rifle +from the Tetons!" +</P> + +<P> +The mind of Rain-in-the-Face, thus relieved of some degree of its +superstitious fear, lay fully open to this last appeal to his pride. +He picked up the pipe and puffed stolidly on it twice. +</P> + +<P> +"The enemies of my brother shall die," said he. +</P> + +<P> +Before the formal conference of that evening, Michaïl Lafond had +arranged to carry out his side of the bargain. He had done this very +simply. After the conversation in the lodge he had gone to Lone Wolf. +</P> + +<P> +"The stranger is Rain-in-the-Face, of the Uncpapas," said he. "He is +pleased with our warriors and he wishes to lead them against the great +white war chief near the Big Horn. There are also strangers in +Pah-sap-pah whom it is the will of Gitche Manitou that Rain-in-the-Face +should destroy, and he desires your help." +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf was delighted. That so famous a warrior should choose his +band was honor enough to repay any effort. +</P> + +<P> +In all this transaction, the offices of Michaïl Lafond could easily +have been dispensed with. If Lone Wolf had gone to Rain-in-the-Face +and said, "Behold, here are my young men. Lead them," the latter would +have accepted the tender with joy. If, on the other hand, the stranger +had merely announced his identity to Lone Wolf, that chieftain would +gladly have furnished him with everything he needed. But each was in +the dark as to one fact, of which Lafond had knowledge. +Rain-in-the-Face did not suspect how his imprisonment had increased his +importance, nor did he know that the deep content which brooded over +Lone Wolf's camp was only apparent, and had been carefully fostered by +Lafond. Nor did Lone Wolf recognize Rain-in-the-Face, nor realize how +anxious the youth was for an escort to uphold his pride. It was by +seeing little things of this sort, and acting upon them, that the +half-breed had gained so much influence. +</P> + +<P> +Four days later, Lone Wolf's camp swept northwestward toward the Big +Horn Mountain. On the 25th of June, Rain-in-the-Face confronted +General Custer, on a knoll near the river of the Little Big Horn. A +great battle was all but over, and the few remaining troopers, their +last cartridges gone, were fighting desperately with sabres. +</P> + +<P> +The savage shot the white man through the heart. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE PRICE OF A CLAIM +</H4> + +<P> +All through this time of dread and danger, of plot and counterplot and +intrigue, of brooding war and half-awakened pillage, the doctor went on +peacefully collecting his funny little statistics, utterly oblivious to +everything but their accumulation and arrangement. Every morning of +the warmer months he went out into the hills for the day. There he +would grub about among his ledges and leads, pecking away at the rocks +with his little hand pick, filling his canvas bags, jotting down notes +and statistics in his notebook. +</P> + +<P> +During its progress he was blind to everything but his work. One day, +as he walked along the top of a ridge, a huge bear rose up in his path. +The doctor politely lifted his hat and passed to one side. The decline +of the sun alone he noticed. When the shadow of Harney crept out to +him he turned toward home. As he neared the log cabin his placid eyes +fairly beamed through his spectacles. When he came in sight of it he +ran forward, his specimen bags swinging heavily against his legs, +caught up the child stumbling to meet him and carried her, laughing and +struggling, to the woman in the doorway. Then they had supper all +together—bacon, or perhaps game, with vegetables from the garden, and +corn bread. Occasionally they had white bread and coffee, and always +fresh water from the cold mountain creek. After supper the doctor went +outdoors to arrange his specimens and plot out his notes as long as the +daylight lasted. His wife moved about inside softly. After a time she +brought out the little girl in her nightdress to be kissed. So the +twilight neared, and the long day was done. +</P> + +<P> +As the yellow glow crept down, she came outdoors too, and sat pensively +looking over the peaks of the lower mountains to the distant Cheyenne +and the prairies. Beyond them was the East. There were cities and +books and other women and the beat of human life in the air. Here was +a still, lonely grandeur that even the wind in the pines did not +relieve. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor finally had to put aside his work for lack of light, and sat +at her feet leaning against the logs of the cabin. She looked down on +his little figure, his round shoulders, his forehead even now abstract +and wrinkled with speculation, his kindly blue eyes, his sensitive +mouth, and then she softly reached out and took his hand. The two sat +there until the moon rose over the Bad Lands. Then they went inside. +In moments such as this the woman lived. +</P> + +<P> +In winter time the doctor sat near the fireplace, writing by the +candlelight on his great book. She was in the shadow, looking at him +with tenderness, smiling wearily at the eager quivering of his chin, +and rocking gently back and forth. The little girl played demurely on +the floor within the circle of firelight, her curls falling down on her +forehead. She piled up her blocks, and occasionally, as one would +fall, she would look up in deprecation of her mother's hush. The +golden heads of the mother and child were like sunshine before the dark +walls of the cabin. Against them the firelight gleamed. Outside, the +thin, light snow drifted fitfully by the pane. The doctor wrote. The +woman watched in patience. The child played. +</P> + +<P> +As spring came on, the doctor got out into the hills again. +</P> + +<P> +One day he came back and found the woman murdered and the child gone. +The cabin was ransacked from one end to the other, but no attempt had +been made to fire it. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor put his specimen bags methodically in their places, and then +sat down by his dead wife. +</P> + +<P> +At evening some passing miners found him there holding her hand. With +some difficulty, and by the exercise of a gentle force, they persuaded +him to rise, after which they tenderly laid the body on a couch, +concealing as best they might the red tonsure where the scalp had been. +They set the cabin in order and cooked supper from the provisions in +their wagon. The doctor ate and drank in silence, making no sign when +the men spoke to him. +</P> + +<P> +After supper he went outside and began to arrange his specimens. When +darkness fell he came in, stood undecided for a moment, and then lay +down on a bear-skin, Jim's gift, and slept. +</P> + +<P> +The men looked at one another in a puzzled way, conversing in low +tones. Soon they too rolled themselves up and went to sleep on the +floor. +</P> + +<P> +Early in the morning Jim Buckley came down the gulch with part of a +deer. The men told him the news hurriedly, between mouthfuls of +coffee. Jim looked at the dead woman with a hardening of the mouth and +a softening of the eyes; then he went out and for the first time took +the doctor's hand. +</P> + +<P> +When they had finished breakfast, the men made a rough bier of willow +branches plaited, on which they gently laid the body. Two went down to +the soft earth by the creek bottom and began to dig. The others +followed with their burden, which they laid beside the growing +excavation, and then stood with bared heads, waiting for the diggers. +The doctor would not come. After a little persuasion they left him +sitting on the ground, leaning against the logs of the cabin, looking +out over the bluffs of the Cheyenne to the east. +</P> + +<P> +The men in the trench worked rapidly and skilfully, one loosening the +gravel with his pick, the other shovelling it out on the grass. +Suddenly the latter stopped in the act of tossing a shovelful. He +pushed his stubby forefinger in among the gravel for a moment and drew +out an irregular bit of metal. It was gold. +</P> + +<P> +They buried the young wife elsewhere, and staked out the claim, and +others, lying along the creek. +</P> + +<P> +So Prue slept quietly at last. Her little life was drab-colored in +spite of the lights of adventure and drama that had played over it. It +contained a great love and a great sacrifice. So little of the gold +would have made her happy, and yet all the wealth of these new placers +could not have saved her at the last! +</P> + +<P> +A rider dashed up to them at the cabin, bringing news of the outbreak. +It was directed to the towns of the North, and had only brushed Spanish +Gulch on its destroying way. The men camped on the site of the new +placer. They built cradles and pumped water down from Spanish Creek, +so that in a little time the gulch contained quite a town. The first +discovery is known as the Doctor's Claim, and so you can find it +recorded in the records of Pennington County to-day. It turned out to +be very rich. +</P> + +<P> +And as for the doctor—he died. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE +</H4> + +<P> +The day following the conference, Lone Wolf struck camp. The squaws +quickly removed and rolled into convenient bundles the skin coverings +of the tepees. The poles of the latter were strapped on each side of +the ponies in such a manner that, their ends dragging on the ground, a +sort of litter was formed for the transportation of the household goods +and the younger children. Before the sun was an hour high, the caravan +was under way. +</P> + +<P> +From this, the South Fork of the Cheyenne, the main band, under Lone +Wolf, were to push directly through to the Big Horn. Lafond, +Rain-in-the-Face, and the warriors detailed for the expedition were to +carry out the adventure of Pah-sap-pah to the half-breed's +satisfaction, and were then to rejoin the main body as soon as possible. +</P> + +<P> +The smaller band cut in to the Black Hills shortly after daybreak one +morning. It rode up Spanish Gulch a little before noon. +</P> + +<P> +Most of these warriors had never before entered the dark limits of +Pah-sap-pah. They were plainly in awe of its frowning cliffs and +rustling pines. They rode close together, whispering uneasily. Even +Rain-in-the-Face failed to reassure them. Why should he? He was a +little afraid himself. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond's knowledge of the topography of the place was excellent. He +had visited it several times. He had watched the doctor, step by step, +throughout a long day of geological searching. He knew Jim Buckley's +dwelling, where he worked, what hours he kept, and just how late he sat +up at night. Innumerable times he had viewed the doctor, Prue, and the +scout through the buck-horn sights of his long rifle; yet he had never +been even tempted to pull the trigger. Why? Because he was a Latin, +and so theatrical effects were dear to him; because he was an Indian, +and so revenge with him seemed to lie not so much in the mere +infliction of injury as in the victim's realization that he was being +come up with. Lafond not only wanted the doctor and his companions to +be killed, but he wanted them to know why they were killed, and by +whom. It was finer to be able thus to do the thing with all the stage +settings. The dramatic instinct was part of the barbaric quality of +his nature, like a love for red. +</P> + +<P> +So Lafond had let slip innumerable opportunities of picking off his +victims single-handed, merely to gain the local knowledge necessary to +a final <I>coup de théâtre</I>. Consequently, he knew where the cabin was +situated, and quickly scouted the state of affairs. The coast was +clear. He gave the required signal; the savages silently approached on +foot, and they entered the little house together. +</P> + +<P> +Now at this time of year, in the Black Hills, there occurs a daily +meteorological phenomenon of a rather peculiar character. The hot air +from the prairies sweeps over from the Missouri River, crossing a +number of lesser streams in its passage, until it strikes the slope of +the hills. There it is deflected upward, gradually becoming colder as +the elevation rises, until, at the barrier of Harney, it gathers in +rain clouds. These are at first mere wisps of down, streaming in +ragged ribbons from the peak; but with incredible rapidity they gain in +density and extent, until they spread over a considerable area of the +surrounding country. Then they empty themselves in a terrific deluge +of water and hail, accompanied by thunderclaps so reverberant that they +seem to arise from the rending of the hills themselves. After this +short crisis, the dismembered clouds float out over the prairie and are +dissipated in the hot air, even before they reach the first white +turrets of the Bad Lands. +</P> + +<P> +So rapidly does the storm gather and break, that there is but a short +half hour between the morning and the afternoon clearness of the skies. +To those who have never experienced this phenomenon, it is startling in +the extreme; to those who have, it is a matter of seeking temporary +shelter until the disturbance blows over. In any case, the first +indications are but scant warning. +</P> + +<P> +By the time the little band of Indians had reached the doctor's cabin, +the first wisps of cloud were clinging to Harney. While they were in +the house, the blackness gathered and loomed and darkened until the sun +was obscured and the western hills lost themselves in rain. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor was in the hills. Prue was making the bed in the little +bedroom, and little Miss Prue was asleep on a rug in one corner of the +larger apartment. The savages stole in with noiseless, moccasined feet +behind the stooping woman. Lafond, forgetting in his excitement +everything but the lust of killing, stabbed her deeply twice in the +broad of the back. She fell forward on the bed without a murmur, and +the murderer, seizing the knob of her hair, circled her brow with his +knife's edge, and ripped loose the scalp. Then they all glided back +into the other room. +</P> + +<P> +Three of the savages took from the wood box near the crude fireplace +some of the dried kindling with which Jim Buckley had supplied the +family, and began to build a little wigwam-shaped pyramid against the +side of the wall. Others moved about furtively, prying here and there +for possible plunder. They preserved absolute silence, for the +superstitious terror of the place was working on them, and they had +begun to experience that panic-like tremor which seems to create an +invisible clutch ready to seize from behind. +</P> + +<P> +Even the encouraging presence of Rain-in-the-Face was not potent enough +to prevent this. Out on the plains the personality of the man had +loomed large, but here the legend was greater than he. The warriors +felt the imminence of the frowning, brooding manitou of Harney; they +almost heard the moaned syllables of the Soulless Ones' complaint. +Their movements were those of timid mice, advancing a little, +hesitating much, ready to flee in panic. +</P> + +<P> +Not so Lafond. He strode roughly over to the corner where the child +lay. In his mind, with new vividness, burned that old picture of his +humiliation. He began to realize, now that the patient repression of +his hate was over, how potent it had been. Alfred and Billy Knapp were +out of his reach for the present, but here were the others ready to his +hand. He seized little Prue by the hair of her head. +</P> + +<P> +The child, thus suddenly awakened, screamed violently, shriek upon +shriek, as her terror became more fully conscious of the savage and his +bloody knife. About the room the warriors paused nervously. +Accustomed enough to screams of this sort, they were now dominated by +superstition and were thrown off their wonted balance. +</P> + +<P> +And then a fearful thing occurred. Before their eyes, in the open +door, groped and staggered the woman Lafond had stabbed but a moment +before. From the red raw surface of her scalp blood streamed—streamed +over the remaining fringe of her hair, matting it down; streamed down +into her eyes, blinding them; over her drawn countenance; over the +dabbled, sticky, clinging fabric of her garment, reddened still more by +the pulsing flood from the two great wounds in her body. Her breast +heaved painfully, the breath coming and going with a strange bubbling +gurgle. Her face was turned upward almost to the ceiling above in the +agony of her endeavor. Her little hands, become waxen, clutched and +unclutched the side of the door. The child screamed yet again, +mercifully hidden from this awful sight by the intervention of Lafond's +body. The woman made a supreme effort to advance, plunged forward, and +rolled over and over on the cabin floor. +</P> + +<P> +At the same instant, with a shriek of wind and a roar of rain, the +voice of the thunder spoke. +</P> + +<P> +The savages, who had watched with strained eyes this resurrection from +the dead, yelled in an ecstasy of superstitious terror and rushed for +the door. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond, utterly unmoved, called to them in Indian and swore at them in +French, but they were gone. He hesitated for a moment in evident +indecision as to what should be done next. Then he rapidly bundled the +little girl in a blanket and threw her across his shoulder. As he +hurried to the door, he paused for a moment over the motionless heap of +blood and rags on the floor, coolly thrusting his knife again and again +into the unresisting flesh. +</P> + +<P> +He caught the fugitives only below the cañon of Iron Creek. They had +made no pause until well out of the hills, and were still shaking with +superstitious dread. Even Rain-in-the-Face, bold and self-confident as +he was, had yielded to the panic; nor could the persuasions, threats or +ridicule of the half-breed induce them to return. +</P> + +<P> +For a time Lafond was of two minds as to his own course in the matter. +Should he leave things as they were for the present or should he return +alone to complete the work? Finally he decided on the former. The +Gallic love of the spectacular again intervened; besides, he was +possessed of a certain large feeling that the world was not wide enough +to save his victims from him when he should judge the time fit. He +found much joy in gloating over what he imagined the two men would say, +do, and think when they returned to the cabin. And he was a good deal +of a savage. He looked forward with fierce delight to the great battle +which he foresaw would soon take place between Sitting Bull and his +white enemies. So he rode on with the little band of warriors to +overtake Lone Wolf. +</P> + +<P> +The savages plainly could not understand his encumbering himself with +the child. The custom had always been to seize such a victim by the +ankles, whirl it once about the head to get a good swing, and then to +dash its skull violently against a bowlder. They saw no reason why the +rule should be departed from in this case. Neither did Lafond; but the +queer, zigzag intuition of the half-breed had caused him to feel dimly +that he should preserve the child, and as he was in the habit of +gratifying his whims, he proceeded to carry out his intention in this +case. Once his decision was expressed in emphatic form, his companions +acquiesced. The child was Michaïl's captive; with his own captive he +could work his will. That is the Indian code. +</P> + +<P> +So little Miss Prue was carried for seven days on the back of a horse. +She did not cry much, and this saved her from violence. Her two years +of outdoor life had made her constitution robust, and this helped her +in inevitable privation. At the end of the week, the band caught up +with Lone Wolf and his camp, and Miss Prue was given over into the care +of Lafond's two young squaws. With them she underwent the customary +two days' jealousy, and then entered fully into the heritage of +kindliness which every Indian woman squeezes, drop by drop, from her +arid life and lavishes on the creatures who are gentle with her. +</P> + +<P> +She had, to be sure, to learn the Indian virtues of silence and +obedience. She had to do the little tasks that are set to girl babies +everywhere among the savage tribes. And, above all, she had to learn +to endure. But, in recompense, the two Indian women adored her. They +decked her out in beaded work and white buckskin; they put bright +feathers in her hair and bright beads about her little neck; they saved +choice bits for her from the family kettle; and when night came they +lay on either side of her and softly stroked her hair as she slept. +Over her head, among others, hung her mother's scalp. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS +</H4> + +<P> +It is not the purpose of this story to describe the battle of the +Little Big Horn in detail. That has been done many times. There is +little about it that is remarkable, excepting always the heroism of the +men who fought so desperately. The scene itself must have been +impressive, as viewed by the non-combatants of the Indians from the +bluffs near at hand—the swirl of brown about the melting patch of +blue. After Custer fell, the savages turned eagerly down the valley to +attack Reno, leaving the dead as they lay. Lafond did not accompany +them. The sight had aroused certain reflections in his breast, and he +wished to work the thing out. +</P> + +<P> +After sunset, he went alone and on foot over to the battlefield. The +troopers lay as they had fallen—first, Calhoun's company in line, with +its officers in place; then Keogh's; finally, on the knoll, the +remnant, scattered irregularly among the dead of their enemies. In the +cold light their faces shone white and still, even yet instinct with +the eagerness of battle; an eagerness which death had transmuted from +flesh to marble. Near the centre lay Custer, his long yellow hair +framing his face, his hands crossed on his breast. He alone was +unmutilated, save by the shot that had taken his life. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed did not hesitate on the outer circle of the combat, but +picked his way among the corpses until he stood on the summit of the +little knoll. Then he folded his arms and looked steadily down on the +white man's inscrutable face. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever might be Lafond's intellectual or moral deficiencies, lack of +perspicacity was not among them. Through the red glory of this +apparent victory, the most sweeping ever accomplished by the plains +Indians, he saw clearly the imminence of final defeat. The dead man +before him lay smiling, and Lafond perceived that he smiled because he +saw his people arising to avenge him. The beat of the muster drum +calling the avengers to the frontier now sounded in prophecy to his +hearing, and the echoes of the last battle shot merged into the clang +of an iron civilization, which was destined to push these exulting +victors dispassionately aside. It was a striking picture of light and +of shadow—this dark, savage figure silhouetted against the softened +brightness of the sky, this bright-haired warrior lying bathed in the +glorification of a Western night; the white man humiliated, defeated, +slain, but seeing with closed eyes that at which he smiled with deep +content; the savage, proud in success, triumphant, victor, but +perceiving somehow, in the very evidences of his achievement, that +which made him knit his brows. How little was this great victory +against the background of the people whom it had outraged, and yet how +mightily it would stir that people when once it became known! +</P> + +<P> +Michaïl Lafond the savage stood before the body of Custer the fallen, +for an hour, moving not one muscle all the time. At the end of the +hour Michaïl Lafond the civilized turned slowly away, and walked +thoughtfully toward the lodges on the other bank of the Little Big Horn +River. The sight of a brave man, who had died as he lived, had +reformed Lafond, but whether moralists would have approved of the +reformation is to be doubted. +</P> + +<P> +The night ran well along toward morning. The squaws, who had been +plundering and mutilating the dead, had long since returned to hear the +report of the warriors who had gone to attack Reno. The attack had +failed, but the fight had been desperate and the losses on both sides +heavy. Six of Custer's command, captured alive, were burned to death. +At last, the entire camp, with the exception of the women sentinels, +had gone to rest. Toward daybreak, even these became drowsy. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond arose quietly. He gathered a few necessaries into a pack, +placed them outside the doorway of the lodge, hesitated a moment, and +then returned. His two squaws slept, as usual, one each side of the +little girl. Lafond lifted the child carefully in order that he might +not awaken her guardians or herself, and wrapped her closely in his +blanket. At the doorway he again hesitated. Then, chuckling grimly, +he deposited the child by the bundle he had already prepared, and +returning, took down from the tent pole the string of scalps which went +to show how successful and how savage a warrior he had been. By the +light of the stars he selected one of these and laid it carefully +between the two sleeping women. It was the scalp of the little girl's +mother. Then he rehung the string on the tent pole, and went outside +immensely pleased with his bit of humor. +</P> + +<P> +It was his good-by to the wild life. From that time on he dwelt in the +towns, where in a very few years his name became known as standing for +a shrewdness in management, a keenness in seizing opportunities, and an +inflexibility of purpose rarely to be met with among his Anglo-Saxon +competitors. His present objective point, however, was the Spotted +Tail Agency, which was, from the valley of the Little Big Horn, an +affair of five days. Michaïl Lafond did it in four; or at least at the +end of the fourth he was within a few miles of the agency buildings. +By the evening of the third day, he had transformed both himself and +the little girl into an appearance of civilization, reclothing her in +the garments she had worn at the time of her capture, and himself in a +complete outfit which he had collected piece by piece on that last +night with the savages. The change was truly astonishing. +</P> + +<P> +His last camp in the open was pitched within sight of the Spotted Tail +reservation. The darkness was almost at hand. He had fed himself and +the child, had put the latter to rest under one blanket and was just +about to wrap himself in the other, when he became aware of a prairie +schooner swaying leisurely across the plains in his direction. He at +once sat up again. Every man was to him an object of suspicion. +</P> + +<P> +Not until the wagon had halted within a few feet of him could he +distinguish the occupant. Then he perceived that the latter was a +gentle-faced, silver-haired individual of mild aspect, dressed decently +but strangely, and possessed of introspective blue eyes, which he +turned dreamily on Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"May I camp here?" he inquired deprecatingly. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed considered. +</P> + +<P> +"I s'pose so," he said without enthusiasm. +</P> + +<P> +The old man descended and uncoupled his two animals. After he had +picketed them, he returned, and, extracting from the wagon body the +materials for a meal, he proceeded to make himself at home over +Lafond's fire. +</P> + +<P> +"I never did like to camp alone," he confided to the latter. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond watched him intently. No further words were exchanged until the +stranger had finished his supper and had restored his kit to the wagon. +Then the younger man offered the hospitality of the plains. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo' smok'?" he inquired, tendering his tobacco. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, no," replied the old man with a tone of breeding which +Lafond felt but could not define. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed could not make out the newcomer, and the conversation +failed to enlighten him. That was an epoch when all the world turned +to the West; but it was a practical world. There one might in time +meet all sorts and conditions of men, from the English lord to the +turbulent Fenian; from the New York exquisite fallen on hard times to +the "bad man" who had never been east of the Mississippi. One never +betrayed surprise at anything one might bring ashore from this flotsam +and jetsam of the human race. But all these odds and ends were at +least made of tough material, strong enough to run wherever a rapid +current might dash them, capable of supporting hard knocks against one +another or the obstructions in the way; while this placid old man +seemed to Lafond like a crystal vessel, of rare quality, perhaps, but +none the less fragile. At the last he asked bluntly, "What do you +here?" +</P> + +<P> +The old man fell silent for a minute or two and gazed into the coals of +the dying fire. +</P> + +<P> +"My name is Durand," he said at last, with an infinitude of sorrow in +the tones of his voice. "I am an entomologist. I am here to get +specimens—butterflies; but it is not here that I belong. My place is +elsewhere, and that I know. But it is not in my country, and——" he +broke off. Lafond looked on curiously, for the dreamy haze had faded +from the speaker's eyes. "My friend," Durand went on, "there are times +when one cares not to see the face of man except in the bosom of the +great nature. I do not know that you understand that. It is with the +bitterness of a wrong that such knowledge comes, and with it comes the +hate of cities and of the things men do. Some men have had their will +of me, and I am come to the wilderness. They called it revenge to +drive me here." +</P> + +<P> +"Revenge! But you still live!" repeated Lafond in wonder. +</P> + +<P> +"And is it that you think the taking of life is revenge?" cried Durand, +with sudden energy. "They who take their revenge in killing are +actually the merciful ones, and they cheat no one but themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" asked Lafond, his soul in the question. +</P> + +<P> +The other turned in surprise at his companion's vehemence. He saw a +stolid; dark-skinned man gazing impassively into the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"They are fools," went on Durand bitterly, after a moment; "just fools. +These others were of more ingenuity; they knew what would hurt, what +would avenge them better than the killing." +</P> + +<P> +"I do not understand," said the half-breed, feeling his way slowly, for +the fear of damming this flow of confidence. He looked away, for his +eye glowed, though his voice was steady. "W'at is it? If one kills, +if one takes that life, w'at is worse?" +</P> + +<P> +"Worse, worse?" cried Durand, flinging his hands impotently upward. "A +thousand things!" He suddenly became calm, and turned to Lafond with +impressive forefinger. "Listen, my friend. Life is a little thing. +Anyone can take it who has a gun, or a knife, or even a stone. But the +true revenge is in finding out what it is that each man prizes the +most, and then taking it from him. And that requires power! power! +power! +</P> + +<P> +"Few there are who have not something they prize more than life," he +added gloomily. The fire died from his eye. He became once again the +timid old butterfly hunter, pushing blindly out into the wilderness, +wondering at himself for thus exposing an old wound to a chance passer; +and yet perhaps feeling in some dim fashion—so inscrutable are the +instincts of these half-childish natures—that in so doing he was +following for a moment the lines of greater destinies than his own. +</P> + +<P> +And certainly, long after the dipper had swung below the pole star, +Lafond sat staring into the ashes of the fire, just as four days since +he had stared into the ashes of a brave and chivalrous life. In his +history there were the two crucial hours—one after the greatest battle +of the plains; the other after a dozen sentences exchanged with a +half-crazy old entomologist. From the potent reflections induced by +these one hundred and twenty minutes it resulted that Michaïl Lafond +became civilized and a seeker for wealth in the development of the +young country. In wealth he saw power; in power the ability to give or +take away. +</P> + +<P> +The depriving each man of that which he prizes the most! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE DISSOLVING VIEW +</H4> + +<P> +While things have gone on, we have conducted our business and returned +each evening to our armchairs by the fire. There we have sat at ease +and reviewed the world. Events have come to pass. Diplomats have +quarrelled gravely over the wording of a document. From our evening +papers we have gathered a languid interest in the controversy. Six +months later we pick up the paper and find that the dispute is still +going on. A German and an Englishman play a game of chess over the +cable. This too is reported in our journal, and we follow its progress +with attention through the weeks of its duration. Somebody agitates +the establishment of a new industry in our native town. It will raise +the value of our real estate, so we attend meetings for some months and +talk about it, after which the industry is assured. Two years later it +is in operation and we congratulate ourselves. Friends of our younger +days marry; and before we know it their houses are noisy with the +shoutings of children. Leisurely we grow older. Our ideas become +fixed, often by the most trivial of circumstances. Africa means +tangled forest; India, a jungle; Siberia, broad snow plains; all South +America, a dripping stillness of tropical verdure; simply because +somewhere, some time, a book or paper, the woodcut of a child's lesson, +has so generalized them for us. Against these preconceived notions the +events we read about are cast. +</P> + +<P> +In very much this way the constant facts of the West have been to us +the Indian and the buffalo. Before our eyes the Master Showman has +held insistently this picture. Against the background of the +occidental hills or the flat reach of the grass-nodding prairies has +posed in solemn gravity the naked warrior, leaning from his pony upon +his feather-bedecked lance; or, in the choking dust of its own +progression, has lumbered heavily the buffalo myriad. These have +seemed permanent—the man and the beast. +</P> + +<P> +Then, before our protesting conservatism, the scene has dissolved in a +mist of strange shapes and violent deeds, only to steady a moment later +into a new picture. The mounted figure has disappeared, and in his +place, against the glow of sunset, the sturdy form of the husbandman +grasps the shaft of his plough, gazing past the tired horses, and +brooding the slow thoughts of his calling. The last rays catch the +sheen of grain—a sea of it—and shimmer lightly until they lose +themselves in contrast with the square of ruddy light that marks the +windows of a farmhouse. +</P> + +<P> +This is the new West. We rub our eyes and wonder. The diplomats still +squabble; the chess game dawdles its languid way; the factory is +getting ready to pay its first dividend; our friends' children are +about to enter the high school. Everything has developed along the +usual lines of growth, and yet this greater change has come about in a +night. We turn back the files of our paper, and find that it has +occupied in the world's history just fifteen years! In that little +space of time the institutions of untold ages have been overthrown and +new ones substituted for them. +</P> + +<P> +Deadwood was founded in 1876. In 1890 Sitting Bull and his tribe were +utterly destroyed in the mid-winter fight at Wounded Knee. Between +those dates, the Dakotas have manufactured at home an article of quite +adequate civilization. +</P> + +<P> +To be sure, the product is perhaps a little crude. Although enormous +grain fields attest indubitably that the farmer has tamed the soil, +equally enormous Indian reservations as indubitably dispute too +sweeping an assertion of it. Electric railways may be instanced in +some towns. The sprightly six-shooter is in others the quickest road +to the longest journey. Hot Springs has a modern hotel and an improved +bar; a scant thirty miles north is the unsheriffed log-mining camp +where the "bad man" terrorizes in all his glory. +</P> + +<P> +These things are true, but they count for little. The great facts +remain, and they are these: a cowboy named Tenney tried to lasso the +last buffalo some years since and got himself yanked over several +irregular miles of country; the Sioux are herded nicely on their +reservations and shoot at nickels with bows and arrows for the +amusement of passing tourists. The old frontier conditions have gone. +If you want trouble, you must go out to look for it; it no longer comes +to you unsought. In a word the broad sea of the wilderness has +shrunken to bayous and bays surrounded and intersected by dried areas +fit for the cultivation of paper collars and tenderfeet. The frontier +still exists, but exists in its isolation only because it is not as +commercially desirable as the rest. +</P> + +<P> +This is true of the country at large. It is also true of Pah-sap-pah, +the Black Hills. Already a railroad has pushed its way up the main +valley. The folders show a map with the usual blood-red artery of +mathematical straightness, passing through myriads of small-type towns, +clinging desperately by their noses to the blessings of commerce, and +sundry dignified, large-type cities, standing more aloof on their own +merits. It all looks imposing enough on paper; but in reality the line +does little more than keep itself warm in the narrow valley of its +route. On closer inspection the myriads of towns disappear. +Minnekahta is a station in the midst of a vast plain, Pringles a +sawmill, Stony Point just nothing at all. For the Black Hills are +great of extent, and one county of the Dakotas could swallow an eastern +State. +</P> + +<P> +All this, from border warfare to comparative order—say from Canute to +Elizabeth—not in a thousand years, but in the brief age of a man-child +growing out from his kindergarten into his college! +</P> + +<P> +To one who has lived with the country, the process has been an +education more thorough than that usually vouchsafed men. It has +lacked in the graces and accomplishments, perhaps, but it has brought +to the highest pitch the two qualities of self-reliance and of power of +insight into men's characters. Whatever blunders a frontiersman may +commit when visiting his neighbor cities in the East, they are never +the bashful blunders of a countryman. Bunco men can clean him out in a +gambling joint, but who ever heard of their selling him a gold brick? +He has lived through all this hundreds of years ago, when Wild Bill was +killed at Deadwood, or perhaps a century or so later, when, the year +following, Alfred took the Caldwells to the Hills and was so nearly +rushed by the Sioux. His life has been an epitome. He has met most +conditions at one time or another, and is no longer afraid of them. +</P> + +<P> +In a tale dealing with this period of the dissolving view—when in +changing from one slide of the lantern to the other the Master Showman +has permitted us a little glimpse of hurrying, heroic figures and +dazzled us with the clouds of great deeds swiftly done—the teller must +adopt one of two methods. He must either generalize, or be content to +spend his space on single episodes. In that period, every day was a +book. Men counted as nothing experiences filled with an excitement or +a pathos or a beauty intense enough to render significant the whole +life of a quiet New Englander. Acts were many, and trod close on one +another's heels, yet to each act there was a sequence of motive, of +desire, of logical effect, as well capable of being sought out and +described as though they were not entangled and confused in the rush of +the moments. The story teller could find his task in the dissection of +these, and the task would be interesting. But to one who is concerned, +not with a period, but a life, this is impossible. +</P> + +<P> +The fifteen years saw a marked change in the fortunes of the half-breed +known as Michaïl Lafond. During all that time he had led an apparently +honest and law-abiding life. No man could say that he had been cheated +by him or that he had been favored; but one and all with whom the +half-breed had come into contact could speak with admiration and fear +of the latter's power of seizing the best of the main chance. He had +left the child at the Spotted Tail reservation, giving her name as +Molly Lafond and making arrangements for her maintenance. He turned +some gold claims to advantage, but abandoned that sort of thing as too +uncertain. He participated mildly in the prosperity of several of the +mushroom towns of the period, but soon drew out of booms as possessing +also too much of the element of luck. +</P> + +<P> +He did the hundreds of other things to which men in a new country can +always turn their hands, and in each he made his profit; but in each he +found something lacking to the elaborate scheme of power he had builded +one evening before a prairie camp fire. Finally he hit upon whisky and +dance halls and there he stayed. Abandoning all other enterprises, he +gave his individual attention to these two, for he found in them not +only the surest and largest monetary returns, but the certain +popularity which men accord to those who minister to their pleasures. +From Deadwood to Edgemont there gradually grew up a string of saloons +bearing the name of Lafond. Some of them were paying, some on the +point of paying, some merely lying latent for the boom which Lafond +thought to see in the near future. For, as of old, he delighted in +discounting the future. He liked long shots in his investments. +</P> + +<P> +Over each of these various establishments their owner was in the habit +of placing a man chosen according to the needs of the place, and this +man fell more or less under Lafond's personal supervision according as +the exigencies of the case seemed to demand it. The half-breed's +policy was to keep in actual touch with the most prosperous, and to +give personal effort to the most promising. The others could take care +of themselves until their time came. So at Mulberry Gulch, where the +camp consisted only of a number of grub stakers, he owned a little log +cabin which he had never seen. At Deadwood, an old and prosperous +camp, he was proprietor of a begilded and bemirrored splendor so well +established that it needed only a periodical supervising visit to keep +it running smoothly. At Copper Creek was also nothing but a log-cabin +saloon; but Copper Creek bade fair to amount to something. Perhaps the +spirit of the three kinds was best indicated by the signs over their +counters. Mulberry Gulch exhibited a rudely lettered device informing +the public, "Pies, Whisky and Pistols for Sail Here." Deadwood thirsty +ones learned that they should "Ask for Our 1860 Old Crow; the Finest on +Earth." Copper Creek sententiously remarked: "To Trust is Bust." +</P> + +<P> +All this symbolized nothing more or less than the commercial history of +a successful man in the West. It meant nothing except that Lafond had +the instinct and the cleverness, and so was getting rich. More +interesting than the change of his fortune was the change of the man +himself. +</P> + +<P> +In the old days he had been crafty in a subtle way; but he had been +impulsive, eager, excitable, inclined to jump at the bidding of his +intuitions. Now his character seemed to have expanded and modified. A +powder explosion had slightly bent his straight figure, halted his +gait, and seamed his face with powder marks. To hide these last, he +wore a beard. The effect was one of quiet responsibility, and a +certain geniality, though a keen observer might have hesitated to call +this geniality kindly. +</P> + +<P> +His manner was very quiet. He never reproved his subordinates or +addressed a hasty word to anyone, unless he became thoroughly convinced +of the culprit's incapacity. Then his anger was at white heat. He +could forgive deliberate attempts to evade his commands or conscious +efforts at rascality, for with them he could cope; but mistakes he +never condoned. An occasional slight inversion of the natural order of +words or phrases was all that remained to him of his old accent. +</P> + +<P> +Altogether he was a personage whose public position was +unexceptionable. In the West no man has a past, unless that past is +personified and carries a rebuking six-shooter. He had wealth, +popularity, an acquaintance as wide as the Hills themselves. All that +meant power, especially when combined with a shrewd ability to read +men's characters. +</P> + +<P> +But of the old order one thing remained—his religion. In the storm +and stress of a period hot with events, his life work was conceived and +laid out. The lines of its plan had been seared into his soul by +crime. He no longer felt the smart, but the cicatrix was there, and he +daily bowed to its symbolism, often without a thought of what it really +meant. His was like the future of a boy who has entered the army; his +line of conduct was all prearranged, and his independence of it never +occurred to him. There was no glowering hate in this; only a certain +sense of inevitability. In other words, it was his religion. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-098"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-098.jpg" ALT=""COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="781" HEIGHT="511"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 781px"> +"COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Certain things were to be done. First of all he must become wealthy. +Very well; wealthy he became. He must become popular. Agreed; he +cultivated his fellow men. He must know how to read character and to +hit upon weaknesses. Exactly; he bent his cleverness to the task. +There was a larger end to which these three were but the means; but +that would come later. Just now life meant quiet, earnest compassing +of the three things. Until they were quite within his grasp, he could +afford to shut into the background what their ultimate signification +should be. Lafond lived tranquilly a perfectly moral existence. +</P> + +<P> +But without his volition the great idea crystallized into some sort of +shape. It was always in the background, to be sure; but, after all, a +background fills the picture. <I>That which men hold to be most dear</I>! +The years had taught him what it was, without his actually demanding it +of them. Men hold most dear property, reputation, honor among their +fellow men, and the love of women. Women hold most dear virtue and a +good name. +</P> + +<P> +About fifteen years after he had quitted the Indians, Lafond suddenly +realized that he had gained the power and knew how to use it. Quite +dispassionately he looked ahead to the next step. +</P> + +<P> +There were Jim Buckley, Billy Knapp, Alfred and the doctor's family. +The latter now included only the girl, whom Lafond had himself caused +to be raised to young womanhood. Of the others, Jim Buckley and Alfred +had long since left the country—Alfred for Arizona, where he had gone +into cow punching; Buckley for Montana and Idaho, in whose mountains he +was supposed to be prospecting. These two, then, were out of the way +for the present. They would never be difficult to find, and in +comparison with Billy they had held quite a secondary place at the time +of the half-breed's molten state, before he had cooled into the fixed +forms of his conduct of life. +</P> + +<P> +The reason for this throws not a little light on Lafond's character. +The feminine streak in him hated Billy Knapp personally, simply because +that individual was loud in talk, great in size, and blustering in +manner. He could restrain his resentment against the bashful Alfred or +the imperturbable Jim; but not that against a man who seemed always, to +the high strung half-breed, the potential bully. He would have +followed Billy Knapp to China, if necessary. +</P> + +<P> +But it so happened that that individual, after a checkered career, had +settled down in the village or camp of Copper Creek, not forty miles +from Lafond's headquarters at Rapid. Billy's vicissitudes were those +of many of his class. Trained in the liberal give and take policy of +the early frontier times, he found himself, on their ebb, stranded high +and dry without appropriate means of progression. Billy was used to +relying on his plainscraft, his courage, his skill with firearms, and +his personal strength. Such qualities as economy, accuracy of +estimate, frugality, and patience in the overcoming of abstractions +would have been, to his early life, practically useless. He came to be +a big-hearted, generous fellow, without the slightest idea of the value +of money or the burden of debt. He was apt to be seized by many whims, +which he was wont to gratify on the spot. +</P> + +<P> +"Know Billy Knapp?" ruminated an old plainsman once. "Billy Knapp? +Seems to me I do; he's the feller that would buy the co't house yonder +if he could get trusted for it, ain't he?" +</P> + +<P> +It described him. And as in the old days his prestige had depended on +individual prowess of a rather spectacular order, it came about that +Billy was just a little fond of strutting. He liked to play the +patron, he liked to distribute favors, to treat to drinks, to stand as +the representative of great unseen forces, whether of military power in +the old days, or of extensive capital in these latter. +</P> + +<P> +For a great many years this vanity had remained ungratified. Billy had +not the virtues to succeed in the rising commercialism of the new West. +After the last great campaign against the Sioux, he found his usual +occupations almost wiped from the slate. The plains were as safe as +Illinois. He picked up a livelihood still, mainly by reason of his +wonderful gift of persuasion, for Billy could talk black white, if only +the particular shade and the discussion were situated in the West. He +drove stage, broke horses, bossed cattle outfits, and finally drifted +into prospecting. +</P> + +<P> +There his chance came. By a lucky stroke of trading he became +possessed of some really good quartz claims and a small sum of ready +cash. Two weeks later he was in Chicago. It was his first trip east +of the Mississippi, but he knew just what he wanted, and he got it. +Three days of Billy's golden oratory led to the purchase by an Eastern +syndicate of an option on his group of claims, and the understanding +that toward the middle of the following summer a committee of owners +should visit the property in order to discuss ways and means of +developing the various quartz leads. +</P> + +<P> +The delighted Billy returned to Copper Creek. There at last he found +himself the important figure he had always dreamed of being. He posed +to himself and to everybody else. The camp gradually filled, and the +claims round about were snapped up greedily. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond had easily kept himself informed of all this. It was +sufficiently notorious. Now when he came to a realization that the +next move in his game of life was due and that he should put to its +appointed use the power he had so long amassed, he decided to study +Billy Knapp in order to see which of the four—property, reputation, +honor or love—that volatile individual held most dear. He could make +a shrewd guess, but he wanted to be on the ground. And as he thought +about it, there came to him a great wave of enthusiasm and eagerness +over this game he was about to play; a delight in the magnitude of the +stakes and the power of the instruments employed, an intellectual +glorying quite different and separated from his personal feelings in +the matter, or that religious obligation of it which lay at the back of +his soul. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS +</H4> + +<P> +The first thing Michaïl Lafond did in pursuance of his new +determination was to visit the Spotted Tail reservation in order to +reclaim the girl henceforth to be known as Molly Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +No one knows why he had followed out his first impulse to preserve her +life and bring her up. After a time, however, she came to symbolize, +in his half-mystical perception of such things, the first cause of all +that had happened. Personally he liked her because she was such a +free, independent, fiery little creature. He liked to talk to her and +be ordered about by her. He liked also to watch the graceful, decisive +movements of her lithe young body and the sparkle of her hair. She +looked a good deal like her mother. +</P> + +<P> +He even listened with what would appear to be close sympathy to her +complaints of the agent's wife and the life to be led at a reservation. +She and the agent's wife never did get on well. The latter was a +stern, commonplace, fat woman without sympathy. And the life! There +were no men, nothing but Indians. All you could do was to read all day +and all the evening, or ride straight out in any given direction that +led nowhere. Michaïl Lafond, in his semi-annual visits, was inclined +to agree with her and even to pity her a little. His personal likings +were on the surface, and had nothing whatever to do with the deeps of +his nature. +</P> + +<P> +Just as the surest way of satisfying his thirst for revenge upon Billy +Knapp was to deprive the man of his reputation and his property, so he +had determined to make of Molly a dance-hall girl, like Colorado Jenny. +It would deprive her of virtue and good name, the things a woman holds +most dear. He also felt keenly, in his instinctive dramatic sense, the +fitness of throwing this fine-fibred daughter of a nobler race to the +hungry passions, of watching her reversion little by little to the +brute type; but a formulation of it never came to the surface of his +mind. And yet, I must repeat, there was in one sense nothing personal +in this. Lafond felt no aversion to the girl herself. He took no +pleasure in the thought of cursing her or beating her, as might a man +seeking a hotter revenge. It was just cold, malignant, calculating +hate of something in opposition to him, which she symbolized. +</P> + +<P> +This intellectual form of hatred is a peculiar characteristic of +half-breeds. +</P> + +<P> +When Lafond suggested to Molly that she should leave the agency and +take up her residence with him in Copper Creek, she assented very +gladly, for she felt her present life insupportable. The day before, +she and Mrs. Sweeney, the agent's wife, had come into violent collision. +</P> + +<P> +"Where was you yesterday afternoon?" Mrs. Sweeney had asked, as Molly +came into the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +It was before breakfast, so Molly shrugged an impatient shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Riding," she replied briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"Riding where?" insisted Mrs. Sweeney with heavy persistency. +</P> + +<P> +"Over west." +</P> + +<P> +"See anybody?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +The old lady wound her hands in her apron and fixed her charge severely +with her eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Strange how blind some folks is," she went on after a moment. "Now, I +was indoors washing an' I see that young sergeant over there scoutin' +'round." +</P> + +<P> +The words were simple; the tone was not. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" cried Molly sharply. "Do you mean to say I was +riding with him?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Sweeney wagged her head with aggravating sagacity. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody needn't put on no shoe that don't fit 'em," she said, and +sighed with the air of a martyr who has discovered all and is +disappointed. +</P> + +<P> +Molly knew that her question had been justified by the woman's +insinuation, that she had put on no shoe, and that if there were a +martyr in the room it was not the agent's wife. Thereupon she said +things excitedly. The agent's wife assumed an injured placidity, than +which there is nothing more aggravating. Finally Molly flounced out of +the room. +</P> + +<P> +The agent's wife, being utterly in the wrong, sulked after the manner +of women for the rest of the day, and had to be sued for forgiveness. +</P> + +<P> +And yet next day, when Molly and the half-breed drove away, Mrs. +Sweeney remembered that the girl had been with them nearly fifteen +years, and wept; and the agent booted a trespassing Indian from his +office with unwonted energy. +</P> + +<P> +Molly, on the other hand, was as happy as a lark. Every man knows the +thrill of anticipation when he stows the gun case under the seat and +induces the pointer to curl up in the straw, just as every woman knows +the delight of an entrance to a room which her presence brightens more +than any other's. Molly experienced the same thrill, the same delight. +She had the instincts of the coquette; the confidence of inexperience; +the false ideals of a knowledge drawn from books and speculation; and +her heart had not yet awakened her conscience. She looked forward to +her own power over men, for she was intelligent, and realized the +extent both of her charms and of her knowledge. The latter was not +inextensive, for in her reading she had enjoyed the overwhelming +advantage of heredity. Heredity is a little scheme by which, to a +great extent, one recognizes knowledge, instead of acquiring it. +</P> + +<P> +They drove along for some distance without speaking. The girl was too +happy and the half-breed too preoccupied to talk. +</P> + +<P> +"Mike," she commanded suddenly after a time, "quit that smoking. I +don't like it." +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed hesitated, narrowing his brow, and looking straight +ahead. Then he silently knocked the ashes from his pipe and slipped it +into his pocket. Molly's eyes flashed with triumphant amusement. The +game had begun. After a time the sun sank into the dark hills, and the +great shadow of Harney crept out of them. +</P> + +<P> +The wagon rattled down a short incline to the broad, shallow bed of the +Cheyenne. Molly turned it aside into a little grass plat. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll camp here to-night," she announced. +</P> + +<P> +"There is better water two mile further, on the trail, on Fall River," +said Lafond, without moving. +</P> + +<P> +"I said we'd camp here!" repeated the girl sharply. +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed descended and began to unharness the horses. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL +</H4> + +<P> +The camp which was to be the scene of Lafond's operations and of the +girl's anticipated triumphs, lay between Ragged Top and Tom Custer. It +consisted of a double row of log cabins situated in the V of the deep +ravine. The men generally ate in the long dining-room of the hotel, +worked at prospecting in the hills, and spent their evenings in the +centrally situated Little Nugget saloon, the property of Michaïl Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +The night of the half-breed's arrival the usual crowd was carrying on +the usual discussions on the usual subjects. +</P> + +<P> +One fresh from the East entering the building would have been struck +first with the strangeness of the room. It was long and low, and on +three sides dark. Against the fourth wall was stretched tightly a +white cotton sheet, imitating plaster, in front of which stood the bar. +The bar was polished, narrow, with a foot rest in front and two towels +hanging from metal clasps just under the projecting eaves of it. It +had been brought in sections, by wagon, at considerable expense. Some +three feet behind the bar, stretched a shelf of the same height, towel +covered, on which stood four bottles in front of a little mirror. The +shelf was piled symmetrically with glasses of all shapes—tumblers, +ponies, fine-stemmed wineglasses—arranged in pyramids and squares. +They glittered in the glare of the lamps, and the indirect light from +the white sheet. A dim pink reflection was given back by the +mirror—dim and pink because the glass was draped with pink mosquito +bar. Overhead hung the sign which read, "To Trust is Bust." +</P> + +<P> +Beneath the reflector of the largest lamp lounged the barkeeper reading +a paper. He had spread the paper on the bar, and, having crooked his +elbows out at wide angles around its margin, was bending his head of +straw-colored hair close over the print. He was dressed in white as to +the upper part of his body. Occasionally he read aloud in a monotone +from the paper. At other times his lips moved slowly, shaping the +invisible words as they took form in his sluggish brain. +</P> + +<P> +"The latest creations in ties," he read, "are described by our buyer as +being natty effects in the narrow plaids." +</P> + +<P> +Outside this glare of light from the white-dressed man, and the +glittering pyramids and squares and glasses, and the dim pink +reflections, and the white sheet imitating plaster, the rest of the +room seemed dark by contrast. Near the door and the small front +window, glowed a red-hot stove. Along the walls were ranged chairs. +In the chairs sat many men smoking. Above the men a few cheap pictures +were tacked against the rough walls. One of them represented an +abnormally slim and smooth race horse against a background of vivid +green. Another showed an equally green landscape, throwing into relief +a group of red-coated men on spider-legged horses, pursuing a huddle of +posing white hounds. One of the spider-legged horses had fallen, and +the rider, being projected horizontally forward, was suspended rigidly +in mid air, like Mohammed's coffin, and with as much apparent prospect +of coming to earth. Still another presented the sight of an +exceedingly naked woman descending from an exceedingly flat and marble +couch. One foot was on the floor, and the other knee rested still on +the flat and marble couch. It was labelled "Surprised." +</P> + +<P> +Three large lamps with reflectors illuminated this part of the room. +Then came a strip of comparative dusk; then another hanging-lamp +disclosed a smooth-topped table, on which was a faro lay-out. +</P> + +<P> +The men in the chairs smoked industriously and spoke seldom. The air +was thick with the smoke of strong tobacco, such as "Hand Made" and +"Lucky Strike." Very near the stove sprawled old Mizzou, +low-foreheaded, white-bearded, talking always of women and the merits +of grass-widows and school-ma'ams. +</P> + +<P> +"They is nothin' like 'em!" he asserted with ever-fresh emphasis of +tone. "Back in Chillicothe, whar th' hogs an' gals is co'n-fed, they +is shore bustin'! When one of them critters comes 'round, I feels jest +like raisin' hell and puttin' a chunk under it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Th' <I>hell</I> you do!" snorted Cheyenne Harry, scowling his handsome +brows, "th' <I>hell</I> you do! Give us a rest with yore everlasting +females." He pulled his hat over his eyes, and drew savagely on his +pipe, his right hand over the bowl, his left clasped tight under his +armpit. +</P> + +<P> +Billy Knapp was telling about his mine. +</P> + +<P> +"On that thar Buffalo lode," he said impressively, "I got a lead twenty +foot wide. <I>Twenty foot</I>, I say! And it holds out; it holds out a +lot. It's great. I says to them Chicago sharps, I says, 'You won't +find sech a lead as thet thar nowhere else in the Hills,' and by gravy +I believe that's right! I do for shore! An' I says to them, I says, +'It only takes a little sinkin', an' a little five stamp mill, t' put +her on a paying basis to wunst. Ain't no manner of <I>doubt</I> of it! I +tell you it's a chance! that's what it is!'" +</P> + +<P> +He breathed hard with the enthusiasm into which his words lifted him. +He vociferated, telling over and over about his twenty foot lead. He +held his great hand suspended in the air through whole sentences, +bringing it down with a mighty slap as he came to his conclusions. The +men about him listened unmoved. They believed what he said, but they +had got over being excited at it. Jack Graham, his hat on his knees, +twisted his little moustache and smiled amusedly. As the scout +appealed to him from time to time, he nodded silent assent. Over +beyond the bar of dusk, two men were staking small sums at faro. The +keen-eyed dealer was monotonously calling the cards. "All ready; all +down; hands up; jack win; queen lose!" he drawled. +</P> + +<P> +In the corner nearest the door, a youth of eighteen huddled on the +floor asleep. Here and there wandered an active wire-haired dog, +bigger than a fox terrier and of different color, but with the +terrier's bright eyes and alert movements. It was a strange beast, +brown and black on the head, black on the body, badger gray on the +legs, with sharp white teeth, over which bristled gray whiskers of the +stiffness of a hair brush. As it passed the various men, it eyed them +closely, ready to wag its stump of a tail in friendship, or to circle +warily in avoidance of a kick. It was a self-reliant dog, a dog used +to taking care of itself. Men called it Peter, without abbreviation. +</P> + +<P> +Peter was possessed of the spirit of restlessness. He smelled +everything, first with dainty sniffs, then with long, deep inhalations. +Thus he came to know the inner nature of table legs and chairs, of +men's boots and of dark corners. Between investigations he would stand +in front of the bar and stretch, sticking first one hind leg, then the +other, at stiff angles behind him, and then, fore feet far in front, +pressing the chest of his long body nearly to the floor. +</P> + +<P> +These things irritated Cheyenne Harry. He attempted to command Peter +harshly, but Peter paid no attention. +</P> + +<P> +"Off his feed," observed Dave Williams to young Barker in an undertone. +</P> + +<P> +"Yeah," agreed the latter. +</P> + +<P> +About eight o'clock Blair and the stage drew in and drew out again, +after warming at the red-hot stove a little cross man who cursed the +whole West—climate, scenery, and all—with a depth and heartiness that +left these loyal Westerners gasping. Billy Knapp had attempted to +reply, but had not held his own in the interchange. +</P> + +<P> +After the stranger had gone out, the pristine calm broke into a froth +of recrimination. The room shouted. It blamed Billy. It cursed the +stranger. It thought of a dozen things that might have been said or +done, as is the fashion of rooms. Billy vociferated against the +tourist. +</P> + +<P> +"Little two by four prospec' hole!" he cried. "He may be all right +whar he comes from, which don't rank high anyhow, but when he comes out +yar makin' any sech fool breaks as that, he don't assay a cent a ton +fo' sense!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, hell," growled Cheyenne Harry. "You-all make me tired!" +</P> + +<P> +"Shake yore grouch, Harry," they advised good-humoredly. Cheyenne +Harry was popular, fearless and a good shot. He had a little the +reputation, in some quarters, of being a "bad man." +</P> + +<P> +Billy went on with his tirade. The men shook their heads. "You wasn't +ace high, Billy," said they. Billy insisted, getting more and more +excited. They looked down from the calm of superior wisdom. Their +anger vanished in Billy's. He was angry for the whole crowd. +</P> + +<P> +"Moroney ought to have been here," they observed regretfully. "He's +th' boy! He'd have trimmed th' little cuss good. Can't get ahead of +Moroney nohow." +</P> + +<P> +Billy denied that Moroney could have done better than he, Billy, did. +The men championed Moroney's cause with warmth. A new discussion arose +out of the old. With a prodigious clatter every man drew up his chair +until a circle was formed. Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, the +barkeeper, leaned his head on his fists across the bar, trying to hear. +The two men at the faro game cashed in and quit. The faro dealer, +imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like, shuffled his cards. Around the +outside of the word-hurling circle Peter wandered, sniffing at chairs +and the boots of men. +</P> + +<P> +Then on a sudden Molly and the half-breed arrived, to the vast +astonishment of Copper Creek, which had no women and expected none. +</P> + +<P> +The newcomers appeared in the doorway, apparently from nowhere, pausing +a moment before entering the saloon. Molly leaned a hand on each jamb, +and calmly surveyed the room. Lafond blinked his eyes at the light, +imperturbably awaiting the girl's good pleasure. After a moment she +stepped inside, and again looked the apartment over, slowly, +searchingly. She saw in that long sweeping glance everything there was +to be seen—the men and their various attitudes, the bar, the glasses, +the mirror draped with mosquito bar, the white cotton sheet, the lamps, +the faro table, even the three sporting pictures on the wall. +</P> + +<P> +In that moment she made up her mind what to do. Her heart was beating +fast and her color was high. She experienced all the sensations of a +man going into battle, but not a timid man, or one not sure. Rather, +she felt a new access of force, a new confidence, a new imperious power +that would bend conditions to suit itself. She knew in a flash just +how to tame these untamed men. +</P> + +<P> +Then she stepped swiftly forward and marched up to the bar, against +which she leaned the broad of her back, running her arms along the rail +on either side and resting one heel against the foot rest. She tossed +her curls back, and again looked coolly at the silent men. +</P> + +<P> +An observer might have found it interesting to note how the different +inmates of the room took this unexpected appearance of the First Woman. +Billy Knapp stared with round, gloating eyes, in which a hundred +possibilities awoke. Cheyenne Harry, aroused from his slouching +attitude, thrust his pipe into his pocket and furtively smoothed his +moustache. Graham looked the newcomer over with cool inquiring +scrutiny. Frosty began to polish a glass, finding relief from his +embarrassment in accustomed and commonplace occupation. The faro +dealer shuffled his cards, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like. Peter +sat upright on his haunches, sniffing daintily, first in the girl's +direction, then in the man's, watching, bright-eyed and alert. Peter +was the only being in the place who noticed the girl's companion. The +latter, in turn, inspected the room deliberately, with a crafty +calculation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Molly Lafond, with slow scorn, "how long are you going to +sit there before you take care of a lady's horses?" +</P> + +<P> +Then they suddenly became aware of the half-breed and of the +white-covered schooner, dimly visible through the door. They began to +regain control of their wits. The arrested currents of life moved once +more. Who was this girl? Why should she command? Above all, why did +not this little black hairy man take care of his own horses? Men +helped themselves in the West. +</P> + +<P> +They stirred uneasily, but no one responded. The girl's eyes flashed. +</P> + +<P> +"Move!" she commanded, stretching her arm with a sudden and regal +gesture toward the door. +</P> + +<P> +The three men nearest jumped up and hurried out. The girl stood for an +instant, her arm still outstretched; then she dropped it to her side +with a rippling laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"You boys need someone to make you stand 'round, that's all," she said. +"Next time I speak, you <I>rustle</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +She placed her hands behind her on the bar, and jumped lightly upward, +perching on one corner and swinging her little feet to and fro. She +sat in the focus of one of the larger lamps, seeming to radiate with a +strange hard brilliancy. Her eyes sparkled and her curly golden hair +escaped from under her old peaked cap in a bewildering tangle of +twisted and glittering fire. She went on easily, without +embarrassment, chattering in so assured a manner that the men were +silenced by the very shyness that should have been hers. +</P> + +<P> +"We got here a little late, boys," she said, conversationally, "on +account of a hot box, but here we are—me and Mike. You don't know us +though, do you? Well, this is Mike Lafond." She looked toward the +half-breed, and a sudden inspiration lit her eye. "Black Mike!" she +cried, clapping her hands. "That's it; Black Mike." She paused in +happy contemplation of the appropriateness of this nickname. It seemed +to fit; and it stuck forever after. "He owns this joint here, he says, +and I reckon he says right," she went on after a pause. "He ain't +pretty, but I'll tend to that for the family." She perked her head +sideways, proving the point beyond contest. +</P> + +<P> +Peter, who had been watching her, his own head in the same attentive +pose, took this as a signal. He barked sharply. "Shut up, dog!" +commanded Molly. She seized a pretzel from a tin pan at her side and +threw it at Peter. Peter considered the pretzel as a contribution, so +subsided. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, boys, I'm glad to be here. I'm going to stay. You might look +more pleased." She cast her eye along the group of men, each in a +tense attitude of uneasiness. Graham's nonchalant and lounging +self-poise struck her. "Aren't you glad?" she asked, pointing her +finger at him. His quizzical smile only deepened. Failing to confuse +him, as she intended, Molly hastily abandoned him. "You ought to be," +she asserted, skilfully turning the remark in the direction of Cheyenne +Harry. "Come here and let's look at you. I want to know your name. +You ain't bashful, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +Harry put on an appearance of ease and sauntered over to the bar. He +would show the boys that he was used to society. He grinned at her +pleasantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't no one look purty nex' to you!" he said boldly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" cried Molly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. +"That's the first pleasant word I've had, and after I've told you I was +coming here to live, too!" +</P> + +<P> +Billy Knapp bounced up, eager to retrieve his reputation. +</P> + +<P> +"Th' camp bids you welcome, ma'am, an' is proud and pleased that such a +beauteous member of her lovely sect is come amongst us!" he orated. +</P> + +<P> +The men moved their chairs slightly. One or two cleared their throats. +The constraint was beginning to break. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," replied Molly prettily. "This is an occasion. Mike here +asks you all to have a drink. Don't you, Mike?" +</P> + +<P> +The half-breed nodded. He was watching the progress of affairs keenly. +</P> + +<P> +Frosty set out glasses, into which the men poured whiskey from small +black bottles. Harry gave his own to the girl, and then procured +another for himself. Mike sat by the stove. Peter approached +tentatively, but decided to remain at a wary distance. At the other +end of the room the faro dealer shuffled his cards, indifferent, +imperturbable, cat-like; a strange man, without friends, implacable and +just. The men who had gone to stable the horses entered and received +their glasses. The girl raised hers high in the air. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she cried, "here's hoping we'll all be good friends!" +</P> + +<P> +The men drank their whiskey. They were slowly developing a certain +enthusiasm over the new girl. Constraint was gone. They lounged +easily against the bar. Two stood out near the middle of the floor, +where they could see better, their arms across each other's shoulders. +Molly touched her lips to her glass, and handed it to Billy, who stood +on the other side of her. "Drink it for me," she whispered +confidentially in his ear. +</P> + +<P> +"It'll make me drunk," he said in mock objection. She looked +incredulous. "You have touched it with yore lips," he explained +sentimentally, and drank to cover his confusion. He felt elated. He +had made a pretty speech, too. +</P> + +<P> +The girl laughed and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. At +either knee was one of these great men; about were many others, all +looking at her with admiration, waiting for her words. This was +triumph! This was power! And then she looked up and found Graham's +calm gray eyes fixed on her in quizzical amusement. She turned away +impatiently and began to talk. +</P> + +<P> +Never was such airy persiflage heard in a mining camp before. The +prospectors were dissolved in a continual grin, exploded in a perpetual +guffaw. Now they understood the charm of woman's conversation, which +Moroney had so often extolled. They spared a thought to wish that +Moroney were here to take part in this. "Moroney can do such elegant +horsing," they said. What a pair this would be! How she glanced from +one member to the other of the group with her witty speeches! She +rapped each man's knuckles hard, to the delight of all the rest, and +yet the fillip left no pain, but only a pleasant glow. They laughed +consumedly. +</P> + +<P> +And then, after a little, she asked them if they could sing; and +without waiting for a reply, she struck up a song of her own in a high, +sweet voice. With a gripping of the heart and a catching of the +breath, they recognized the air. Not one man there had ever heard its +words in a woman's voice before. It was "Sandy Land," the universal, +the endless, the beloved, the song that brings back to every Westerner +visions of other times when he has sung it, and other places—the night +herd, the camp fire, the trail. With the chorus there came a roar as +every man present sang out the heart that was in him. The girl was +surrounded in an instant. This was the moment of which she had +dreamed. She half closed her eyes, and laughed with the gurgling +over-note of a triumphant child. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyenne Harry straightened from his lounging position at the girl's +left, slipped his arm about her waist, and kissed her full upon the +lips. +</P> + +<P> +The room suddenly became very still. Peter could be heard scratching +his neck with stiffened hind leg behind the stove. Graham half started +from his seat, but sank back as he saw the girl's face. Mike never +stirred or missed a puff on his short pipe. +</P> + +<P> +The girl paled a little, and, putting her hands behind her, slid +carefully off the edge of the bar to the floor. Then she walked with +quick firm steps to the offender and slapped him vigorously, first on +one side of the head, then on the other. He raised his elbows to +defend his ears, whereupon she reached swiftly forward under his arm +and slipped his pistol from its open holster; after which she retreated +slowly backward, holding both hands behind her. Cheyenne Harry turned +red and white, and looked about him helplessly. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't big enough to have a gun!" she said, with scorn. "When you +get man enough to tell me you're sorry, I'll give it back." +</P> + +<P> +She crossed the room toward the street, dangling the pistol on one +finger by the trigger guard. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon I'll go now," she said simply. She passed through the door +to the canvas-covered schooner outside. +</P> + +<P> +A breathless but momentary silence was broken by Cheyenne Harry. +</P> + +<P> +"I know it, boys, I know it," he protested. "Don't say a word. +Frosty, trot out the nose paint." +</P> + +<P> +Billy was fuming. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Hell</I> of a way to do!" he muttered. "Nice <I>hospitable</I> way to welkim +a lady! <I>Lovely</I> idee she gets of this camp!" +</P> + +<P> +Harry turned on him slowly. "What's it to yuh?" he asked malevolently. +"What's it to yuh, eh? I want to know! Who let <I>you</I> in this, anyway?" +</P> + +<P> +He thrust his head forward at Billy. +</P> + +<P> +"For the love of Peter the Hermit, shut up, you fellows!" cried Jack +Graham. "Don't make ever-lasting fools of yourselves. That girl can +take care of herself without any of your help, Billy; and it served you +dead right, Harry, and you know it." +</P> + +<P> +"That's right, Billy," said several. +</P> + +<P> +Harry growled sulkily in his glass. "Ain't I knowin' it?" he objected. +"Ain't I payin' fer this drink because I know it? But I ain't goin' t' +have any ranikahoo ijit like Billy Knapp rubbin' it in." +</P> + +<P> +"Billy didn't mean to rub it in," said Jack Graham, "so shake hands and +let up." +</P> + +<P> +The threatened quarrel was averted, and the men drank on Harry. Then +Mike set up the drinks to the furtherance of their friendly relations. +They talked to Mike at length, inquiring his plans, approving his sense +in choosing Copper Creek as a residence, congratulating him on his +daughter, commending her style. Mike hoped they would make the Little +Nugget their evening headquarters. They replied with enthusiasm that +they would. Mike made himself agreeable in a quiet way, without saying +much. Everybody was "stuck" on him—everybody but Harry. Harry sulked +over Billy's insults. His sullen mood had returned. Finally, late in +the evening, he pushed his chair back abruptly and went up to the bar. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm goin'," he announced. "Give me that bottle." +</P> + +<P> +He poured himself a stiff drink, which he absorbed at a toss of the +wrist, and turned away. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Mortimer," called Frosty, "did you pay for this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Chalk it down to me," called Harry, without looking back. +</P> + +<P> +Frosty caught the snake eye of his proprietor fixed upon him. He +twisted his feet in terror beneath the bar. "It's agin the rules," he +called at last, weakly, just as Harry reached the door. +</P> + +<P> +The latter turned in heavy surprise. Then he walked deliberately back +to the bar, on which he leaned his elbows. +</P> + +<P> +"Look yere," he said truculently, "ain't I good fer that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, I reckon so," cried poor Frosty in an agony. "But it's agin +the rules." +</P> + +<P> +"Rules, rules!" sneered Harry. "Since when air you runnin' this joint +on rules? Ain't you chalked drinks up to me before? Ain't you? +Answer me that. Ain't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"But it's different now," objected Mudge. +</P> + +<P> +"Different, is it? Well, you chalk that drink up to me as I tell yuh, +or go plumb to th' devil for the pay. And don't you bother me no more, +or I'll have to be harsh to yuh!" Harry loved to bully, and he was +working off his irritation. The men in the room stood silent. Harry +liked an audience. He went on: "I'll shoot up yore old rat joint yere +till you ain't got glass enough left to mend your wall eye, you +white-headed little varmint." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond had come softly to the end of the bar. "Naw," he interrupted +quietly, "you are not shooting up anything." +</P> + +<P> +Harry turned slowly to him and spread his legs apart. "And did you +address me, sir?" he begged with mock politeness. "Would you be so +p'lite as to repeat yore remarks?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are not shooting up anything," reiterated Mike, "and it is you who +will settle for this drink. Behold the sign which you have read!" +</P> + +<P> +Harry turned to the room wide eyed. "Did you hear the nerve of it?" he +inquired. "Tellin' me what I'll do! You damn little greaser," he +cried in sudden fury, "I'll show you whether I'm shootin' up anythin'!" +</P> + +<P> +He reached for his gun, remembered on the instant that his holster was +empty, and sprang for Lafond. The half-breed calmly lifted a whiskey +glass, near which he had taken the precaution to stand, and slopped its +contents full in the other's eyes. Harry, blinded, struck against the +corner of the bar. Mike slipped to one side and produced his revolver. +</P> + +<P> +Several sprang between the two men. The room was in an uproar. Peter +barked, clamant, frantic. Everybody tried to talk at once. In the +background the faro dealer ceased shuffling his cards, and began +imperturbably, indifferently, to pack together his layout. He had made +little that night. After a moment he went out, without a glance toward +the excited group. +</P> + +<P> +The men were forcing the blinded and raving Harry toward the door. +Mike leaned over the bar, watching with bright eyes, his arms folded +across his chest and the pistol barrel peeping over the crook of one +elbow. +</P> + +<P> +When they had all gone out, most of them shouting good-natured +farewells, he turned savagely on the pale-faced Mudge. The native +cruelty of the man blazed forth. He scored the barkeeper with a tongue +that lashed like a whip, vituperating, crushing with the weight of his +sarcasm, frightening with the vividness of his threats. Mudge shrank +back into the corner of the space behind the bar, spreading his arms +along either side, watching the half-breed with wide-open fascinated +eyes, as one would watch a dangerous wild beast. +</P> + +<P> +After a little the storm passed. Lafond asked in surly tones where the +bunk was. Frosty showed him his own, behind the saloon, in a little +shack of hewn timbers. Without a word Lafond turned in, dressed as he +was, and closed his eyes. For a time he ruminated slowly. He had seen +his man, and already he could put his finger on one weak point in +Billy's personality—love of the spectacular, of bombast. A blow to +his vanity would hurt. The half-breed had also taken fair measure of +most of the other men in the room. He knew how to ingratiate himself, +and his bold move in the case of Cheyenne Harry had had that object +directly in view. He did not as yet see clearly just what form his +blow to Billy's vanity was to take, but that would come with time. +Lafond's calling and his position in the new town gave him unlimited +opportunities for observation, and he was in no hurry. After waiting +fifteen years, another twelvemonth would not matter. +</P> + +<P> +"Go slow," said Black Mike to himself. +</P> + +<P> +His doze was abruptly broken by Frosty's scared voice asking a +question. The barkeeper's thick wits could not take in the situation. +He was frightened almost out of his senses, and incapable of +consecutive thought. +</P> + +<P> +"And where shall I sleep, sir?" he asked stupidly in a timid little +voice. +</P> + +<P> +Mike turned over explosively. "You can sleep in hell for all of me!" +he shouted angrily. "Get out!" +</P> + +<P> +Frosty returned to the main room of the saloon. There he spread a +horse blanket, redolent of the stables, on the floor behind the stove. +After a time Peter lay down beside him. The barkeeper, frightened, +stupid, vaguely nervous, in his slow nerveless way, gathered the +strange intelligent dog to him, and the two slept. +</P> + +<P> +The men took Harry to the creek, where he washed out his eyes. They +had many comments to make, to none of which Harry vouchsafed a reply. +But his sulkiness was gone. Suddenly he paused for a moment in his +ablutions, and laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Damned if they ain't a pair!" he asserted. "And that gal——" +</P> + +<P> +"She shore beats grass-widders and school-ma'ams!" said Old Mizzou. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN +</H4> + +<P> +The girl had seen all that Lafond had seen and more. She knew now that +Billy Knapp was easily the most important figure in the camp; that +Cheyenne Harry was the most admired and feared; that Jack Graham was +the most likely to be heard from in the future. The other men fell +into the background behind these three figures. The situation was +simplified by the fact. All she needed now for complete triumph was, +to discover the vulnerable points of these three, attack them craftily, +and the game was hers. +</P> + +<P> +She thought she knew the way. She fell asleep dreaming of it. She +awoke in the early morning with the day's plan clear and perfect in her +mind, each move in the game she was to play clearly outlined before +her. It had come to her in the night without conscious effort on her +own part. +</P> + +<P> +She dressed herself in the semi-obscurity of the wagon-body, and +stepped out into the morning. The brook was not far away. She +discovered it, and bathed her face and throat in its ice-cold waters. +Then she returned to the wagon, where she made breakfast of a huge +irregular chunk of bread and slices of cold bacon, sitting on the wagon +tongue and swinging her feet carelessly back and forth while eating. +Occasionally she threw a remnant to the few silent Canada jays that +drifted here and there in the sleeping town, fluffed out like milkweed +pollen in the summer, searching for scraps. They swooped to her +offerings on swift motionless wing, and then retreated to a distance, +whence they abused their benefactor with strident voice. The girl +watched them idly. +</P> + +<P> +How to impress her personality in the most agreeable way on the +greatest number of men! The problem was many faceted. She must not +show favoritism; therefore the method must be general. She must render +herself and not merely her sex agreeable: therefore it would have to be +personal. It must appeal to the men's sense of protection rather than +to their mere admiration; therefore in it she must efface herself, and +exalt them. This was all apparently contradictory. But no; she saw it +clearly in a flash. She must let them do her a favor. Instinctively +she realized, though she did not formulate the thought, that this is +one of the sure ways of gaining a man's good will. She cast back over +the necessities of the case, and saw that it would suffice. In doing +something for her, they would at once stand well in their own eyes, +because of a certain consciousness of unselfish effort; they would +expand protectively toward her, because of her weakness, implied in the +fact that they could do her a kindness. What was the favor to be? The +wagon behind her answered the question. They should build her a house. +</P> + +<P> +All this passed through her mind, as a drift setting in from upstream, +gliding before her consciousness, and floating on down stream in +unhasting progression. She did not realize that she was thinking out a +problem; at least she made no effort to do so. It came to her as she +needed it. To all appearance she was watching idly, with unruffled +brow, the tenuous threads of smoke which indicated that the camp was +awakening. The number of these smoke signals suggested a new problem. +She could hardly enlist the entire population of a camp the size of +Copper Creek in the task of building one little log cabin. The idea of +the swarming multitude struck her as so funny that she laughed aloud. +She must choose; and the choice must be judicious. The men selected +must represent the influential element, the leaders of opinion; while +those denied the privilege of serving her must be the sort who always +follow with the majority. Here her intuition balked, and her scanty +knowledge could not help it out. She was frankly puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +As she sat there knitting her brows, a boy came up the street. He was +bare-foot, straw-hatted, freckled. He had wide gray eyes, a snub nose, +and an impudent mouth. His clothes were varied and inadequate. Over +his arm he carried a little rifle. About him, at a wary distance, +frisked Peter, escaped from the Little Nugget through some mysterious +back exit. +</P> + +<P> +The boy occasionally threw an impatient stick at Peter, whereupon Peter +would suddenly place two paws in front of him and bend his back down, +with every appearance of delight. Then the boy would issue commands to +Peter anent returning home, to which Peter paid not the slightest +attention. So absorbed was he in his effort to get rid of what he +evidently considered an undesirable companion, that he did not notice +the girl until he was within a few yards of her. He then gave his +entire attention to her inspection. He stood on one spot and stared +without winking, digging a big toe into the dust. His unabashed eyes +took in every detail. He was without embarrassment, and evidently gave +not a thought to the effect of this extended scrutiny on the object of +it. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, kid!" called Molly. +</P> + +<P> +The boy completed his leisurely inspection. Then, "Hello," he +answered, with reserve. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you come over and see me?" +</P> + +<P> +He weighed the point and drew nearer. +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you?" he asked bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +"My name's Molly; what's yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dennis Moroney. They call me the Kid. What-chew doin' here?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to live here." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said he, and looked her all over again. "This rifle's a +flobert," he observed. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it? Let's see. What do you shoot with it? Is there much game up +here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't snap it; it's bad for it. They's lots of game. I got a fox +squirrel the other day. He was so long. He was up a big pine, and I +hit him right through the head." +</P> + +<P> +"You must be a good shot. Will you take me hunting with you some day?" +</P> + +<P> +"I dunno," he replied doubtfully. "Girls ain't much good." +</P> + +<P> +"Try me," urged Molly, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll let you shoot her off anyway," he said magnanimously. "But you +gotter help clean her. If you don't clean her, she gets rusty and +won't shoot straight. Here's the catridges." +</P> + +<P> +"What little bits of things! Will they kill anything?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hoh!" replied the Kid with contempt. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that your dog?" hastily inquired Molly, conscious of her error. +Peter was busily engaged in acquiring an olfactory knowledge of the +four wheels and two axles of the wagon. +</P> + +<P> +"Him? Naw. He's the bigges' fool dog I ever see. He goes along +unless you tie him up. And he keeps rummagin' around, and he scares +all the game there is. <I>I</I> can't <I>make</I> him stay home." +</P> + +<P> +A cabin door opened quickly, and a miner issued forth. +</P> + +<P> +"There goes Dan Barker," said the Kid. +</P> + +<P> +In twenty minutes Molly knew the history of everyone of any importance +in town. She found the child's primitive instinct of hero worship an +unerring touchstone by which to judge of each individual's influence in +this little community. He reflected the camp's opinion, and this was +exactly what she wanted to learn. She encouraged the boy to talk—not +a difficult matter, for his attentions had hitherto been quite ignored, +saving by Frosty and Peter. Frosty had proved valuable always in the +matter of skinning game or extracting refractory shells, but he had +never, even in his youngest days, been a boy. Between Peter and the +Kid was waged a perpetual war on the subject of hunting methods. The +Kid believed in stalking. Peter held the opinion that the chase was +the only noble form of the sport. The child had been lonely, strange. +Now he chatted to Molly with all the self-reliant confidence which +pertains of right to healthy boyhood, but which heretofore he had been +denied. He boasted with accustomed air. He spoke lightly of great +deeds. Molly did not laugh at him. His heart warmed to her, and he +fell in love with her on the spot. This was perhaps the most important +conquest the girl was destined to make, for there is no devotion in the +world like that of a boy of thirteen for a girl older than himself. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-131"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-131.jpg" ALT=""WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="774" HEIGHT="510"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 774px"> +"WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +In a little time, Molly had gathered a number of men about her, and was +holding them by sheer force of charm. +</P> + +<P> +"How are you?" she called pleasantly to the first. +</P> + +<P> +"Purty smart," grinned the man, slouching past awkwardly. "How's +yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"Good. Come on over and see me and the Kid for awhile." +</P> + +<P> +She talked to him lightly, while he lumbered along after with his slow +wits. Other men came out, to all of whom she called a greeting, and +some of whom she summoned to her. She held them easily. It became an +audience, a court. They had a good time. There was much laughter. No +one grudged the delay. Each man held his axe shouldered, expecting to +go on to work in a moment or so, but still lingering—because she +willed that he should. +</P> + +<P> +After a time, the hotel began to give up its inmates. The gambler came +forth into the sunshine and lit a cigarette. Graham joined him, +casting an amused eye at the men about the wagon. Two or three others, +including the proprietor, leaned against the hitching rail watching the +animated group. Finally Cheyenne Harry sauntered carelessly forth. +His broad hat—straight-brimmed in a lop-brimmed camp—was pushed to +one side. He swaggered a little. +</P> + +<P> +The girl saw him and jumped down from the wagon tongue, breaking off +suddenly in a remark she was making. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, you!" she called. +</P> + +<P> +He paid no attention. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, you!" she repeated, jumping up and down with a pretty impatient +flutter of the hands. "Hi, you! Come here! You're wanted!" +</P> + +<P> +He looked up surprised. +</P> + +<P> +"Come here!" she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +And he went. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, boys," she said, when he had joined the group, "I'm going to live +with you, and if I live with you, I must have a place to live in. So I +want you to build me a shack. Will you do it?" +</P> + +<P> +The men looked at one another. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," went on Molly, taking their silence for consent, and +assuming a small air of proprietorship which became her well. She +specified site and size. "And you," she commanded Cheyenne Harry, "are +to boss one gang and I'll take the other. You stay here and level up, +and I'll go with some of the boys to cut the timber." +</P> + +<P> +She knew Harry would not refuse because his pistol holster was empty +and all the camp knew why. And yet levelling up is a most disagreeable +job, for it is a question of pulverized rock and wood blocks, in soft +ground; and of blasting with dynamite, in hard ground. +</P> + +<P> +Molly issued her orders rapidly. Axes were found, log chains exhumed +from the warehouse dust, horses harnessed. She waited long enough to +see the gang under Cheyenne Harry well started in its work; and then, +herself mounted on one of the horses, she and the other men took their +way down the ravine in search of timber. She was satisfied with having +been able to give Cheyenne Harry just the position of authority in the +little undertaking which he now held, but she confessed to a feeling of +disappointment that Billy Knapp had not been forthcoming, for he too +should have had a place in her scheme. She had observed Jack Graham +near the hotel, but she had other ideas in regard to the management of +that refractory individual. +</P> + +<P> +But it so happened that, in regard to Billy, chance helped her out. +The route selected ran up the valley, and about the bend was situated +the Great Snake lode, Billy Knapp's famous claim, before the shack of +which its proprietor was at that very moment fuming savagely over the +non-arrival of certain men he had hired to build more fitting quarters +for the new company's inspection. Billy blew a big cloud from his +pipe, and swore, when he finally caught sight of a group of axemen and +horses headed in his direction. +</P> + +<P> +The men saw him too. They began to laugh. "Good one on Billy Knapp," +they agreed. "He must be pretty hot when his axe gang don't come any." +</P> + +<P> +The girl overheard them. +</P> + +<P> +"What's that about Billy Knapp?" she asked sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't mean y' to hear, ma'am," replied the speaker. "Don' matter ez +fur's we's concerned. But Billy, he aims to put up a shack to-day, +gettin' ready for them tenderfeet that's comin' from Cheecawgo to look +over th' property; an' he hires a lot of th' boys t' put it up fer him, +an', you see, you runs off with 'most the hull outfit yere to build you +a shack. So, natural, we thinks it makes Billy hot." +</P> + +<P> +"I see," said Molly. She reflected a moment. "Where is it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"That's it, right to the lef'. And that's Billy walkin' 'round loose." +They laughed again. +</P> + +<P> +Without a word she turned the animal she was riding sharp to the left, +and began to mount the little knoll. The men followed in +consternation. Billy's patience was not noted for its evenness. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo, Billy!" she cried when she was near enough. "Good morning!" +</P> + +<P> +Billy had not at first caught sight of her, and was now plainly a +little nonplussed over his unexpected guest. Clearly he could not at +this moment "cuss out" the delinquents as they deserved. He removed +his broad black hat. +</P> + +<P> +"Good mo'ning! Good mo'ning!" he replied to the girl's greeting. +"Come up t' see th' wo'ks?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whoa!" called Molly. The men stopped. "No," she said flatly, "I +didn't. Not to-day, that is. I'm busy. I'm hunting for good timber." +</P> + +<P> +Billy looked puzzled. "Timber?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, timber. I'm going to have a shack built, and these boys are +going to put it up for me." +</P> + +<P> +Thus she broke the news gently. Billy looked the men over one by one. +He turned a slow red. +</P> + +<P> +"Huh!" he observed at last. "I thought they was goin' to wo'k fo' me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you?" asked Molly sweetly. "Well, they're not; at least, not now." +</P> + +<P> +That was categorical. Billy's wits did not respond to this sort of +emergency very quickly. He did not want to be rude; he did not care to +lose his men. Molly looked down. +</P> + +<P> +"Come here and tie my shoestring," she commanded, holding out her foot, +and gripping the harness with both hands. +</P> + +<P> +Billy did not remember that he had ever seen so small a foot. He +looked, fascinated. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" she said impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +He raised his head and gazed plump into the imperious depths of a pair +of blue eyes. His anger melted. He approached and attempted to tie +the shoe. +</P> + +<P> +None but Molly ever knew how hard that horse was kicked by the other +little shoe. Indeed, no one knew at all how it happened. Some of the +eye-witnesses theorized concerning bumblebees. Others said horseflies. +As to the main facts, there was no doubt—that he, the horse, gave a +sudden startled plunge; that she, the girl, screamed slightly and +started to fall; that he, Billy Knapp, caught her full in his arms, +held her the fraction of a second, and set her lightly back on the +again motionless animal. +</P> + +<P> +Molly caught her breath and steadied herself on Billy's shoulder. +Three men officiously held the horse's head. +</P> + +<P> +"My!" she gasped. "I'd like to be as strong as that!" +</P> + +<P> +Billy whirled on the axe gang with a great bluster. +</P> + +<P> +"Yere, you fellers!" he shouted. "What 're y' standin' around yere +for? Take them hosses up in th' brush behind my shack, an' cut th' +lady some timber!" +</P> + +<P> +"Go ahead, boys," said Molly. She slid down from the horse. "I'll be +'long in a minute. I'm a little scairt." +</P> + +<P> +They clambered on up the hill, grinning. A clank of chains told when +they had stopped. A moment later the ring of axes was heard. The Kid +and the rifle had disappeared in the direction of Peter's rapid and +scrambling exit. The boy and the dog hated each other apparently, and +yet they could not bear to be long apart. +</P> + +<P> +The girl sat down on the ground and made Billy talk about himself, +which was the obvious thing to do. Billy was one of those expansive +sanguine individuals without much ability in what we call practical +affairs, and yet with a certain dexterity in gathering unto himself the +means with which to be impractical. Because of this, he had a good +opinion of himself, which at the same time he was much given to +doubting. Molly induced him to flatter himself, and then deftly agreed +with him. +</P> + +<P> +After a time they went up through the pines to where the workmen were +felling trees. Toward noon the whole party returned to town, dragging +behind the horses a number of tree trunks chained together with steel +chains. These were slid to the site of the house, and left in the road. +</P> + +<P> +The men in camp had nearly finished their job of levelling up. +Cheyenne Harry had worked hard with his own hands. In the shade of the +Little Nugget, Black Mike and Graham sat, chair tilted, contemplatively +watching the process. Through the open door could be perceived a gleam +of white that indicated Frosty; otherwise the street of the town was +empty. The prospectors were all out in the hills, preparing a suitable +showing for the inspection of the boom which they felt sure must be +close at hand. +</P> + +<P> +The united forces rolled the foundation timbers in place, straining, +sweating, grunting, for it was no easy work. The sun stood straight +overhead. After a little, observing this, Molly called a halt for the +noon hour. To each man she addressed a word of thanks, and a reminder +that the job was but half over. The reminder however was unnecessary, +for, under the stimulus of concerted effort, public sentiment had +crystallized into the opinion that the housing of a "first woman" was a +public duty. +</P> + +<P> +In a few moments the street was deserted, save for Cheyenne Harry and +the two men under the eaves of the Little Nugget. From the chimneys of +some of the cabins the smoke of cooking arose. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyenne Harry, volatile, changeable, fickle, stood still in the middle +of the dusty road and cursed himself for a fool. He had blistered his +hands, overheated himself most uncomfortably, and made his muscles ache +with unwonted lifting. For what? For a girl who, the evening before, +had boxed his ears and stolen his gun. Fascinated by a pair of pretty +eyes and a petty display of courage, he had worked himself like a +horse. He dropped his head in a brown study, moodily digging away at +the ground with his heel, ruminating bitterly over his egregious folly. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you very much," said a soft little voice, breaking in on his +irritation like a silver bell on a moody silence. +</P> + +<P> +He raised his head, and beheld Molly standing before him, looking up at +him with grave sweet eyes. There was a hint of weariness in her +drooping eyelids that appealed subtly to his own weary spirit. She +seemed, standing there in the deserted street, to typify for the moment +the aloofness of his mood. +</P> + +<P> +"You've been good to me this morning," she went on in a quiet monotone, +"mighty good!" +</P> + +<P> +She stepped nearer to him until her breast almost touched his. +</P> + +<P> +"I want you to look up at that pine over there until I tell you you can +quit," she said as gravely as a child about to bestow a sugar plum. +</P> + +<P> +Harry turned his eyes to the hill. +</P> + +<P> +She stooped swiftly and drew the band of a holster and belt around his +hips. Unmindful of his promise, he looked down on her in surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be mad," she pleaded. "I got Frosty to get it for me from your +shack, so I could put your gun in it. And now you'll wear it for me, +won't you? I said you couldn't have it till you told me you were +sorry. Well, you have told me you were sorry, in the best way—by +doing something. I know how it is. I've had to work. It's no fun to +be laughed at; and you'll always be as good and brave as you were this +morning, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +A rush as of something beautiful swept over him. His eyes filled and +he tried to speak, but turned away. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, run along," she exclaimed gayly, giving him a little pat on the +shoulder, "and don't forget you've got a job for this afternoon!" +</P> + +<P> +She stood for a moment in the middle of the road watching him. +</P> + +<P> +Graham, sitting under the eaves of the Little Nugget, surveyed the +little scene with cynical eyes. He watched the girl walk toward the +saloon. She had taken off her sunbonnet and the noon sun was gilding +her hair. She was pensive and thoughtful, and looked down. He told +himself that she did this because it was a becoming pose. Graham was +the sort of man whom pretence, craftiness, guile, always roused to +arms. So long as he was antagonized, or thought he was, his bitterness +and scorn were unappeasable; but once his ascendancy was freely +acknowledged, he threw away its advantages with the utmost generosity. +He thought he saw through this girl, and so he despised her and her +tricks alike. +</P> + +<P> +As she approached, Lafond arose and went inside the saloon, where he +began to inquire of Frosty in regard to dinner. The girl sat down in +the vacated chair. Beyond a curt little nod to Graham she did not +notice his presence. +</P> + +<P> +Over Tom Custer an eagle was wheeling slowly to and fro, barking with +the mere delight of being on the wing. Molly fixed her eyes dreamily +on the bird, but without apparent consciousness of more than the mere +fact of its wide motion. Graham imperturbably whittled a pine stick, +and whistled at the sky. +</P> + +<P> +This state of affairs continued for some time. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you keep the dirt from coming through the roof?" asked Molly +suddenly, her mind, to all appearance, entirely on the work in hand. +</P> + +<P> +Graham explained briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said Molly. +</P> + +<P> +After a few minutes more Graham shifted his knife into his left hand, +and began idly to stab the bench with it. Several times he opened his +mouth to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"You've got him well trained," he observed finally, with a slight curl +of the lip. +</P> + +<P> +"Who? What do you mean?" she cried, genuinely surprised out of the +indifference she had assumed. +</P> + +<P> +"Him—Lafond. He knows when to go away. Why did you want to get rid +of him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't want to get rid of him. It was so I could be alone." +</P> + +<P> +"That's consistent! It was nothing of the kind. It was so you could +be alone—with me." +</P> + +<P> +She looked him over, flushing angrily. Then she deliberately turned +her shoulder to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You are very impudent," she remarked coldly. "You seem to forget that +I don't even know you. I don't know why I sit here and listen, except +that I am comfortable, and don't care to be driven away." +</P> + +<P> +"You wanted to capture me some way or another," he went on musingly, +catching a glimmer of the truth; "same as those poor fools out there in +the sun. I'd just like to know how you meant to do it and what you'd +have done to me. Would you have flattered me, or coaxed me, or what?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl did not reply. +</P> + +<P> +"How?" he urged, expecting an angry outburst, but profoundly +indifferent to it. +</P> + +<P> +"You are cruel," she answered softly, after a pause, "and very unjust." +Her cheeks were glowing and there was a glint in her eye, but he could +not see that. "They are only kind and good, not fools." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course they're good, but they are good because you fool them into +it," persisted Graham, spitefully pressing home his point. "You want +to win 'em all, just like a woman, but you're too clumsy about it. +Anybody can see through that sort of tommyrot, if he isn't a fool. So +I call them fools, and I stick to it." +</P> + +<P> +"With you it's different," she replied, hesitating almost before each +word. "You ain't the same kind. I know it's foolish, but I can't help +it, and I don't think I'm so much to blame. Perhaps I <I>am</I> trying to +make them like me. Is there so much harm in that? Nobody has ever +liked me before. I have no mother and no sisters—only Mike. I want +to be liked, and—and—I'm <I>sorry</I> if you don't think I ought to, but +it can't be helped." +</P> + +<P> +She looked out again at the eagle slowly circling over Tom Custer, with +eyes vaguely troubled. Graham could examine her closely without the +danger of detection. He did so. +</P> + +<P> +There was something pathetically child-like about her after all, +something delicate in the oval of her face and the sensitive modelling +of her chin, which appealed to a man's protective instincts. Her eyes +were so wide and blue and wistful, and again so pathetically young, +like those of a little child gazing upon the shower-wet world from the +safety of a window. Graham suddenly realized that this was no +self-sufficient, capable woman whom he was so bluntly antagonizing, but +only a pinafored innocent playing with forces of which she did not know +the meaning. He began all at once to feel sorry for her. Against her +probable future in this rough camp, how small the present looked, how +little were her coquetries, her innocent wiles! +</P> + +<P> +She sighed almost inaudibly. The eagle folded his wings and dropped +like a plummet from the upper air, only to swoop upward on outspread +pinions a moment later. +</P> + +<P> +Graham began to be ashamed of himself. His thoughts took a new +direction. He wondered what her previous history, her education, could +have been. Her face was pure, her eyes clear. Could she have lived +always with the half-breed? Both spoke English of an excellence beyond +the common—in that country, at least. Then he began idly to watch the +sunlight running nimbly up and down a single loose tress of her hair, +as the wind lifted it and let it fall. +</P> + +<P> +The girl turned and caught his eyes fairly. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she asked simply. +</P> + +<P> +"I was wondering," he replied with equal simplicity, "whether you had +always lived with him." +</P> + +<P> +"No," she replied, without pretending not to understand the purport of +his question. Then, in the same little voice, in which was a trace, +just a trace, of an infinite dreariness: "I have lived all my life at +an Indian agency. He came and took me away a little while ago. He is +good to me," she said doubtfully, "and I am glad to be away. The agent +was good to me, but there were only a few people, and I only read and +read and read, or rode and rode and rode, and knew nothing at all of +people. I got tired of it. Nobody cared for me there. Nobody cares +for me anywhere, I reckon, except Mike, and his caring for people +doesn't count so very much." +</P> + +<P> +She turned upon him again that vaguely troubled gaze, which seemed to +see him, and yet to look beyond him. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little girl," said Graham, on a sudden deeply moved. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little girl!" he repeated with infinite tenderness, and took her +idle hand in both of his. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little girl!" he said for the third time. She put her other hand +before her eyes; then, releasing herself gently, she rose and glided +through the door without a word. +</P> + +<P> +Once inside the portal her eyes cleared with a snap. She laughed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION +</H4> + +<P> +In the course of this same morning, Lafond had discovered an old +acquaintance. +</P> + +<P> +He arose early, and spent some time after breakfast investigating and +criticising the premises. Frosty's administration had, it must be +confessed, been rather slack, and there were many loose ends. These +Black Mike gathered into a cat o' nine tails with which to lash his +subordinate. After he had done more for Frosty's character in sixty +minutes than that young man, unaided, could have accomplished in as +many months, he left the scene of his reorganizations behind, and +strolled about in the one narrow street of the village. +</P> + +<P> +He soon saw all there was to be seen there. With a vague idea of +finding his way to the famous Great Snake Mine, he rambled out from the +double row of log cabins, around the bend, and into the lower gulch. +He had defined to himself two things very clearly—that Billy Knapp was +now easily the most important figure in the community, and that a +continuance of this importance depended entirely on his effecting a +combination of his group of claims with Eastern capital. In the Black +Hills nearly all of the promising leads are of quartz, requiring in +their development more expensive machinery than any ordinary man is +able to afford. Until the good angel arrives, they are so much +crumbling red rock or white crystal; but with the erection of a stamp +mill, within wagon distance, they become valuable. Mike had set +himself to the task of depriving Billy Knapp at once of his property +and of his prestige; but since he could not hold him up at the point of +a pistol, as might have been done had it been the question of a watch +or a scarf-pin, he did not at present see just how it was to be +accomplished. Ruminating these matters, he found himself all at once +in a cañon much grown with underbrush, full of birds, and possessing a +general air of the gentler aspects of nature. +</P> + +<P> +Immediately before him stood a double cabin, its two parts connected by +a passage way. The foundations of its timbers were encircled by broad +bands of red geraniums. Behind the buildings, chained to posts, he +perceived three wild animals. One was a short, comical, and shaggy +bear; the second, an equally furry but more eager-looking raccoon; the +third, a bobcat with tasselled ears. +</P> + +<P> +Mike paused and surveyed them with amusement. As he stood there the +door of the cabin opened and the owner stepped out into the sunshine. +The half-breed never forgot a face which a vital incident had impressed +on his memory; and though this old, white-haired, mild-eyed man had +passed in and out of his life in the space of one evening fifteen years +ago, Lafond recognized without difficulty the stranger whose words had +given him so powerful an impetus toward his new way of life. It was +Durand, the butterfly hunter. +</P> + +<P> +He was little changed. And again the coarser man felt, as fifteen +years before, the air of gentle and quaint courtesy, which a keener +observer would have associated with an old-fashioned society now quite +passed away. It should have gone with ruffles and silken hose, with +powdered hair and silver shoe buckles. +</P> + +<P> +The naturalist caught sight of the newcomer and approached. +</P> + +<P> +"They are quite gentle," he assured, explaining the beasts. He rubbed +the heavy fur of the raccoon the wrong way. "Ah, Jacques," he said to +the little animal, relapsing quaintly into a sort of old-time speech, +"thy hair doth resemble in stiffness of texture the bristles of thine +own curry brush." +</P> + +<P> +The raccoon uttered his high, purring over-note, and seized the man's +fingers with his little black hands, almost human. The bear waved his +paws appealingly. The bobcat danced back and forth at the end of its +leash. "Peace, my children," chided the old man, bestowing on each a +pat. "It is not yet the hour of noon." He stooped to unsnap the +raccoon's chain; and then, as though recalling the half-breed's +presence, he turned with an air of apology. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a stranger here?" he asked. "Yes? And you walk this morning +for your pleasure? Yes? That happens not often in these parts." He +went on, conversing shyly but easily, with the obvious desire of +pleasing the half-breed rather than himself. Lafond had opportunity to +observe the great solidity of the logs composing the cabin walls, and +to recognize that the structure must belong to the earlier period of +the primitive architecture of the Hills—for there are such periods. +</P> + +<P> +"You have lived here long," he suggested, following out this inference. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," laughed the old man softly, "very long. The camp there came to +me. I was an old timer when the first house was built." +</P> + +<P> +After a little, they entered the cabin together, and Lafond found +himself in a sheet-ceiled room, strewn with all sorts of literary and +scientific junk. The imagination could discover much food for +speculation in the curiosities literally heaped about the apartment, +but most wonderful of all, seizing the eye, holding it from all else, +were the scores of shallow glass-fronted boxes hanging everywhere on +the wall. They were lined with white paper pasted over a layer of +cork. In them, row after row, were impaled butterflies of many colors. +Thousands of the pretty insects were there outspread, varying in size +from the tiny blue <I>Lycaena</I> to the great <I>Troilus</I> or the gorgeous +yellow and black <I>Turnus</I>. They were exquisitely prepared, with just +the right lift on the wings, just the proper balance of the long +antennae, until it seemed that they must be on the point of flight, and +one almost expected that in another moment the air would be filled with +a fluttering, many-hued splendor. +</P> + +<P> +The men seated themselves in two home-made chairs. The raccoon, +evidently from old winter-time habit, waddled in a dignified fashion to +the fireless stove, where he curled up like a door-mat with keen, +bright eyes. Mike's gaze roamed about the apartment. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a great scientist," he observed, intending the remark for a +compliment. +</P> + +<P> +"In a way, in a way," replied the old man humbly. "One must occupy the +mind when one is alone, and what task more fitting to our highest +faculties than that of investigating, with all due reverence, the +workings of God's mechanism?" +</P> + +<P> +He said it with a simple piety which could not provoke a smile. +Michaïl Lafond caught himself wondering what he did there. Surely +there was nothing to interest him in stuffed insects and a garrulous +old man, especially as the conversation insisted on retaining its +formal footing. +</P> + +<P> +"You are not a miner?" the entomologist inquired, after a moment's +pause. +</P> + +<P> +"No," replied Mike. +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad to hear it. I like not this eager scrambling for what does +so little good. I too once—— But now I am content; yes, content. +There is always good if one will but find it. I myself might with +justice be accused of being a miner. I find my leads, I develop them, +I assay my ores; but always in miniature—on a small scale." +</P> + +<P> +Then, in a flash, Michaïl Lafond saw at least the outlines of his plan, +and he knew why he had come in here to talk to the garrulous old man. +</P> + +<P> +"You know the assay, then?" he inquired conversationally. +</P> + +<P> +"In a modest way—a few simple tests." +</P> + +<P> +"But that is much. Do you not know that it is at Rapid, in the School +of Mines, that the nearest assayer is? You have a profession here at +your lands." +</P> + +<P> +A sudden scream broke through the apartment, a rush of wings, a growl. +The old man ran nimbly to the stove, and rescued the little raccoon +from the savage attacks of a magpie. The magpie sailed back to his +perch on one of the butterfly cases, where he ruffled his feathers +indignantly. The raccoon curled up in the old man's lap. +</P> + +<P> +"You are French?" inquired the latter, with more interest than he had +hitherto shown. +</P> + +<P> +"I have some French blood," replied Lafond cautiously. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew it," said Durand, immensely pleased. "I am rarely mistaken. +It was a twist of your words that suggested it, an idiom. <I>Et +maintenant nous pouvons causer</I>," he added in the purest Parisian +accent. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Oui, oui, oui,</I>" cried the half-breed, suddenly swept up by an +uncontrollable excitement he could not himself understand. "<I>La belle +langue!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +He felt an unwonted expansion of the heart at thus hearing once more +the language of his youth. The formality of the interview was gone. +They conversed freely, swiftly, animatedly. Durand had been educated +in Paris, and had a thousand reminiscences to impart. He told of many +quaint customs, and Lafond, with growing emotion, recalled similar or +analogous customs among his own expatriated branch of the race in the +pine forests of Canada. His sullen, taciturn manner broke. He became +the Gaul. He gesticulated, he overflowed, his eye lighted up, he said +a thousand things. +</P> + +<P> +After a time Durand opened a chest at the foot of the bed, from which +he abstracted a bottle and two long-stemmed glasses. These he placed +on the table with a quaint little air of ceremony. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," said he, "we must know each other better. We speak each the +language we love. We talk of old days. Sir," he concluded, bowing +with stately grace as he poured the red wine into the glasses, "I ask +you to drink wine with me to our acquaintance. My name is Durand." +</P> + +<P> +He inclined, his hand to his heart, and somehow there seemed to be +nothing ridiculous in the act. +</P> + +<P> +"I am Michaïl Lafond," replied the half-breed simply. +</P> + +<P> +A silence fell. The realities came back to Lafond's mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I would ask you a favor," he said abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"Name it; it is yours." +</P> + +<P> +"I want you to teach me how to make an assay." +</P> + +<P> +"It would be a pleasure. I will do it gladly." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it difficult?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not very." +</P> + +<P> +"When shall we begin?" +</P> + +<P> +"When you say." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond reflected. "Well, I will bring some ore in a day or two." +Then, after a pause, as though in deference to the attitude he knew the +old man held in regard to such things, he added, "It must be very +interesting, this making of gold from the rock." +</P> + +<P> +"And more interesting still," supplemented Durand gently, "is the +thrill of a shared thought." +</P> + +<P> +The raccoon stood on his hind legs in his master's lap, and began +deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets, deftly +inserting his little black hands, almost human, and watching the man's +face with alert eyes. Durand took the animal's small head between both +his palms, and smiled at him affectionately. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Jacques, <I>polisson</I>! Thou art a rogue, and dost learn early what +thy master's race doth teach. See, Lafond, how the little villain +would even now rob the very one who doth give to him his daily bread +and all that which he hath." He softly rubbed the small, black nose +with the flat of his palm, much to its owner's disgust. Jacques backed +off deliberately to the floor, where he sneezed violently, while Durand +gazed at him with a kindly smile. +</P> + +<P> +After leaving the cabin, Black Mike no longer slouched along unseeing. +He burned with the inspiration of an idea. Just where the idea would +lead him, or how it would work out in its final processes, he did not +know; but he had long since grown accustomed to relying blindly on such +exaltations of confidence as the present, sure that details would +develop when needed. He believed in letting the pot boil. +</P> + +<P> +Through the town he walked with brisk, business-like steps, out into +the higher gulch. There he soon came upon signs of industry. Up a +hill he could hear the ring of axes and the occasional rush of a +falling tree, sounding like grouse drumming in the spring. He followed +the sound. Half way up the knoll, he discovered a cabin and three +shafts. A rude sign announced that this represented the surface +property of the Great Snake Mining and Milling Company. Lafond halted +abruptly when he saw the sign. For perhaps half an hour he looked +over, with the eye of a connoisseur, the three piles of ore at the +mouths of the three shafts, approving silently of the evidence of slate +walls, crumbling between his strong fingers the oxygenated quartz, +putting his tongue to the harder specimens to bring out their color by +moisture, gazing with some curiosity at the darker hornblende. Finally +he selected a number of the smaller specimens, with which he filled the +ample pockets of his shooting-coat. After this he returned to town and +the Little Nugget saloon, where he emptied his pockets on the bar. +</P> + +<P> +"Get some of that packin' stuff out behind," he commanded Frosty, "and +with it construct a shelf there by the mirror." +</P> + +<P> +He stood over Frosty while the latter, frightened into clumsiness, +hammered his fingers, the wall, the rude shelf, anything but the nail. +Finally, Lafond thrust him aside with a curse, and finished the job +himself. On the completed shelf he ranged about half of the specimens +which he had picked up from the ore dumps. Beneath these he tacked a +label, indicating that they were from the Great Snake Mine. +</P> + +<P> +Then he joined Jack Graham outside, and settled down to watch the group +of men engaged in laying the foundation timbers of a new log shack. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +TIRED WINGS +</H4> + +<P> +In spite of the fact that she had laughed at Graham's blindness in +falling into her trap, Molly Lafond felt enough curiosity to induce her +to enter into several conversations with him during the course of that +afternoon. He sat by the door whistling. Out in the sun the men cut +logs, notched ends, heaved and pushed. The girl alternated between +personal encouragement of the workers, and a curious examination of the +idler. +</P> + +<P> +Graham interested her because he puzzled her. The young man no longer +held to the quizzical and cynical attitude he had assumed in the +morning, but neither did he at once manifest that personal interest +which she had imagined inevitable. He caught at her statement that she +had done nothing but "read, read, read." In the course of twenty +minutes he had made her most keenly aware of her deficiencies, and that +without the display of any other motive than a frank desire to discuss +the extent of her knowledge. He opened to her fields whose existence +she had never suspected; he showed her that she had but superficially +examined those she had entered. Authors she had much admired he +disposed of cavalierly, and in their stead substituted others of whom +she had never heard. +</P> + +<P> +"I like Bulwer," she remarked, secure in her classic because it had +been the only one of Sweeney's collection to come in a set and bound in +brown leather. +</P> + +<P> +"Bulwer, yes," said Graham, pulling his little moustache, and speaking, +as his habit sometimes was, more to himself than to his companion. "We +all go through that stage, but we get over it after awhile. You see, +he's superficial and awfully pedantic. There is much beauty in it, +too. I remember in one of his novels—I forget which—there is a +picture of a child tossing her ball skyward, with eyes turned upward to +the skies, that is worth a good deal." +</P> + +<P> +"It's in <I>What Will He Do with It?</I>" cried Molly, aglow at being able +to interpolate correctly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," assented Graham, indifferently. "It has something to do with +youth, I think. Before our critical judgment grows up and finds him +out, there is a peculiar elevation about Bulwer's themes and treatment. +His world is blown; but it is big, and his figures have a certain +scornful nobility about them. If I were to compete with the gentleman +under discussion," he concluded, with a slight laugh, "I would say that +he throws upon the true gold of youthful ideals, hopes, and dreams, the +light of his own tinsel." +</P> + +<P> +Molly was subdued, humbled. She was deprived at a stroke of all her +weapons. For the first time she found herself looking up to a man, and +wondering whether she could ever meet him on terms of equality. She +caught herself covertly scrutinizing Graham to see if he too realized +his advantage. He was genuinely interested; that was all. He seemed +to take it for granted that she was already on his level. This +encouraged her somewhat. +</P> + +<P> +Whenever she again joined the group of sweating men at work on her +house, she felt subtly that she was returning from a far country. She +had brought back with her something new. The nature of the +conversation had lifted her to the contemplation of fresh possibilities +of human intercourse. With a defiant toss of the head she indulged +herself to the extent of imagining several Bulwer-like conversations, +in which she dealt out brilliant generalities to the universal +applause. It was the first flight her wings had essayed; the first +charm not merely physical that she had experienced with one of the +other sex. She felt she was going to like this man Graham. +</P> + +<P> +And yet that very elation was one of the reasons why, after dinner in +the "hotel," she walked with Billy Knapp, although Graham was plainly +waiting for her. It had been her first flight; her wings were tired. +The reaction had come. +</P> + +<P> +The dinner itself, and its manner, had much to do with bringing this to +her consciousness. Entering at one end of the hotel dining-room, she +first became aware of the cook stove at the other, and, behind it, +tins. Down the centre extended the three bench-flanked board tables, +polished smooth by the combined influences of spilled grease and much +rubbing. At certain short intervals had been stationed tin plates, +over each of which were stacked, pyramid fashion, an iron knife, fork +and spoon. Tin cups spaced the plates. Down the centre of each table +were distributed thick white china receptacles containing sugar, lumpy +and brown with coffee; salt; and butter on the point of melting. At +dinner-time the cook placed between these receptacles capacious tins, +steaming respectively, with fried and boiled pork, boiled potatoes, +cornmeal mush, and canned tomatoes; besides corn bread, soda biscuits, +and a small quantity of milk for the coffee. Then, wiping his +glistening face on the red-checked little towel that hung at his waist, +he entered the "office" and, seizing a huge bell, clanged forth, now to +the right, now to the left, that his meal was ready. +</P> + +<P> +The men ate in their shirt sleeves, those farthest half obscured by the +clouds of steam from the uncovered dishes. The cook stove, the dishes, +and the men heated the low unventilated room almost to suffocation. +They gobbled their food rapidly, taking noisy swigs of the coffee from +the tin cups. As each finished, he wiped his plate clean with the soft +inside of a soda biscuit, drew his knife across the bread once or +twice, swallowed the gravy-laden biscuit at one mouthful, and departed +without further ceremony into the outer air. +</P> + +<P> +It was all thoroughly Western, thoroughly material, thoroughly restful +to tired wings. +</P> + +<P> +As the meal progressed, the exaltation faded slowly. Molly received +the assiduous attentions of everybody. After dinner, as has been said, +she and the wonderful Billy Knapp disappeared into the twilight, +leaving the disconsolate miners to find their way to the Little Nugget +when it pleased them to do so. +</P> + +<P> +Billy talked. He poured out his confidences. He told how great was +Billy, how bright were Billy's prospects, how important were Billy's +responsibilities. He was glad to show this young girl the town; it was +Billy's town. He was pleased to tell her the names of the hills +hereabouts; these hills concealed within their depths the veins of +Billy's lodes. He delighted in giving the history of the men they met; +for these men looked up to Billy as the architect of their future +forties. He spoke enthusiastically of the prospects. +</P> + +<P> +"Thar is a lode," said he earnestly, "over on the J.G. fraction that's +shore th' purtiest bit of quartz lead you ever see. The walls is all +of slate, running jest's slick side by side, with a clear vein between +'em, and she'll run 'way up, free millin'. I tell you what, Miss +Molly, thar's big money in it, thar shorely is! When I get those +Easte'n capitalists interested, and ready to put a little <I>salt</I> in, +and git up a few mills and necessary buildin's, you'll jest see things +hummin' in this yar kentry." +</P> + +<P> +Out of the darkness a silent little figure glided and fell in step with +the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo, bub," said Billy indifferently, and went on to tell what he was +going to do. Billy had great plans. +</P> + +<P> +Molly said nothing to the new member of their party, but she reached +out her hand and patted the little cotton-covered shoulder. She looked +about at the dark town and the hills, and drew a deep breath. This was +real, tangible. She felt at home in it, and she was adequate to all +that its conditions might bring forth. Above all, she was confident +here. Graham and his ideas seemed to her at the moment quite nebulous +and phantom-like. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's go to the Little Nugget," she suggested suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +They turned to retrace their steps. As they passed an open doorway, a +big man darted out with unnatural agility and seized the Kid by the +scruff of the neck. +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, miss, whom I am overjoyed to meet. Standing as I +do <I>in loco parentis</I>, the claims of the rising generation constrain me +to postpone that more intimate acquaintance which your attractions +demand of my desire. Come along here, you!" and he dragged the Kid, +struggling and crying out, into the dark cabin. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't he great?" cried Billy, with real enthusiasm. "Ain't he just? +They ain't a man in th' whole Northwest as can sling the langwidge that +man can when he tries. You just ought to see him when he cuts loose, +you just ought." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is he?" asked Molly. +</P> + +<P> +"Him? What, him? He's Moroney!" +</P> + +<P> +His tone denied the need of further question. They entered the saloon. +</P> + +<P> +The first half hour of Molly's evening in the Little Nugget was +constrained. Up to this point she had met the men of the camp under +extraordinary circumstances. Now she was called upon to face them in +their time of relaxation and accustomed comfort. Such moments of +leisure crystallize for us men everywhere our opinions of people. +Anybody is welcome to sail with us, hunt with us, fish with us, ride +with us, work with us, provided he is personally agreeable and +understands the game. We are not so undiscriminating when it comes to +a study fire and an easy chair. Translate the study fire and the easy +chair to the Little Nugget and a quiet game, and you will see one +reason for the constraint. No unkindness was intended. The situation +was merely, but inevitably, awkward for everybody. +</P> + +<P> +In such emergencies as this, where a creature of coarser fibre would +fail, Molly's hereditary fineness of instinct stood her in good stead. +She saw intuitively the attitude she should take. In the first place, +she held herself in the background, left the lead to others, behaved as +if she suspected herself of being an intruder; so that the men suddenly +felt themselves very paternal and adoptive. +</P> + +<P> +In the second place, she encouraged them to show off; which they did +with the utmost heartiness. The first embarrassment wore away before +long, and Molly took her place in the corner of the bar with the tacit +approval of every man in the room. +</P> + +<P> +The remainder of the evening was enjoyable. Some features of it would +scarcely have impressed a refined Easterner favorably, for these were +rough men, with crude tastes and passions. Once having accepted the +girl as one of themselves, they lapsed to some extent, though not +entirely, into their accustomed manner. It is a little difficult +sometimes to interpret the West in terms of the East. An act which in +the older country would be significant of too licensed freedom, on the +frontier is a matter of course. Everything depends on the point of +view and the attitude of mind. +</P> + +<P> +Around Molly Lafond seethed a constantly changing group of men. They +joked boisterously at one another and at her. The standard of wit was +the saying of insulting things with a laugh that showed that the remark +held in itself something of facetious sarcasm. Through thinner skins +it would have bitten cruelly. Behind this lively group sat another, +more silent, smoking the amused pipe of contemplation, all alert to the +chances of conversational battle, ready to jump up and enter the lists +whenever a bright idea suggested itself. In the corner just behind the +bar, lurked Black Mike, keeping a sinister eye on Frosty's +dispensations. The faro dealer called his cards imperturbably over his +scantily patronized game. Occasionally someone, glowing with the +good-natured excitement of jesting, would break away from the laughing +group, and, standing the while, would stake a few red chips on a turn +or so of the cards. +</P> + +<P> +Peter, obsessed of some sudden and doggish affection, ceased his +restless wanderings. He took up his position, resting on one hip, both +hind legs to one side, directly beneath Molly's feet. There his shaggy +head was of such a height that the girl could just reach it with the +point of her shoe. From time to time, when the exigency demanded such +a pose, she looked down prettily, and stirred the animal's button ears +with her little foot. On such occasions Peter gravely rolled his eyes +upward and wriggled his stump of a tail. +</P> + +<P> +A young fellow by the name of Dave Kelly stood nearest her. He was a +handsome young fellow, with a laughing boyish face. As time went on, +he became more and more elated and sure of himself. Occasionally, when +the press of men behind would push him forward, he would reach across +the girl to regain his balance. Once he put his hand lightly on the +point of her shoulder. He paused, with a strange delicious thrill at +the feel of the round young arm under the loose stuff of the gown, +which slipped beneath his grasp to emphasize the smoothness of the +skin. Aware of the touch, she looked toward him for a minute, +laughing. Somehow it gave him a strange feeling of intimacy with her, +inexplicable, subtle. Without knowing why he did so, he felt his own +shoulder underneath his loose flannel shirt. It gave the same +impression, only rougher, coarser. +</P> + +<P> +There suddenly sprang into his mind a sense of physical kinship between +himself and her. He took frequent opportunities of repeating the +contact, always lightly, always with the same delicious thrill. At +each touch the girl turned to him for a vaguely smiling instant. She +was absorbed in the men about her. The youth at her side had fallen +silent, but her good nature extended to everybody. +</P> + +<P> +Late in the evening somebody suggested that Frosty had been singularly +unemployed. Glasses were filled. Molly's was handed to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"It'll do y' good," "Try her," "Aw, come on!" urged a dozen voices. +</P> + +<P> +She sipped a little. It tasted to her like liquid fire, with a strange +gagging property as it reached the region of the epiglottis. She +sputtered and choked. +</P> + +<P> +"Ugh!" she shuddered. "Ugh! I couldn't get a glass of that stuff down +if it killed me." She shut her eyes and shivered with a pretty +disgust. "I simply can't," she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't ye got anything else, Frosty?" they cried reproachfully. "That +stuff's purty rank fer a lady, that's right. Skirmish around thar, an' +see what y' kin discover." +</P> + +<P> +Frosty skirmished around, and finally bobbed up, red-faced, with a +bottle of some light wine. Molly drank this slowly, with little more +satisfaction. Some people never care for the taste of anything with +alcohol in it, and the cheap wine had more than the suspicion of a wire +edge. But she liked the warm glow that followed, and she found that in +a moment or so she was much pleased with herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Give me another of those," she smiled to Frosty, holding out the empty +glass. The men chuckled. This was something like. +</P> + +<P> +Molly drank the other glass. In a few minutes she felt sleepy. "I'm +going to turn in," she said abruptly, and slid down on the unsuspecting +Peter. They disentangled the trouble with merriment. Molly consoled +Peter. The room was full of noise and light. +</P> + +<P> +"May I take you over?" Kelly was asking in her ear. She nodded assent. +The other men looked chagrined. It had not occurred to them. +</P> + +<P> +Dave Kelly and Molly stepped gayly from the heated, garish saloon into +the still night. The contrast made them feel yet gayer. They remarked +on the stars and the moon, to do which it became necessary to look +upward and slacken their steps. He was very close to her. He slipped +his arm about her waist, his great hand resting firmly beneath her +small bust, and they stumbled on together in breathless silence. He +felt very bold and elated and happy. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she looked down with an air of mock surprise. "What is this?" +she cried, lifting one of Dave's fingers and letting it fall. "Why, it +looks like your hand!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's so!" grinned Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder how that could have got there!" +</P> + +<P> +Dave, finding himself unequal to persiflage, made no reply. She +nestled up to him a little and sighed. She liked it. She had not the +slightest idea that there was anything out of the way in it. Why +should she? Morals, as we understand them, she had never been taught. +They slowly approached the wagon, which during the day had been dragged +to a less conspicuous but more distant locality. +</P> + +<P> +Ah, Molly, Molly, those wings are very tired! +</P> + +<P> +At the moment when Kelly first pressed the girl to him, he experienced +a sudden lessening of her charm. It was not that she was less +feminine, or that, in his eyes, she had lost any moral excellence by +her easy surrender. Dave had probably as rudimentary ideas of the +finer moralities as Molly herself. But one very definite element of +her attraction had been given up—that of mystery, of remoteness, of +difference between herself and him. She was no longer a creature of a +wonderful and other sphere; she had become the female of his species. +</P> + +<P> +All this was subtle and slight and quite unappreciated and unanalyzed +by Dave himself. But the keen intuition of the girl discovered it. +She felt the difference. Suddenly she became aware of the fact that +whatever a woman gives to a man takes something from her attraction, +and adds something to his. With the discovery, she resolutely put his +hand away. +</P> + +<P> +"That's enough of that," she said in the sensible voice which some +women use so effectually. +</P> + +<P> +Dave, unwilling to let the sensation go before he had drained it, +attempted to seize her by force. She slipped away and ran like a deer +to her wagon, gleaming white through the darkness. Dave sprang in +pursuit. At the instant Peter, who had followed unperceived, leaped +with a growl and fastened his teeth into Dave's cowhide boot. The +miner paused a moment undecided, and then, his natural good nature +coming to his rescue, he laughed. An answering laugh echoed from the +direction of the wagon. +</P> + +<P> +"That's a pretty trick," he called, trying to disengage Peter's jaws. +Peter shook his head savagely and growled. +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to learn to run," came the voice from the safety of the +wagon. +</P> + +<P> +"Run!" laughed Dave. "Run with a dawg hangin' to you? Call him and +see if you can get him to leave go." +</P> + +<P> +"Dog?" repeated the voice in puzzled tones. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dog—this yere Peter. He seems to have took up with you-all. +He's got me by th' laig!" +</P> + +<P> +Molly reappeared cautiously. Then she saw Peter, and advanced boldly. +The two young people looked at the eager and determined little dog, and +laughed with great good nature. Their crisis had passed, fortunately +without harm to either. Molly took Peter by the collar. Peter at once +let go. +</P> + +<P> +"Good night," said Molly decidedly to Dave. +</P> + +<P> +"Good night," said Dave, and turned back. +</P> + +<P> +Molly walked on to the wagon, closely followed by Peter. As she +climbed in, she turned and caught sight of the little animal, eyeing +her wistfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Want to come in?" said she. +</P> + +<P> +Peter jumped to the whiffletree, then upon the seat, then into the +wagon. Molly followed. +</P> + +<P> +"Peter," said she, "we won't do that any more. I don't believe it's a +good scheme. What do you think, dog?" +</P> + +<P> +Peter wagged his stump of a tail, but as it was quite dark, this +expression of approval was lost. "I hope he won't say anything about +it," she went on reflectively. "But if he does"—she tossed her +head—"much good may it do any of them!" Then, after some time, +"Peter, let's go to sleep." +</P> + +<P> +Peter whined with content. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE BROAD WHITE ROAD +</H4> + +<P> +Copper Creek had begun as a half-way house, and had ended as a camp. +Thus the hotel was its oldest structure. +</P> + +<P> +Situated about half way between Rockerville and Custer, on the old +Spring Creek trail, it often happened that the stage running from Rapid +to the last-named town would stop for the evening meal, or even for the +night, at the little log structure which Bill Martin had been sagacious +enough to erect there. The soil was good for potatoes, which was +lucky, for Bill Martin could never have prospered as a hotel keeper +pure and simple; because purity, simplicity, and temperance principles +have nothing to do with a Western inn. Bill cooked, made beds, and +raised potatoes. Then a fortuitous "grub staker" discovered the Great +Snake lode. A town sprang up in the night, so Bill Martin hired Black +Jack and built additions. And finally, since his food was good and +cheap, it came to be the proper thing to eat late dinners at two +dollars a week in the long dining-room of Bill Martin's new building. +After the Little Nugget, a later but more enterprising venture, Bill +Martin's Prairie Dog, with its small office, its big eating room, its +little square bedrooms above the office, and its ancient and musty +copies of distant journals, was acknowledged to be the most important +institution of the place. +</P> + +<P> +From the narrow, roofless stoop its proprietor looked out tranquilly on +the growth of the camp. He was a tall, cadaverous, facetious +individual, slightly stooped, with thin impassive face, deep eyes, and +a beard that seemed always just two days old. He spoke with a drawl +that was at first natural, but later, as the quaint old fellow grew to +appreciate its humorous qualities, it took on a faint color of +affectation. He adopted always the paternal attitude, as was clearly +his right. +</P> + +<P> +Bill Martin was probably the only man who could have told you the +history of Copper Creek, for he had been, through all of its changes of +population, the one stable character. First came the original "grub +staker" and a score more like him—impecunious, giving, many of them, +their labor and experience, in exchange for tools and provisions +furnished them by a speculator in the towns. The speculator took half +of what was found. These men were hardy, bold, enduring, skilful. +They grubbed about in the hills with the keen restless instinct of ants +over a mould of earth, moving rapidly, pausing often, lighting finally, +with an accuracy that to the outsider would have seemed something +preternatural, on the one quartz vein of the many, or the one +significant lead in the multitude of systems that seamed the country in +all directions. Thereupon they staked out claims with white pine +posts, and blasted little troughs to show milk-white quartz or red ore +filling. And finally they disappeared, like bats before daylight, +leaving not an echo of themselves to recall their presence to the hills +in which they had toiled. +</P> + +<P> +Their places were taken by the speculator, the miner with a little +money, the small capitalist willing to invest and not unwilling to work +with his own hands. These men paid a certain modest amount to the +first discoverers for the chance to take chances on the embryo mines. +The prospector never had the patience to wait, or scheme, or develop, +to the justification of a better price. The excitement of the chase +was his. He was a master who sketched, in bold comprehensive strokes, +the design of a work which men patient in the little details must fill +in with color and value. Having thus outlined the lifetimes of men, +the prosperity of the whole great industry that was to be, he was +content to move on to where a new and virgin country offered a fresh +canvas to his creative genius. He was always poor, but he never pitied +himself. +</P> + +<P> +The new owner, then, represented the investor. He expected no +immediate returns. He was willing to wait. Meanwhile he spent as much +time in going over the fifty thousand square yards of his one claim as +his predecessor had in examining the whole twenty-five hundred square +miles of the district. He carefully analyzed the lead, its tendencies, +its virtues, its defects. When he had fully satisfied his mind, he +sank neat, square-timbered shafts, from fifty to two hundred feet in +depth, from which ramified tunnels, both across and along the drift. +The débris he piled outside, without attempting to save its value. In +this manner, gradually, he came to possess points of view from which +the next purchaser of the claim could plainly see its worth and +possibilities. +</P> + +<P> +For this second proprietor never expected to make his profit from the +ore. That accrued later, and to another man. When the country became +a little known, the other man would happen along; he, in his turn, +would be willing to invest; and the present holder of the property, the +middleman in this queerly constructed industry, could measure the +success of his undertaking by the difference between the price he had +paid to the original "grub staker" and the price he now received from +the future developer. Meanwhile, he worked hard with his hands. +</P> + +<P> +Thus the camp presented the phenomenon of a community prospering on +nothing more tangible than hope. When the cabins began to crowd +thicker and thicker between the walls of the little gulch, Bill Martin +had been forced to give up agriculture because of lack of room; so that +Copper Creek produced absolutely nothing, not even potatoes. Every +cent of its present and actual value came from outside, either with the +men themselves, or with some investor who brought in the price of wages +for a contemplated improvement. Only as long as there existed in men's +minds the comparative certainty of a future stamp mill, by which the +quartz could be made to give up its treasure, would the machinery of +life run well. Hope depended on confidence. +</P> + +<P> +The miners built themselves cabins in which to live, and so there came +into being a town. It was a dusty, new little town; but venerable in +its age—old air from the first. The cabins themselves were low and +dark, flanking the street closely, a sort of monotone of brown, by +which the stable, the saloon, and the hotel were thrown into stronger +relief; the one by virtue of its wide-open door, the other two because +of their porch and painted front respectively. These structures held +the eye. One noticed the cane chairs on the stoop; the bench outside +the saloon; the dumped down saddles, the hay dust, the lazy loafers +about the stable. And always one drew aside instinctively to the edge +of the broad, white, dusty street, as if to let pass a horse race, or a +train of cars, or something equally swift and irresistible. +</P> + +<P> +The camp lived on each side of that river of blinding white; never in +it. Later, perhaps, when Copper Creek reached the industrial or +producing stage, and became domestic, it would be a Rubicon over which +contending armies of small boys would dispute the supremacy of the +north and south side of the town. Now it wore a constant air of being +quite empty. Perhaps nothing was more characteristic, struck the eye +more forcibly, lingered longer in the memory as the dominant note in +the impressionistic picture of the place, than this single silent road; +not even the sombre cabins, or the great pine-clad hills, or the clear +mountain air imparting a quality of its own to the very appearance of +things, or the little singing brook that ran behind one row of cabins +and the stable, or the eagles wheeling and screaming so far up in the +blue Western sky. The town seemed to draw back on either side of the +road to avoid spoiling its effect, over-awed by it, humbled by its +dignified solemnity. Copper Creek would have been willing to have its +history recounted by that road, which was primarily, indeed, the cause +of its being. +</P> + +<P> +And Bill Martin, in the cane chair of his stoop, the only man capable +of recounting that history, owed most of his unique knowledge of events +to the ancient thoroughfare. Men came from the lower gulch, abode +their brief hour, and disappeared into the thin air of the upper curve. +From one wing, across the white stage, out by the other wing, the +actors changed; the setting remained always the same. +</P> + +<P> +Now each morning early the old innkeeper saw defile before his windows +the Optimist, intent on developing his dream. A motley crew, these +Optimists, having little in common with one another but the inner +spirit of hope. There was Old Mizzou, short, squat, grizzled, +good-natured, with back-sloping, bald forehead, and a seven dollar suit +of clothes, from which he suffered severely, because it was "store +made." He owned a little claim over beyond Ragged Top, on which he +made infinitesimal progress. No one seemed to believe it amounted to +much, Old Mizzou least of all, but he was old, and he had lived the +life, and so he liked to amuse himself still in playing at the game; +contented to chip away a few slivers of rock in order to persuade +himself that he was a miner, to sip a little whiskey so that men might +honor him as a drinker, to talk so loudly from his warm corner in the +Little Nugget that the sound of his voice might persuade him he was a +bold bad man; although everyone knew that Old Mizzou had never harmed a +fly. +</P> + +<P> +And then again, there was Jack Graham, the Easterner, but never the +tenderfoot. His selections of claims had been judicious. He was not +afraid of work. He had the good sense of the timely word, so the men +trusted and liked him, even though he was college-bred and +quiet-mannered and a little aloof. +</P> + +<P> +And again, there was Dave Kelly, who was red-cheeked, and blushed, but +was a good man for all that; and Cheyenne Harry, who owned two claims +and never did any work on them; and Houston, the strongest man in the +camp; and, of course, the great Moroney. These, and a hundred like +them, were actual miners, wielding sledge, drill and pick. Besides +them were others—Frosty, and the faro man, and Bill Martin, and the +stable boys, and the proprietor of the New York Emporium, all of whom +lived in ministering to the wants of a prosperity that was still in the +air. +</P> + +<P> +Each morning the camp emptied itself into the hills. The claims were +usually held in partnership; when they were not, two of the men "traded +work," so that they could labor in pairs. At rude forges near the +shafts they sharpened their heavy steel drills, resembling crowbars, +beating the red-hot point out with the sledges. Then one held, while +the other struck—crash! Turn, crash! Turn, crash! And so on, in +unwearying succession, until the hole became so clogged with the +powdered rock and the water poured in to cool the drill, that it had to +be spooned out with a special T-shaped instrument. +</P> + +<P> +After a time the hole would be deep enough. The operators would load +it, touch the fuse, scamper for shelter. The earth would become +cumbered with broken vein matter, and this had to be removed +laboriously with pick and shovel. When the shaft grew deeper, the fuse +was cut a little longer, and the miners would climb out as fast as they +could on a notched pole. Cases have been known when that was not fast +enough; as the time old Brady, the paralytic, was blown out along with +the vein filling, and died almost before the horse was saddled to go +for the doctor at Custer, fifteen miles away. +</P> + +<P> +The rock was hard and the immediate results invisible. Well earned was +the title of Optimist, for that these coarse, untrained men should so +devote themselves to a futurity certainly indicated optimism, and of a +fine sort. If the capitalist should not come! The net result would be +a few acres of hilly stony land, a well hole where there was no water, +and an exhausted pocket-book. +</P> + +<P> +At noon some of the miners ate a lunch which they had brought with +them, heating coffee over the little fire used to warm the powder; +while others picked up something in their own cabins. Bill Martin's +table entertained only the gambler, Graham, Cheyenne Harry, and two +other men, whom the camp laughingly designated as "proud." About four +or five o'clock, the workers returned from the claims. At six sharp +Black Jack served dinner to the entire camp. Then came the Little +Nugget, a quiet smoke, a glass or so of whiskey, and a sound night's +sleep. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes there was a celebration. One or two members of the little +community were inclined to become a trifle over joyous too often for +their health. The standard of humor and manners was not one of the +most quiet and delicate. But, on the whole, Copper Creek was no worse +nor better than a hundred other similar prospecting camps in the West. +</P> + +<P> +Naturally, to such a community, in the hobbledehoy stage of its +development, as it were, the advent of so strange a phenomenon as a +woman was in the nature of an event. Later, when it had become used to +the sex and its possibilities and limitations, the personal relation +might become the motive of much very complicated action; but now it +accepted Molly as a bright spot of color on a gray canvas, as a +holiday, as a fortuitous bit of music, as an unexpected burst of +sunshine in the winter. For all her strong feminine charm, she was to +most of them as sexless as a boy. They were too many; and she was +alone. The spectacle of one gigantic rivalry for her favor would have +been grotesque, and no one has a keener instinctive sense of the +ridiculous than the Westerner. They accepted her fascination as a real +but impersonal influence. In her they honored the great abstraction, +woman; and in himself each individual saw, not his own single +personality, but the blended apotheosis of the man of Copper Creek. +Molly was held in partnership, each miner making not only his own +impression for her good graces, but the camp's as well. +</P> + +<P> +And this without mawkish sentimentality or comic opera delicacy of +conduct. It must not be understood that the newcomer became any +romantic idol of the camp, or that the men displayed the old-fashioned +courtesy affected by the miners in Western romances. These were +pioneers. Their lives were rough, and their conduct matched their +lives. When angry, they said very emphatic things in inelegant +language. When facetious, their jokes were apt to be as broad as the +prairies themselves. When at their ease, they chewed tobacco, or ate +with their knives, or forgot to wash their shirts that week, or sat in +their shirt sleeves with the collars of said garment wide open. But +they never equalled the frankness of a Parisian soirée in talking of or +joking at some natural but usually unmentioned functions of life; nor +were they ever without that solid bedrock of good nature which is the +American's saving grace. Molly Lafond led a safe life among them +because she trusted them. In the face of that trust no one of them +conceived the possibility of harming her. This feeling was personal +however. Nobody would have felt called upon to protect her against +anyone who did conceive the possibility. In other words, she took just +the independent position in the community which would have been +accorded to a man coming in from outside. She was a good comrade. +</P> + +<P> +In her elation at finally escaping the restrictions and petty +bickerings of her life at the Indian agency, Molly had turned eagerly +first of all to the conquest of the masculine heart. This was theory, +built up from a long course of romantic reading. The heroine always +"ruled her little court." Molly would like to rule her little court +also. She felt the genuineness of her fascination, the possession of +which she realized to the full degree—that sort of fascination which +succeeds where beauty, intellect, spirituality fail. It was a power, +great, untried, unmeasured. Naturally her first impulse was to test +it, to use it. She luxuriated in it. Nothing could be more delightful +than to command and be obeyed; to smile into answering, smiling faces; +to frown and see swiftly, as in a mirrored reflection, the countenances +about her become dark. That was natural. +</P> + +<P> +But after a little she found herself tiring of it. The game was too +easy. Even from the first evening, when she had astounded and subdued +the whole community at one fell blow, she had never experienced the +slightest difficulty in getting these men to like her. Why should she? +She was young and pretty and dainty, and delicately commanding and +winsome, and she knew instinctively each man's weak point. One and all +gave her unqualified approbation. There is no fun in asserting +yourself, if everyone agrees with you; and to be a queen you must +maintain your dignity and aloofness. It was a pose. You cannot be +hail-fellow with your subjects. +</P> + +<P> +So little by little, as the joy of out door life got into her veins, as +it does into the veins of every healthy young creature in the open air +of the Hills, she dropped the coquette. Then she first began to +appreciate the real charm of things, and she was perfectly happy. Not +a tiny cloud of regret veiled the tiniest corner of her skies. +</P> + +<P> +The cabin had been finished within the week, but under the advice of +the builders she did not move into it until nearly a month later. +</P> + +<P> +A new shack never dries thoroughly in less than three weeks; and, +besides, the sawdust from the new insect borings always pours down from +the walls and ceilings in aggravating abundance. A dozen other houses +were placed at her disposal. The men were only too glad to double up +temporarily. But the summer air was warm, and Molly was by now as used +to the narrow confines of her canvas-top, as a yachtsman to the cabin +of his boat. She declined their offers and continued to live in the +wagon. She was quite content to wait thus. In the meantime she took +much delight in fixing up various curtains, chaircovers and tablecloths +from light fabrics unearthed at the New York Emporium, and in +cultivating carefully boxes of geraniums, almost the only garden flower +in the hills. Curiously enough she enjoyed this. Perhaps it was a +hereditary bequest from her unsuspected New England ancestry. +</P> + +<P> +Jack Graham lent her many books, which she perused greedily. She had +never seen a large city, or a boat, or a trolley car, or a tailor-made +gown; but that counted little. Such things are not so much matters of +actual experience as of natural aptitude. Some people can go to Europe +and get less out of it than do those who read steamer advertisements at +home. Molly Lafond was keen of intellect and vivid of imagination, by +the aid of which two qualities she constructed for herself a +culture—real, in spite of the fact that it was somewhat ill-balanced. +</P> + +<P> +She spent much of her time out of doors, but the road and the gulch saw +little of her. Her delight was to strike directly back across the +brook, and up the overgrown hill, to the vast pine-clad heights above. +There the castellated dikes frowned like mediaeval ramparts; the pine +needles were soft and slippery and fragrant underfoot; the breeze swept +by on swift wings, humming songs of the distant prairie; the little +squirrels chattered and the big squirrels barked; the sun shone silver +clear; and below, far down, the summits of other hills dropped away and +away like the tiers of some enormous amphitheatre, until the brown +prairie suddenly flowed out from underneath and rose to the level of +the eye. It was very far from everything up there. And then one could +go through the dikes down into Juniper Gulch, where one would find a +whole group of claims and one's friends at work on them. +</P> + +<P> +Molly grew to be an expert in the dip of quartz. She was accustomed to +perch on a neighboring dikelet, near a claim, where she could enjoy the +breeze, and converse without too much effort. There she looked +charming, and bothered the workers a little. All workers like to be +bothered a little. It is a wise woman who does not bother them too +much. The attention is flattering as long as it is not annoying. When +the men were below the surface of the ground she shouted down the shaft +and insisted on a ride in the bucket. Or she rambled long delicious +hours with Peter and the Kid, from whom she learned the philosophy of +hindsights and the pregnant possibilities of holes under tree roots. +These two adored her beyond all measure. The homely, bristle-whiskered +animal was always at her heels; the Kid was ever ready to waste +precious cartridges on her behalf. +</P> + +<P> +They did much elaborate stalking after grouse, rabbits, and squirrels. +Most of these approaches failed, for the reason that they were too +elaborate and too eager. Wild creatures seem to be sensitive to +telepathic influences. A stolid Indian, whose fatalism does not permit +him to become much excited, can often walk directly up to a flock of +ducks, when a white man with a breech-loading gun and a desire for a +bag could not sneak within fifty rods. Instance also the well known +and uncanny knowledge of the common crow as to your possession of +firearms. His proneness to distant flight when you are armed, and his +sublime indifference to your approach when you are not, may arise not +from a recognition of the instrument, but from a reading of the desire +for his slaughter. +</P> + +<P> +Be this as it may, the bagging of game was a rare enough event to throw +all three into wild excitement. Usually, a grand rush was made in the +direction of the fallen. Peter arrived first, and danced, tip-toed, +bristle-backed. Molly and the Kid were not far behind. Then came +shouts of proud joy and feminine shrieks at the gore. The story was +detailed again and again of just how the shot was made. Peter agonized +that he could not talk. Finally the grouse or squirrel was borne +proudly down to fierce-moustached Black Jack, the cook, who +expostulated and grumbled. +</P> + +<P> +"G' 'way, you two!" he growled. "Git out; don't want you around! +Goin' t' bake! Vamoose! Ain't hired t' skin no squirrels or pluck no +birds. Cyan't be bothered. G' 'way, you two." Black Jack always +talked like this—in short, disconnected sentences. +</P> + +<P> +Then the girl would beg prettily, while the Kid, fully aware in whom +dwelt the most effective persuasion, stood by, and Peter snuffed around +in the forbidden kitchen. And finally Black Jack would yield, with a +vast show of bad grace. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, all right!" he would cry, shaking his great head. "Just +this once. Never again, mind you, never again. Cyan't be bothered. +Wouldn't do it now, only just t' get rid of that dawg. That's it. +Cyan't have no dawg around. Cyan't nohow." +</P> + +<P> +He took the partridge or squirrel, still grumbling. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, thank you, <I>dear good</I> Mr. Black Jack!" cried Molly. "And you'll +save me the wings and tail or the skin, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +At this point Black Jack always exploded violently and bundled them +out, taking a neatly avoided kick at Peter. Then he would watch them +quite out of sight, after which he would expend the utmost care in the +concoction of wonderful stews or potpies. +</P> + +<P> +These clear, sunshiny, healthy days tanned Molly's skin to a golden +brown, brightened her eye and her smile, and filled her strong young +body with abounding health and vitality. Even her evenings did not in +any way cloud her spirits. They were of bad influence, but why should +she know that? She was a delicious little animal, keen, shrewd, of +good impulses, though her moral nature was quite untrained. She +possessed instincts—strong instincts—which seemed arbitrarily to +place a limit beyond which she did not dream of going; but that, she +thought, was because she did not care to go. The question of right or +wrong, consciously chosen, never entered her calculations. Her only +standard was her desire—and, perhaps a little, what Graham would think +of her—but she did not bother her head one way or the other. She was +happy, and was doing nothing she regretted. That was enough. +</P> + +<P> +And yet the evenings were not good—not good at all. They were bound +to exercise a certain deleterious influence. +</P> + +<P> +By habit, Molly spent her time after dark on a corner of the bar at the +Little Nugget saloon. There she received attention. The peculiarity +of her position lay in the fact that her good comradeship had +dissipated constraint. The men talked and drank and gambled about as +usual. It must be repeated that the girl was in no sense a romantic +"idol of the camp." The miners would have been well enough pleased if +she had drunk her whiskey with them as freely as they did with each +other. As she did not, they merely put the fact down to personal +idiosyncrasy, like Dave Williams' horror of cooked rabbit. Rough men +do not demand the finer virtues, and she was treated to the reverse +side of this idea. She saw what men call life. She learned the game +of faro and how men act who have won or lost at it. She gained a +knowledge of the strength of whiskey and what men say who have drunk of +it. She heard loose speech; she saw loose conduct. All this is not +nice for a young girl. +</P> + +<P> +The men felt especially drawn to her because she smoked paper +cigarettes gracefully. About ten o'clock she went to bed. +</P> + +<P> +These few days, between her first triumphant arrival and her +establishment in her new cabin, were the most care-free and happy of +her stay at Copper Creek. She lived thoughtlessly, conducting herself +exactly as she pleased, entertaining no regrets, conscious of no sense +of wrongdoing, and therefore of no sense of guilt. Then a little +incident stirred into wakefulness that fine-wrought conscience which is +an element of so many natures that draw their life from New England. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE EATING OF THE APPLE +</H4> + +<P> +One morning Molly found herself awakened very early by the sound of +whistling just outside. She opened her eyes to discover Peter, who had +occupied one end of the wagon, sitting, head and ears up, listening to +the same sound. The whistling was young, tuneless. Finally she peered +through the crack in the canvas. +</P> + +<P> +Outside, on the wagon tongue, sat the Kid patiently waiting, his little +rifle across his knees, one bare foot digging away at the dust, his +lips puckered to cheerful sibilance, his wide gray eyes turning every +once in awhile to the canvas cover of the schooner. He discovered +Molly looking out. The whistle abruptly stopped. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on out, Molly," said he. "I ben waiting for you a long time." +</P> + +<P> +"My! it's so awful early!" yawned Molly. "What do you want to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to take you hunting," confided the Kid. "We perhaps can get +a squirrel down the gulch, or perhaps a cotton-tail. Come on, hurry +up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I ain't dressed yet," objected Molly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dress!" said the Kid impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +By this time she was well awake, and the glorious morning was getting +into her lungs. Her eye disappeared, and in a few minutes she emerged +fully clothed. The Kid looked her over. +</P> + +<P> +"Y' ain't going that way?" he asked incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"Course not. You wait till I come back." +</P> + +<P> +She stepped down on the whiffletree, her heavy waving hair falling in +masses of curls and crinkles over her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lord!" cried the Kid pathetically. In the entrance stood Peter, +his head on one side. Molly laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I'd got rid of <I>him</I>," complained the Kid, "and here he is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," said Molly soothingly, "I can make him stand round. Come +here, Peter!" +</P> + +<P> +At the pool of the lower creek Molly knelt, turning back the sleeves +from her white arms, loosening the dress from about her round young +throat. After a little she leaned back against the mosses and piled +the strands of her hair, watching the interested Kid with shining eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"My, but you're purty!" he cried. She nodded to him, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +They took their way down the gulch, walking soberly in the road, while +Peter skirmished unrestrained among the possibilities of the thickets +at either hand. In the judgment of the Kid, this was too near town for +the best hunting. The Kid talked. +</P> + +<P> +"You never been down here, have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," replied Molly, "I've always been up in the hills, you know; it's +more fun, I think. Do you think we'll find anything down here near the +road?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not just yet; but after we get by Bugchaser's—Say, you've never seen +Bugchaser, then, have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," laughed the girl, "I should think not. What in the world is +Bugchaser?" +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a 'what'; it's a 'him.' He's crazy. He has a 'coon, and a +bear, and a bobcat. I'd like to go up an' see 'em, but I'm scairt of +him." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he dangerous?" asked Molly. +</P> + +<P> +"Pop says he eats little boys. Hoh! that ain't so, of course. But +he's crazy, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"What makes you think so?" +</P> + +<P> +"He chases bugs with a fishnet." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" cried Molly comprehendingly, and began to laugh. +</P> + +<P> +The Kid looked at her with offended reproach. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he remarked finally, "you can do what you want; but you betcher +life I'm keepin' away from him!" +</P> + +<P> +His eyes were wide with childish wonder, strangely incongruous in this +solemn, lonely little creature with his ways of early maturity and his +ridiculous cut-down clothes. +</P> + +<P> +"There, there," laughed Molly soothingly. "I wonder what's up with +Peter!" +</P> + +<P> +Peter was barking like a bunch of fire crackers. +</P> + +<P> +"Sounds exciting!" said she. "Maybe it's a squirrel up a tree. Let's +see!" +</P> + +<P> +The Kid threw his rifle into the position of a most portentous ready, +and the two entered the bushes. Peter was discovered, his hair +bristling between his shoulders, jumping eagerly around some object +which lay, invisible, on the ground. He snapped with excitement. The +Kid ran forward with a shout. Molly picked her skirts up and followed +with equal rapidity and considerably more grace. They nearly ran over +a large coiled rattlesnake. +</P> + +<P> +The Kid yelled and leaped to one side. Molly stopped stock-still and +uttered a piercing scream, after which she climbed rapidly to the top +of a near-by bowlder, where she perched, her skirts daintily raised, +her eyes bright with excitement. Peter leaped madly about. The Kid +discharged rapid but ineffectual pea bullets at the reptile. +</P> + +<P> +"I imagine you need a little help," said a voice so unexpected that +Molly nearly fell from the rock. The Kid gave one look at the newcomer +and fled with a howl of terror. "A most peculiar youth," observed +Durand reflectively as he advanced. "Most peculiar—seemingly obsessed +of an unwarranted terror for my person. Strange! I have never acted +in any way brusquely toward him." He picked up a stick, and, advancing +without the slightest hesitation, killed the whirring snake with a +single blow. "You may now descend," he assured her, turning with +exquisite grace to offer his hand. +</P> + +<P> +He led the way out to the road. Peter followed until within sight of +the animals chained to the posts, and then he quietly disappeared in +search of the Kid. This was not cowardice on Peter's part, but he had +long since tested by experiment the futility of challenging barks. +</P> + +<P> +Molly had recognized the newcomer from the Kid's description; and her +first glance assured her that her surmise as to his calling had been +true. She had been reading the <I>Life of Wilson</I>, the naturalist, +recently; and so knew of the existence of such men. To her they seemed +rather romantic. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" cried she on catching sight of the chained animals. "Are they +tame? Are they tame enough to pet?" +</P> + +<P> +The old man smiled a little at her enthusiasm. He had been looking her +over with pleasure, but without surprise. Michaïl Lafond, his new +friend, had mentioned his "daughter"; but never, Durand now thought, in +fitting terms. This girl was really beautiful. The little interview +became an audience to which Durand brought his exquisite court manners. +</P> + +<P> +"Jacques, the little raccoon, certainly is," he replied to Molly's +question, "but the others—I do not know—they are tame enough for +me—but a stranger——. We can try, cautiously." +</P> + +<P> +Molly had run forward and fallen on her knees before the 'coon. She +was delighted with his grizzled, round body, with his bright eyes, his +sharp little nose, the stripes across his back, his bare, black hands, +almost human, and above all with the clean, fresh woods-smell that is +characteristic of such an animal when not too closely confined. +Finding him quite gentle, she took him in her arms. Jacques proceeded +at once to investigate busily the recesses and folds of her dress. +</P> + +<P> +"He seeks for sweetmeats," explained the old man, who was looking on. +</P> + +<P> +From Jacques they proceeded to Isabeau, the lynx. Isabeau spat a +little and looked askance, but under reproof permitted a dainty pat on +the tips of his tasselled ears. Patalon, the great clown bear, was +good-natured, but rough. He desired to be rubbed here and there, he +wished affectionately to return this young lady's attentions with a +mighty hug. He smelt rank of the wild beast. Molly returned soon to +little Jacques. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you get them?" she asked, tapping the end of Jacques' nose to +see him wrinkle his face. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not difficult. One captures them young, when they are mere +cubs; and so, although they never will lose their wild instincts, they +become as you see them." +</P> + +<P> +"But the mothers——?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that is the pity," replied the old man simply. "Sometimes it +becomes necessary that they die." +</P> + +<P> +Molly looked on him with new wonder, this slayer of bears and wild +cats, who nevertheless appeared so gentle, whose eye was so mild. It +was indeed a marvellous world. She forgot the Kid and the hunting +party, and gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment. +</P> + +<P> +From the pets they wandered to the flowers. These interested Molly +exceedingly, for she herself was struggling with the boxes of +geraniums. It was fully half an hour later when Molly finally said +farewell to her host and continued on down the gulch in the direction +taken by her little companion. +</P> + +<P> +The Kid was waiting with all the heart-rending impatience of youth. +The precious time before breakfast was slipping away in futility. He +had made a sacrifice in taking this girl. Never would he do it again! +never! never! And then he saw her coming, and forgot everything except +his relief. +</P> + +<P> +"Took you long enough to break away," was his only complaint as he rose +to conduct the party. +</P> + +<P> +"Have we got time to hunt now? Ain't it 'most breakfast-time?" +inquired Molly dubiously. "Don't you think we'd better let it go for +this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lord, no! Come on! For heaven's sake don't let's waste any more +time!" cried the Kid with a gusty impatience that surprised his +companion. She did not realize the humiliated disappointment that had +this last hour seethed in the little breast. "I s'pose we might 's +well get up on the ridge," suggested the Kid, still grumbling. +</P> + +<P> +They turned sharp to the left, through the thicket, where the birds +were already hushing their songs, and the early dew was quite dried +away. The Kid pushed ahead with almost feverish rapidity. Here and +there in the brush Peter scurried, head down, hind legs well drawn +together beneath his flanks. He snuffled eagerly into the holes and +forms, doing his dramatic best to create some game, if necessary. +Every once in awhile his bristly head, all alert, peered, cock-eared, +over a bush, searching the hunter's face for directions, and then +plunging away suddenly as his own judgment advised. It was most +scienceless and unsportsman-like. The Kid peered eagerly to right and +left, holding the muzzle of the little rifle conscientiously at an +angle of forty-five degrees, as he had been taught, and vainly striving +to avoid dry twigs, although Peter was making enough noise for a circus +parade. The girl followed a step or so in the rear. It was +breath-taking, this excitement. Every stir of the bushes needed +examination, every flutter of wings was a possibility, every plunge of +Peter might send a covey whirring into the pine tops, or rouse a +squirrel to angry expostulation. As they went on up the side hills, +still without result, but therefore with expectation the more +sharpened, and as Molly's cheeks became redder and redder under her +brown skin and her eyes brighter and brighter, and as she bit her under +lip more and more, and as the straight level line of her brows grew +straighter and straighter with the concentration of her thoughts, it is +to be doubted if the most enthusiastic lover of scenery could have torn +his eyes from the pretty picture even for the sake of the magnificent +sweep of country below. So at least thought Cheyenne Harry, on his way +across the ridge to his claim. +</P> + +<P> +He surveyed the eager three with some slight amusement. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo!" he called suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +The boy and girl started. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo!" answered Molly after a moment, when her intent hunting +expression had quite fled before her cheerful look of recognition. +"That you?" +</P> + +<P> +The Kid too paused, but evidently under protest, and with the idea of +moving on again at the earliest polite moment. +</P> + +<P> +"How's hunting?" inquired Harry facetiously. "Killed all the game down +below there?" +</P> + +<P> +"All we've seen," replied Molly promptly; "and the hunting's very +good." She put ever so slight a stress on the word "hunting." "We're +going over the ridge now. Want to come along and help carry the game?" +</P> + +<P> +Harry looked speculatively at the Kid, who was standing first on one +bare foot, then on the other. "Naw, guess not," he replied. The Kid +brightened at once. "I'm going over to the Gold King for a while. +You'd better come along with me." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't had any breakfast," objected Molly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's nothing. Neither have I. I'm just out to look around. +Come ahead." +</P> + +<P> +Molly did not care a snap of her fingers about the Gold King claim, +except that it belonged to Cheyenne Harry; and, owing to the rarity of +that individual's visits to his property, she had never seen it. +Besides this, she had been a good deal the last few days with Graham. +That young man had been interesting her greatly with a most condensed +and popularized account of the nebular theory, which seemed to Molly +very picturesque and intellectual. She was much taken with the idea of +thus improving herself and she gave herself great credit for the +effort, but it was so far above the usual plane of her intellectual +workings that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. The evening +before, she had gone to bed keyed up to wonderful resolves. To-day the +pendulum had begun ever so slowly to swing back. All the influences of +out-door life had drawn her to the earth; the clear freshness of the +early morning, the rank smell of the wild beast, the incipient +hero-worship in her admiration of the old man's supposed prowess as a +slayer of bears, the actual physical contact with the slapping clinging +brush through which she had passed. She breathed deep of the crisp +air. She broadened her chest, and stretched her muscles, and drank the +soft caressing sun warmth. She felt she would like to get down near +the grass, to breathe its earthly smell, to kiss it. It was the +gladness of just living. +</P> + +<P> +And to her in a subtle manner Cheyenne Harry symbolized these things, +just as Graham symbolized that elusive intangible humiliating power of +the intellect. He was strong and bold and breezy of manner, and +elemental of thought, and primitive in his passions and the manner of +their expression. He appealed to that spirit in her which craved the +brusque conqueror. +</P> + +<P> +So for the moment the idea of a scramble with him over these rough +dike-strewn ridges seemed to her the one idea in perfect tune with the +wild Western quality of the newborn day. And therefore, to the +consternation of the waiting Kid, she replied— +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes. I think it would be good fun, though I don't believe there +<I>is</I> any Gold King claim. I believe it's just an excuse for your +loafing around, for you certainly never spent much time on it." +</P> + +<P> +"It's the finest thing ever," Harry assured her with a laugh. "I'll +show you." +</P> + +<P> +The Kid stood stock-still in consternation. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" cried he, when he could get his voice, "and how about our hunt?" +</P> + +<P> +"You come along with us," invited Cheyenne Harry good-naturedly. "It's +good hunting all the way." +</P> + +<P> +But the Kid knew better. This heedless climbing and loud talking would +be quite different from the careful attention necessary for the +destruction of the wily "chicken" or experienced squirrel. He looked +very sad. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, come on," urged Molly; "we'll get something over in 'Teepee.'" +</P> + +<P> +The Kid shook his head, unable to trust himself to speak. Cheyenne +Harry turned away a little impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry," continued Molly with hesitation. "I think you'd like it. +But we've had quite a hunt already, haven't we? And we can go another +time." +</P> + +<P> +She joined Cheyenne Harry. Peter stood looking first at the Kid, then +at the two retreating forms. He was plainly undecided. Molly's +gingham dress fluttered for the last time before she turned the corner +of a bowlder. Peter suddenly made up his worried mind. The Kid was +left alone. +</P> + +<P> +He sat down on a rock, and rested his chin in his hands, and looked +away across the valley to the peak of Tom Custer. A tiny white cloud +was sailing down the wind. He watched it until, swirling, it dissolved +into the currents of air. Far back in the forest of pines a little +breeze rustled, faint as a whisper: then it crept nearer, ever waxing +in strength, until, with a murmur as of a throng of people, it passed +overhead, and vanished with a last sigh in the distance. The Kid +listened attentively to the birth and death of the voice. A squirrel +directly above him broke into a rattling torrent of chattering rage. +The Kid sat, his chin in his hands, looking out over the valley with +unseeing eyes, his little rifle resting idly against his knee. The +moments passed by, one after the other, distinct, like the ticks of a +great clock. +</P> + +<P> +A soft muzzle nosed its way gently between his wrists. He looked down. +Peter's homely, gray-whiskered face with the pathetic eyes looked up +into his own. The Kid flung both arms about the dog's coarse-furred +neck, and burst into a passion of tears. +</P> + +<P> +From the top of the ridge, where she had paused a moment to take +breath, Molly saw the whole of this little scene. She suddenly felt +very irritated. +</P> + +<P> +That Kid was certainly the most unreasonable of children! Why, she +spent three-quarters of her time doing nothing but amuse him. She had +got up cheerfully at an unearthly hour, walked several miles without +breakfast, followed him uncomplaining through a lot of damp grass and +underbrush, and now, because she wouldn't spend the rest of the day +with him, he sulked. Forsooth, was she to give up all her friends, her +amusements, for the sake of that boy? Molly was most impatient—with +the Kid—and she became so preoccupied in pitying herself that she +hardly answered Cheyenne Harry's remarks, and was a very poor +companion. She deceived herself perfectly; yet in the background of +her consciousness was something she did not recognize—something +uncomfortable. It was an uneasiness, a heaviness, a slight feeling of +guilt for something which she could not specify, quite indefinable, and +therefore the more annoying. It made her feel like shaking her +shoulders. There seemed no valid reason why she should not be as +light-hearted as she had been a few minutes ago, for her reason saw +nothing in her conduct to regret. And yet she was uneasy, as though +she had done something wrong and was on the point of being found out. +She could not understand it, but it was very real, and, because she +could see no reason for it, it made her angry, with a sense of +injustice. +</P> + +<P> +It was the first manifestation of another phase of heredity—the New +England conscience. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND +</H4> + +<P> +Michaïl Lafond made much less of a stir in the life of the camp than +had his ward. He fitted in quietly. +</P> + +<P> +Behind the Little Nugget was a room and a shed. Lafond took possession +of the room, and relegated Frosty to the shed. His position as +proprietor of the saloon sufficiently explained his idleness, if +anybody's idleness ever needed explanation in a mining camp. He seemed +to do nothing, merely because he was to be seen almost any hour of the +day either smoking contemplative pipes near his place or Bill Martin's, +or wandering with every appearance of leisure from claim to claim in +the Hills, or disappearing in the direction of Durand's cabin in the +lower gulch. That was a mistake. He really did a great deal. +</P> + +<P> +For instance, he made himself agreeable in a cool, drawling fashion to +anybody who cared to talk to him. He kept his eyes wide open, no +matter where he went. He puffed as many speculations into his brain as +he did smoke-clouds into the air. That was not much perhaps; yet, by +the time the Chicago men came to Copper Creek, the half-breed knew just +about everybody's business in that camp. The student of character +never needs to ask blunt questions. +</P> + +<P> +He soon discovered that his first surmise as to Billy's peculiarities +was correct. The man was above all things spectacular. He liked to +fill the stage. If Lafond could strip him of his property—the Great +Snake—his prestige as promoter of the camp would be gone. Black Mike +could imagine nothing more galling to one of Knapp's temperament. +</P> + +<P> +He soon discovered that it would be no easy matter to do this, however. +He had felt sure that he would have no difficulty in taking advantage +of the proverbial carelessness of Westerners in general, and Billy +Knapp in particular, as to some of the finer points of mining law. +There are many technicalities to be observed before a claim belongs +indubitably and for all time to the man who occupies it. A "discovery" +of certain specification must be made; the measurements and stakes must +conform to definite regulations; the development work must be carried +on and reported according to the letter of the law; and so in a dozen +other trivialities which the miner is like to honor only in the most +general fashion. But Billy's requirements were all fulfilled. The +claims were undoubtedly his in the fullest sense of the word. At +present he could not be deprived of them legally; and as it was no part +of Lafond's scheme to allow Billy even the smallest comfort of +self-pity when his humiliation came, he did not care even to consider +the possibilities of chicanery. +</P> + +<P> +The only glimmer of light he could discern lay in the chance that +something might offer at the time of the transference of the property +from Billy to the Eastern capitalists. This was the inspiration that +had occurred to him in Durand's cabin. He had come to know Billy's +sanguine temperament, his enthusiastic predilection for seeing things +rose-hued, and he thought it very possible that the Westerner's +representations to the capitalists might not bear too searching +analysis. Overpraise of property might easily be construed as false +representation. Too graphic a description of natural advantages might +easily be twisted into an attempt to obtain money under false +pretences. A skilful man might be able to discredit Billy so far that +the transaction would fall through; and with the failure of this sale, +on which the hopes of Billy's companions were built, the promoter's +prestige would collapse entirely. +</P> + +<P> +With this sketch of a plan in mind, Lafond applied himself diligently +to acquiring a thorough knowledge of the property. That, at least, was +not difficult. All he had to do was to go to Billy, and say, "Look +here, Knapp, they tell me you've got quite an outfit here. Show me +around, won't you?" The Westerner was only too glad of the opportunity +to expatiate. He took Lafond down every prospect shaft, over every +surface indication. He explained them all minutely. When he had +finished, he gave Lafond carefully selected samples from all of the +vein fillings. The half-breed told him he wanted them for the purposes +of exhibition. +</P> + +<P> +"I got a first class shelf down in the Nugget," he said; "an' I think +if we'd jest put a line of samples along it from all the claims, and +label 'em, it would be a pretty good 'ad,' don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Billy did. So the two "sampled" as carefully as for an assay test in +the School of Mines at Rapid. About half of the result Lafond +exhibited as he had suggested, but the rest he preserved carefully for +assay tests of his own. +</P> + +<P> +To be sure, Billy had quite freely shown him his own official tests +made at the School of Mines, but Lafond wanted his information more +direct. He could not doubt the accuracy of the reports. But there was +always a possibility that the sampling had not been fairly done. He +was sure of these other "averages," for he had helped take them. He +liked to have things under his own eye, and it was for this reason he +had first suggested to Durand that he would like to take lessons in the +art of assaying. +</P> + +<P> +At first he had intended to use the old entomologist merely as a +convenience, but later, as he became more intimate with the man through +his work, he actually began to entertain for him a friendship—his +first in over fifteen years. With all men he had been friendly; with +none had he been friends. Here he proved a really generous emotion, +opening his heart to the soft influences of affection and memory, +allowing himself in this one instance an intimacy absolutely without +ulterior motive. It all dated from the first day, when a chance +question of Durand's touched the springs of the half-breed's youth. +</P> + +<P> +They had adjourned that afternoon to the workshop, where Durand built a +charcoal fire in a little furnace and gathered about him a choice +assortment of curious implements. After the furnace was well heated, +he roasted the ore Lafond had brought with him, heating it through and +through, until finally the fumes of sulphur, antimony and arsenic +ceased to arise from the chalk-lined iron basin. While the process was +going forward Durand explained pleasantly the various steps of the +chemical change, interspersing much extraneous information—as, for +instance, how Winkler, Tcheffkin and Merrick claim that there is here a +loss of gold, which Crookes denies—to all of which Michaïl Lafond lent +but an inattentive ear. He was little interested in theory; but +observing the old man's delight in the scientific aspect of the +experiment, he feigned corresponding pleasure on his own part. +</P> + +<P> +Then they spread a flux of granulated lead over a crucible, in +appropriate juxtaposition with the roasted ore. For nearly two hours +it was fused; and as there was nothing to do until the slag of +impurities had formed about the bright metal in the centre, the men +talked much to each other while waiting. +</P> + +<P> +When the ore was completely fused, Durand seized the result in a pair +of forceps. With a small hammer he broke away the great masses of +clotted slag. A small bright metal button remained. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the lead, the silver and the gold," explained Durand, "and it +is here that we exercise care. All else is as child's play." +</P> + +<P> +He flattened the button on an anvil, and cut it into several pieces. +These he placed in the little porous vessels made of compressed bone +ash, called cupels, which had been slowly heating in the furnace. The +surface of the lead filmed over. In a moment it turned bright. Then +fumes began to arise. +</P> + +<P> +Durand's attention became fixed. His hand was constantly at the +furnace valve, admitting or excluding more air according as he desired +the temperature to rise or fall. +</P> + +<P> +"It is this which is difficult," he explained from the corner of his +mouth. "If the heat is too great, some precious metal escapes with the +lead. If the heat is too little, the lead is not all driven away." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond was attentive enough to this. He desired above all the +practical knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +"Observe the fumes," said Durand; "that is the true test. When they +whirl above the molten metal, then is everything well. When the fumes +do creep slowly like the mist on a stream, then the heat is not +sufficient. If, on the other hand, they do rise straight upward, then +it is necessary to reduce the heat at once." +</P> + +<P> +After a time the remaining impurities, under Durand's skilful +manipulation, were absorbed by the cupels. The little vessels were +drawn from the furnace and placed to one side to cool. A small yellow +button was finally detached with pincers. +</P> + +<P> +"That then is the gold!" cried Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"And silver," corrected Durand gently. He weighed the button with +great care. Then with nitric acid he ate out the silver. The result +was weighed. The assay was finished. By comparing the weights of the +original ore, the cupelled button and the final product, statistics +were obtained. +</P> + +<P> +The men drew a long sigh of relief now that the task was quite finished. +</P> + +<P> +"It is hard work," observed Durand. +</P> + +<P> +"It is very good of you to take so much trouble for me," replied +Lafond, for the sake of politeness. +</P> + +<P> +"I like you," explained the old man simply, "because you speak French +and because there is something in your face that shows that you too +have been wronged, and that perhaps, like myself, in your youth you +have been light-hearted and were loved by maid and man with the love +that is given the reckless—and foolish," he concluded with a little +bitterness. +</P> + +<P> +Inexplicably this appealed to Lafond, so that he almost wept with the +sheer joy of it. +</P> + +<P> +"It is true, and you are my brother to have seen it thus," he cried, +lapsing unconsciously into the idiom of the Sioux. +</P> + +<P> +They washed their hands and went into the other cabin, where they sat +in the chairs made of barrels, and Lafond talked, talked, talked, until +the dusk of twilight descended upon them and stole away even the white +butterfly cases. +</P> + +<P> +He spoke swiftly and animatedly and with much gesticulation. Men will +tell you to-day that his speech was deliberate, scant, reserved. +</P> + +<P> +It was all of his youth. He described with abandon and fire the tall +pines, the still darkling river running beneath the cedars and birches; +the cabins, antler crowned, and the little gardens of their dooryard. +He related tenderly the life of those old days—the dance in winter to +the music of a single fiddle, and the snow shoe journey homeward under +the white stars, with mayhap a kiss upon a rosy cheek and a slap from a +mittened hand at the end of it; the wild exhilarating dangers of log +running in the spring; the canoe journey, the camping, the fishing, +through all that watered north country of the fir-girdled lakes and +trout-haunted streams in summer; the calling of the moose under the +round harvest moon, the stalking of the white-tailed deer, the corn +frolics whereat were more of the full-blossomed low-voiced chatterers +not unwilling to be wooed under that same great moon, through whose +shower of silver light the bull moose called to his mate, also not +unwilling. These things the half-breed told in that marvellous musical +voice which, with his expressive eyes, was now his greatest charm. He +told also more personally of his own youth. There had been a time when +Michaïl Lafond had been straight and clear-eyed and handsome. At the +dances and the corn frolics the fairest of the maidens was not so very +coy to him. In the log running Michaïl Lafond was the man always +called upon to skim over the bobbing logs under the very imminence of +the jam; his was the peavy that moved the bit of timber which locked +the whole; his the merry laugh as he had lightly escaped the plunging +foaming death. On and still on the voice rolled, until suddenly the +room was silent and dark, and the man in the corner had arisen abruptly +and gone out, and the white-haired naturalist was left alone, one hand +on each arm of his chair, looking straight before him, beyond the cabin +walls, beyond the years. +</P> + +<P> +Next day Lafond came again, and the next and the next. The assays were +all finished and tabulated. Still he continued to come, as usual, each +afternoon, for an hour or so at least. Durand did not smoke himself, +but he kept a pipe and a package of tobacco always on the table for his +visitor. They clasped each other's hands with fervor when they met and +parted. They called each other "mon vieux." And, what is more, they +could sit quite silent for hours without embarrassing each other in the +least. +</P> + +<P> +The men in the camp noticed this intimacy and commented on it. +</P> + +<P> +"Clar case of millennium," said Bill Martin, "Lion an' th' lamb. Ain't +no other way to explain it, fer what good Mike ever gets out of that +nutty old Bugchaser is beyond me!" +</P> + +<P> +Not that anyone cared. Everybody was at this moment speculating +earnestly on all possible results, good, bad, or indifferent, of the +pending visit of the Chicago tenderfeet. Although, strictly speaking, +their decision had only to do with the Great Snake, it was well +understood that it fixed also the value of every other piece of +property within a circumference of fifty miles. Little did those three +tenderfeet realize, as they dutifully changed cars at Grand Island, +Edgemont and other way stations, how much their holiday jaunt, as it +was to them, meant to a whole community of reasonably hard-working men. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond was the most interested of all, because, to his disgust, the +assays had been good, so good that the "false pretence" scheme would +have to be given up. He found himself, as usual, facing a situation +with not much more than luck to depend on. But he always had good luck. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND GLORIFY PETER +</H4> + +<P> +The most important event in the history of Copper Creek was indeed at +hand. The long-awaited Easterners were to arrive that very day to look +over the property. Billy Knapp had already driven to Rapid to meet +them, and their coming was momentarily expected. +</P> + +<P> +The camp had discussed long and heatedly the method of their reception. +Billy Knapp, and with him a strong contingent, advocated best clothes, +an imported brass band, and a generally festal appearance of evergreens +and bunting. But this, Moroney, Lafond and Graham decidedly opposed. +</P> + +<P> +"The way to make men give you things," said the last, "is to pretend +you don't want them." +</P> + +<P> +But it was Moroney's eloquence that carried the day. In fervid +rhetoric he pointed out that men were more apt to join an already +prosperous community than to furnish prosperity to one sadly in need of +it. He also pointed out many other things, including the Battle of +Bunker Hill and the Bird of Freedom. But that was what he meant. +</P> + +<P> +So when Billy and the buckboard drove dashingly up to Bill Martin's +stoop, the white road was to all intents and purposes +deserted—unnaturally so, for not a living thing was to be seen from +one end of it to the other. +</P> + +<P> +"Look's if your town was dead," remarked one of the Easterners, with a +laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no!" reassured Billy, seized with a sudden anxiety lest the thing +had been overdone. "But the boys is all off in th' Hills workin'." +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact the boys were doing nothing of the kind. They were +behind the cracks of doors and the darkness of windows, watching +eagerly every move of the disembarkation, on which they whispered +excited comments. Bill Martin was there outside, of course; Lafond +sauntered over from the Little Nugget; the gambler sat chair tilted, +blowing cigarette rings toward Ragged Top, never even turning his head +to see the arrivals, imperturbable, indifferent as ever; Graham and +Moroney were on hand by especial request; and of course no one could +keep Peter and the Kid away. The men in the cabins were satisfied with +their representatives. They need not worry about Graham and Moroney +anyway. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-202"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-202.jpg" ALT="JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT." BORDER="2" WIDTH="612" HEIGHT="509"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 612px"> +JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT. +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The first of the newcomers rolled out over the wheel, stood up on two +fat legs, and shook himself in a manner which proclaimed to the dullest +that his round face did not belie his good humor. He at once looked +about him and laughed. The second was seen to be a tall spare man, +gray-faced, deep-lined, but with the wrinkles of laughter about his +eyes. He wore a long linen duster and was evidently of the sort that +seasons its most serious transactions with a dry and facetious humor. +The third was short, small, and irrepressible. He looked as though he +should be named Frank, as in fact he was. Although all three were +dressed for travelling, they carried with them a solid air of financial +responsibility quite foreign to Copper Creek's experience, a certain +shrewdness which no new circumstance could ever abash to the extent of +forgetting the swiftest means to the main chance. But over this +shrewdness now was brushed a film of optimism, the over-abundant +hilarity of a business man on a holiday outside his accustomed +surroundings, expanding in high spirits, persiflage, and practical +jokes. During their stay in Copper Creek this never left them. They +were as delighted with the country as children with a new toy, and took +it about as seriously. +</P> + +<P> +The concealed onlookers saw the little group stand talking a moment, +and then turn into the hotel. Black Jack unloaded from the back of the +buckboard several substantial leather-bound valises. Billy drove the +horses home and returned on foot. He was pounced upon eagerly. Billy +was still glowing with self-induced enthusiasm over Copper Creek. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right, boys!" he cried exultantly. "They shore has the right +idee! They tells me they thinks this is shore the finest kentry they +ever see!" +</P> + +<P> +"What to do next?" they inquired anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Do? Nothin'! This ain't no circus. When the grub bell rings, mosey +on over as usual, and a'ter feedin' we institutes some sort of a game +outside." +</P> + +<P> +When the grub bell rang, the miners filed solemnly into the +dining-room, darting covert glances at the three visitors, already +seated with their entertainers. Some nodded solemnly. The Easterners +were laughing and joking each other in the most childish fashion. +</P> + +<P> +"By Jove, there's a girl; only one I've seen!" cried the little man +named Frank, as Molly came in and took her seat at another table. +</P> + +<P> +"What of it?" asked Stevens, the tall man, with his mouth full of Black +Jack's boiled potatoes. +</P> + +<P> +"But she's a pretty girl." +</P> + +<P> +Murphy, the fat jolly one, carefully removed his butter and soda +biscuits, of which the visible supply seemed limited, beyond Frank's +reach, and ventured a glance. +</P> + +<P> +"She is pretty," he agreed, firmly thwarting the little man's attempt +to steal the butter in spite of his precautions. +</P> + +<P> +He turned to Dan Barker and resumed a labored discussion of the +country's game and fishing. The tall man took up his conversation with +Billy. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said he, "I go through that every morning. I find it +invaluable. It keeps me as hard as nails. Feel there!" +</P> + +<P> +He doubled his arm, and Billy placed his huge fingers gingerly over the +Easterner's biceps. Down the long table the miners and prospectors ate +uneasily, with frequent glances toward the noisy strangers, exchanging +rare low-voiced comments, and twisting their feet. Between Molly and +the man whom the others called Frank there sprang up an incipient +flirtation of glances. +</P> + +<P> +After dinner everybody went outside into the open air, where the +gathering relaxed its formality and men breathed mere freely. Murphy +conversed with several on the subject of Colt's forty-fives. He +expressed a desire for a shooting match, to which end he borrowed +Billy's six-shooter, and handled it so recklessly that everybody wanted +to duck. +</P> + +<P> +Finally he planted the muzzle firmly between his fat legs, rested both +hands on the butt, and looked about him triumphantly. +</P> + +<P> +"What'll I hit?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"God knows!" ejaculated the tall man; "but you can shoot at this." He +drew an envelope from his pocket, and turned toward a small board box +resting against the stump of a tree. Bill Martin started forward in +alarm. +</P> + +<P> +"Hol' on!" cried he, "I got some chickens in that thar coop!" +</P> + +<P> +The tall man turned and wrung his hand in a mock access of gratitude. +"Thank you! thank you!" he cried fervently. "To think how near I came +to having the blood of those innocent chickens on my head! I shall +never cease to feel grateful to you, sir!" +</P> + +<P> +He marched over to the coop and pinned the envelope square in the +middle of it. +</P> + +<P> +"There," said he, stepping back with an air of satisfaction. "Now the +chickens are perfectly safe!" +</P> + +<P> +The proprietor grinned very doubtfully. Several men laughed, one after +the other, as the joke penetrated. +</P> + +<P> +"You go to hell, Steve," said the fat man, bubbling all over. +</P> + +<P> +He raised the long six-shooter with an easy gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"They're just as good as meat!" he asserted confidently as he squinted +over the sights. A breathless pause ensued. +</P> + +<P> +"Always cock your pistol before shooting," Frank finally admonished in +a soft and didactic voice. +</P> + +<P> +Murphy, red-faced, muttered something about self-cockers and tried +again. This time the pause was succeeded by a deafening report, and +the pistol leaped wildly. From the coop burst a single frightened +squawk. Murphy beamed. +</P> + +<P> +All crowded about the box, examining for the bullet hole. On the +instant, Frank became wildly and triumphantly excited, dancing about +the motionless end of an index finger which pointed toward the +unscratched coop. The marksman looked nonplussed for a single instant. +Then his face cleared. +</P> + +<P> +"It went right in through that!" he claimed arrogantly, pointing the +barrel of the revolver toward a small knot hole. The other two men at +once gave vent to snorts of derisive contempt. "Prove that it didn't," +insisted the fat one. "Just prove that it didn't, and I'll pay up." +He tucked his thumbs into the lower pockets of his waistcoat, +supporting the revolver pendent on one forefinger, and smiled broadly. +</P> + +<P> +Billy's straightforward mind saw no diplomacy beyond the inexorable +logic of the situation. "Thar ought t' be a bullet hole in th' other +side of th' coop then," he suggested in a modest voice. +</P> + +<P> +Murphy cast upon him the glance of reproach. +</P> + +<P> +"I give up," he confessed with grieved dignity, and, without awaiting +an investigation, turned toward the saloon. "It means drinks," he +observed laconically. "All of you!" he added to the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +Near the door Peter fell in with the procession. The tall man seized +upon him before even that experienced animal could escape. After an +ineffectual lunge or so backward toward his haunches, the homely dog +seemed to realize that no harm was intended, and so became quiet. +Stevens passed his hands rapidly down Peter's back and haunches, lifted +him first off his fore legs, then off his hind legs, watching carefully +the exact position he assumed when he touched the ground again, pushed +his gums away from his teeth, and moulded through the fingers the +outline of his head. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a genuine Airedale," he asserted with interest. "Who does he +belong to, and where did he come from?" +</P> + +<P> +Nobody knew. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't suppose there's another west of the Mississippi," he went on. +"It's a peculiar breed, built for scrapping." The men gathered about +with a new interest in Peter. "Don't know just what the strain is, but +it's bred in the valley of the Aire, in England. The laboring classes +there mostly make furniture, and as they work by the piece, they can +take all the time off they want. Consequently they're a sporty lot, +and go in for cock fighting and racing and badger baiting, but, most of +all, dog fighting. They evolved this strain from something or other. +A good Airedale can lick anything except a Great Dane, and he falls +down there only because the Dane's too big for him." +</P> + +<P> +"I know of a bull terrier—" began Murphy. +</P> + +<P> +"Your bull wouldn't be ace high. Look at the teeth on him! Get on to +the thickness of those bones! Do you think teeth would stick on that +slippery bristle coat of his? or, if they did, do you think they would +get into that tough loose hide very hard?" He suddenly released Peter +and stood up. "Frank," said he, "come here and size up this pup." +</P> + +<P> +Peter shook himself and walked gravely into the arms of the adoring +Kid. The Kid had listened open-mouthed to every word of the expert's +statement. +</P> + +<P> +But Frank had disappeared. The incipient flirtation had developed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +A FOOL FOR LUCK +</H4> + +<P> +When it is a question of mining, the most cautious business man loses +his head. +</P> + +<P> +It is very difficult to realize the fact that the Western property must +not be judged by Eastern standards. +</P> + +<P> +These two short paragraphs state the main reasons why, in the first +place, so much capital is sown in waste places; and why, in the second +place, Western gold mines have so bad a reputation among investors. +Nine out of ten of the legitimate mines of our Western States would be +good investments if they could be run as carefully and intelligently as +is any wholesale grocery. The expectation of big gambling returns +seems to render men careless as to the smaller details. +</P> + +<P> +Why this should be so, it would be difficult to say. Of the truth of +the statement there is absolutely no doubt in the world, as anyone who +knows the history of the West can testify. +</P> + +<P> +During the three days' duration of their stay, the Easterners looked at +facts, incomprehensible to the eyes of such as they, through the +explanations, honest enough in intention, of Billy Knapp. He led them, +perspiring but pleased, from prospect to prospect, from shaft to shaft, +from hill to hill. He showed them leads, fissure veins, red quartz, +white quartz, water supplies, timberings, hanging walls, country rock, +pan tests, and he talked about it all with that easy fluency of +eloquence, that flattering assumption of the other man's +sophistication, which is so peculiarly a talent—nay, a genius—of the +Westerner. +</P> + +<P> +Some trades there are for which all men imagine themselves qualified +without especial training—such as horse buying, writing stories, +judging pictures, and mining. This is a little strange when one +reflects that other things, such as painting, skating, keeping +accounts, or making a horseshoe, while not a whit more difficult, are +acknowledged to require a certain amount of technical education and +practice. Perhaps it is because the initial concept is so simple; as, +in this case, the digging of ore from the ground, and the reduction of +it. Details come, not from observation, but from actual experience. +Anybody, on the other hand, can see, without understanding, the +complexity of double-entry bookkeeping. +</P> + +<P> +On the afternoon of the third day, the Easterners, Billy Knapp, and +Michaïl Lafond gathered formally to talk it over. The latter contrived +to be included because he was a man of experience. After some little +preliminary discussion, in which the Easterners showed by their airy +familiarity with the topic just how much of the local color had soaked +in, Stevens rapped on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Although this is not strictly a business meeting," he began, "perhaps +we can get at what we want better by putting some little formality into +its discussions. The question before us is this: Mr. Knapp here +possesses certain property which he wishes to dispose of. We have been +over it thoroughly in the last few days, we have examined the figures +relating to its assays and the gross value of the claims. They have +been satisfactory. We have next, as it seems to me, to figure on the +probable working expense, in order that we may, with some intelligence, +estimate the margin of profit." He sorted over some papers on the +table before him. "Let us take up the Great Snake lode first. What, +in your idea, would be necessary for its development?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wall," began Billy, rising formally. "They is practically two leads +on th' Great Snake; an' if you-all decides to work 'em both, you'd want +a shaft on each. A plain-timbered shaft costs you yere about twenty to +twenty-five dollars a foot. Then you needs cross-cuts, and drif's at +about five or ten a foot besides—that includes everythin'—men, tools, +powder. Then yore pump an' hoist is worth about two or three thousan'. +includin' minin' expenses for two months. That's all th' actual +expense connected with th' Great Snake itself; but of course you has to +have yore stamp mill and washer for all the group of claims. A good +stamp mill costs you ten thousan' dollars, but it's good forever." +</P> + +<P> +"How much shaft and tunnel would you have to sink before getting to a +paying basis?" asked Frank briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"That would depen'. You wants to get to water level, of course, afore +yore shore; but it might pay right squar' from th' surface. Count on a +hunderd foot." +</P> + +<P> +"And when you get to pay level, what capacity a day would you have?" +</P> + +<P> +Billy laughed. "That depen's too. You can put on more or less men. +Call her from fifteen to twenty ton a day." +</P> + +<P> +They bent their heads together over the figures. After a little +Stevens read the following tabulation:— +</P> + +<PRE STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> + 2 shafts of 100 feet each @ 20.00 . . . . . . . $4,000.00 + Cross-cuts and drifts, say . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200.00 + Pump and hoist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000.00 + 1-10 of the cost of mill (there were ten + claims) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000.00 + -------- + Initial expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8,200.00 +</PRE> + +<BR> + +<P> +"That thar figger," observed Billy, "brings her right up to date +without no squealin' whatever. Yere you figgers on taking good hard +rock out of four hunderd foot of tunnel an' shaft. Lots of that is pay +quartz. You got to figger that you gets some return out of it all. +They's a good many ton of ore in four hundred foot of shaft!" +</P> + +<P> +"That is true," said Murphy. "There won't be eight thousand outlay +without any return." +</P> + +<P> +"Yore dead right!" agreed Billy. +</P> + +<P> +"Let that go for now," interrupted Stevens. "We can call that +'velvet.' Now what we want to know is, what will be the working +expense of converting the ore into gold when the initial expense is +over?" +</P> + +<P> +"Call her about five dollars," replied Billy promptly. +</P> + +<P> +Stevens consulted the assay table. "The ore on the Great Snake as +shown by samples taken from various spots in the prospect shaft +averages $8.55," said he. He figured for a moment. "Allow $3.00 a ton +profit at twenty tons a day, it would take only a little over four +months to catch the initial expense." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course there's your running expenses of a camp," suggested Frank. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes, but look at the margin to cover them." +</P> + +<P> +They went on to the next, and the next, until the ten claims were all +figured over. Not all showed as alluring a prospect as the Great +Snake, for that was admittedly the banner claim of the group, but all +yielded a good margin of profit. It was simple as a proposition in +algebra. Assay value minus cost of production equals profits. There +was no unknown quantity in sight. Lafond alone saw one, and he held +his peace. +</P> + +<P> +One more item the Easterners had to include, and this, falling within +their business habits, and out of Billy's, they arranged to their own +satisfaction. It was Billy's price for his claims. +</P> + +<P> +"Now what are your ideas on the subject, Mr. Knapp?" asked Stevens +briskly. +</P> + +<P> +Billy hesitated. "Mebbe it's funny," he confessed; "but I hadn't +settled on a price. I know you gentlemen 'll do what is right. But I +would like to stay with her a bit." +</P> + +<P> +"Stay with her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," explained Billy, embarrassed. "Keep a holt; sort to be +interested myself, you know." There spoke Billy's vanity. +</P> + +<P> +The three talked together low-voiced for a moment. They had conceived +a vast respect for Billy's capacity in the West, however +unsophisticated he might appear in the East; and they had long before +talked out in anticipation just this point. Stevens voiced their +decision. +</P> + +<P> +"We have decided, Mr. Knapp," he began, "to ask you to be our +superintendent, provided of course the company is formed. We feel sure +that your best efforts will be expended in our behalf, because your +interests will be ours." Then he went on briefly to flatter Billy +exceedingly, until that individual was ready to weep with joy. "Our +proposition is this," he concluded. "We intend to form a stock company +of two hundred thousand shares at one dollar a share, non-assessable. +Of this amount a majority will be held by the promoters of the company, +some other smaller amount will remain in the treasury, and, say, fifty +thousand will be floated on the market. Our offer is, to make you +superintendent at a nominal salary of five thousand, and to give you in +addition thirty thousand promoter's shares as your price of the claims. +These shares you may either sell or keep. Thus you may either take a +certain sum of money, or you may pool your interests with ours, +confident that every good showing made by you as superintendent will +increase the value of your holding as participator in the enterprise. +In other words it gives you a personal interest in your work here. +What do you say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Heads I win, tails you lose," said Lafond over in the corner, but he +said it under his breath. +</P> + +<P> +To Billy it was all gorgeous. He saw only that he was offered thirty +thousand dollars and five thousand a year, in addition to keeping the +position of prominence he coveted. To him the paper dollar shares +looked as good as paper dollar bills. +</P> + +<P> +"What do I say?" he cried, "I say 'put her thar,' and thank you. Let's +go have a drink!" +</P> + +<P> +So the meeting adjourned, wonderfully inspirited, especially Michaïl +Lafond, for at last he saw a chance. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +As he looked up at the stars that night before turning in, he made a +quaint little sign on high. It was the Indian gesture of worship. +"Lafond," he purred to himself, "you are a fool for luck. Rippling +Water used to say you were born under a lucky star, and by the Turtle, +I believe she was right!" +</P> + +<P> +For though the Easterners thought they had done well in paying Billy +with a paper futurity, Lafond saw two sides to the question. The +meeting had been conducted, apparently, in the most business-like and +painstaking manner, yet it was to be noted that the fundamental facts, +the facts on whose accuracy depended the whole value of the subsequent +figuring, were accepted on Billy's mere say-so, without an attempt at +outside verification. Billy was honest, but he was superficial. His +temperament did not force him to search out the little details. +Michaïl Lafond was in the habit of searching them out very thoroughly. +</P> + +<P> +He saw that one claim, because of its peculiar situation, would require +an ore bin of equally peculiar construction; that it might perhaps be +necessary to flume water to another; that a third, though its surface +showing was good, gave indications of being nothing but a blow-out; +that though the assay of a certain ore was high, the actual working +value might be low, because of the refractory character of the rock. +In regard to mere externals of camp-building, his experience taught him +that the Easterners' estimate would turn out to be superficial. His +view from the inside showed him that every last article of equipment +for the buildings, and every pound of machinery, would have to be +brought in on mules; that men might not always be easy to get in a new +country; that hay for horses came from a distant prairie, at prices +that corresponded to the distance; that the enthusiastic promoter is +rarely or never the careful, painstaking superintendent. And so with a +hundred other items, which the Easterners had entirely overlooked. It +is marvellous that they should have done so. Translate gold into +button hooks, the Hills into a factory, Billy Knapp into an impecunious +small proprietor anxious to sell, and not one of the three would have +gone into the affair so blindly. But it is true. And more, the +history of this operation at Copper Creek is the faithful history of a +myriad of exactly similar enterprises in the West. Ask your broker +friend, or anyone in a position to watch the floating of schemes on +Change; he will tell you. +</P> + +<P> +Having settled the business of the trip, the Easterners spent a few +ridiculously juvenile days in pleasure. Billy worked himself nearly +blind to get them a shot at deer, but without success. They visited +Custer. On their way back to the railroad, they took in the Pine Ridge +Reservation, where they saw five thousand Sioux, and bought beaded +moccasins and short ill-made arrows. Finally they piled on the +Pullman, vastly pleased with their sunburn, and a little inclined to +swagger in the presence of these clean-shaven, quietly civilized +travellers who had not just left the exciting dangers of a pioneer +country. +</P> + +<P> +Billy accompanied them. His presence was necessary in Chicago where +the new company was to be "floated" and its final organization brought +about. +</P> + +<P> +None of the results of the visit were as yet known officially, but of +course a well verified rumor had got about that the Easterners were +really going to "take hold" and every man in camp was at the hotel door +to bid the visitors farewell. Michaïl Lafond was the last man at the +hub of the wheel before the horses started. +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad you came," said he, holding Stevens' hand while he spoke, +"and I am glad you are going to invest here. It will help us all, and +I sincerely hope it will help you." +</P> + +<P> +Stevens looked at him suddenly, as if to discover whether the lack of +confidence in the words was reflected in the man's face. Apparently +satisfied, he replied easily, "Course it will." +</P> + +<P> +"Always figure on the safe side," suggested Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"You're dead right there," responded the other, "and that is just what +we've done. We've put down that fifty thousand as dead clear outlay +for a starter, without any offsets by way of return, and surely some of +that ore will pay something before we get down two hundred feet. Oh, +we're all right on that. You'll see us booming before spring!" +</P> + +<P> +Lafond watched the wagon out of sight with a smile in his inscrutable +eyes. Then he went down to spend his afternoon with Durand, humming +the remnants of a little Canadian <I>chanson</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"A fool for luck," he repeated to himself; "a regular fool for luck, +Lafond. All you have to do is to sit right still, and it comes to you +without the effort on your part." +</P> + +<P> +Between him and his object there now intervened but fifty thousand +dollars. And fifty thousand dollars was not an unlimited sum of money. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND +</H4> + +<P> +Billy was gone almost a month. +</P> + +<P> +During that interim Lafond had absolutely nothing to do but wait, for +his affairs, both domestic and foreign, were doing well. +</P> + +<P> +"A fool for luck, a fool for luck," he got into the habit of saying to +himself, but with somewhat of a congratulatory ring to it, as though he +were a little inclined to attribute fortune's favors to that lady's +appreciation of his shrewdness. If luck had not favored him, he would +have had to accomplish the same results himself. It was a labor-saving +device. Nevertheless, as time went on, the strong underlying mysticism +in his nature came to make of this luck of his a fetish of no small +power. Lafond went about in a continual state of elation. Things were +coming his way. Nothing could stop them. They were fore-ordained. +All he had to do was to stay awake so as to take advantage of the +circumstances which chance so nicely arranged for him. He had such +confidence in the fortuitous moment that he almost ceased to plan +ahead, sure that the crisis would bring its own solution. +</P> + +<P> +Fifty thousand dollars stood between Billy's credit and Billy's +downfall. Lafond had those fifty thousand dollars to get rid of. The +sum was not great, but neither was it small; and to induce another to +spend fifty thousand, in a few months, without any encouraging return, +might have seemed, to an ordinary man, a project worthy of careful +foresight. Not so Lafond. "A fool for luck," he repeated and awaited +Billy's reappearance. +</P> + +<P> +There was Molly's affair with Cheyenne Harry, for instance. What could +be better? Lafond had known Mortimer by reputation for a great many +years. He was acquainted with the details of the transaction of +Mulberry Gulch, and how he and a man named Dutch Pete had swindled all +Custer City; he knew too of Harry's various wild escapades in the early +Indian skirmishes—on both sides some men said; of his wonderful +fortitude in enduring hardship, and his equally wonderful periods of +relaxation when back again in the towns; and he knew, best of all from +his point of view, Harry's reputation as a man among women. Since this +flirtation had lasted so long, to Lafond's mind it must already have +passed the limits. The natural sequence would be followed out. In +time Cheyenne Harry would have a mistress the more. +</P> + +<P> +In other words, without the slightest trouble or encouragement on his +part, the girl would be debauched. Then, through artfully colored +vague hints, he would let slip the real facts of her breeding. He was +student enough of character to know that she would gnaw her heart out +with a passionate remorse, the more intense because of that very innate +purity of instinct which now made Harry's task a difficult one. Lafond +had absolutely nothing to do but congratulate himself, smoke his pipe, +and spend long hours with his friend the entomologist. +</P> + +<P> +After the first flutter over the Easterners' visit had subsided, the +camp settled back with wonderful celerity into its accustomed habits. +At first it expected Billy's reappearance within a few days. The +return was postponed to the end of the week. The end of the week gave +Copper Creek to understand that it would have to wait a short time +longer. Then came another postponement. And so on, until the little +community had taken up its usual prospecting, work o' day, play o' +night existence, and the return of Billy was looked upon as an +inevitable event, but hazily in the future, not imminent enough +immoderately to disturb the current of men's thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +Then all at once Billy was among them, splendid, powerful, energetic, +in a hurry, whirling the stagnant waters this way and that, until the +spirit of enterprise awoke within them, and a nervous atmosphere of +progress replaced the old monotony. +</P> + +<P> +Billy had credited to him fifty thousand dollars; Billy sported a new +hat and new clothes; Billy had vast enterprises to accomplish before +the ground froze up; Billy drew a salary; Billy possessed an engraved +certificate of shares, which he displayed; Billy had a new watch; Billy +was looking for men; Billy was deep in complicated plans which required +above all things haste, haste, haste; until the narrow little cañon +rang with the name of Billy, which was esteemed great in the land. +</P> + +<P> +The new superintendent entered at once into the discharge of his +duties. His first care was to sink the shafts mentioned at the first +informal meeting in his own shack. There were ten claims, on which +eleven shafts were planned. The very evening of his return, eleven of +the handiest prospectors in the camp were summoned to Billy's cabin, +where they found awaiting their signatures eleven contracts to sink on +the various claims a specific number of feet at a specified price. +Next morning they looked the ground over. Next noon they signed. Next +afternoon they hired two helpers each, bought powder and fuse, and +sharpened drills. The day after, thirty-five men were busily at work +on the new company's group of claims. It looked like business. +</P> + +<P> +The same noon, Billy's effects began to come in from the East. He had +received a liberal advance on the account of his salary, and the +results were various. Among them were new saddles, a new buckboard, a +new rifle, silver-mounted harness, and a quantity of clothes of rather +loud pattern. But most marvellous was a clean-limbed, deep-chested, +slender running horse, accompanied by a sawed-off English groom. Billy +spent a good share of the next week with this individual, constructing +a corral of small timber in which the new horse might roll about. Each +morning the groom led the animal, astonishingly hooded, blanketed, and +leather-banded, up and down the hundred yards or so of level road which +was all that strip of rugged country offered fit for such delicate +hoofs and fine limbs. The beast always progressed teetering a little +sideways, nearly dragging the groom from his feet. The camp speculated +that Billy had designs on the next great prairie "fair" in the spring, +but the truth is the Westerner had little idea of what his designs +were. He had been pleased with the horse, and had bought it, without +bestowing a thought on expediency. After the novelty of possessing so +thoroughbred a creature had somewhat worn away, he confessed to himself +a slight bewilderment as to what to do with it. +</P> + +<P> +Other interests claimed his attention now. The work on the mines +themselves no longer needed his care. After the hundred feet of shaft +had been quite finished and timbered, he would inspect them in his +official capacity. If the job came up to specifications, he would sign +its acceptance; if it did not, the contractor would have to remedy the +defect. In the meantime he had on hand the building of the camp +itself, for which he had already planned largely. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond climbed the gulch and the knoll, after activity had been well +under way for about a week. He found Billy paying the freight-bills on +several loads of heavy red-painted machinery, while the teamsters spat +and swore just outside the little shack, which he now used as an +office. Billy was signing slips from his new check book. Until he +should have finished, Lafond strolled about examining the grounds. +</P> + +<P> +Around the mouths of the shafts themselves the débris had accumulated +astoundingly, showing that the contractors too had been industrious, +but Lafond paid little attention to them. He was more interested in +the clearing, levelling, trimming and digging which seemed to indicate +the undertaking of rather extensive works above ground. Perhaps a +dozen men were at work. Some were engaged in "trueing" the four great +foundation beams of what was evidently to be a large building. Others +squared smaller timbers near at hand. The remainder were measuring and +indicating with a shovel the outlines of other and less pretentious +structures. In a moment Billy came out ready to dissertate at length. +</P> + +<P> +"That thar is the boardin' house," he explained, "I thought at first +I'd only make her big enough for thirty, 'cause that's as big a gang as +I starts with; but then I figgers it out, an' it won't be long before I +takes on more, so I thinks it jest as well to start where I ends. So +she's goin' to accommodate sixty, two-story, you know. Then yere's the +cookee's shack. I aims to have th' kitchen separate yere—don't like +that Prairie Dog game nohow." (The "Prairie Dog" was the hotel; and +the "game" was the inclusion of the kitchen and the dining-room in the +same apartment.) "Then yere's to be the office. I uses my old shack +for an office now. I aims to have three sleepin'-rooms, an' a +dinin'-room and kitchen." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" asked Lafond, a little puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +"For me." +</P> + +<P> +"For——?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't aim to eat with the men. And over yander 'll be th' stables; +and thar th' blacksmith's shop; and then the powder house is on th' +other side of the gulch. The chicken house is beyond th' blacksmith's +shop." +</P> + +<P> +"The what?" asked Mike. +</P> + +<P> +"The chicken house." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Mike. +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't got the ground all broke yet," pursued Billy; "but the plans +is all ready, and it ain't takin' long when once we git started. The +stuff fer th' mill is comin' along slow," he observed, pointing to the +red-painted machinery; "but I ain't aimin' to put her up till nex' +spring. Can't do much with her till I gets th' shafts sunk." +</P> + +<P> +"No," agreed Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"But I got th' plans fer that too. Come on in an' I shows them to you." +</P> + +<P> +He led the way into the little shack, and began to rummage in a valise +full of papers. Lafond found the place in a litter of confusion. +Scattered about in the wildest disorder were clothes, weapons, saddles, +harness, knick-knacks and mining tools. Among the latter the +half-breed noticed the sections of a pump—an expensive machine used +only after a shaft has penetrated below the water level, but which +Billy had already purchased. Lying half open among the dusty quartz +specimens, empty ink bottles, rusty pens and old pipes, which cumbered +the table, Mike perceived a large wooden box. +</P> + +<P> +"What's this?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Billy looked up red-faced from his search. +</P> + +<P> +"That?" he replied. "Oh, that's a stamper," and dived back into the +valise. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond drew the box toward him. He found it to contain a vast quantity +of rubber types of all sizes and styles, figures, ornaments and +ornamental rulings. The box itself was perhaps some thirty inches +square. It was a most elaborate outfit, whose use is confined almost +entirely to large department stores where there is much marking of +prices. +</P> + +<P> +Billy now stood upright, having found his roll of plans. +</P> + +<P> +"What did you say this is?" asked Lafond again. +</P> + +<P> +"A stamper." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you do with it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You sticks the types in this rule this way." Billy took out the rule +and some of the types, fumbled unskilfully with them for a moment, and +threw them impatiently down. "Anyway, they goes in; and then that +keeps them in a straight line." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," persisted Lafond, "but what's it for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, to stamp things with, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"What things?" +</P> + +<P> +Billy hadn't thought of that. +</P> + +<P> +But his discomfiture was only momentary. He spread the plans out on +the rapidly cleared table, and discoursed concerning them. Lafond lent +an attentive ear, but said little. Billy's ideas were comprehensive. +They included every adjunct of use or expediency which the prospector +remembered to have seen in any of the numerous successful camps which +had fallen under his observation. In fact, when finished, the external +Great Snake would be a composite of the desirable features of many +other camps, including the great "Homestake" itself. It was evident +that before Billy's mind's eye, the Great Snake was already as +prosperous and as well entitled to its graces of mining luxury as any +of the older enterprises. After a little appeared a man who had some +horses to sell, so Lafond took his leave and retraced his steps to +town. Near the foot of the knoll he happened across still further +evidence of Billy's wandering activity in the shape of an ivory-handled +clasp knife of five-inch blade. Mike remembered that Billy had shown +it about in the Little Nugget the evening before as another example of +the Easterners' generosity; and he remembered further the Westerner's +delighted laugh over the inscription, "William Knapp." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't know myself that way," he had cried. "I clean forgets that +'Billy' does stand for 'William.'" +</P> + +<P> +Lafond's first impulse was to reclimb the knoll for the purpose of +returning his find to its owner, but on second thoughts it hardly +seemed worth the trouble. He slipped it into the side pocket of his +canvas coat, where, of course, he speedily forgot all about it. +</P> + +<P> +When he reached the Little Nugget, empty at this time of day, he sat +down in his chair and laughed aloud, peal on peal, wagging his head and +rubbing his eyes. Frosty, happening in, withdrew with celerity, firmly +convinced that his master had gone crazy. +</P> + +<P> +"A fool for luck, a fool for luck!" cried Lafond, "Why, the idiot is +playing right into my hands!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT +</H4> + +<P> +The morning when the hunting party had so unhappily terminated on the +slope of Tom Custer, proved to be the turning point in Molly's +relations with the camp. +</P> + +<P> +The Kid forgave her in two hours, but her troubled conscience would not +let her forgive herself. Therefore she was irritated with the Kid. +Therefore her old innocent joyful trips into the hills in his company +suddenly came to an end. That is good psychology; not good sense. +</P> + +<P> +With the first realization of evil, slight though it was, her moral +nature began the inevitable two-sided argument. She was no longer +naïve, but responsible. As a consequence her old careless, thoughtless +manner of life completely changed. In the beginning she had come full +of confidence to subdue a camp. Speedily she had discovered that it +was not worth the trouble, and that she infinitely preferred to play +out in the open with the winds and sunshine and the diverse influences +of nature. Now a subtle, quite unrealized sense of unworthiness, drove +her back to a desire for human sympathy, the personal relation. This +personal relation took the outward form of an entanglement with +Cheyenne Harry, complicated by her intellectual admiration of Graham. +</P> + +<P> +From the first, Cheyenne Harry had possessed for her a certain +fascination which had distinguished him from the rest of the men by +whom she was surrounded. It had dated from the evening when he had +kissed her. At the time he had been shown his place swiftly and +decisively enough, but it was a forceful deed, such as women like, and +its impression had remained. Besides this, Molly's spirit was +independent; she respected independence in others; and he, with the +exception of Graham, was now the only man in camp who was to some +slight extent indifferent. He showed frankly enough, with the rest, +that he liked her company and her good opinion; and yet he showed, too, +that if her presence and regard were not freely offered as he demanded +them, he could wait, secure in their ultimate possession. +</P> + +<P> +At first this fascination had been weak and unimportant. Now, however, +it rapidly took the ascendancy over everything else. The mere chance +that its influence had been the one first to touch the girl's moral +nature counted for much; as did, curiously enough, the fact that, in +her relations with Cheyenne Harry, Molly always felt a little guilty. +She resented her imperceptible retrogression, and the resentment took +the reckless form of a desire to go a step further. This was mainly +because she did not understand herself. She had done nothing wrong, as +she saw it; and yet They had put this heavy uneasy feeling into her +heart. Very well! If They, the mysterious unthoughtout They, were +bound to make her unhappy without her fault, she would enjoy the sweets +as well as the bitter of it! +</P> + +<P> +Harry had such a way of forcing her to act against her conscience. +</P> + +<P> +"But I can't do that!" she would object to some proposition of his. +"I'd like to. I think it would be great fun. But you know very well +I've promised Dave Kelly to go up with him this afternoon to look at +his claim." +</P> + +<P> +"That doesn't matter," replied Harry cavalierly. +</P> + +<P> +"But it <I>does</I> matter," she persisted. "I've promised." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, shake him. Tell him some yarn. <I>Do</I> something. It isn't every +day I get an afternoon off this way." Though why he did not, it would +be difficult to say. +</P> + +<P> +"I know, but I've <I>promised</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, very well," said Cheyenne Harry, with cold finality, and began to +whistle as if the question were quite disposed of. This did not suit +Molly at all. +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't anything I can do, is there?" she asked after a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"You know best." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, I don't <I>want</I> you to feel like that." +</P> + +<P> +"Why shouldn't I feel like that?" cried Harry in sudden heat. "Here I +look forward to a whole afternoon with you, and I'm thrown down just +because of a kid. I suppose you'd rather trot around with him than +with me. All right. Go ahead." +</P> + +<P> +He began to whistle again. He never said what the result would be if +she did "go ahead," and this very mysterious indifference had its +effect. Molly, genuinely distressed, knit her brows, not knowing what +to do. +</P> + +<P> +"Now look here!" commanded Harry, after a minute, with great decision; +"you go find that Kid, and send him up to Kelly's claim to say you +can't come this afternoon. You can fix it to suit yourself next time +you see him," and then he would himself find the Kid and despatch him. +</P> + +<P> +Molly always acquiesced, but with inward misgivings. She must now do +her best to conceal from Dave Kelly the real state of affairs; he must +not by any chance see her with Harry; he must not hear from outside +sources of her afternoon's excursion with that individual. An element +of the clandestine had crept into it. The idea oppressed her, for, in +spite of her store of spirits and her independent temper, she was not +of a combative nature when she felt herself at all in the wrong. The +necessity saddened her, brought to her that guilty feeling against +which she so sullenly rebelled. She was uneasy during all the +afternoon, and yet she was conscious of an added delicious thrill in +her relations with Harry—a thrill that first tingled pleasantly +through all her veins, then struck her heart numb with vague +culpability. In due course, she came to transfer the emotion from the +circumstances to the man. She experienced the same thrill, the same +numb culpability, at the sight of his figure approaching her on the +street. +</P> + +<P> +This tendency was emphasized, perhaps, by the fact that their walks +together—projected so suddenly, undertaken with so strong a feeling of +blame on her part—consisted always of continual skirmishes as to +whether or not Cheyenne Harry should kiss her. The interest of the +argument was heightened by the fact that the girl wanted him to do so. +This he was never allowed for a moment to suspect—in fact, by all +means in her power she gave him to understand quite the contrary—but +he could not help feeling subtly the subconscious encouragement, and so +grew always the more insistent. She held him off because her instincts +had told her the act would cheapen her. Molly always obeyed her +instincts. They were strong, insistent, not to be denied. They came +to her suddenly with a great conviction of truth, which she never +dreamed of questioning. Among other things they taught her that +without love each kiss adds to the woman's regard for the man, but +takes away from his desire for her. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyenne Harry used all his arts. He tried force only once, for he +found it unsatisfactory and productive of most disagreeable results. +Diplomacy and argument in themselves, as eclectics, contained much of +the joy of debate. The arguments in such cases were always deliciously +ingenuous. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, what harm is there in my just putting my arm around you?" he +urged. +</P> + +<P> +"There just is, that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll have it around you when we dance." +</P> + +<P> +"That's different; there's people about then." +</P> + +<P> +"It's just a question of people, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I s'pose so." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you let me put my arm around you to-night in the Little Nugget?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not." +</P> + +<P> +"But there's people there," triumphantly. "Now what's the harm? It's +different with us. Of course you ought not to let anyone else, but +we're different." +</P> + +<P> +They were sitting near together, and all this time the Westerner's arm +was moving inch by inch along the rock behind Molly. As he talked he +clasped her waist, gingerly, in order not to alarm. She shivered as +she became conscious of the touch, and for one instant gave herself up. +Then she sternly ordered Cheyenne Harry to take his distance. The +latter tried to temporize by opening an argument. The half-playful +struggle always ended in Molly's gaining her point, but the victory was +laughing, and so Cheyenne Harry was encouraged to reopen the attack on +new grounds. +</P> + +<P> +As one of the inevitable results, the emotion which Molly experienced +in at once denying herself and combating Harry was gradually translated +into a fascinated sort of passion for him. Then, too, since naturally +the interest of these indecisive encounters increased with each, the +two came to see each other oftener and oftener, until the habit of +companionship was well established. This habit is very real. The +approach of the accustomed hour for meeting causes the heart to beat +faster, the breath to come quicker, the imagination to kindle; while +the foregoing of a single appointment is a dull loss difficult to bear +with patience. It counterfeits well many of the symptoms of love, and +for a short time is nearly as burning a passion. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes the attack would be more direct. Cheyenne Harry's stock of +sophistry would give out, as well as his stock of patience. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, come on, Molly," he would cry, "just one! I've been real good, +now haven't I? Oh, come on!" +</P> + +<P> +"You've been nothing but a great big brute, Mr. Cheyenne Harry!" she +cried in a tone that implied he had not. +</P> + +<P> +Harry advanced a little, holding out his hands, much as one would +approach a timid setter dog. She put one finger on her lips, and +watched him, bright-eyed. When he was near enough, she boxed his ears, +and twisted her slender young body out of reach, laughing mockingly, +and wrinkling her nose at him. +</P> + +<P> +But then when they had returned to camp, and once more she found +herself alone, the delicious questions always came up; how far did he +intend to go? Did he see through such and such a stratagem? Was he +really vexed at such and such a speech, or was he merely feigning? In +what manner would he dare accost her when next they met? And so +another meeting became necessary soon—at once. They saw more and more +of each other, to the neglect of many real duties. +</P> + +<P> +For a time the influence of Jack Graham did something to stem the drift +of this affair, but that lasted only until he himself fell in love with +her. +</P> + +<P> +With him her first emotion had been of eager intellectual awakening; +her second, that of piqued curiosity; her third, of reactionary +dulness. As time went on she came to pass and repass through those +three phases with ever increased rapidity, until at the last their +constant reiteration might almost have relegated them to the category +of whims. She liked to be with him, because he made her aware of new +possibilities in herself. She could not understand him, because his +attitude toward her was never that of the lover. She experienced +moments of revolt, when she cried out passionately but ineffectually +against an influence which would compel her to elevations rarer than +the atmosphere of her everyday, easy-going pleasure-taking life. +Ineffectually, I say, for something always forced her back. +</P> + +<P> +Not that Graham ever preached. Preaching would have presented +something tangible against which to revolt, something orthodox to be +cried down. In fact, reformation of Molly Lafond's manners of mind or +body was the farthest from Graham's thought. He merely represented to +her a state of being to which she must rise. The rise was slight, but +it was real. It meant the difference between thinking in the abstract +or in the concrete. It meant that she was compelled to feel that to +men like him, or to women like her, this animal existence, with its +finer pleasures of riding, climbing, flirting and sitting on bars, +while well enough in its way, was after all but a small and incidental +part of life. If the girl had been requested to formulate it, she +would not have been able to do so. She apprehended it more in its +result; which was to make her just a little ashamed of her everyday +manner of existence, without, however, furnishing her with a strong +enough motive to rise permanently above it. This, in turn, translated +itself into a certain impotent mental discomfort. +</P> + +<P> +As long as Jack Graham preserved the personally indifferent standpoint, +the mere fact that he caused her momentary disquiet did not antagonize +Molly Lafond against him. Rather it added a certain piquancy to their +interviews. He threw out his observations on men and manners lazily, +with the true philosopher's delight in rolling a good thing under his +tongue. None of them possessed an easily fitted personal application. +And his utter indifference as to whether she talked or listened, went +or tarried, always secretly pleased her. She liked his way of looking +at her through half-closed lids, in the manner of one examining a +strange variety of tree or fern; the utter lack of enthusiasm in the +fashion of his greetings when she came, or his farewell when she +departed; his quite impersonal manner of pointing truths which might +only too easily have been given a personal application. And this was +the very reason of it, although again she might not have been able to +formulate the idea; that although his methods of thought, his mental +stand-points, his ways of life constantly accused hers of inertia, +carelessness and moral turpiture, nevertheless his personally +indifferent attitude toward her relieved them of too direct an +application. She enjoyed the advantages of a mental cold shower, with +the added satisfaction that no one saw her bedraggled locks. +</P> + +<P> +But when in time the young man went the way of the rest of the camp and +began to show a more intimate interest in her, the conditions were +quite altered. We may rejoice in anathema against the sins of +humanity, in which we may acknowledge a share; we always resent being +personally blamed. +</P> + +<P> +Graham indeed went the way of the rest of the camp. His progress from +indifference to love he could not have traced himself, although he +might with tolerable accuracy have indicated the landmarks—a look, a +gesture, a flash of spirit, revealing by a little more the woman whom +he finally came to idealize. That her's was a rich nature he had early +discovered. That it was not inherently a frivolous or vicious nature, +he saw only gradually, and after many days. Then his self-disguise of +philosophic indifference fell. He realized fully that he loved her, +not for what she did or said, but for herself; and with the knowledge +came an acuter consciousness that, whatever her possibilities, her +tendency was now to pervert rather than develop them. For the first +time he opened his eyes and examined her environment as well as herself. +</P> + +<P> +She spent half of her day alone with Cheyenne Harry. The other half +she was restless. The evening she passed in the Little Nugget saloon, +where the men, convinced that she was now the mistress of Cheyenne +Harry, took even less pains than formerly to restrain the accustomed +freedom of their words and actions. Graham viewed her indifference to +all this, and her growing absorption by Cheyenne Harry, with some +alarm. He conceived that the state of affairs came about more because +of a dormant moral nature than because of moral perversity; and as to +this he was partly right. But he could not fail to perceive the +inevitable trend of it all, no matter what the permitting motive. He +would have been less—or more—than human, if he had let it pass +without a protest. +</P> + +<P> +At first the protest took the form of action. He tried to persuade the +girl to spend the evening in other ways. While the novelty lasted, +this was all very well. He epitomized and peptonized his knowledge on +all subjects to suit her intellectual digestion. They called it their +"lesson time," and he made the mistake of taking it too seriously. He +was very much in earnest himself, so he thought she should be so. They +talked of nothing but the matter in hand. After a little, there came +an evening when she was a trifle tired. The matter in hand did not +interest her as much as it should. She leaned the back of her head +against her two clasped hands, and sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm stupid to-night," she confessed. "Let's talk. Tell me a story." +</P> + +<P> +Graham was much in love, and so incapable of readjustments. He had +thought out carefully several new and interesting things to say. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you said you were really in earnest about this," he +reproached her. "If you are going to improve yourself, you must work; +and work cannot depend on one's mood." +</P> + +<P> +All of which was very true, but Jack Graham could not see that there +inheres in truth no imperative demand for its expression. +</P> + +<P> +But when another night came, her enthusiasm was less marked, for she +saw no escape. After a time she skipped an evening. Then at last she +gave it up altogether. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid I'm not intellectual," she confessed, smiling doubtfully. +"I told you I'd be a disappointment. It is all interesting and very +improving, but—well, I don't know—it seems to make us both cross. I +guess we'd better quit." +</P> + +<P> +Jack Graham seemed to indicate by his manner that he was disappointed. +A good deal of his disapproval was because he saw that her renunciation +of these "improving" evenings meant not only the loss of the +improvement, but her exposure to worse influences; but of course Molly +Lafond did not know that. She took the young man's condemnation +entirely to herself, and consequently, when in his presence, felt just +a little inferior. She concealed the feeling with an extra assumption +of flippancy. +</P> + +<P> +Because of these things, as time went on, she came to see more and more +of Cheyenne Harry and less and less of Jack Graham. The latter's mere +presence made her ashamed of her lack of earnest purpose. He, for his +part, viewed with growing uneasiness the augmenting influence of the +dashing Westerner; for he knew the man thoroughly, and believed that +his attentions meant no good. In that, at least for the present, he +did him a wrong. Cheyenne Harry merely amused himself with a new +experience—that of entering into relations of intimacy with a woman +intrinsically pure. The other sort was not far to seek, should his +fancy turn that way. But to Graham these marked attentions could mean +but one thing. +</P> + +<P> +His resolve to speak openly was not carried into effect for a number of +days. Finally, quite unexpectedly, he found his chance. +</P> + +<P> +Toward evening, as he was returning from a day's exploitation on his +three claims in Teepee, he came across her sitting on a fallen log near +the lower ford. The shadows of the hills were lying across the +landscape, even out on the brown prairie. A bird or so sang in the +thicket. A light wind breathed up the gulch. Altogether it was so +peaceful; and the girl sitting there idly, her hands clasped over her +knees, gazing abstractedly into the waters of the brook, was so pensive +and contemplative and sad, that Graham had to spur his resolution hard +to induce it to take the leap. But he succeeded in making himself +angry by thinking of Cheyenne Harry. +</P> + +<P> +She saw him coming and shrank vaguely. She felt herself in some subtle +way, which she could not define, quite in the wrong. What wrong she +could not have told. When, however, she saw that plainly his intention +was to speak to her, she smiled at him brilliantly with no trace of +embarrassment. +</P> + +<P> +They exchanged the commonplaces of such a meeting. +</P> + +<P> +"Why are you so solemn?" she broke in finally. "You look as if you'd +lost your last friend." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her. "That is the way I feel." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said she. +</P> + +<P> +They fell silent. She did not like at all the gloomy fashion of his +scrutiny. It made her nervous. She felt creeping on her heart that +mysterious heaviness, the weight of something unknowable, which she had +lately been at such pains to forget. She did not like it. With an +effort, she shook it off and laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" she cried with forced gayety. "Didn't he sleep +well? Don't he like my looks, or the freckle on my nose, or the way I +wear my cap?"—she tossed the latter rakishly on her curls, and tilted +her head sideways. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter?" she asked with a sudden return to gravity. +</P> + +<P> +"You are the matter," he answered briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh dear!" she cried with petulance; "has it come to that?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it has not come to that, not what you mean. But it has come to +this: that your conduct has made every true friend of yours feel just +as I do." +</P> + +<P> +She stared at him a moment, gasping. +</P> + +<P> +"Heavens! you frighten me! What <I>have</I> I done? Come over here on this +log and tell me about it." +</P> + +<P> +Graham's vehement little speech had vented the more explosive portion +of his emotion. Whatever he should say now would be inspired rather by +conviction than impulse; and the lover's natural unwillingness +deliberately to antagonize his mistress made it exceedingly difficult +to continue. He hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"You <I>must</I> tell me now," she commanded; "I insist. Now, what have I +done?" +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't so much what you have done," began Graham lamely, "as what +you might do. You see you are very young, and you don't know the +world; and so you might walk right into something very wrong without +realizing in the least what you are doing, and without meaning to do +wrong at all. Everybody owes it to himself to make the best out of +himself, and you must know that you have great possibilities. But it +isn't that so much. I wish I knew how to tell you exactly. You ought +to have a mother. But if you'd only let us advise you, because we know +more about it than you——" +</P> + +<P> +The girl had watched him with gleaming eyes. "That doesn't <I>mean +</I>anything," she interrupted. "What is it, now? Out with it!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's Cheyenne Harry," blurted Graham desperately; "you oughtn't to go +around with him so much." +</P> + +<P> +"Now we have it," said the girl with dangerous calm; "I'm not to go +around with Harry. Will you tell me why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," replied Graham, floundering this side of the main fact; "it +isn't a healthy thing for anybody to see any one person to the +exclusion of others." +</P> + +<P> +"Yourself, for instance," stabbed the girl wickedly. "Go on." +</P> + +<P> +Graham flushed. "No, it isn't that," he asserted earnestly. "It isn't +for the benefit of the others that I speak, but because of the effect +on yourself. It isn't <I>healthy</I>. You are wasting time that might be +very much better employed; you get into an abnormal attitude toward +other people; you are laying stress on a <I>means</I> to which there is no +<I>end</I>, and that is abnormal. I don't know that you understand what I +mean; it's philosophy," he concluded, smiling in an attempt to end +lightly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I do not understand in the least. All I understand is that you +object to my seeing a certain man, without giving any particular reason +for your objections." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't especially elevating for you to sit every evening in a bar +room crowded with swearing and drinking men who are not at all of your +class," suggested Graham. "The language they use ought to teach you +that." +</P> + +<P> +"They are my people," cried Molly with a sudden flash of indignation, +"and they are honest and brave and true-hearted. They do not speak as +grammatically as you or I; but you have been to college, and I have +been blessed with a chance to read. And whatever language they speak, +they do not use it to talk of other people behind their backs!" She +reflected a moment. "But that isn't the question," she went on, with a +touch of her native shrewdness. "I understood you to make a request of +me." +</P> + +<P> +Graham had not so understood himself, but he had a request ready, +nevertheless. "That you be a little more careful in the way you go +about with Mortimer, then," he begged. +</P> + +<P> +"And why?" she asked again. +</P> + +<P> +"Because—because he means to do you harm!" cried Jack Graham, driven +to the point at last. +</P> + +<P> +She rose from the log. "Ah, that is what I wanted to hear!" she +returned in level tones—"the accusation. You will tell him this to +his face?" +</P> + +<P> +Graham paused. His anxiety was a tangle of suspicions born of his +knowledge of men, his intuitions, and his fears. Looking at it +dispassionately from the outside, what right had he to interfere? +Graham was much in love, brave enough to carry through the inevitable +row, and quite willing as far as himself was concerned, to do so; but +he could not fail to see that, however the affair came out, it would +irretrievably injure the girl's reputation. No one would believe that +he would go to such lengths on suspicion of merely future harm. To the +camp it would mean his proved knowledge of present facts. So he +hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"You will not, I see," concluded the girl, moving away; "rest easy, I +shall say nothing to Harry about it. I don't know what he would do if +he heard of it." +</P> + +<P> +She began to walk toward the ford, every motion expressing contempt. +She believed she had proved Graham a coward, and this had rehabilitated +her self-respect. She was no longer ashamed before him. At the +water's brink she turned back. +</P> + +<P> +"And remember this, Mr. Jack Graham!" she cried, her repressed anger +suddenly blazing out; "I may be young, and I may not know much of the +world, but I know enough to take care of myself without any of your +help." +</P> + +<P> +She picked her way across the stepping-stones and disappeared, without +once looking back. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXVI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +AND HAS TO GO TO WORK +</H4> + +<P> +From that moment Graham ceased to be an integral factor in the girl's +history. His only hold on her imagination had been his moral +superiority, and it was now gone. She treated him thenceforth as an +admirer whose sincerity deserves the consideration which his insistence +makes difficult to give ungrudgingly. He was not discouraged or +frowned on. He was forgiven promptly as a child is forgiven. But he +was kept always scrupulously to his place. The girl now held the whip +hand. After a little, when he became too insistent, she cut him +cruelly in punishment and only deigned to smile on him again when, to +sue forgiveness, he had quite abandoned his attitude of fault-finding. +</P> + +<P> +As for him, the girl's actions soon became hateful. He saw them all +wrong, yet he felt his powerlessness to alter them in even the +slightest degree. This aroused so powerful but so impotent a rage that +shortly he came to react irritably against everything Molly did whether +right or wrong. He instinctively arraigned himself in the opposition. +He did not want to do this, and his common sense accused him strongly +of unreasonableness, but he could not help it. It was greater than he. +No matter what the plan, discussion or even conversation, his morbidly +sensitive consciousness of the girl's error impelled him to object. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's go over to Rockerville to-day," she would suggest. +</P> + +<P> +"The horses aren't here." +</P> + +<P> +"But it's no great matter to get them. Let's send the Kid." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know where the Kid is." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Frosty then." +</P> + +<P> +"Frosty's busy." +</P> + +<P> +"It wouldn't hurt you any to get them yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"One of the saddles is broken." +</P> + +<P> +"You know very well it's only a cinch ring. It can be fixed in five +minutes." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll—— Don't you think it is going to be pretty hot?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't; and if I can stand it, I should think you could." +</P> + +<P> +"And——" +</P> + +<P> +"Heavens and earth! It's harder than climbing trees to get you to do +anything. Never mind! <I>I</I> don't want to go to Rockerville or anywhere +else if it's all that trouble!" +</P> + +<P> +And then Graham would wonder at his stubborn fit. Why shouldn't they +have gone to Rockerville? In five minutes he could have got the +horses, fixed the saddle. And the day was beautiful. What real reason +did he have? He did not know; only he felt an irresistible impulse to +object. This was because he loved her, disapproved of her, and was +quite powerless over her. +</P> + +<P> +When he was not merely contrary, he was urging strong advice on an +unwilling recipient. It was offered in either the pleading or the +blustering spirit. If in the former, Molly merely teased him. If in +the latter, she became very angry. It was always on the same subject. +The girl was wearied with it. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, if it were any consolation, Jack Graham could have comforted +himself with the truth that, next to Cheyenne Harry, he claimed a +greater share of her thoughts than any other in camp. His offices were +ungrateful, but they had a certain sincerity which prevented their +being ignored; and, not forgotten, their acid-like drop of truth ate +into that conscience of which she did not yet realize the existence. +Her horizon was becoming banked with thunderclouds, looming huge and +black and heavy with portent. Graham, as an ideal, had stood for a +higher existence. Now, however shrunken his image appeared, the ideal +itself remained as something tangible in her collection of moral +standards. She acknowledged to herself fiercely that she had fallen +from it. She told herself that she did not care. +</P> + +<P> +She was dreadfully alone. Lafond was always kind to her, but she never +felt that she knew him. Graham, in spite of his frequent presence, was +in reality quite estranged. The Kid and Peter and Kelly and Houston +and even old Bill Martin had fallen away from her somehow. She did not +know that the reason the older men were less intimate was because she +was supposed to be Cheyenne Harry's mistress, and the rule of such +cases is "hands off!" And then there was always the stifling formless +weight at her heart which she did not understand. She was very +unhappy. That with her meant that she was reckless. She threw herself +passionately into her affair with Cheyenne Harry as the one tangible +human relation left to her in its entirety. +</P> + +<P> +The days followed each other in a succession of passionate exaltations +and dumb despairs. Harry kissed her whenever he pleased now. She had +long since got beyond mere coquetry. It meant much to her hereditary +instincts so to yield, but she gave herself up to it with the abandon +of a lost soul delivering itself to degrading wickedness. For in spite +of her life and companions she was intrinsically pure, so pure that +even Cheyenne Harry, with all his extraordinary influence, did not +somehow care to go too far. He kissed her, and at the first, when the +long resistance had enhanced her value, he was persuaded that he loved +her—that these interviews meant to him what lovers' meetings mean—and +so he responded to her passionate devotion with what seemed to be +corresponding ecstasy. +</P> + +<P> +But then after a little insensibly the flood ebbed. In the old days +she had amused him with her bright laughter, her gay speech, her +mocking superiorities, her little coquetries of manner or mannerism. +Now she had thrown these weapons away. Her surrender was complete. +Her life had simplified to one phase, that of dewy-eyed pleading +adoration. At first it pleased his masculine vanity. After a time it +cloyed ever so little; Cheyenne Harry missed the "comic relief" in all +these heroics. He would have liked occasionally to have climbed hills; +or taken long walks; or even run a short race, say to the bend of the +road; or to have had played on him a small practical joke; or +experienced some other such indication that man is a laughing animal. +The girl seemed capable of enjoying nothing but slow and aimless +saunterings. In the beginning he had experienced the nameless ecstasy +and thrill inherent in the personal contact of the kiss. Now he missed +something of those qualities. It seemed no longer strange to him to +feel her body near his, to watch her wide eyes half-closed, to press +his lips against hers, half-parted. It was still delightful above +everything in the world, but there had been one thing better—the kiss +of yesterday. In a word Cheyenne Harry's experience was beginning +dimly to trace the word "satiety." +</P> + +<P> +Not that either he or the girl realized it. To their thinking minds +everything was as usual. But their subconsciousness appreciated it, +and interpreted it according to its value. Cheyenne Harry, as has been +pointed out, turned instinctively toward a desire for lighter phases in +their relationship. Molly Lafond clung the more blindly to her +passion. Her only excuse to herself for her abandonment of the better +ideal was the reality of that passion. When it should go, her +self-respect would vanish with it. +</P> + +<P> +Harry found a certain amusement, too, in seeing Graham jumping around +the outer circle like corn in a popper. Graham was usually possessed +of so much innate dignity. Now his self-abandonment to the essentially +undignified attitude of begging for the petty favor of a quarrelless +ten minutes or even a little good-humored smile tickled the other's +sense of the incongruous and pleased his vanity. To an extent he was +held to the girl now by his pride. A man likes to have a rival when +perfectly secure himself, especially when the girl tells him what the +rival says to her. This may not be honorable in her, but it is very +human. So amusing was it that Harry did not get angry over the reports +of Graham's repeated warnings against him. +</P> + +<P> +The latter seemed unable to keep off the subject. He knew that his +suspicions only strengthened the girl's obstinate opposition, but he +could not help their expression for all that. Sometimes he pleaded, +sometimes he threatened, sometimes he assumed the prophet's mantle and +foretold all sorts of dire disasters. The girl laughed, or became +angry. It would have puzzled Graham to tell which of these moods he +preferred: perhaps it would have depended on which of them he was +experiencing at the moment. +</P> + +<P> +His saving grace was a sturdy sense of his duty to himself. He felt +that sense to be sadly shaken in many ways; but he clung to his work +tenaciously, perhaps a little feverishly. +</P> + +<P> +"Nuthin' like a woman to make a man work," observed Bill Martin sagely, +"whether she's <I>fur</I> him, or agin' him." +</P> + +<P> +"How about Billy?" inquired Old Mizzou. +</P> + +<P> +Bill Martin laughed. "Billy? Oh, he's <I>playin'</I>," he replied. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXVII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +PROSPERITY +</H4> + +<P> +Billy did not think so, however. He posed to himself as the most +industrious man in the territory. He had so much to see to that year, +for throughout the mild winter that succeeded he had pushed forward +with the greatest rapidity all work on the Great Snake and its sister +claims. The log structures, the plans of which he had displayed to +Lafond, were completed, so far as the mere erection of them went, +within a fortnight. Billy gave a great deal of personal direction to +this work; but after all it was simple enough, so he managed to chink +in a moment here and there for the completion of certain bargains which +came to him. For instance, a man in Spring Creek Valley offered eight +draught horses at a marvellously low figure. That made two teams. +Billy did not need two teams just then; but of course later, when the +mill was up, he would need a great many more than two teams for the +purpose of carting ore; and it seemed criminal to let such a bargain +go. Then he found he required a man to take care of them. Some days +later he came to the conclusion that it would be good economy to buy +the ore wagons now instead of waiting until later, for the following +ingenious reason: the horses must be fed; hay costs fifteen dollars a +ton in the hills and five on the prairie; with wagons the horses could +be utilized to haul their own forage from the plains at a net saving of +ten dollars a ton on all consumed. So Billy placed an order for two +heavy wagons, and dismissed the matter from his mind until they were +delivered. During the interim he sat on top of a ladder and dabbed +contentedly at a scroll-work cornice with a small red paint brush. +</P> + +<P> +From that elevation he bought a whim, also a bargain. The man was +anxious to sell, and it was a very good whim. To be sure one might +have argued that inasmuch as whims are machines for hauling ore from +depths which Billy's operations would not attain for a year at least, +the purchase was a little premature; but then it is equally certain +that all mines own whims, and another opportunity for getting one so +cheap might never again present itself. +</P> + +<P> +When the wagons came, he and the man drove fifty miles to Rapid, where +they hobnobbed with Tom Sweeny and looked over his establishment. +Billy bought his household goods. He also took a fancy to some large +brass-bound collar hoods for the horses which he had marked with the +company's initials "G. S. M. & M. Co.," also in brass. The return trip +was made with difficulty on account of the low-hanging branches of +trees. Then Billy spent an ecstatic week distributing things to suit +him. +</P> + +<P> +The work in the shafts went steadily forward. Billy was willing to +offer a bonus on the contract price for a quick job, so the contractors +took on extra men. They averaged almost a foot and a half a day, which +is wonderfully good. The work indeed went on so well that Billy saw he +would need the mill sooner than he had expected, so he resolved to +begin its erection at once. He hired all the available men, but soon +found that he would have to seek elsewhere for a gang adequate to such +an undertaking. He imported one from Rockerville. As the winter came +on, he found it expedient to start the boarding house in order, as he +said, "To get those cusses up in the mornin' afore the sun sets." The +move necessitated a cook and "cookee," and the weekly purchase of +provisions. Since he had the men handy, he argued, there was no reason +why he should not finish up the small details and odds and ends of the +camp in a respectable manner, and so he made many little extraneous +improvements, such as a flag pole and a rockery of pink quartz from the +Custer trail. Three or four were always away from the mill, levelling +up, clearing out or decorating. From Kansas City he imported some +chickens with crested heads and a number of pigeons of ancient lineage. +The latter promptly flew back to Kansas City. As the novelty of them +had worn off Billy took their loss philosophically. In regard to +externals the camp began to wear a very prosperous air. +</P> + +<P> +Copper Creek too was busy. Over forty men were hard at work on the +Great Snake itself. Upward of fifty claims were in the course of +development near at hand. With the completion of the mill would begin +the crushing of ore; with the crushing of ore would begin the camp's +commercial output; with that, provided it were satisfactory, would come +more capitalists anxious to invest. It behooved the claim owner to +have his exhibit of shaft and tunnel ready for the public inspection. +When you reflect that three men usually worked on a claim and that +Copper Creek's entire population at that date was a little over two +hundred and fifty, you can readily see that it was indeed a lively +camp. Even those who were not actually engaged in prospecting +operations found their time fully occupied in providing for those who +were. Black Jack had an assistant now. Moroney's paper came out as +often as once a fortnight and was beginning to be mentioned by the +<I>Deadwood Miner</I> as "our esteemed contemporary." Bill Martin had been +seen sweeping out his own office. The dozen of women and girls who had +drifted in with newcomers, scrubbed, cooked, washed and sewed in a +struggle to keep even with muddy boots, miners' appetites, and the +destructive demands of miners' work. Even Frosty improved his +customary mooning slouch. +</P> + +<P> +The men who seemed to enjoy unlimited leisure could be counted on the +fingers of one hand. Cheyenne Harry laughed at it all. His one claim +was known to be a mere excuse for existence, a symbolic reason for his +connection with Copper Creek. Everybody knew really why he stayed. He +was supposed to be independently rich, though none claimed any +knowledge of how he came to be so. Then there was the gambler, the +faro man, who sat on the hotel "porch" all the morning smoking endless +cigarettes, his broad straight hat tipped a little sideways, his +moustache brushed neatly away to show his white teeth, his fine +inscrutable eyes looking cynically from his equally fine clear-cut +face, speaking seldom, smiling never, imperturbable, indifferent, +cat-like. And there was Durand, but he did not count. And there was +Michaïl Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +To be sure the half-breed was building a new dance hall, to which the +camp entire looked with anticipatory delight, but that was a matter of +four walls and a smooth floor. He needed only to give his orders. +After a perfunctory morning inspection he had the day to himself. +</P> + +<P> +The work at the Great Snake interested him, as it did everybody. He +occupied the morning about the works, poking into odd corners, +questioning the workmen, making suggestions to Billy. He sent the +horse dealer to Billy, and mentioned to the whim man that he might find +a purchaser there. He often was enabled in his vaster leisure to +perceive the little things that lacked and to point out their necessity +to Billy, which individual was of course always duly grateful and +hastened at once to remedy the defect. After a more or less lengthened +visit the half-breed returned to camp. If it happened still to lack +some time until dinner, he called on Moroney in the editorial rooms or +exchanged sententious comments with Bill Martin, or chatted with one or +the other of the visitors who happened to be in town. After dinner he +disappeared until supper. The time was spent with Durand. The +assaying was long since finished, but the two men had grown fond of +each other's companionship. It was a silent companionship for the most +part. Lafond smoked interminably his short black pipe, turned upside +down, watching the naturalist setting carefully the delicate wings of a +butterfly or arranging in a paper cylinder the skin of a bird, or +searching, spectacled, in black volumes of Government reports. +Occasionally, when Durand looked up from his absorption, they exchanged +a few swift remarks, elided, compressed, telegraphic; for they +understood each other so well that the unabridged form of speech was no +longer necessary. On fine days they beat the brushy creek bottoms for +the <I>Nitra</I>, the rare <I>Papilo</I> which men supposed to be extinct. And +then, after the early darkness of winter fell, they would be seized by +strange obsessions of loquacity. Jacques, the raccoon, a ball of fur +under the faint red stove, blinked at them shrewdly, wondering what it +was all about. +</P> + +<P> +In the evening, of course, Lafond had the Little Nugget to take care +of. The saloon had as yet no rivals. The size of the town perhaps +warranted another establishment, but Lafond was a monopolist by nature. +He treated the men well, with a geniality behind which were unsounded +depths of reserve. Therefore they respected him. The space about the +iron stove before the bar came to be the Town Hall. Matters of public +importance were discussed every evening. Billy there told things he +ought not to have told. The atmosphere was expansive, encouraged one +to show off. After one had recounted the obvious, one was inclined in +the heat of the moment to fall back on the confidential, merely for +lack of something else to say. The camp to a man knew the amount of +Billy's expenditures, the number of his shafts. It heard extracts from +all his letters to and from the East. It was acquainted with all his +and the Company's plans. A good many of the cooler heads felt the +intrinsic injudiciousness of this; but after all there could be no +traitors among them, because in the end the prosperity of every man +present depended on Billy's success. +</P> + +<P> +But while the Great Snake was the main topic of conversation, and +always remained ultimately the most important, its present interest, as +spring drew near, became overshadowed by that of the new dance hall. +</P> + +<P> +The Westerner loves to dance. A street organ sets him shuffling. He +will drive twenty miles in a springless wagon and twenty miles back +again in the grayness of dawn to stamp his feet to the sound of an +accordion. Every camp has its organized dance joint, a sort of hall +mark of its genuineness as a camp. Now with the approach of the date +for formal opening this long musicless community woke up to its +deprivation. All the details of the new establishment were enjoyed in +anticipation. It had a planed floor. The boards had been brought by +wagon from McGuire's mill at Hermosa. It was to be lighted by real +locomotive lanterns of an impressive but meaningless number of candle +power. It was to be entirely draped with flags. The musicians were to +be imported from Spanish Gulch. Lafond dispensed this and similar +information sparingly, in order that it might be made the most of. He +promised the "opening ball" for May if possible. +</P> + +<P> +"That depends, of course," he always concluded his statements, short or +long. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap28"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXVIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LAFOND GOES EAST +</H4> + +<P> +About the middle of February Lafond varied the monotony of his daily +programme. He ceased to visit the Great Snake camp, on which work was +proceeding as rapidly as ever, and took to writing letters. He wrote a +great many, and always mailed them himself with Blair, the driver of +the stage. He announced one evening in the middle of March that he was +about to leave for a short trip. +</P> + +<P> +"I have the round to make," he said resignedly. "There are many places +which each year I must visit. I go to Deadwood, Spearfish, Custer, +Sheridan, Edgemont, Rapid, Buffalo Gap, many others. I may be gone a +month." +</P> + +<P> +"But yore comin' back, ain't you?" asked someone. +</P> + +<P> +"But yes," assured the half-breed. "Have we not the opening of the +dance hall?" +</P> + +<P> +So the very next morning he boarded the stage for Rapid. At Rapid he +bought a return ticket to Chicago. This was one of the results of the +correspondence he had been carrying on for a month past. His first +letter had run about as follows: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Mr. Frederick Stevens, Chicago. +</P> + +<P> +"DEAR SIR—You will perhaps remember me as one of your hosts during +your late visit to this camp. If you do, you will remember also that I +am interested financially, and so the good of the camp is my good. You +will further recollect that I was present at the meeting held in +Knapp's shack for the purpose of settling with him. For that reason I +happen to know your plans and expectations. The expectations were that +your first investment of fifty thousand dollars would complete the +works to a paying basis. I have no means of knowing the exact amount +of Knapp's expenditures to now, but they must be considerable, and I +feel that my interests and yours require that you know just what the +returns are. +</P> + +<P> +"The results you should get with your fifty thousand dollars are, that +you should have, on each claim, shafts to below water level with +cross-cuts and drifts, a mill set up and ready, a pump and hoist on +each shaft, a month's fuel, a month's wages for men with food and +expenses and a camp in good working order. +</P> + +<P> +"The shafts are almost done, but they are sunk on contract and are not +paid for yet. The mill is half up; there is one pump and two hoists +not up yet. That is all that is done. It seemed to me Knapp has not +spent his money well, because there is much about camp which he does +not need. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you this because I am interested." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Here Black Mike paused and tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the end +of his penholder. Then he smiled cynically to himself and went on—"To +speak plainly, I think the waste has gone beyond what you can afford. +Only a man living here and knowing mining well could make it pay. I do +not ask you to believe this, but see for yourself how you stand, and I +may be able to make you an offer." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +By return of post Lafond was frantically called upon to explain. He +did so. Billy had been wasteful and extravagant. It was not Billy's +fault perhaps, but he was evidently not the man for the place. Lafond +had had but a vague idea of how things were going, but lately he had +been at more pains to gain an accurate knowledge of affairs. He had +found things as above stated. He did not write at all as a friend of +the Company, but because he believed he could perhaps make something by +taking the property himself. Instinctively the half-breed knew that an +insistence on his own selfishness was the surest way of impressing +these Easterners with his sincerity. For that reason he demanded his +expenses when he was asked to go East for consultation. +</P> + +<P> +The Chicago men were badly frightened. Lafond repeated clearly at +greater length what he had told them in his letters. It had been a +case of a man unused to the handling of money. He insisted that in +actual value there existed not one quarter of the sum Knapp had +expended; and he further claimed that affairs were in such shape West +that as much more would have to be invested before the mine could be +put on a paying basis. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said he, "you have your cost of production and your camp +expenses always. From your profits above them you have to make up what +Knapp has spent and what you will have to spend. That takes your close +attention and many years. For that I think you will not wish to go +ahead; and for that I come to make you an offer that will make it for +you not an entire loss. I do not ask that you believe me. +Investigate." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you be willing to wait here while we investigate?" asked Murphy. +</P> + +<P> +"Always, for my expenses," replied Lafond calmly. +</P> + +<P> +The Easterners consulted. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," said Stevens. "Call it that." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond in the little room at his hotel looked at himself closely in the +glass. +</P> + +<P> +"A fool for luck! a fool for luck!" he cried at the imaged reflection, +repeating his old formula. +</P> + +<P> +Stevens was gone just ten days. Of course he said nothing of Lafond's +presence in Chicago. He had merely dropped in to look over the +property, as was natural. Most of the men wondered why he had not done +so before. He was cordial to Billy, looked over what had been done, +asked many questions, listened attentively to all Billy had to say and +departed in the most friendly spirit. When he arrived in Chicago, he +went directly to his office in the Monadnock Building, where he had +already assembled his associates by telegraph. +</P> + +<P> +Stevens was brief, business-like and coldly impartial. In a man of his +sort that indicated that he was very angry and chagrined. +</P> + +<P> +"I have the following figures to submit," said he, taking up a paper. +"They are accurate, as I consulted with an expert as to the items of +future expense before leading Rapid. +</P> + +<PRE STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> + 10 horses at 105.00 . . . . . . . $1,050.00 + 10 sets harness at 60.00 . . . . . 600.00 + Mill machinery . . . . . . . . . . 6,500.00 + Pumps, hoists . . . . . . . . . . 1,250.00 + 4 months' wages at 4.00 a day . . 4,800.00 + 2 1/2 months' boarding expenses . 610.00 + Hay, tools, implements . . . . . . 1,165.00 + Wagons, household goods . . . . . 2,560.00 + Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . 2,112.00 + Building roads . . . . . . . . . . 829.00 + ---------- + $21,476.00 +</PRE> + +<BR> + +<P> +"That is what has been spent up to date according to Knapp's accounts." +</P> + +<P> +"But hold on!" interjected Murphy; "he has drawn six drafts. That +makes thirty thousand. Has he eight thousand in hand? Why did he have +to draw the last draft?" +</P> + +<P> +"He doesn't know," replied Stevens grimly. "His bank balance," he +declared, consulting the paper again, "is just $1,126.40. He says he +doesn't know where the balance is." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think——?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all. He is perfectly honest. That is the way he does things." +</P> + +<P> +"Here," went on Stevens after a moment, "is what remains to be done +before we can even start to work. It is an estimate, but it is a close +one; for, as I told you, I had assistance in making it out: +</P> + +<PRE STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> + Mills, pumps, hoists . . . . . . . $12,000.00 + Sheds, ore-dumps, etc . . . . . . 1,500.00 + 20 horses and harness . . . . . . 3,200.00 + Men, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 + Wagons and tools . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 + ---------- + $26,700.00 +</PRE> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +That is to bring us up to the efficient working point. Now here are +our liabilities: +</P> + +<PRE STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> + Miscellaneous bills . . . . . . . $850.00 + Contract on 1,100 feet of shaft and tunnel + at 20 a foot . . . . . . . . . 22,000.00 + ---------- + $22,850.00 +</PRE> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +That is what we owe, gentlemen," concluded Stevens, slapping his papers +on the table and looking about him. "Now if you want to throw good +money after bad, you can do so," he continued after a moment; "but this +is a limited liability company and I am done. I am strongly in favor +of pulling out some way to save our names as promoters of such a fool +enterprise, but I think we should pull out. This man Lafond thinks he +can do something with the property if he has a fair show, and perhaps +we can save something through him. Our fifty thousand is <I>gone</I>—and +more, after we've paid our debt to those men—and anything we can save +out of such a mess seems to me clear gain." +</P> + +<P> +And so with equal haste they scrambled out. +</P> + +<P> +The first inexplicable phenomenon is the sanguine blindness such men +show in going into mining; the second is the headlong thoughtlessness +with which they draw out. Anything to get back to daylight apparently. +</P> + +<P> +Again the parallel of the button-hook factory. In case of failure +these men would have first looked the ground over well for possible +retrenchment along the old lines of expenditure: that failing, they +would have examined closely for a possible new plan. But in the +present case they never even conceived the possibility of any scale of +operation different from that grand vision of eleven contiguous mines +all going at full blast which Billy's vivid imagination had called into +being. Lafond saw it clearly enough. Had he been so minded, he could +have set the whole matter right; just as, if he had been so minded, he +could have turned the trend of Billy Knapp's extravagance with a little +timely advice. +</P> + +<P> +"Gentlemen," he could have said, "has it ever occurred to you to start +on a small scale and work up gradually to a larger? You can mine one +shaft on one claim with one cheap five-stamp mill. In that way you +could at least pay expenses from the very surface. After a little you +can pay more. Then you might open up another claim. That would take +time to be sure; but what business does not take time?" +</P> + +<P> +His actual speech was of quite different tenor. When called before the +meeting by a special messenger, and asked to name the terms he was +willing to offer, he replied quite simply— +</P> + +<P> +"Fifteen thousand dollars." +</P> + +<P> +This was, of course, quite unthinkable. An animated discussion ensued. +</P> + +<P> +"We have spent over twenty thousand dollars," said Stevens, "and we owe +twenty-six thousand more. Then the claims are worth something, surely. +It would be better to hold the property just as it stands, on the +chance of some future sale." +</P> + +<P> +"Of the twenty thousand you have spent," retorted Lafond, "fifteen has +been spent uselessly. I mean not that it was all waste, but that if I +had been running the mine I could have bought all I would need for five +thousand. And as for the twenty-six thousand you owe, what with +bonuses for fast work and contracts at a high price, it ought all to +have been completed for fifteen thousand. And besides, if it was I who +had developed the property, I would not have sunk all these shafts +before making the mill to work. I would have my mine to pay before. I +am making you the offer of five thousand for the mine and ten thousand +for the works." +</P> + +<P> +This argument carried some weight. It availed to induce an acceptance +of Lafond's final offer of five thousand cash, and the assumption of +the twenty-six thousand debt. A man in his position and in his +business could easily reduce the latter item. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course this is merely informal," explained Stevens. "We have to +call a directors' meeting yet to take official action." +</P> + +<P> +"We hold controlling interest," added Murphy, for the purpose of +reassuring Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"I understand," said the latter. "And now another thing. What are you +going to do about the camp itself?" +</P> + +<P> +Stevens hesitated. "I suppose we'll shut down and give Knapp his +walking papers," he answered at last. +</P> + +<P> +"That is just it. I want that you look out for my interests in that. +If you shut down, that gives the camp a bad name, and a bad name is of +all things in the West the worst. And you know not that man Knapp. +You discharge him. Eh, well? He is angry; he is without law; he is +reckless. He is able to do that which he wishes. He can burn the +buildings, break the machinery. Who is it that will stop him? No, +when Knapp is discharged, it must be that the deeds are in my hands, so +that I can protect my property." +</P> + +<P> +All saw the justice of this argument. +</P> + +<P> +"What would you suggest then?" asked the chairman. +</P> + +<P> +"How is it that you intend to discharge him?" returned Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is the formality? Do you just write and tell him he is +discharged?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! No; we call a directors' meeting, and pass resolutions to that +effect, a copy of which we send him. We will do that at the same time +we authorize the sale to you." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond drummed for a moment on the polished table near his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Eh, well," he announced at last, "let it be like this. When it is +that you have had your directors' meeting and have passed your +resolutions, then you send your copy to me, and I will give it to +Knapp. Thus I will be on the ground to see that he makes no trouble. +And at the same time you send the deeds to this man"—he rapidly +scribbled an address—"he is a notary public at Rapid. You will have +time to look up his reliability. He can hold the deeds until I pay to +him the five thousand dollars and sign a contract to take the debt we +spoke of. Is that satisfactory?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite," they agreed. +</P> + +<P> +"How long will it be before you finish your meetings?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ten days. It takes a week's notice for a special meeting." +</P> + +<P> +On the way to South Dakota again Lafond stared out of the windows with +unseeing eyes in which lurked laughter. "Ten days," said he to +himself, passing the fingers of one hand softly over the palm of the +other. His dark bearded face in the twilight lost its outlines against +the upholstery of the Pullman. A nervous little bride on her wedding +trip to California grasped her husband's arm. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, dear?" inquired the latter. +</P> + +<P> +"Foolishness," she laughed, a little forcedly. "But see that man's +eyes. Aren't they uncanny?" +</P> + +<P> +"Looks a bit like a maniac," admitted the groom, "but it's this queer +light. Odd fellow. Looks as if he might have one of those interesting +Western histories you read about." +</P> + +<P> +"A fool for luck! A fool for luck!" Black Mike was repeating to +himself. "Ten days! I can fix the date for that dance-hall opening +now!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap29"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES +</H4> + +<P> +As has been hinted, the outward and visible signs of prosperity had to +some extent increased the feminine population of Copper Creek. Molly +Lafond had long since lost the distinction of being the only woman in +camp. Some of the newcomers were blessed with wives, one or two were +favored with daughters. All told, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty +of the gentler sex scattered among the new and old log cabins of the +valley. +</P> + +<P> +But from them Molly had little to fear in the way of rivalry. The +older women were either buxom and decisive, representing the sturdier +pioneer race, or dyspeptic and drawling, as typical of the effects of a +high altitude on nervous and underfed organizations. The young girls +were angular, awkward and shy, especially so when in the presence of +Miss Molly's breezy self-possession. They would all make good +"filling" at the new dance-house ball, but they would never obtrude +into the foreground. +</P> + +<P> +Then Bismarck Anne came to camp. She conceived the idea quite +suddenly, late one afternoon, and without so much as a word to anybody +she strapped her most becoming ball-gown inside a poncho and rode +across from Spanish Gulch on her little pinto pony. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne was at that time in the heyday of her youth and +prosperity. She was of the dark-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed +type, so "common" when it falls just short of attractiveness, but so +abundantly vital when, as in the present case, it does not fall short. +Bismarck Anne was instinct, charged with life. Into everything she did +she threw a verve and abandon that carried the adventure well through +with something to spare. And she was afraid of nothing. She denied +the possibility of nothing. +</P> + +<P> +About three o'clock of the afternoon she galloped in. A number of men +recognized her and ran to help her down from her horse. Everybody knew +her by sight or reputation, but few had ever dared attempt her +acquaintance, for ordinarily Bismarck Anne chose her coterie from the +powerful and wealthy. Now, however, there seemed to be little cause +for anxiety on that point. Bismarck Anne had come over for a good time +and she was going to have it. If the men who surrounded her on her +arrival felt any momentary restraint or trepidation, they were almost +immediately set at ease by the warmth of her manner. +</P> + +<P> +It was Old Mizzou, I believe, who steadied her stirrup, and Dave Kelly +who helped her from her horse and held her a moment longer than was +necessary, and, to his vast astonishment, instead of being slapped was +heartily kissed for his temerity. There was a breathless element of +unexpectedness in this which appealed to the miners' sense of humor, +and they all laughed consumedly and felt good comrades at once. Old +Mizzou mentally added another exception to his sweeping rule about +"grass widders and school ma'ams." There sprang up a rapid fire of +good-humored joking back and forth in which no man was favored, where +each had a chance to enter the lists, and in the course of which each +conceived an inner conviction that all he needed to "win out" was a +chance unhindered by the crowd. Bismarck Anne stood in the centre of +the group, flashing her black eyes back and forth from one to the other +and showing her white teeth in a series of dazzling smiles. +</P> + +<P> +Just at this moment Cheyenne Harry and Molly Lafond, returning from one +of their numerous expeditions, caught sight of the animated group near +the hotel, and naturally turned aside to investigate its cause. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne faced toward them. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Harry!" she cried, holding out both hands, "you here? I didn't +know you-all hung out in this camp. You look just the same as ever. +'Spose you're goin' to take in th' dance to-night. Yes, that's what I +came over for; that an' nothing else. We'll have to stir this camp up +a bit and make her seem like old times. I'm afraid you boys have been +getting a little slow," she flashed good-humoredly at the others. +"Harry, you ought to have seen them when I kissed that boy over there, +just for a 'kid,' you know. I don't believe you've got a girl in this +camp who knows beans, and it's about time you did. I'm <I>mighty</I> glad +to see you. But you got to watch out, though! This is a pretty +good-looking lot of boys, and you'll have to hustle to hold your job." +She said this still holding both his hands in hers, and alternately +smiling now at him, now at the men about her. She had taken rapid +stock of Molly—whom she now ignored for the moment—and had as rapidly +come to the conclusion that if a rival were to appear at all, it would +be Harry's companion. She hoped her speech would at the same time +attach Harry to herself, and render assiduous his devotions by a fear +of rivalry. +</P> + +<P> +"You bet we will!" cried Harry. His manner was enthusiastic, not so +much with joy over seeing Bismarck Anne, as with instinctive relief +from the tension of his rather sentimental interview with Molly. He +remembered the latter and performed some sort of an introduction. +</P> + +<P> +The two women looked each other in the eye. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do?" asked Molly coolly, without moving an inch. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, my dear," replied Bismarck Anne smiling, "and very glad to +get here." +</P> + +<P> +The endearing epithet relegated Molly at once to the category of little +girls. +</P> + +<P> +The conversation continued for some moments longer, the men standing as +silent spectators. Molly continued very reserved. The newcomer did +not appear to notice it, but chattered on unconcernedly in a +light-hearted fashion, appealing to the other just often enough to +convey the idea that there was nothing noticeably repellent in her +manner. In fact she did it so well that the group gained the +impression that Molly carried her share of the small talk, which was +not true. But in spite of the apparent good-feeling Cheyenne Harry +felt uncomfortably that something was wrong. Searching about for the +cause, he at last discovered it in Molly's attitude. +</P> + +<P> +So on the way to the cabin he was vexed, and showed it. And Molly felt +so strongly the innate justice of her position and appreciated so +keenly the skill with which she had been made to appear sulky and +unreasonable, that when she had finally shut her own door behind her, +she threw herself on her bed and cried as though her heart would break. +Then her blood told. She dried her eyes and in her inmost heart she +declared war against this woman, war to the knife and to the uttermost. +The momentary defeat dashed her at first, then it nerved her. After +all nothing definite had occurred. This creature had planted several +stinging thrusts which had hit home because Molly, in the innocence of +her heart, was not expecting them. She was on her guard now. It would +not happen again. Cheyenne Harry had known the woman before, +evidently, and surely it was natural that in the first surprise of +seeing her so unexpectedly, he should display a certain enthusiasm of +recognition. But his relations with her—Molly Lafond—were too +intimate, too long-continued, to be lightly broken. +</P> + +<P> +As the twilight fell she saw, through the oblong of her sliding window, +that men were hurrying by to dine early, in order that they might +prepare for the festivities of the evening. Across the square she +could make out the dim shape of the new dance hall, a long low +structure trimmed with evergreens and bunting. Frosty was even then +lighting the lamps in the Little Nugget. She sat there motionless, +staring out into the night, fingering the soft white stuff of the gown +lying across her lap, until a certain peace came to her and a +conviction that all would be well. +</P> + +<P> +The night was warm and balmy with the odors of early spring. Molly had +slid back the halves of her narrow window, and over the boxes of +flowers that fringed this little artificial horizon the mellow notes of +the first whitethroat, that nightingale of the north, floated in on the +tepid air. Beyond the nearer silhouette of the flowers another dimmer +silhouette of the hills wavered uncertainly beneath a few uncertain +stars. The girl watched these stars idly, dreaming in tune with the +plaintive notes of the bird. Then silently another bulkier silhouette +interposed itself, almost filling the window. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" she cried, starting. +</P> + +<P> +"It's I," came the voice of Jack Graham. The silhouette rested two +black-outlined elbows against the sill. +</P> + +<P> +"My, how you frightened me!" she cried pettishly. "What in the world +do you want? Why aren't you at dinner?" +</P> + +<P> +"Molly," said Graham solemnly, "I don't suppose you'll listen to me. +We haven't gotten along very well lately, have we? But I want you to +know that I am asking this for your sake, and that I believe it." +</P> + +<P> +She was impressed by the sincere quality of his tone. "Why, Jack," she +said softly, "I know you mean well, and I suppose I <I>am</I> very frivolous +and careless. What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you would not go to the dance to-night." +</P> + +<P> +There fell a pause. She was evidently in a softened mood and she +wished to conduct the interview considerately. "But, Jack," she +hesitatingly asked at last. "Do you think there is going to be +trouble?" +</P> + +<P> +"It will only give you pain. You are going to be forced against things +you have never had to combat before." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand you." +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to talk very plainly, Molly; I hope you won't get angry. I +can't help it if you do. It's because I love you so, girl; I love you +so!" +</P> + +<P> +His voice was deep and rich with emotion, so poignant and compelling +that it forced her attention in spite of herself. This was a +declaration, she dimly felt, and yet its import as such was somehow +lost in the more pregnant subject-matter to which it but added emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," she said breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"You are well liked by everybody here," he continued, carefully +avoiding more pointed personalities, "and you have grown so used to +being liked by everybody that it would hurt you cruelly if you were +not. Isn't that true?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," assented Molly gravely, after a moment's consideration. +</P> + +<P> +"You want to hold first place in their thoughts and in their goodwill. +You want to be first with them and you want them to show to you and to +each other by their actions that they are your best friends and are +going to stand by you. Do I read you right?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, of course I want all the boys to like me. I've known them so +long, and I should feel dreadfully if they didn't. But what do you +mean by it? I don't understand." +</P> + +<P> +The silhouette moved uneasily. "Now don't get angry," he pleaded. +"Take to-night. To speak plainly, you want to be the woman who +receives the most attention at that ball. Answer frankly." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," confessed the gill after another moment's hesitation, "frankly +then, I do." +</P> + +<P> +"You will not." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because the woman who came this afternoon, Bismarck Anne, will take +your place." +</P> + +<P> +Molly Lafond would have become angry if her experience of the afternoon +had not already made her uneasy on just this point. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you consider her more attractive than me?" she asked a little +resentfully. +</P> + +<P> +"A thousand times No!" assured the silhouette. +</P> + +<P> +"Has she known the boys as long as I? Is she as good friends with +them? Can she talk better? Is she brighter?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I don't believe I quite see." +</P> + +<P> +"It's just this. The men all like you and admire you, and would do +anything for you, but at the same time they look up to you a little. +You are better than they are, so, more or less, they are a +little—well—a little <I>restricted</I> with you. This woman is their +sort. She isn't a bit better than they are. When they are out to have +a good time, like at the dance to-night, they want somebody they can +have their sort of fun with. <I>You are too good for them</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"That is very theoretical." +</P> + +<P> +"It is very true." +</P> + +<P> +"And supposing, just supposing, it were. You want me to lie down and +quit without making a fight. Do you call that being game? What would +you think of a man who would run away because the other man was a +little stronger? Don't you think I'd fight?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's just it. You'd fight too well." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't——" +</P> + +<P> +"She has ways of drawing men to her which you know nothing about. They +are her weapons. I know you'd fight. You'd fight to the last because +it is in you to, and I'm afraid, very much afraid, that when you found +your weapons were not enough you'd use hers." +</P> + +<P> +There fell between them a long silence, while Molly slowly pondered +these last words and gradually apprehended their meaning. In the +darkness she could feel the blood tingeing her face, forehead, and +neck. At first she was inclined to be angry and to show it, but the +man's evident sincerity, coupled with the fervor of his incidental +declaration of love, softened her. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe I ever had anybody tell me such things before," she +could not restrain herself from saying, "and I don't know whether I +ought to thank you for your lack of trust in me. However, you'll be +there, and I can rely on your protection against these awful dangers." +</P> + +<P> +"I will not be there," contradicted Graham bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, there's Harry." She said the name out of bravado to show +that there was no reason why she should not say it. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," cried Graham, with a burst of anger that astonished her. "It is +he I mean." +</P> + +<P> +It was the red flag to them both, the idea of this man. "I think you'd +better go now," she replied coldly. +</P> + +<P> +Graham turned away with a little curse. +</P> + +<P> +She sat down again and tried desperately to regain her confidence of a +few moments before, but it would not come. She was angry and insulted, +and she was vexed at herself that she could not throw off the +uneasiness which lay behind these emotions; but she could not. It grew +on her as her nervousness increased. She sat staring straight before +her into the dark, clasping and unclasping her hands, and striving with +all the earnestness of which she was capable to seize and formulate the +vague fear that seemed unreasonably to weigh on her spirits. Analyze +it as she would, she could find no adequate reason for it. It was +therefore the more terrible. The dinner hour passed quite unnoticed. +The nervousness increased until she could have shrieked aloud. And +then with a sudden start she recognized it—this old formless causeless +sense of an indefinite guilt, as for something left undone; the voice, +although this she did not know, of her inherited New England conscience. +</P> + +<P> +At the discovery she rebelled. She had always rebelled, and heretofore +she had succeeded in putting it down, in stifling it underneath mere +surface moods. But now the surface moods proved inadequate. The +uneasy guiltiness increased until it almost overflowed in tears. Molly +was afraid, just as a child is afraid of the dark. +</P> + +<P> +She lit the lamps and looked at herself in the mirror. This must not +go on. To-night, the one night when she needed all her powers, it was +foolish to allow a whim to weaken them. She shook her head at herself +and smiled. The smile was not a success. She turned away wearily and +thrust her hands through her hair. Why had Graham taken it into his +head to bother her this one evening of all others? It was his fault. +She stamped her foot angrily. All his fault. In spite of his denial, +she believed he would be there and would set everything. The thought +stung her pride and the desire for tears left her. She would show him +just how much his advice and his fears were worth. On the impulse she +spread her white dress out on the bed, and began hastily to smooth out +the wrinkles in its pleats. After a moment she turned decisively to +the mirror, and began to take down her hair. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap30"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +ANCESTRAL VOICES +</H4> + +<P> +Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, dressed in a clean white apron, stood +behind the bar and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. It had +gone well, and for this one day his master had been in an unwontedly +good humor. +</P> + +<P> +Directly opposite, a wide door opened into the new dance hall. From +where Frosty stood one could see that it was a long low room, +flag-draped, with few windows, and furnished only by an unbroken line +of benches against the wall. One standing in the doorway, however, +could have perceived that at one end were placed for the musicians a +number of tall "look-out" stools—tall in order that the performers +might at once overlook the performance of the square-dance "figures," +and early prepare to avoid possible hostilities. A number of large +lamps with reflectors illuminated the apartment with crossed shafts of +light. +</P> + +<P> +Frosty polished glasses in anticipation of the evening's business, +which would be lively, glancing complacently from the fresh-scrubbed +floor to the lately renewed sheets, imitating plaster. As the outer +door was now closed, he was relieved from the necessity of ejecting +Peter. It did no good to tie Peter up: either the animal was ingenious +at escapes, or the men were mischievous in their desire to bother +Frosty. This was one of Frosty's many troubles. He led a life of care. +</P> + +<P> +After a little, the door opened, and three men came in. They steered +to the bar at once, as a sort of familiar haven in strange +surroundings. From its anchorage they took their initial view of the +hall. After subsequent arrivals had braced them to the point of +confidence, they made a first awful tour of that apartment, but soon +returned to more familiar surroundings. The saloon filled with a +heterogeneous gathering. All types were there in their best clothes, +from the spotlessly immaculate faro dealer, dressed in a black +broadcloth frock coat, to Dave Kelly, with his new red handkerchief and +his high-heeled boots. The main gathering remained crowded in the +saloon, whence small groups occasionally ventured into the hall, but +only for the purposes of temporary inspection. A hum of low-voiced +talk went up, which fell to expectant silence every time the door was +opened. The musicians from Spanish Gulch arrived and began to tune up. +They were closely followed by the first woman, a red-cheeked awkward +country lass, who took her position on the bench near one corner and +began at once to dispense smiles and loud small talk to the men who +followed her there. The assistants' spirits rose. They had known this +girl as Sal Jenks, of rather drab-colored disposition and appearance. +To-night, in the glamour of a light-colored dress and the illumination +of a ball room, she had suddenly become transformed into something +quite different and infinitely more attractive. The musicians played a +tune. The other women came in, gayly dressed and accompanied always by +a red-faced swain. Black Mike took his stand at the side of Frosty, +and began to assist that individual in dispensing drinks. Black Mike's +democracy was no small element of his popularity. At about half-past +eight those near the door saw him talking with Cheyenne Harry. A buzz +swept over the room. Copper Creek had been waiting in suppressed +excitement to see whom Cheyenne Harry would accompany—Molly Lafond or +the newcomer—and lo! he had come alone. +</P> + +<P> +Then, before the astonishment had subsided, the outer door opened again +and Molly entered, looking very pale and sweet and serious. +</P> + +<P> +She walked directly by the bar into the dance hall, where she seated +herself near the door and looked calmly about her. She was dressed +entirely in white. Cheyenne Harry was leaning over the bar talking +attentively, so that he was perhaps the only person in the room who did +not see her come in. A dozen men at once surrounded her and began to +chat. She answered them good-humoredly enough, but indifferently. +</P> + +<P> +The door once more flew open and Bismarck Anne, standing on the sill, +cried out in her clear, high voice, "Well, boys!" She paused a moment. +Cheyenne Harry, turning at the sound of her voice, remembered how, +about a year ago, Molly Lafond had stood there in just that attitude. +But he felt a great difference. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyenne Harry had for some time, as we have said, been growing a +little tired of his affair with Molly. The mental ingredients of +satiety were all present, but he had as yet received no conscious +notice of their existence. He imagined himself as much fascinated as +ever. If something lately had seemed to lack, he had laid it to +circumstances and not at all to the state of his relations with the +girl. But for all that, the satiety had been real. He only needed to +be told of it to realize it himself very plainly. Bismarck Anne had +told him. +</P> + +<P> +He saw now absolutely no attraction for himself in Molly Lafond, and +that without attempting to deny her intrinsic attraction for others. +He simply did not care for her any more. It seemed perhaps like a +sudden revulsion, but it was not so really; it had been inevitable from +the very first, and from the very first it had been slowly maturing. +Not even the results were sudden: only Cheyenne Harry's knowledge of +them. +</P> + +<P> +He had always felt his relations with Molly Lafond as more or less +restrictive, because the good is always so. He had dimly caught the +truth that, without a deep moral incentive, restriction is always +irksome; that although pure love is the most ideal condition in the +world, its simulation is the most wearisome after the novelty has worn +off; and all the rest of the long psychological train of emotion and +reasoning common to the trifler. But now for the first time he knew +it. He knew it because, standing in the doorway, looking at him with +bold black eyes, was the exact opposite of all this, and he recognized +a mighty relief. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne knew enough to dress all in black. She had the taste to +appreciate the effect of one red flower in her hair as her only +ornament. She had the sense to wear her dress cut neither too low +above nor too high below. And so she was exceedingly handsome as she +stood there, the devil of excitement in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyenne Harry abruptly ceased his conversation with Lafond to shake +hands with her. They turned in company. Harry linked his arm through +hers, and they entered the dance hall close together, and took their +seats in a corner far removed from the musicians, where they continued +engaged in such earnest conversation that none of the men ventured to +approach them. After a time, when the music struck up for the first +dance, she seemed to be commanding something to which Cheyenne Harry +seemed to be objecting. Then the latter arose slowly and asked Molly +Lafond to dance the first dance with him. She accepted with a sharp +pang at her heart. The newcomer had scored. +</P> + +<P> +Owing to the scarcity of the gentler sex, it had been decided that no +one "set" was to be blessed with more than one girl. Thus they would +go around better. Molly, glancing across at her rival, saw that she +was surrounded by a laughing group of men. The woman was joking +broadly at each, wriggling her white shoulders, darting side glances, +half promising, half denying. In a moment the group broke, and the +members of it rushed in her own direction. They were already +quarrelling for places in her set. The matter was arranged somehow +after much wrangling. Then, too late, Molly saw that the other woman +had scored again. Bismarck Anne had not only selected her partner, but +also the other six members of the set. Thus she had made seven men +happy and none jealous. +</P> + +<P> +A Western dance is a sight worth seeing. The musicians call off the +figures. The head fiddler does it until his voice gives out. Then the +second fiddler and the accordion take a try at it, after which further +calling is unnecessary owing to the fact that most of the dancers are +very drunk. This comes to pass because, at the end of each dance, all +are supposed to visit the bar. The most heinous crime, next to horse +stealing or sluice robbing, is "shying drinks" at such times. As some +men can hold more than others this enforced equality of quantity +consumed brings about unexpected variation in the hilarity of the +consumers, all of which adds to the variety of the occasion. +</P> + +<P> +The interims between drinks are occupied by square dances. The men go +through some set of monkey shines which they call figures, the +principal object of which seems to be at once the tripping up of such +male and the prolonged squeezing of such female dancers as they may +come into intimate personal relations with on their grand rounds, which +is conducive to hilarity of the loud-mouthed variety. The exercise +itself is rather violent, and as the room is low, lit by lamps, and +comparatively windowless, the air soon becomes heavy with the reek of +perspiration and the fumes of tobacco. The floor acquires a heaving +motion and the lights sway back and forth. The homeliest of the +dance-hall girls somehow looks like a fairy through the haze—a rather +elusive fairy, with a rather heavy unfairylike gait. At this period +there is usually a good deal of noise. Then all at once it is morning, +and somehow the scene has changed to the ravine, and there is a tomato +can poking itself into the small of the back. +</P> + +<P> +Molly tripped gracefully and easily through the figures of the opening +dance, seeming scarcely to touch the floor. Bismarck Anne leaned +heavily on each man in the swing, and pressed her bosom against his +arm. Twice she half slipped and caught by the shoulder of her partner +of the moment, and her breath was hot against his throat. She said not +one word the whole dance through. +</P> + +<P> +With the last quaver of the fiddle came the harsh command— +</P> + +<P> +"S'lute yore pardners! All promenade to th' bar!" +</P> + +<P> +They obeyed. The sets went in two by two, the men treating their +masculine partners with humorous politeness in the matter of assistance +in crossing the sill of the door. The non-dancers crowded after them +in a confused mob. +</P> + +<P> +At the bar Frosty had the drinks all ready on the back shelf. Black +Mike assisted him, and together the two, their sleeves rolled back and +their faces glistening with the sweat of honest toil, passed over +brimming little glasses of "forty rod" and jingled two-bit pieces into +the drawer. Bismarck Anne drank with the best of them, leaning +familiarly against the men nearest her, bandying jokes that were more +than doubtful. Molly sat on her corner of the bar but did not drink. +</P> + +<P> +At the beginning of the next dance the aspect of things was a trifle +changed. A bigger crowd gathered about Bismarck Anne soliciting places +in her set, and it was more familiar. Some one snatched a kiss of her. +She merely laughed and pushed him away. There seemed to have suddenly +sprung up between them and her a <I>camaraderie</I> in which Molly had no +part, as though they and the newcomer had some secret to keep to +themselves which thrust the younger girl without the circle. +</P> + +<P> +Cheyenne Harry did not come near her again. He seemed wholly +fascinated by the stranger. The sight of his attentions to the other +aroused Molly. A bright red spot burned in either cheek. She was all +animation. Her laughter rang true, her eyes flashed with merriment. +For every one she had a joke, a half-tender, half-sympathetic aside. +She saw that as long as they were in her actual presence the men were +wholly hers. And yet she felt too the subtle growth of this other +woman's influence, and realized that eventually it would beat her down. +In spite of her brave appearance her throat choked her. Only by a +great concentration of the will could she prevent herself from lapsing +into silence, and then into tears. As the strain began to tell on her +nerves, the old feeling of unknowable guilt came to oppress her heart, +and with it a growing longing to get away, to hide somewhere; to begin +all over again humbly, below the lowest; to claim nothing, to attempt +nothing, to do nothing in opposition to that accusing Thought which +seemed greater than herself. All at once she was tired of struggling. +She was ready to give up this life, if only they would let her feel +like something besides a breathless naughty child, fearfully expecting +every moment the grave reproving voice of the Master. +</P> + +<P> +She chided herself for this. It was not game. Pluck she admired above +everything; and yet here she was, ready to run away at the first taste +of defeat. She smiled ravishingly on Dave Kelly, until he began to +speculate on the possibility of repeating that delicious experience +which Peter had so inopportunely cut short. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-282"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-282.jpg" ALT=""ARE YOU STILL MAD?"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="770" HEIGHT="505"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 770px"> +"ARE YOU STILL MAD?" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +As the evening progressed, the "forty rod" began to show its effects. +Williams had to have the full width of the floor whenever he tried to +walk, and his enthusiastic imitations of an angry catamount were most +creditable. Some one was always disgustedly repressing him. Several +others were in like condition with different symptoms. The soberest +manifested increased vigor of limb and fertility of imagination. A +happy combination of these two effects brought about the proposal of a +turkey walk. A ring was formed on the instant. +</P> + +<P> +Into the ring two men, chosen <I>vivâ voce</I>, were pushed. They began at +once to strut back and forth like turkey cocks in the spring. They +hollowed their backs in, stuck their chests and rumps out, slapped +their thighs, toed in, puffed their cheeks, ducked their heads, uttered +sundry gurgling whoops, and hopped about, first on one foot, then on +the other in a charmingly, impartial imitation of a Southern cake walk +and a Sioux Indian war dance. These performances tickled the crowd +immensely. When it came to noisy vote on the relative merits of the +performers, it vociferously shouted unanimous approval of all. +Therefore the contest was pronounced a tie. At this moment Dave +Williams staggered forward. His muddled brain had room for only the +most evident facts. He saw the ring and his drunken shrewdness had +retained cognizance of the evening's rivalry. He mixed the two ideas +up to effect a proposal. +</P> + +<P> +"Hyar," he shouted, "lesh do this ri'! I secon' Bismarck Anne!" He +let out a wild-cat yell—"Whe-ee!! Two t' one on Anne!" +</P> + +<P> +Some one hit him on the chest and sent him staggering backward. He +gyrated unevenly toward the corner, stumbled over his own feet, and sat +down heavily on the floor, where after feeling vainly for his gun he +relapsed into good humor. But his suggestion hit the popular fancy. +</P> + +<P> +The idea ran like fire. In a second the ring was formed again. Those +in front knelt; those behind looked over their shoulders. Even Frosty +and Black Mike deserted the bar and stood leaning in the doorway. The +girls were urged forward into the ring, which closed after them, and +the music was ordered to proceed. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne walked calmly into the circle and stood looking about +her. Molly had an instant of doubt. Then a revulsion against her easy +surrender got her to her feet and into the ring. The gauntlet was +down. She would accept the challenge. It was a duel. +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment's squabble between two self-appointed officials in +regard to precedence. It was settled, and Molly was beckoned to begin. +The fiddles started up a squeaky, lively air to which the men kept time +with hands and feet. The young girl, her cheeks burning, stepped into +the centre of the ring and struck the first graceful pose of the +<I>cachucha</I>, learned years before at the Agency from a little Mexican +serving-maid. The men recognized it in a swift quickly silenced burst. +The fiddles changed their measure to suit the dance. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>cachucha</I> is a beautiful dance when rightly done. It is a +combination of airy half-steps, sinuous body movements, and slow +languorous and graceful weavings of the arms. It has in it all the +enchantment of the lazy South. There is not an abrupt movement in it, +but one pose melts into another as imperceptibly as night into day. +Molly did it well. Her supple figure was suited to it, and the very +refinement of her actions enhanced the charm of the dance. The men +applauded vehemently when she stopped. The other woman laughed aloud +in scorn. +</P> + +<P> +With a final sweeping curtsy the dancer turned to go. The flush of +triumph and excitement burned on her cheeks and in her eyes. Finding +the ring solidly closed so that exit was impossible, she accepted a +seat on the knee of one of those in the front rank. The man put his +arms around her and drew her close in a drunken embrace, which the girl +only half noticed. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne sprang to the centre of the ring at one bound, the sneer +still on her lips. She turned abruptly to the musicians. +</P> + +<P> +"Quit that damn stuff!" she snarled. "Play somethin'!" +</P> + +<P> +The musicians hurriedly swung into a lively air. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne's dance was not especially graceful. It consisted mainly +of high kicks and a certain athletic feat known as the split. But it +was magnificent in its abandon, and fierce in the crude animal energy +of it. Besides its mere suggestiveness and appeal to the passions, it +had too a swing, a fire, a brute-like force which could not but hit to +the hearts of men at bottom strong, crude, and savage. They went +crazy. They shouted encouraging things at her with open straining +throats. They stamped and cheered until the lights wavered. They +clapped each other delightedly on the back. And Bismarck Anne danced +ever the more furiously. She kicked with enthusiasm, with abandon, +holding her short skirts still higher to gain the greater freedom. The +tiger-lily fell from her head and was snatched up almost before it +touched the floor. Her heavy black hair came down, and hung in strands +across her face, and fell in vivid contrast upon her white shoulders +and her heaving bosom. She shook it back with a savage movement. +</P> + +<P> +And she in the corner, who was nothing but a woman, with little of the +savage in her to appeal to savage men, and, for all her independence, +little of this bold reckless spirit of the frontier in her to appeal to +pioneers, felt herself growing sick and faint as she saw these greater +forces slipping beyond her control roaringly, as would a mountain +torrent. Her rule was over, and this woman's had begun. The room +swayed before her eyes. Some one behind her handed a brimming glass of +whisky over her shoulder, and she seized it eagerly and gulped it down. +</P> + +<P> +The unaccustomed stimulant cleared her vision. The room stood still, +the different objects in it became distinct. She looked on the +whirling figure of the woman in the centre, the open-mouth +turmoil-stirred crowd in the background, with dispassionate eyes. She +was deadly cool. To her memory came Graham's words of that same +afternoon. "<I>Because you are too good for them!</I>" She remembered the +very emphasis of his tone. Well, he was right, and yet not right. She +had been too good for them, but she world show them now! With the +sudden flash of resolve, the first unnatural hardening effect of the +whisky passed, and in a whirl the exhilaration came. She laughed and +responded convulsively to the man's embrace. +</P> + +<P> +Bismarck Anne gave a final kick, and fell in some one's open arms. The +men, shouting frantically, began to stir preparatory to regaining their +feet. Then they sank back again with a fresh cheer. Into the centre +of the ring Molly tripped unsteadily, and stood for a moment looking +about her with uncertain foolishly smiling eyes. Her cheeks were a +glow of red. She glanced toward the musicians, and, with the tip of +her fingers, raised her dress to her knees, waiting for the music to +begin. +</P> + +<P> +The room was deadly still. She could see, looking at her excitedly, +all the men she had met and come to know in the last year. She saw +them dimly, as through a haze. Would the music never begin? What were +they waiting for? A draught blew cold along the floor. She felt it on +her legs. Why was it? Oh, yes, she was holding her skirts up to +dance, to show them that she was no better than this woman, Bismarck +Anne. +</P> + +<P> +And then the black cloud that had been gathering so long, the undefined +guilty feeling at nothing, broke over her. She wanted to go on—the +music had begun now—but she could not. Twice she tried. Something +held her, something real, something stronger than herself. She did not +recognize them, these ancestral voices, but they laid upon her their +commands. She dropped her skirts, and covered her eyes with her two +hands, and burst through the ring of men, and ran out through the night +to her own cabin, where she threw herself on her bed weeping bitterly. +She was ashamed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap31"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LAFOND'S FIRST CARD +</H4> + +<P> +Lafond, in the meantime, had left the dispensation of drinks almost +entirely to Frosty. He darted here and there in the crowd, a light of +unwonted excitement in his eye. +</P> + +<P> +"That thar Mike's shore waked up," commented Old Mizzou. "Never see +him so plumb animated. He shore looks nutty. Dance halls is mostly +too rich fer his blood, I reckon." +</P> + +<P> +But Tony Houston and Jack Snowie and a dozen others by now knew better +than to attribute this excitement to dance halls. Lafond possessed in +his pocket a copy of Knapp's dismissal, and he had told them of it. +</P> + +<P> +He told them of it mysteriously, in half-limits, pointing out +tendencies and solutions to what they already knew, leaving them to +draw deductions, sowing anxieties that there might spring up a harvest +of distrust. +</P> + +<P> +Through the woof of gayety he rapidly ran a dull thread of angry +suspicion. Men made merry, and forgot all the past and all the future. +Other men talked low-voiced in corners, and tried, from the distraction +of drink and gayety, to draw clear plan and reflection. And always +Lafond took other men aside and whispered eager little +half-confidences, and went on quickly to the next. +</P> + +<P> +His spirit was upheld by a great excitement, such as it had never +experienced before, not even in his early and adventurous days. He +seemed to himself to be mounting higher and higher on the summit of a +great wave of luck, as a swimmer is lifted by the sea. And yet, behind +it all, again for the first time in his life, he felt a portent in the +air. It was as though the wave were rearing itself, only to curl over +and break upon the shore. He laid this to nervousness, and yet it +affected him with a certain superstitious awe. +</P> + +<P> +So occupied was he, that he quite missed the girl's sudden exit, and +was drawn from his brown study only by the sudden hush that succeeded +it. In the silence a drunken voice uplifted itself loudly. +</P> + +<P> +"M' work 'sh done," it vociferated. "I wan' m' pay!" +</P> + +<P> +Everybody turned, prepared to laugh at this "comic relief!" Jack +Snowie was addressing Billy Knapp. Billy at once became conscious of +an audience, and the usual desire to appear well seized him. He smiled +with the good-humored tolerance of a drunken man. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you want me to take it right out of my pants pocket, eh, +Jack?" he inquired paternally. "Of co'se you wants yo' pay! Come +around in th' mornin' an' get it." He smiled again at the group that +surrounded him. It appeared to be listening to this colloquy with +unusual interest. +</P> + +<P> +"I wan' m' pay!" reiterated Snowie sullenly, but then apparently lost +the thread of his ideas and lurched away. Billy considered the +incident closed. He was mistaken. The group did not dissolve; it came +closer. The men had a strangely unfriendly look about the eyes. Billy +did not understand it. He stepped toward one side of the circle about +him. It closed the tighter to keep him in. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the joke, boys?" he asked, still smiling. +</P> + +<P> +The room was breathlessly still. Many of those within it did not +understand the trouble, but trouble was in the air. Across a wavering +line of heat could be dimly discerned the musicians, poised to start +the next dance, but uncertain whether or not to begin. They did not +begin. The silence was startled even by Peter's doggy yawn from the +far corner of the saloon proper. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't no joke!" "That's what we want to know!" "Damned poor joke!" +"You'll find out soon enough!" cried the men angrily, and then paused +and looked at each other because of the jostle of words that meant +nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Billy flushed slowly, and his jaw settled into place. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm jest as willin' to play 'horse' as anybody," he said, trying to +find calm utterance; "and if this is a joke, I wishes some +fellow-citizen to let me in. But, damn it!" he cried in a burst, +"don't you get too funny! What the hell does you-all want me to do to +carry out this yere witticism, anyway?" +</P> + +<P> +The coolest and most determined looking man in the group made two steps +across the floor, and confronted Billy squarely. At this evidence of +earnestness, Billy lost his excitement and became deadly cool. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's you, Tony Houston, is it! Do you want your pay too?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I do," replied the man, "and I'm going to have it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Billy, "here's a pretty-lookin' outfit! Snowie was drunk, +but this gang 's sober enough to know better, anyway. You come around +to my office in the mornin', and I pays the bunch, every damn skunk, +and don't you ever any of you show your faces there again. That's all +I got to say." +</P> + +<P> +"It ain't all <I>I</I> got to say," retorted Houston, standing his ground +doggedly, "not by a long shot! You-all talks well, but has you got th' +money?" +</P> + +<P> +"What the——" cried Billy, choking. +</P> + +<P> +"Hol' on thar! I repeats it"—and Houston thrust his face at Billy +evilly—"has you got th' money? That's a fa'r question in business, I +reckons. Has you got th' money? No, you hasn't. You got just an +hundred and fifty-two dollars, and that's every red cent you has got." +</P> + +<P> +Billy's immediate act of homicide was checked by this astounding +knowledge of the total of his bank account. "Damn you, Tony Houston," +he said slowly, at last, "I believe you're drunk too. You come in the +mornin' and get paid, an' you'll find yore money comes along all right. +This is a hell of a gang," he went on with contempt, "a hell of a gang! +I gets you a job that lasts you all winter, and you wants your damn +money in a dance hall and raises a row because I ain't carryin' a few +thousan' dollars in each pants pocket. Don' think you makes anythin' +by it. I lays myself out from now on to see that yore little two by +four prospect holes ain't worth th' powder to blow 'em up, and I reckon +I has a little influence as superintendent of this game." +</P> + +<P> +"Superintendent?" cried Houston, and the men about laughed loudly. +</P> + +<P> +Billy was plainly even more bewildered than angry. He considered the +crowd all, as he expressed it, "plum' locoed"; but his passions, never +of the most peaceful, were rising. In another moment he would have +knocked Houston down and drawn his gun on the crowd which surrounded +him, but that Michaïl Lafond shoved his way through the press. Billy +caught sight of him with relief. Besides the plain bare fact of a row, +the situation was complicated by the presence of so great an audience, +before whom Billy naturally wished to conduct the affair correctly. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the trouble? Here, this won't do!" cried Black Mike, as +though in the capacity of proprietor preserving the respectability of +his establishment. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I wants to know," cried Billy. "This (sulphurous) outfit +of ranikaboo ijits has gone plum' locoed, and they stan's around yere +howlin' for tha'r money as though I carries th' Philadelphy mint in my +clothes!" +</P> + +<P> +Lafond did not reply. He motioned the men aside, and, with the utmost +gentleness, led the wondering Billy to a far corner of the room. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry that I have this to do, Billy," said Lafond. "I don't want +to. It's none of my lay-out. But these men of yours sent them to me +because I am notary public and I must do it." +</P> + +<P> +Billy did not understand, but he caught the apology in Lafond's tone. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right, old man," he assured the latter, moistening his lips. +</P> + +<P> +Without further preamble, the half-breed drew some papers from his +breast pocket, and handed them to Billy. +</P> + +<P> +The first was a review of the work done on the Great Snake group of +claims, and a detailed analysis of it, carried out with astounding +minuteness of technical knowledge for one so ignorant of mining as +Stevens. It outlined also the work that should have been done; and it +ended with a general conclusion of incompetence. The second contained +his formal dismissal as superintendent. The third returned Billy's +shares as his portion in the Company's dissolution, said Company having +dissolved without assets. +</P> + +<P> +Billy sat very quietly and read the papers over three times, while his +fellow townsmen stood silent and watched him. The first perusal +bewildered him, and turned him sick at heart with disappointment and +recognition of the estimate in which men held him. The second brought +to his consciousness that his companions were regarding him; and that, +in turn, caused him to realize that his prestige was crumbled, his +integrity dishonored, his abilities belittled. The third impressed on +him the desperate straits in which he found himself—without money, +holding a doubtful interest in claims whose bad name was by this +established so firmly that no Eastern capital would ever take hold of +them again, the moral if not legal debtor to these men who had worked +all winter for him. The iron turned in his soul. Michaïl Lafond, +sitting there in the rôle of sympathizer, was well satisfied with his +handiwork. For the moment, Billy Knapp was a broken man. +</P> + +<P> +He arose slowly, and passed out of the door in the dead silence of +those about him. +</P> + +<P> +After his exit, the dance was forgotten and an earnest discussion +raged. It was no light matter. Eleven men had invested heavily in +powder, fuse, drills, and windlasses for the purpose of fulfilling +their contract with Knapp; and they, and twenty-two others, had put in +their time for a number of months. Many of them owed for board or +materials. Others, though out of debt, had spent nearly all their +ready cash. They all seemed desperately close to bankruptcy, for +Lafond said nothing whatever respecting his agreement to pay the +contracts himself. And then again, as has been pointed out, the +well-being of the whole camp had depended intimately on the success of +its big mine, for the success of one enterprise like the Great Snake +draws other capital to the district, rendering possible the sale of +claims; while its failure always gives a bad name to a whole section. +</P> + +<P> +So the ensuing discussion had plenty of interest for everybody. +Lafond, as the bearer of the tidings, was besieged with questions. He +was reluctant, but he answered. Besides, the facts were plain, ready +for interpretation. Nobody could help seeing that it was all Billy's +fault. After a time, poor Billy loomed large as a symbol of all the +camp's misfortune. After a little time more, when the bar had more +thoroughly done its work, a number became possessed of a desire to +abate Billy. +</P> + +<P> +They seized torches and a rope, ran up the gulch, and beat in the door +of the office, only to encounter Billy enraged to the point of frenzy. +That individual rushed them out at the muzzle of a pistol, with such a +whirl of impetuous anger that it quite carried them off their feet, +after which he planted his back against the building and stood there in +the full light of the torches, reviling them. Why he was not shot I +cannot tell. Billy was something of a dominant spirit when roused. +That was the reason why, in the old days, he had made such a good +scout. After he had called them all the names he could think of, he +slammed the door on them. They went away without knowing why they did +so. +</P> + +<P> +When they got back to town, they gathered again in the Little Nugget +saloon, drinking, swearing, shouting. The morale of the camp was +broken. It was a debauch. They cried out against Billy, and they +feared him for the moment. They made a stable-boy hide in the brush +with a bottle of whisky, to watch the works, to spy on they knew not +what. Lafond drank with them. He had never done so before. As they +became more noisy, he fell into a sullen fit, and went to sit over +behind the stove where he crooned away to himself an old <I>chanson</I>. He +stopped drinking, but the effects remained. It seemed to his befogged +mind that the wave had broken and that he was falling through the air. +Shortly he would be cast up against the beach. "A fool for luck!" he +muttered to himself, trying to rehabilitate his denuded confidence. He +took out the Company's letter to him, saying that the deeds were at +Rapid awaiting his action, and read it. Then he put a stick of wood on +the fire. He shivered and rubbed his eyes. Finally he went over to +the hotel, where he washed his head again and again in cold water. +After a time, he returned to the Little Nugget, feeling somewhat better. +</P> + +<P> +It was now daylight, although the sun was not up. The stable-boy came +in from the upper gulch to say that Billy Knapp was hitching his horses +to the buckboard. The news sobered them somewhat. Ten minutes later, +the stable-boy again returned with the news that Knapp had loaded his +buckboard, and was on the point of driving through town. A dozen men +at once ran out into the street and concealed themselves behind the +corners of buildings. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap32"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING +</H4> + +<P> +Billy sat in a chair and boiled. He did not calm down until after +daylight, and then he found that his depression had vanished. He was +full of vigor. He went out and looked over the property very +carefully. The entire lay-out, he found, had weighed on his spirits, +and this last ungrateful episode had made him sick of the whole +miserable business. He ought never to be tied down. He could see his +mistake clearly enough now. If he was going to stick to gold hunting, +it ought to be as a prospector, not as a miner. A prospector enjoyed +the delight of new country, of wilderness life, of the chase, and then, +when civilization came too near, he could sell his claims to the miner +and move on to a virgin country. A miner, on the other hand, had to +settle down in one place and attend to all manner of vexatious details. +Billy felt a great impatience to shake himself free. With the thought +came a wave of anger against the men of the town. After all, what had +he to gain by staying? This outfit was a fizzle; nothing could be done +with it in the future. He might save something of the wreck by +grubbing about in the débris, but grubbing was exactly what he wanted +to get away from. +</P> + +<P> +He looked over the works again. He was astonished to find how little +of it he cared for personally. There remained not much more than the +Westerner's outfit, when it was winnowed—four good horses, the +buckboard, his saddle, clothes, his weapons, and the beautiful trotting +horse. Billy could not let that go. The camp outfit they could have +and welcome. He kicked the rubber stamper into space, scattering +potential literature about the landscape. Many things he hesitated +over, but finally discarded. The heap was not very large when all was +told. +</P> + +<P> +He began to experiment with the buckboard. Billy was a master of the +celebrated diamond hitch. After an hour's earnest work, he drew back +triumphantly to observe to himself that all he wished to take with him +was securely packed on the vehicle. Then he coupled in his grays, and +led out the beautiful trotting horse. He was glad that he had lately +paid the English groom his wages; which individual he remembered +seeing, the night before, dead drunk in a corner. Billy made himself +some coffee in the empty cookee's shack, and was ready to start. +</P> + +<P> +He did not know exactly where he would go; that was a matter of detail, +but somewhere West in all probability—somewhere in Wyoming, where Jim +Buckley was hidden up in the mountains, living a sane sort of a life, +removed from the corroding influences of civilization. He did not +realize that in this impatient shaking off of responsibility, he was +little better than a moral coward. Even Billy's worst enemies would +have denied the justice of that epithet. +</P> + +<P> +He climbed in, deliberately unwound the reins from the long brake +handle, clucked to the horses, and took his way, whistling, down the +narrow trail. The beautiful trotting horse followed gingerly, tossing +his head. At the entrance to town, Billy's whistling suddenly ceased. +The street was quite bare and silent. Not even from the Little Nugget +saloon or the new dance hall came the faintest sound of human +occupancy. A tenderfoot might have argued that this was indicative of +deep sleep after last night's festivities, but Billy knew better. At +seven o'clock in the morning, after excitement such as that of a few +hours before, the normal ensuing pow-wow would still be raging +unabated. He reached under the seat for his Winchester, the new 40-82 +model of his prosperous days, and laid it softly across his lap, and +caught the end of the long lash in his whip hand. Then he resumed his +tune exactly where it had been broken off, looking neither to right nor +left, and jogging along without the slightest appearance of haste or +uneasiness. No one could have called Billy Knapp a coward at that +moment. +</P> + +<P> +Near the first cabin the whistling broke off again. A little figure +stumbled out into the deserted street, weeping and afraid. Billy +pulled up. It was the Kid. +</P> + +<P> +"They're goin' to shoot you," he sobbed, "from behind the Little +Nugget, without givin' you a chanst! I had to tell you, an' they'll +most kill me!" he wailed. Billy's eyes began to sparkle. The Kid +tried to hold within the other's reach his little 22 calibre rifle, his +most precious possession. "Here, take this!" he begged. +</P> + +<P> +Billy laughed outright, a generous, hearty laugh with just a shade of +something serious in it. "Thank ye," said he, "I got one. And let me +tell ye right yere, you Kid. Yore a white man, you are, and yore jest +about the only white man in the place." He cast his eyes about him in +the buckboard at his feet. "Yere ye be," he said, tugging at a pair of +huge silver-ornamented Mexican spurs and leaning over to give them to +the boy; "jest remember me by them thar; they has my name in 'em; and, +look yere," he went on with a sudden inspiration, "you-all gets up +gulch to my camp and takes what grub you finds and lies low until yo' +paw an' th' rest gits over bein' mad. I don't know but what they +<I>does</I> kill you, if you shows up afore that." And he laughed again to +see the boy's face brighten at this prospect of escaping the immediate +wrath to follow. +</P> + +<P> +The little scene had been enacted in the middle of the silent street, +so silent and so empty that the principal actors in it experienced an +uncomfortable emotion of publicity, perhaps a little like that of an +inexperienced speaker before the glare of footlights. The Kid, +followed friskily by Peter, scuttled up the gulch, Billy stood up in +his buckboard and faced the inscrutable row of houses. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo' damn coyotes!" he yelled, "thar goes the only <I>man</I> in the whole +outfit. Shoot! yo' Siwashes, shoot!" and he brought his long whip like +a figure 8 across the flanks of all four horses at once. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Bang!</I> reverberated a shot between the hills, and a bullet splashed +white against the brake bar. +</P> + +<P> +Billy dropped the reins to the floor of the buckboard, and planted his +foot on them. He steadied his knee against the seat, and threw down +and back the lever of his Winchester for a shot. The beautiful +trotting horse was pulling back in an ecstasy of terror at the end of +his long lariat, shaking his head and planting his forefeet. Billy +cursed savagely, but jerked loose the knot, and the beautiful trotting +horse, with a final snort of terror, turned tail and disappeared in the +direction of the mine. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Bang! Bang! Bang!</I> went other shots from behind puffs of white +smoke. The hills caught up the sound and rolled it back, and then back +again, until it was quite impossible to count the discharges. +</P> + +<P> +There were perhaps a half-dozen men with rifles and a dozen or so with +six-shooters, all pumping away at it as fast as they could. The +buckboard was struck many times. One horse was hit, but only +slightly—not enough to interfere with, but rather to encourage his +speed. Billy fastened his eyes on the spot whence the first bullet had +sped. Suddenly he threw his rifle to his shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Crack!</I> it spoke, strangely flat out there in the open against the +fuller reports of the other pieces. +</P> + +<P> +The bullets which undershot kicked up little puffs of dust, like +grasshoppers jumping, while those that passed above, ricochetted +finally from rocks and went singing away into the distance. It was a +wonder, with so large a mark, that neither the man nor the horses were +hit. It must be remembered, however, that the marksmen were more or +less drunk, and that Billy's speed was by now something tremendous. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Crack!</I> went his Winchester again. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the straight road was, as has perhaps been mentioned, a +turn of considerable sharpness, flanked by bold cliff-like rocks. In +the best of circumstances, this bit of road requires careful driving. +With a runaway four and a light buckboard, a smash up was inevitable. +The hidden assailants and spectators of the strange duel realized this +suddenly. In the interest of the approaching catastrophe, the +fusillade ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Billy maintained his +first attitude, one knee on the seat, the other foot braced against the +floor, keenly expectant. The silence became breathless, and one or two +men leaned forward the better to see. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Crack!</I>" spoke Billy's rifle for the third time. The man who had +fired the first shot pitched suddenly forward from behind his +sheltering corner, and lay still. +</P> + +<P> +With one swift motion the scout dropped his Winchester in the seat, +grasped the four reins, and threw his enormous weight against the bits. +The grays had been ranch-bred. They bunched their feet, hunched their +backs, and in three heavy buck jumps had slowed down from a breakneck +run to a lumbering gallop. Billy Knapp gave vent to the wild shrill +war cry of his foster parents, the Oglallah Sioux, and jogged calmly +out of sight around the bend of the road. +</P> + +<P> +A great crowd pressed about Tony Houston, prone on the ground. They +discovered that the ball had passed through the point of the shoulder, +not a dangerous place in itself, but resulting in a serious wound +because of the smashing power of the express rifle. +</P> + +<P> +"Damn fine shooting!" they said, looking at each other with admiration. +"<I>Damn</I> fine." +</P> + +<P> +They began to feel a little more kindly toward Billy on account of this +evidence of his skill. They set about bandaging the wounded man. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap33"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +FUTILITY +</H4> + +<P> +And around that lower bend, half a mile beyond Durand's cabin, Billy +encountered in the person of Jim Buckley the very man he intended to +search for, and that by not so very strange a chance when all is +considered. +</P> + +<P> +After the scouting days were quite over, not long ago, by the way, Jim +Buckley had struck out for Wyoming, where he looked about him and +finally settled in the Crooked Horn district all alone. He was +prospecting. And as he was a great big leisurely sort of fellow, never +in a hurry, and quite unconvinced of the necessity for being so, it +took him a great many years to complete the prospecting to his +satisfaction. In fact it was only recently that he had fully convinced +himself and others of the value of what he had found. At first he had +worked the surface over inch by inch Then he had staked out his more +experimental claims. Then he had burrowed and grubbed and delved, +single-handed, through a network of shafts, tunnels, and drifts. It is +slow work—single-handed. In the morning you make little holes with a +hand drill, and fill them with powder. At noon you blast. In the +afternoon you cart away débris by means of an inadequate little bucket. +This takes time and patience, both of which Jim Buckley possessed. +Once a month he went to town, riding one horse and leading another, for +the purpose of buying supplies. The rest of the time he lived alone. +</P> + +<P> +That is, he lived alone except that directly opposite the window, where +the light always struck it fair, he had carefully fastened a small +colored portrait on ivory. It was the picture of a woman, delicately +tinted, young with laughing blue eyes and a mouth whose corners turned +upward in so droll a manner that you would have sworn its owner had +never known a care in her fresh young life. It was the picture of +another man's wife. She had known care, of the bitterest, blackest +kind, and in her darkest days she had been murdered, mercifully +perhaps. After he had hauled the last little bucket of broken rock up +to the surface of the ground, and had ranged all sorts of utensils in +the open fireplace for the evening meal, Jim Buckley used to light his +pipe and sit looking at this little portrait for a long time. For, you +see, he was simply made, with no complexities—a few simple purposes, a +few simple ideas, a few simple friendships, a few simple passions—but +they were the stronger and deeper and more soul-satisfying for that. +He did not need incident or sorrow or regret to round out his life. It +was well poised and sufficient. +</P> + +<P> +So he used to look upon the face of this other man's wife from under +sombre brows, but through clear eyes. No one could have guessed what +his slow deep thoughts were at such times, nor what he found, whether +of peace or unrest, in his contemplation of a portrait of the past. He +said it made him better. Perhaps it did. +</P> + +<P> +But there came a time when the windlasses over the rabbit-burrow +prospector's shafts had made their last necessary revolution. Jim +Buckley knew the cross section of that country as well as you or I know +the cross section of an apple we have just cut in two. Then, having +satisfied his purposes, he looked to his friendships. He had never had +many. Alfred, Billy Knapp, Hal Townsend, Charley Fanchild—why you +could count them on the fingers of one hand—and two of these were +dead, and another was so far away in the cattle country of Arizona that +he might as well have been so. Jim would have liked well to have +gathered this old band of comrades about him and said, "Here, boys, is +what I have. It is more than enough for me: it is more than enough for +all of us. Let us share it, just as we used to share our bacon or our +coffee in the old days, and so we can grow old together in the way that +suits us best, the way of the pioneer." As he sat in the cabin now, or +stalked the hills with his rifle, this old comradeship took more and +more shape from the mists of the past, and there grew up in his breast +a sharp craving for old times, old faces, old friends. It was a +peculiarity of his nature that his ideas possessed a sort of cumulative +force. They gathered added reasons for their carrying out as a rolling +snowball gathers snow. Toward the end of that month, he packed a +strange old valise with clothes for the journey, strapped on his best +six-shooter, put his cabin in order, and rode his horse down to Crooked +Horn. There he left the animal with Billy Powers and took the train +for Edgemont and thence to Rapid. +</P> + +<P> +He knew that Billy was somewhere in the Hills. At Rapid he learned of +that individual's new importance. His heart sank a little at the +thought that this prosperity might forfend his own scheme of +comradeship, but nevertheless he took Blair's stage for Copper Creek +and Custer. +</P> + +<P> +Near Rockerville the axle gave way. The brake was repaired at a +miner's forge with some difficulty, but the job carried on so late into +the afternoon that Blair refused to go farther that night, and the +party slept at Rockerville. The next morning they pushed on again +about daylight, in order that Blair might start back from Custer before +noon, thus reducing his delay by a few hours. A half mile below +Durand's shack the axle again gave way, this time with a sudden +violence that sent flying the baggage which had been piled on top. Jim +found his valise in the bushes. The catch had snapped when the bag hit +the ground, so that it lay half open; but fortunately its contents had +not emptied. Jim closed it with the two end-clasps, and set it by the +side of the road. He did not notice that the ivory miniature had +dropped out, and now lay face downward at the roots of a <I>mesquite</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Blair looked up from his inspection. +</P> + +<P> +"Bad break!" he said, with a string of oaths. "Copper Creek's under a +mile ahead. You'll save time by pushin' on afoot. I'll be in as soon +as I can get this sulphurated axle tied together with a strap." +</P> + +<P> +"No hurry," replied Jim; "I'll help you." +</P> + +<P> +He began to unhitch the horses while Blair went to borrow an axe of +Durand. The driver's intention was to splice the broken axle with a +bit of green wood. In a little time, he and the old man returned +together. +</P> + +<P> +So Billy found them, straining away with an impromptu crowbar. When he +and Jim saw each other, they agreed that they'd be tee-totally chawed +up! After a time the stage moved doubtfully on toward Copper Creek. +Billy and Jim went the other way in the buckboard. +</P> + +<P> +Billy explained that he was going to see Jim; and Jim explained that he +had come to get Billy. Billy elaborated on the tale of his doings +since their last meeting, and easily persuaded Jim, as well as himself, +that he was a most wronged individual. To restore his self-respect it +only needed a sympathetic listener, so that he could hear the sound of +his own voice. For the moment he had doubted himself. Now he saw +plainly that he had been misled by false pretences. If he had +understood clearly from the beginning the picayune policy expected of +him by these stingy Easterners, he would have graduated his scale of +expenditures to suit it; but certainly they had implied at least that +they intended to get up a good big mine. Served a man right for going +in with such sharpers! +</P> + +<P> +Jim merely said that he had a first-rate thing to share with Billy. +</P> + +<P> +It was a pleasant sight, the bearded solemn miner, fairly glowing with +pleasure over finding Billy unfortunate and therefore open to his own +kind offices; the eager-faced enthusiastic promoter, elated and +high-spirited because of the relief of putting quite behind him a +colossal failure; because of the privilege of starting again with a +clean slate; because of a hundred new and promising schemes for the +future. Michaïl Lafond's long planning had availed little, after all. +With all his shrewdness he did not see that in the personality of Billy +Knapp he was attempting to quench the essence of enthusiasm and hope +and faith—inextinguishable fires. That is the American frontiersman. +</P> + +<P> +At Rapid they took the train to Crooked Horn. At Crooked Horn they +reclaimed the horse from Billy Powers. Then they inaugurated the boom. +At this very day, December 24th, 1899, they are still living together +in the new town of Knapp City, Wyoming, wealthy and respected citizens. +And Billy recounts his Copper Creek experiences, generally with +tolerance, as an example of the deceit of his fellow-creatures. They +were the fruit of eighteen years of planning and waiting and working by +a man who thought he could shape greater destinies than his own. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap34"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXIV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED +</H4> + +<P> +After the vociferating group had made Houston comfortable with the +bandages and rough surgery of the frontier, it again took up the +discussion of ways and means. It was a tired crowd, haggard from +dissipation and want of sleep. And then, too, it was a cross crowd. +</P> + +<P> +A majority were savage. Their passions were aroused to an unreasoning +pitch, as is the manner of mobs. To them it was not a question of +discussion, but of destruction. They wanted to burn the Company's +buildings, and they were so set on it, and so impatient of even a word +of opposition, that Lafond began to be a little frightened for his new +property. His attempts at dissuasion were everywhere met with rebuff. +Finally, on a sudden inspiration, he sprang to his own window ledge and +signed his desire to speak. +</P> + +<P> +Such men as Moroney, Kelly, Graham, and Williams, cooler heads, whose +stake in the camp's fate was still heavy, succeeded in obtaining a +momentary silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Boys," shouted Mike, "I'll pay you myself!" +</P> + +<P> +They paused in good earnest now, to see what these astounding words +might signify. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll pay you myself!" repeated Lafond. Then—for he was too shrewd to +promise a thing of such moment without giving a plausible reason for +it—he went on, "I can't afford to let this camp bust; I got too much +in it. I can afford better that I spend a little to help it along. I +don't know what it is that the Company intends; but I will find out; +and this I promise to you, if the Company does not pay you, I will make +some arrangement for the mine and I will pay you myself!" +</P> + +<P> +Even Graham and Moroney were a little deceived. Both perceived dimly +an ulterior motive, but on the surface the offer was generous and there +could be no doubt that Lafond's word was perfectly good in such a +matter. As for the men, they were more than satisfied. +</P> + +<P> +"But of course," Lafond was saying, "you must not do any injury to the +property." +</P> + +<P> +Which went without saying, as every one could see. +</P> + +<P> +Michaïl Lafond ate his breakfast with many long pauses. He had little +appetite. His plans had gone well, and yet in their outcome rested a +little remnant of the indecisive that annoyed him out of all +proportion. Billy had been discharged from his position as +superintendent and driven from camp, yet his exit had been +melodramatically brilliant and had somehow done much to leave his +memory in good odor. He, Lafond, had the promise of the property; but +even yet the deeds were in escrow at Rapid. It was forty-five miles to +Rapid—ten hours! Much might happen in ten hours. At the thought, +which Lafond instinctively paused to note was not in his usual +confident manner, he started up and commanded Frosty to harness his +team of bays to the buckboard. He would complete the contract before +sunset. While the animals were being harnessed, he tried to smoke a +pipe. It went out. He attempted to read a paper. He could not. +Finally he went out of doors and strode rapidly up and down. He felt +chilled, for the air of the early morning was sharp. He thrust his arm +through the open window and took down his old canvas coat from behind +the door, and put it on. In spite of its protection he shivered again. +</P> + +<P> +"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!" he growled at Frosty. He snapped the +lash of his black-snake whip, making the bays dance to the hindrance of +Frosty's task. His eye caught the new dance hall. +</P> + +<P> +"She's been worth while, if she never does another thing," he commented +to himself, and then realized that he had said it, not because he +believed it, but because he wanted to keep his courage up. What was +this dread of the intangible? He could not understand it. "Getting +too old to sit up all night," he explained it to himself. +</P> + +<P> +His thoughts went back to the night. It had left with him an +impression of being unsatisfactory. Why should it? There was +something about the girl, he did not recall exactly what. Oh yes, +Cheyenne Harry! That affair had balked. Well, it did not much matter: +that was a detail. Now that the dance hall was up, the girl could be +forced to take her place. Lafond told himself that he was a little +tired of finesse and delicate planning—too tired to undertake another +long campaign of the kind merely for the satisfaction to be found in +the process. Besides, in this case it was not necessary. He would +settle the affair now, get it off his mind. +</P> + +<P> +He strode over to the girl's shack and pushed open the door. She was +lying flat on her face, fully dressed as in her first transport of +shame, but she had now fallen into a light sleep. At the creak of the +door, however, she looked up, her eyes red with crying. +</P> + +<P> +"That was a hell of a performance last night," said Lafond brutally, +"and it don't go again." +</P> + +<P> +He had never spoken to her so before. +</P> + +<P> +She sat upright on the bed and stared at him, clasping one hand near +her throat. +</P> + +<P> +"That ain't what you're here for," continued Mike. "There'll be +another dance Saturday night, and you be on hand and stay on hand. +That's your job now—understand?" +</P> + +<P> +A slow comprehension of his meaning crept into her eyes, and she +covered them with her hands. The halfbreed stood in the doorway +coiling and uncoiling the lash of his whip. He wanted some indication +of how she was going to take it. +</P> + +<P> +"Understand?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +She merely shuddered. +</P> + +<P> +"Damn it! can't you answer?" he cried impatiently. "What do you think +I've raised you for anyway? You're none of my breed. Answer, +you——," and he spat out an epithet. +</P> + +<P> +She lowered her hands and looked at him again with wide-open eyes from +which all expression had faded. This stony silence irritated Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +"You've had your head long enough. Now you're going to show what +you're made for. Understand? Great God!" he cried, "you've got a +tongue, haven't you? Why don't you answer when I ask you a question?" +In one of the sudden Latin gusts of passion, which generally he held so +well in control, Lafond lashed her across the breast with his +black-snake whip. Almost before the impulse had quitted his brain he +regretted it, for her scream would bring out the camp, and Lafond could +see the awkwardness of an explanation. It was better to break her in +gradually. To his relief, she did not cry out, but merely shivered +pitifully and closed her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what you'll get if you don't toe the mark," threatened Lafond, +only too glad to avoid a scene. He slouched out of the door, climbed +into his light wagon shaking his heavy head sullenly, and drove away in +the direction of Rapid. +</P> + +<P> +After he had gone and the sound of his wheels had died away, the girl +arose staggeringly from her bed. The bright world had crumbled. For +the first time in her young existence her thoughts turned to the vague +conception of a higher Being which she had built, Heaven knows how, +from materials gathered, Heaven knows where. +</P> + +<P> +"God, God, God!" she cried, "I thought this was a happy world where +people laughed. I did not know there was so much sorrow in the world. +You did not make the world to be sorrowful, did you, God?" +</P> + +<P> +She was almost blind. She knew that she must kill herself: that alone +was clear. It was that or the dance hall. She was to be like Bismarck +Anne. And she realized in a moment that she knew Black Mike, his iron +will and his cruel heart; and she was afraid of him, deadly afraid. +She began to grope about the room. There was a dim square: that must +be the window. Her hands passed fumblingly over the table, just +missing the long sewing scissors. Nothing there. Quick, quick, he +might come back! She almost fell over the cloak, which had fallen to +the floor, and was now entangled about her feet. There was another +square of light: it must be the door. She stumbled out into a glare of +merciless sunshine that filled her brain and beat on the walls of her +understanding until she covered her eyes, and still stumbled on. She +thought she heard men shouting. She was not sure. +</P> + +<P> +From his work of sweeping out the stale saloon, Frosty had seen her. +She was a strange sight, her hair half down, her face white and drawn, +her step so uncertain. Frosty was very fond of her in his stupid +silent way. He yelled and ran toward her. +</P> + +<P> +In this day of excitement, a cry brought a dozen heads to a dozen +windows and doors. In a moment the girl was surrounded. The men were +puzzled. "Plain case of bug-juice," said one, a little sorrowfully. +</P> + +<P> +She felt someone trying gently to lead her somewhere, but she resisted, +crying "Let me go, let me go. I want to get to the big rock." +</P> + +<P> +Graham pushed his way anxiously into the group. He had not been able +to bring himself to attend the dance the evening before, but he had +been told the details, and up to now had felt rather relieved than +otherwise at the turn affairs had taken. +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you want to go to the big rock, Molly?" he asked gently. +</P> + +<P> +At the sound of his voice she began to cry a little. "It is so high up +there, so high," she said over and over. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it's high, Molly, very high; but don't you think you'd +better wait until to-morrow?" +</P> + +<P> +The men stood about with awe-stricken faces. They saw now that there +was more in this than they had at first supposed. "Nutty," they +whispered to each other in undertones. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a long way down, a long way down," went on the girl. "I could +jump from there very easily; such a long way down!" +</P> + +<P> +Graham took her quietly by the shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, Molly, it's I, Jack Graham." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Jack." +</P> + +<P> +"And I want you to do just as I say. Will you do it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Jack." +</P> + +<P> +"I want you to go with me. Do you trust me, Molly?" +</P> + +<P> +She began to sob violently, almost convulsively, dabbing uncertainly at +her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, Jack? What am I doing here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing; it's all right. Will you come with me? Ah, that's better." +</P> + +<P> +She looked about her with intelligence. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, boys? How did I come here?" Her glance wandered past +them to the dance hall, and she turned away suddenly. "Ah! I +remember!" The strained look began to come back into her face. +</P> + +<P> +"Here, here, Molly!" cried Graham in alarm, "that won't do! Here, you +must do just exactly as I say. You must come with me now, and get +something to eat and some sleep. Don't you trust me, Molly?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked steadily into her eyes, his brow contorted with anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried suddenly, "whom else could I trust but you? +You have been the only man whom I could have trusted from the very +first, the only man I should have trusted. I see that now. I have +known it all the while, but I would not acknowledge it." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you go with me then, Molly?" asked Graham again. +</P> + +<P> +This time it was she who raised her hands to his shoulders. "Jack," +said she solemnly, "a few minutes ago I was on the point of killing +myself because I saw nothing but death or that dance hall before me. I +had forgotten. I will never do so again. I will go with you now, +Jack, wherever you want me to; and I will go with you, Jack, forever, +to the end of the world." +</P> + +<P> +She leaned suddenly forward and kissed him, and then as suddenly fell +to weeping again, with great sobs that shook her slender body cruelly. +</P> + +<P> +Never was a stranger love scene; never was one more in keeping with the +wayward, capricious, yet intrinsically sterling character of Molly +Lafond. She did not understand it; but she felt to her inmost soul +that it was real; and that if she did not love Jack Graham now, at +least she respected him above all men and above herself, and that her +affection for him would never diminish, but rather increase as the time +went on. And this the event proved to be true. Nor did Graham +understand, but he too felt the sincerity of it. As for the men before +whose audience the curious drama had been enacted, they understood +still less. +</P> + +<P> +But it was very simple after all. +</P> + +<P> +In her nature, as in all other natures, two forces had struggled for +the mastery. With her they happened to be called heredity, or the +East; and education, or the West. Her training, her environment, her +mental atmosphere had powerfully affected her general conduct of life; +but in the great crisis her deeper nature had spoken, and she had +obeyed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap35"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +OUT OF THE PAST +</H4> + +<P> +Michaïl Lafond drove on slowly down the valley of Copper Creek, +although, if he intended to reach Rapid before dark, there would seem +to be every reason for haste. +</P> + +<P> +He usually conducted his affairs so carefully, so shrewdly, so +calculatingly. How had he happened to give way so to an impulse? He +regretted lashing the girl with his whip, because he felt that it was +unnecessary. Doing unnecessary evil had always been against Lafond's +principles. He considered it bad luck, and somehow that spectre of bad +luck seemed to be coming very close. He had lost confidence. +Therefore he made mistakes. +</P> + +<P> +Just outside of town he encountered Blair's stage crawling along on a +mended axle. Naturally both vehicles pulled up. After explanations of +the accident, Blair remarked casually— +</P> + +<P> +"Struck Billy down the road a piece." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Mike, "he left this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Almighty lucky happen-so for him, 'cause I had an old codger aboard +that was just on his way to visit Billy. Nice old cuss, too. Name +Buckley, or Bulkley, or something like that. Come from out Wyoming +way." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond clamped on his brake again. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said he, "I used to know him. He went off with Billy, you say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, bag <I>an'</I> baggage." +</P> + +<P> +"Goin' to Rapid?" +</P> + +<P> +"Near as I could make out," said Blair. "They reversed the proposition +on the spot. Place of him a visitin' of Billy, Billy he aims to visit +him. Things movin' at camp?" +</P> + +<P> +"They'll tell you up there," replied Lafond and drove on. +</P> + +<P> +What a fiendish stroke of luck! This one man in all the West who knew +of the affair at Spanish Gulch in the seventies, who would remember the +doctor's wife, who would recognize the strong resemblance of her +daughter to her, who might stir up that dust of the past which Lafond +had so carefully laid—that he should come just at this time! To be +sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to implicate him—Lafond. +But Buckley was a tenacious sort of individual; he would insist on +investigating. That would mean explanations by Lafond, a detailed +account. The details would have to be invented. And then a chill +struck his heart as he realized that he could not recall all the story +he had told the Indian agent when he had left the little girl in his +charge! +</P> + +<P> +He pulled his horses down to a walk and set himself to thinking +earnestly. He went over in sequence, as nearly as he could remember +them, every word and action, from his meeting with Durand to his +departure from the agency. It was no use. Even at the time, he had +invented the story lightly, without much thought of its importance +except as a temporary expedient. Now the matter had quite escaped him. +Jim Buckley's return West, which had before seemed merely fortunate, he +saw now had been providential. It was a narrow escape. He must visit +the agent as soon as possible, for the purpose of refreshing his memory. +</P> + +<P> +He came to Durand's cabin. The old man stood near the doorway +examining something which he held flat in the palm of his hand. At his +feet, Jacques, the little raccoon, was curled up in a bright-eyed ball +of fur, enjoying the early sun. Out behind the cabin, Isabeau, the +tasselled lynx, stepped lightly to and fro along the length of his +chain; and the great Pantalon sat drolly on his shaggy haunches +sniffing the air. Lafond stopped. He felt he must talk to some one or +give way to this incomprehensible impulse to shriek aloud. +</P> + +<P> +They exchanged greetings. At once Lafond saw something suspicious in +the old man's attitude. He was preternaturally grave. He seemed to be +thinking of something behind his actual speech. +</P> + +<P> +"I've something to show you, Lafond," he remarked after a little. +"It's very queer," and with what Lafond saw at once to be an accusing +motion he held before the latter's eyes the little ivory miniature of +Prue Welch. +</P> + +<P> +He had found it under a <I>mesquite</I> bush. Ever since he had been +struggling vainly to place the familiarity of the features. He had not +seen enough of the girl at the camp to be able to do so definitely, but +he had succeeded in bringing his mind almost to the point of a +recognition which was continually just escaping him. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond started violently, and stared at the portrait. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what's the matter?" cried Durand. "You look as though you'd seen +a ghost!" +</P> + +<P> +On the instant Lafond recovered his self-possession. He glanced with +side-long evil look at the old man. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," said he briefly. +</P> + +<P> +It was evident that the naturalist was trying to trap him. +</P> + +<P> +"Where have you seen her before?" asked the latter, returning to the +portrait. "She is old-fashioned—must have had that painted fifteen or +twenty years ago—and yet I've seen her recently." +</P> + +<P> +Lafond stiffly descended from the vehicle, both hands thrust deep into +the pockets of his canvas coat, and peered over the old man's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Here, Lafond," the latter was saying, "you know more about this than I +do——" He meant that the half-breed possessed a wider circle of +acquaintances. At his words Lafond drew an ivory-handled clasp-knife +from the pocket of his canvas coat, opened it in two lightning motions +and stabbed the old man deeply in the back. The latter stumbled +forward, half turning as he fell. Lafond plunged his blade wickedly +into Durand's throat, where it stuck, twisting out of the murderer's +hands. The victim writhed twice, gasped, and died. +</P> + +<P> +Black Mike stood over the body for a moment, panting. He stooped to +recover the knife. On its ivory handle he read the words "William +Knapp," on which he remembered, and left it where it was. Then he +climbed into his wagon and insanely lashed his horses into a frantic +run. +</P> + +<P> +The little furry 'coon approached its master bristling. It dabbled its +black paws, almost human, in the blood that stood on the threshold, and +then, frothing at the muzzle, it scrambled into the house and up a high +bookshelf, where it crouched, its eyes like coals of green fire. +</P> + +<P> +On the hillside opposite a white-faced little boy rose from behind a +mesquite clasping the neck of a homely dog. He ran at once to town, +where he burst in on Moroney, crying, "Pop, pop, Black Mike's gone and +killed old Bugchaser with a knife," after which he began to cry +hysterically. It took time for the camp to arouse, to dress, to hear +the tale, to believe, to visit the scene of the deed, to believe again +after finding Billy's knife, to discuss, to decide, and finally to +saddle horses and depart, puzzled, on the trail of Lafond. It had a +rope. But it also wanted to hear more about it. Therefore its speed +was not as rapid as it might have been, had a horse thief, for +instance, been the object of pursuit. +</P> + +<P> +So Lafond, after his first impulse to get away from the scene of his +deed had spent itself, jogged along unmolested toward Rapid. His brain +was working like lightning, but always on one line. He saw himself +alone, standing opposed to this huge black Bad-luck. Everything was +against him. But they couldn't get him down. He was +Man-who-speaks-Medicine, the Sioux; he was Lafond, the half-breed; he +was Black Mike, the pioneer. Let them come on! They thought they +could corner him. He would show them. One was gone. There remained +the other two. Lafond's mind saw red; he was set on murder. No +consideration of reason, probability, or common sense obtruded itself +athwart his plan. He could perceive one fact—that three men knew his +secret, of whom one was dead and the other two were living. Why Knapp +and Buckley should have told Durand; what they expected to gain by +going to Rapid; or what benefit the naturalist imagined could accrue to +him from his insinuating the state of affairs to the half-breed, the +latter did not inquire. He only knew that he wanted to catch Knapp's +buckboard before it had left the pine belt. Ambush would then be +easier. He lashed his horses unmercifully. +</P> + +<P> +Rockerville told him the two men had passed through not half an hour +before, and wondered at the wildness of his eye. +</P> + +<P> +That was well. They could not escape him now, for their wagon was +heavily loaded, and they were travelling leisurely, having no reason +for haste. Remembering appearances, he told Rockerville that it did +not much matter, he would not try to catch up; and then drove back +toward Copper Creek, only to make a detour by a wood road into the +Rapid trail again. As he approached the foothills, he could hear +occasionally the creak of a brake below him, by which he knew that he +was drawing near. He slowed up at once, for he knew of a short cut a +mile or so ahead, which the prospectors would not attempt because of +their heavy load, but by which he could come out ahead of his victims. +Then he would lie in wait. The short cut in question dipped steeply +down into the bed of a creek, and as steeply up on the other side; +while the main stage-road made a long horseshoe curve around the head +of the cañon. Lafond decided to drive rapidly down, to leave his team +in the creek bottom, and to climb on foot to the level of the main road +on the other side. In the meantime he drew as near to the other wagon +as he could without being seen. The minutes seemed to drag. +</P> + +<P> +At last he discerned the dimly blazed trail, rocky and dangerous +enough, which dropped sheer away into the underbrush below. He locked +the brakes and turned sharply down to the right. The descent was +hazardous, bumpy, exceedingly noisy. For this reason, it was not until +he had reached the level ground at the bottom of the cañon and the +clash of iron tire against stone had ceased, that he became aware the +ravine was already occupied. A sound of voices and laughter floated up +through the thin screen of leaves. As the half-breed's vehicle pushed +out toward the creek itself, he saw that he had unwittingly stumbled on +a camp of Indians up in the Hills on one of their annual jaunts after +teepee poles. +</P> + +<P> +Once a year they make these excursions. The whole band—men, women, +children, ponies, dogs, and household goods—goes along. It is an +outing. The women fell and strip the long slender saplings. The men +loaf lazily in front of their temporary shelters or ride about the +Hills to the various camps, giving war dances for nickels and silver +pieces. The occasion is eminently peaceful. +</P> + +<P> +Of such a nature was the gathering which Michaïl Lafond came upon in +the level of the little cañon. The wigwams had been pitched either +side of the old overgrown road. Children had cut away the slight +underbrush to clear a round smooth park of perhaps thirty yards +diameter, in the circumference of which were crowded the persons and +household belongings of four score people. Near the centre stood the +chief's lodge distinguished by a shield and spear. The whole was a +facsimile of a plains camp, except that here the whole affair was in +miniature—little wigwams, little kettle-tripods, little space—for the +camp was but temporary. Perhaps a score of men were idling about, +dressed in blue overalls and old flannel shirts. Moccasins and no hats +left still a slight flavor of savagery. The women were clothed for the +most part in dirty calico prints. The children had on just nothing at +all. +</P> + +<P> +Lafond cursed a little excitedly as he became aware of this not +unpicturesque gathering. It was plainly out of the question to leave +his horses and wagon in the creek bottom as he had intended; and it was +now equally impossible to waylay the prospectors at the top of the +grade. A shot would bring out the entire band. The situation was much +complicated, for just beyond lay the rolling treeless foothills. More +bad luck! +</P> + +<P> +Still the half-breed remembered it was yet many miles to Rapid; and an +ambush would not be impossible in some one of the numerous gullies that +seamed the foothills. He must hurry his tired horses up the steep +slope in order to emerge on the main road ahead of Knapp and Buckley. +</P> + +<P> +"How!" said the nearest warrior, raising his hand palm outward. +</P> + +<P> +"How!" replied Lafond gravely. +</P> + +<P> +He drove on through the half-obliterated road, responding to the +conventional salutations of those on the right and on the left. Near +the further side of the little clearing, a tiny copper-colored boy rose +from the grass and scurried across in front of the horses, so near that +Lafond had to pull up sharply to keep from running over him. An old +woman, evidently its nurse, hurried to catch him. When she came to the +road, however, she stopped short, and stared at Black Mike wildly, and +began to scream out in the language of the Brulé Sioux. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis he, the Defiler! 'Tis he!" +</P> + +<P> +She was an unkempt, wild old hag, and Lafond thought her mad. Her face +was lined deeply, as only an Indian's face ever is; a few ragged wisps +of gray hair fell over her eyes; and her skinny arm showed that she was +thin almost to emaciation. +</P> + +<P> +At her scream a warrior arose before the chief's lodge and approached. +From all directions the other warriors gathered. Two of the younger +men had already taken the horses by the bits. Lafond did not +understand it, and was about to expostulate vigorously against what he +thought was intended robbery until he saw the face of the chieftain, +who now drew near. Then he turned cold to the marrow. +</P> + +<P> +The chief looked him in the face for almost a minute. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not so," he said quietly. +</P> + +<P> +The hag had ceased her cries when the two young men had grasped the +horses' bits. +</P> + +<P> +"It is so, O Lone Wolf," she replied with respect. "The form is +changed by the hand of Manitou, but the spirit is the same, and I know +it in his eyes. It is the Defiler." +</P> + +<P> +"Let Rippling Water be sought," responded the savage, still without +excitement. +</P> + +<P> +About him the old-time dignity clung as a mantle. To any one in a less +desperate situation than Michaïl Lafond there would have been something +strangely incongruous and a little pathetic in this contrast between +the manner of the old wild plains savage and the habit of the modern +ward of the government. Even he was cool enough to see that the once +powerful tribe had sadly shrunk in numbers and in wealth. +</P> + +<P> +After a moment the woman called by the name of Rippling Water appeared +from a distance, where she had been cutting birch bark. In the +syllables of the beautiful name Lafond had recognized that of the +second of his Indian wives; in the prematurely aged withered squaw who +now approached he recognized nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"My daughter," said Lone Wolf, "look upon this man. Have you seen him +ever?" +</P> + +<P> +She peered at him a moment through short-sighted eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I have lain on his bosom," she answered simply. +</P> + +<P> +"It is——?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is the Defiler," she replied. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap36"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXVI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS +</H4> + +<P> +After the massacre at the battle of the Little Big Horn, a vast number +of Indian refugees fled over the borders into Canada. There they +dwelt, drawing three pounds of beef a day from arbitrary uniformed +individuals, who were strangely lacking in sympathy, and very observant +of the few rules and regulations which a mysterious White Mother over +the sea had seen fit to impose. Three pounds of meat a day is not +much. Still it is enough to get along on, and with the necessity, and +indeed, the opportunity of the chase gone, the bucks were able to wax +lazy, drunken, and generally shiftless to their hearts' content. All +this was frowned on by the uniformed individuals, but opportunities +were not far to seek. +</P> + +<P> +There has never been a nation more warlike, brave, and hardy than the +Sioux in its native environment of war and hunting. These two +furnished every point of leverage—physical, moral, intellectual—which +the savage required to lift him to the level of his greatest +efficiency. From the buffalo itself the Sioux family obtained its +supply of wigwams, robes, food, fuel, light, harness, bow-strings, +instruments of industry—in fact almost every article of necessity or +luxury appertaining to its everyday life. From the chase of the animal +the young Dacotah learned to ride, to shoot, to risk his life. And +then in his constant strife with his neighbors, the Blackfeet or the +Crows or the Pawnees, he was forced, if he would survive, to develop to +the last degree his cunning, his observation, his strategy, his +resourcefulness, his patience, his power to endure, his personal +courage. Habituated to these two, the chase and war, from his early +youth, he came at last to be the coolest, most dangerous warrior of the +plains. He could ride anything, bareback, in any position. With his +short, powerful bow he could launch a half-dozen arrows into the air +before the first reached the ground, or could drive one of his shafts +quite through the body of a buffalo. When necessity required, he was +brave to the point of recklessness; but again, when expediency advised, +he could worm his way for miles through the scantiest cover, flat on +his face, by the laborious use alone of his elbows and toes. He could +read a whole history in a trail which another might not even +distinguish. He could sit absolutely motionless for hours in the +hottest sun or the bitterest cold. And he could bear, as he was often +called upon to do, the severest physical pain without a quiver of the +eyelid. +</P> + +<P> +But when the buffalo vanished, the Sioux passed the meridian of his +powers. No other means of subsistence offered. He was forced to +plunder, or go to the reservation for Government beef. Thence came +much whisky and much loafing. The new young man had not the training +of his father. So, in a little, the Teton nation was subdued and +brought to reservations, and herded in an +overall-plug-hat-blanket-wearing multitude, even now but half-tamed, +and fiercely instinct with hereditary ferocity and resourcefulness. +Other Indians go to Carlisle, learn to plough, and become at least +partially civilized. The Sioux, fierce, hawk-eyed, wide-nostrilled, +sits in solitary dignity before his lodge, brooding. Occasionally he +has to be rounded up with a Gatling, as witness Wounded Knee. I have +never been able to envy the agents of Dakota reservations. +</P> + +<P> +When the statute of limitations ran out, or whatever mysterious +time-limit the Government puts on its displeasure against Indian +murderers, Sitting Bull and a horde of his fellow-warriors came back. +Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill's show, where he had a good time until +he began ghost-dancing and was killed in the Wounded Knee campaign. +But some, Lone Wolf's band among them, remained in Canada. They had +various reasons for doing so. +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf stayed because he was in hard luck. He had barely settled +down in his new home before the great Manitou had seen fit to strike +his children with the Spotted Sickness. When finally the last case had +been buried hastily, and its clothes and belongings burned under the +distant eye of the uniformed man, the formerly powerful band found +itself reduced by almost half. By dint of sitting innumerable days +naked in a circle on the prairie and beating a tom-tom until the agent +prayed for rain, the survivors managed to secure for themselves +immunity from the Spotted Sickness at least. Then some of the ponies +were stolen. Then a schism occurred in the community; and Three Knives +took with him a dozen families and established a new clan within plain +sight of the old. Lone Wolf was powerless because of the uniformed +individual, who frowned on the Indian idea of patriarchal chastisement. +A very young man of the band killed the agent, hoping thus to earn +praise, but almost before the embers were cold and before the scalp of +Three Knives had clotted dry, there appeared an astounding number of +uniforms, who promptly decimated Lone Wolf's warriors and took away all +their arms. Lone Wolf discovered that these uniformed men were in +reality nothing but soldiers—a disgusting fact which he had not before +suspected. They hung six of his young men, and that night a number of +things happened, such as the unprovoked fall of Lone Wolf's standard +from over his lodge, which showed plainly that Gitche Manitou was still +angry. +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf gathered his remnants about him and journeyed south to +Spotted Tail. +</P> + +<P> +There he enjoyed the discontented tranquillity of a United States +reservation, with occasional privileges if he was good. +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf had gone into the north country at the head of three hundred +efficient fighting men, well armed with rifles, rich in ammunition, +ponies, and the luxuries of daily existence. He came back as the +nominal chief of thirty-five warriors, with few firearms, and less +wealth. Counting in the women, children, and old men, his original +band had numbered nearly a thousand souls—a large camp even for the +old days. Now there remained barely a tenth of that number. +</P> + +<P> +Misfortunes such as these must have a reason. Gitche Manitou is stern, +but he is not unjust. Everybody knows that. And the reason Lone +Wolf's band was so afflicted, Big Thunder, the medicine man, had +discovered, lay in the fact that the defiling of the tribe's token, +after the Little Big Horn, had been done by a member of the tribe +itself. Until the culprit should be brought to justice the wrath of +Gitche Manitou would continue to be visited impartially on the entire +band. +</P> + +<P> +The recognition of Rippling Water made a profound impression on those +standing about. There flashed into Lone Wolf's eagle face a gleam of +satisfaction so intense that Black Mike started. He had not the +remotest notion that he was in any actual danger, for his dealings with +the tribe in those old times when he had been a member of it had always +been rather to its advantage than to his own. That it was unfriendly +to him because of his unceremonious desertion of it, he did not doubt. +Nor did he hope to escape a typical Indian tirade from the two old hags +who, so short a time ago, had been his not unattractive young wives. +But beyond this, and perhaps—as he glanced over the motley indications +of their poverty—the promise of gifts, he anticipated nothing more +serious in the end than a delay. A delay, however, was what he could +not at present afford. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, well," he acknowledged in the Indian tongue, "I am he, +Man-who-speaks-Medicine. You have known me. It is I. It is many +moons that I have not seen my brothers, but I have accomplished many +things, and I have gathered gifts for my brothers which will rejoice +their hearts. I go to the lodges of the white men near Swift-water +now, and I haste; so I cannot linger to clasp my brothers' hands; but +to-morrow I return bearing the gifts." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-330"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-330.jpg" ALT=""MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED." BORDER="2" WIDTH="782" HEIGHT="517"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 782px"> +"MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED. +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +He took up his reins with all confidence, for in those days no one was +afraid of Indians—at least when they were accompanied by their women +and children. The two bucks at the horses' heads did not move, +however; and at a signal from Lone Wolf three others leaped lightly +into the wagon-body behind the half-breed and pinned his arms to his +sides. So suddenly was it done that Lafond could not even struggle. +</P> + +<P> +His captors tied his elbows together at the back and lifted him to the +ground, where a number of others hustled him into a wigwam, and after +tying his feet left him lying on the ground. In a moment he heard the +faint sound of wheels somewhere above him, by which he knew that Billy +Knapp and Buckley were passing the point of his intended ambush. He +drew a deep breath and shouted. Instantly two young Sioux ran in and +threw a blanket over his head, nearly smothering him. The sound of the +wheels died into distance. +</P> + +<P> +After perhaps two hours he heard the hoof-beats of a large party of +horsemen. They, too, died away. The men composing the party were +looking for him, Michaïl Lafond, but this he did not know. He tried to +distinguish from the noises just outside what was taking place in the +little camp, but he could not. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of another half-hour the two young men who had been +appointed as his guards led him out to a horse, on which, after his +feet had been untied, he was compelled to mount. He asked them +questions, to which they vouchsafed no reply. Looking about him +curiously, he saw that the camp had been struck. The long teepee +poles, bound on each side of the ponies, trailed their ends on the +ground, and on the litters thus formed, the skins of the lodges, all +the household utensils, and many of the younger children had been +placed. Squaws bestrode the little animals. The warriors, +ridiculously incongruous in their overalls and flannel shirts, sat +motionless on their mounts. Lafond recognized his own team, but could +not discover either his wagon or the harness. These had been dragged +away into the bushes and left, for very good reasons. +</P> + +<P> +The cavalcade took its way directly down the narrow, overgrown little +cañon, riding in single file. Lafond could not understand this. The +road above would have been much easier. +</P> + +<P> +After an hour's hard work in dodging obstructions, getting around +fallen trees or between standing timber, the party emerged on the +broad, rolling foothills, grass-covered and bare of trees. Here Lone +Wolf led the way south-east for several miles, and finally came to a +halt on the brow of a round hill of gentle descent. The band at once +dismounted. A number of the squaws deftly relieved the ponies of their +burdens, and the younger boys led them away to the bottom-lands for +pasture. The women then began without delay to erect the lodges in a +wide circle surrounding the brow of the hill, so arranging them that +the flaps or doorways opened into the common centre. After this had +been done, they built in the middle of the circle a huge fire of wood +brought from the Hills, but did not light it as yet. Then all silently +disappeared to the bottom-lands, where they made little fires and set +about supper. +</P> + +<P> +Before each lodge a warrior established himself, crosslegged, and began +to smoke. When the sun dipped behind the Hills and threw their long +shadows silently out across to the Bad Lands, the chill of twilight +struck in, and so the Indians wrapped themselves closely in their +blankets. As by a stroke of enchantment, with the concealment of the +shirts and overalls, the Past returned. Against the sky of evening, +the silhouettes of the pointed wigwams and the suggestion of the +shrouded warriors smoking solemnly, silently, their pipes, all belonged +to the nomadic age before such men as Michaïl Lafond had "civilized" +the country. +</P> + +<P> +After a time they rose and departed silently to the bottom-land for a +while, leaving Lafond in charge of the two young men. They had gone to +eat their suppers. The half-breed had not tasted food since the early +morning, nor slept for thirty odd hours. +</P> + +<P> +The stars came out one by one, and the stillness of that great inland +sea men call the prairies fell on the world. Such occasional sounds as +rose from the creek bottom seemed but to emphasize the peace. And then +suddenly, from the shadows somewhere, without disturbance, the +blanketed figures appeared and took their places again. A squaw came +bearing a torch, and lit the fire in the centre of the circle, and +there sprang up a broad shaft of light which drew about the little +scene a great canopy of imminent blackness. From hand to hand passed a +great red-stone calumet or pipe. Each warrior puffed at it twice and +passed it to his neighbor. It was not offered to Michaïl Lafond, whose +bonds had now been loosened. +</P> + +<P> +After each of the seated warriors had taken his part in this ceremony, +and the pipe had completed the circle to Lone Wolf, that chief arose, +throwing back his blanket from his shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +With a sudden chill of fear, Michaïl Lafond saw that he was to assist +at a state council of the sort held only when the tribe is to sit in +judgment on one of its own number. +</P> + +<P> +The savage was naked to the waist. In his hair, worn loose and +unbraided after the Sioux fashion, three eagle feathers with white tips +were thrust slantwise across the back of his head; and under its heavy +mass his fierce bright eyes and hawk face gleamed impressively. About +his neck hung a fringe of bears' claws, from which depended a round +silver medal. Now as he stood there—the lithe strength of his bronze +torso revealed one arm clasping the blanket about his waist, the other +holding loosely at his side the feather-bedecked calumet of +sandstone—the stigma of sordidness and drunkenness and squalor seemed +to fall away, so that the spectator would have seen in this group of +silent men under the silent western heavens only the pomp and pride of +a great and savage people in the zenith of its power. +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf stood for the space of several minutes without a sign. Then +with a magnificently sweeping gesture he held the calumet aloft and +began to speak. +</P> + +<P> +At first his voice was low and monotonous, but as his speech continued +it took on more color, until at the close it responded in modulation to +every flash of his eye. He began with a recital of the tribe's ancient +glory, dwelling rather on concrete examples than on broader +generalities. He numbered its warriors, its ponies, its arms, and +lodges. He told of the beauty of its women and the greatness of its +men, whom he ran over by name. He told of its deeds in war, +enumerating the enemies it had struck, the ponies it had stolen, the +stratagems it had conceived and carried out. And then he swept his arm +and the feather-fluttering calumet abroad as he described the boundless +extent of the hunting grounds over which it had used to roam. As he +continued, the warriors' expressive eyes brightened and flashed with +pride, though they moved not one muscle of their faces or bodies. +Beyond the circle could be dimly descried another not less interested +audience of women and older children. +</P> + +<P> +"These and more were ours!" cried Lone Wolf, "these and many more. The +favor of Gitche Manitou was ours and the riches of the world. Where +are they now?" With an indescribably graceful gesture the orator +stooped to the ground and grasped a handful of the loose dry earth. +"Gone!" he said solemnly, letting the sand fall from his outstretched +suddenly opened palm. +</P> + +<P> +Then, without pause or transition, he began, in equally vivid objective +language, to detail the tribe's misery and poverty of to-day. He +recounted its disasters, just as a moment before he had recounted its +victories. He told of the Spotted Sickness, the dividing of forces, +the battle with the red coats, all the long series of oppressions great +and little which had brought them to their present condition. He +counted over by name the present members, to show how their numbers had +shrunken, and to each name he added others of those who had gone +before. So real was the picture that the orator himself faltered, +while from outside the circle rose for a single instant a long +trembling wail. The warriors had half covered their faces with the +folds of their blankets. +</P> + +<P> +"Thus our glory went and our young men are seen no longer on the war +path, but only in the white men's towns. And yet our fathers were +brave before us and we have struck well in our time. Why is this so? +Why has Gitche Manitou veiled his face from his children?" +</P> + +<P> +Leaving the question unanswered, Lone Wolf unexpectedly took up +Lafond's connection with the tribe. In the recounting of this, too, he +held to the greatest minuteness of detail, showing plainly the +half-breed's rise from despised squaw man to a person of influence in +the councils. He gave the half-breed full credit for all he did. He +even went out of his way to show that to Lafond was due much of the +power that had so distinguished the Brulé Sioux among the other tribes. +He described again briefly that power, and told of the battle of the +Little Big Horn. He dwelt on that as to some extent the culmination of +the tribe's glory. It was the last and greatest of its exploits. +After it misfortune commenced. Gitche Manitou that day veiled his face. +</P> + +<P> +"And he turned his hand against the totem of the Turtle," said Lone +Wolf impressively, "because one of its children had committed a +sacrilege. The very night of that great victory, a brave from among us +arose and took the sacred totem, the great Turtle, from the lodge of +his chief, and slew Buffalo Voice, the medicine man favored of Gitche +Manitou, and defiled the totem. +</P> + +<P> +"From that time Gitche Manitou has frowned upon his children. From +that time misfortune has visited the tribe of Lone Wolf. From that +time the man who did these things has lost his old warrior name and has +been known as the Defiler." +</P> + +<P> +He paused and looked about the circle until his eye rested on Lafond. +With a sudden fierce enmity he stretched his arm toward the captive. +</P> + +<P> +"That is he," he concluded impressively; "and it has been revealed by +Big Thunder that never will Gitche Manitou smile on his children until +the Defiler dies!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap37"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXXVII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +ASHES +</H4> + +<P> +A light night wind had arisen from the lower prairie, and occasionally +puffed a stray wisp of smoke or heat across the westernmost curve of +the circle. Hot sparks shot up in the air swiftly, paused, and floated +dying down the wind. Above, occasionally, the clear stars peeped in +through the canopy of blackness which the firelight so jealously +guarded. There was a perceptible chill in the air. As the long speech +continued and drew to a close, the half-breed, seated on the prairie +side of the fire, shivered convulsively from time to time, for he was +now almost exhausted by excitement and lack of sleep and food. At +first he had submitted to the trial, if so it might be called, +unwillingly enough, to tell the truth, but without a suspicion that it +could result in anything more serious than a fine for desertion. It +might almost be looked upon as a ransom, and this he was willing to +pay. His principal emotion had been that of frantic chafing because, +for the present, Jim Buckley and Billy Knapp were free to make trouble +for him. He had no doubt they would do so, although he did not know +exactly how they would go at it. +</P> + +<P> +As Lone Wolf so dramatically outlined the grounds of his accusation, +however, Lafond really began to see the face of fear. He gathered that +the very night he had chosen to quit the tribe, some one had killed the +tribe's medicine man and defiled the totem in a way not to be mentioned +here. This is with Indians the Unforgiveable Sin. Suspicion had +naturally coupled the sacrilege with his own coincidental +disappearance. Probably even at the time no one had doubted his guilt +or had suspected any other cause for his desertion. The real criminal +had been able easily to cover his trail; and now, so many years would +have hardened even a slight suspicion, let alone a positive certainty, +into conviction absolute. Lafond saw that his chances were desperate, +and yet so suddenly was the knowledge forced upon him that he could +hardly realize it. But a few hours before, he had held in the hollow +of his hand more power than any other one man in the territory. Now he +was in danger of his life. +</P> + +<P> +He knew well enough that his only chance lay in keeping cool. He must +not interrupt the orator with denials. He must try to make his +eloquence tell. +</P> + +<P> +Lone Wolf ceased abruptly, drew his blanket about his shoulders and sat +down. Two squaws noiselessly entered the circle, bearing wood for the +fire. After they had withdrawn, Lafond rose to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +He was at once uncomfortably conscious of the circle of snake eyes. It +was for him the predominant note in the scene. +</P> + +<P> +He began haltingly, partly because he did not know what to say, partly +because long disuse had impaired his fluency in the Indian tongue. But +in a moment, as he began to realize that he was now in the act of +making the only plea for his life which his captors would permit him, +his speech quickened until it was as rapid as that of Lone Wolf himself. +</P> + +<P> +It was a masterly effort, for Lafond had not lost the old eloquence +which had earned him the name of "Man-who-speaks-Medicine." He +reviewed, as had Lone Wolf, his services to the tribe. He did it +modestly, stating plainly the facts and leaving the savages to draw +their own conclusions. He showed further that in so bending his +efforts to the tribe's betterment, he had been actuated by no selfish +motives, in proof of which proposition he enumerated one by one the +various opportunities he had let pass of decamping enriched beyond any +one warrior's dreams of wealth; to which proposition he further pointed +out as a corollary that he had in reality departed with but his own +weapons and the clothes on his back. This made an impression. Having +thus established his disinterestedness as regards his services to the +tribe, he went on further to show that these argued, furthermore, an +intense personal interest in its welfare. He loved his people. He +challenged them to cite one of his deeds which would bear the contrary +construction. +</P> + +<P> +And then, with a boldness that almost amounted to genius, he drew +before them vividly that night on the battlefield when he had so long +contemplated the fallen white chief, and he detailed to them the +reasons he had then for believing the Indians' warlike power was from +that moment doomed to wane. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw these things," he said, "as one to whom Gitche Manitou had +spoken, and I knew they were true. But my brothers were victorious; +they saw the blue coats scattered as the dust is scattered by the wind. +My words would have been as the water that slips away or the cloud that +vanishes in the heavens. If I had told my brothers these things, they +would not have believed. You, Spotted Dog; you, Firebrand; even you, +Lone Wolf, would not have believed. Look well within your hearts and +acknowledge that I speak words of truth. Then you would have cast me +out as one with forked tongue." +</P> + +<P> +Such being the case, Lafond argued that, inasmuch as he could do +nothing for his people by sharing their disgrace, he had left them. +"But only for a season," he explained. "You are warriors: I am a man +of craft. When your bows are broken and your arrows lost, then must I +take my weapons and strive as I can. I went forth to fight for my +brothers. Behold me; I have fought and I have won. I am rich. My +brothers are to share my riches. Now I can return to the lodges of my +brothers as one coming from a far war trail, bringing the ponies and +scalps of the enemies my hand has struck." +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly the speaker took up the question of the crime itself. He +dilated on it with horror. He acknowledged no excuse for it. But, he +asked them, why should he have committed it? He showed them that he +could have had no motive for such a wanton insult. And, most ingenious +of all, he pointed out that if, as Lone Wolf had supposed, the tribe's +misfortunes had arisen because of Gitche Manitou's wrath over this +terrible crime, then that wrath and those misfortunes would indubitably +have been visited on him, the accused, with the rest; for he was a +member of the tribe, and according to the accusation the guiltiest of +them all. Such was not the case. On the contrary he had prospered. +</P> + +<P> +In conclusion he believed he could direct suspicion to the right +channel. From his wonderful past knowledge of inter-tribal and +individual jealousies, he rapidly constructed a plausible theory. +</P> + +<P> +His defence, as he could observe, made a profound impression. The +savages sat silent and thoughtful while the minutes slipped by, and the +wavering light from the central fire alternately illuminated and threw +into shadow the strong bronze of their faces. The argument was +sophistical enough, but for two reasons it carried conviction. In the +first place, the half-breed was pleading for his very life; in the +second place, he was in reality absolutely innocent as to the main +facts. Therefore he had faith and earnestness—two great qualities. +His only misfortune was, that the exigencies of the situation demanded +that in the web of truth one falsehood should be woven. +</P> + +<P> +Beyond the circle of light the dim forms of the women and children +showed faintly against the dimmer background of the sea-like prairie. +They had followed with great attention the deliberations before them, +but in silence and with decorum, as is proper in such cases. Now +suddenly one of them slipped forward through the circle before her +companions or the warriors between whom she passed could detain her. +Before the fire she turned and faced Lone Wolf. It was the old hag who +had first recognized Lafond. +</P> + +<P> +The warriors looked on her in cold surprise. Such a thing as a woman +intruding on a council was unheard of, unthinkable, punishable by +almost any penalty. +</P> + +<P> +"My daughter has been deceived," said Lone Wolf gravely. "This is not +a gathering of the women. She must go." +</P> + +<P> +She did not seem to hear him, but broke out panting as soon as she +could get her breath. +</P> + +<P> +"My brothers listen to forked words!" she cried, "and the spirit of +lies has blinded them, so that they cannot see the truth. They are +deceived by much lying because it is mingled with the truth, like +tobacco and willow bark. He says he has been on the long war trail and +now returns to his brothers with the ponies of his enemies. The trail +has indeed been long, for it is many moons since he took the ponies. +How long has he been rich?" she cried. "Many moons! Are the trails +closed that he could not find his brothers before, while they were +starving? Does he find them now because he calls to them from afar on +the war trail? It is lies! +</P> + +<P> +"And my brothers forget," she went on contemptuously, "the Yellow Hair +of the Hills and the little child. What was it this one demanded of my +brothers? To defile Pah-sap-pa by the slaying of his enemies. It was +for that he made us rich, for that he used his craft to bring us power. +It was <I>his</I> power. And when he, led my brothers up into Pah-sap-pa, +the voice of Gitche Manitou spoke to them and they went away leaving +this one's enemies unharmed, and so he was angry with my brothers and +swore to do them an injury. So he killed Buffalo Voice and defiled the +totem in order that Gitche Manitou might turn his hand against us! He +speaks forked words. Why has he not brought his gifts long before, if +what I say is not true? There has been need." +</P> + +<P> +She turned as suddenly as she had come and left the circle, again empty +except for the leaping fire. In her spoke the spirit of +relentlessness, a deserted woman. She touched with unerring instinct +on the one weak spot in Lafond's defence, and thereby discredited the +rest. Her reminder of the soreness of their need, when this renegade +brother had held out no hand to help them, hardened their hearts and +brushed from their minds like cobwebs the structure of confidence which +Lafond had so laboriously spun. Without one dissenting voice they +condemned him to death. Then the sitting arose. +</P> + +<P> +The hags of the camp advanced and stripped the half-breed naked, in +spite of his frantic struggles. They were as strong as men, and they +were glad he struggled because that indicated cowardice. Lafond was +badly unnerved; his blood was partly Latin and his consciousness of +innocence was keen. When he went into a thing with his eyes open, he +was ready to take all the consequences with stoicism, should luck turn +against him; but a feeling of guiltlessness was unusual enough to +render him desperate when unjustly condemned. So he made a pitiful +spectacle of himself. +</P> + +<P> +The old hags jeered him. They told him he had a chicken's heart, and +promised themselves the pleasure of tasting it after it was torn from +his living body. They spat in his face and pinched his arms to see him +wince. When he was stripped quite naked, they staked him out to picket +pins with rawhide bands, one to each of his four limbs. +</P> + +<P> +While this was going on, the warriors, having thrown aside their +blankets, appeared in the full lithe glory of their naked bodies. To +the accompaniment of a strange minor chant, they circled slowly around +the fire and their victim, hopping rhythmically first on one foot then +on the other, stepping high, stooping low. As they passed the +prostrate man, they struck their knives deep into the ground near his +head, for the purpose of seeing him shrink. After a little, they +became sufficiently excited, and so the tortures began. +</P> + +<P> +Toward morning the squaws wrapped in a blanket the mutilated burnt +carcass, and laid it on a litter which had been preparing while the +torture was in progress. The litter was raised in the air to the +height of ten feet, bound securely to upright poles. +Man-who-speaks-Medicine had been a member of the tribe. Whatever his +sins, he must have a tribal burial. +</P> + +<P> +Then in the grayness of the dawn the little cavalcade filed away, like +muffled phantoms, toward the east. In the sky the last stars were +flickering out. On the hill top the last embers of the fire died. A +bird high in the heavens piped up clearly for a moment, and was still. +The breeze of morning rippled over the faintly distinguished, grasses, +and stirred the drying leaves of the litter that stood like a scaffold +against the sombre shadows of the Hills. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<HR> + +<BR><BR><BR> + + +<A NAME="chap38"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +GENE STRATTON-PORTER +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. +</P> + +<P> +Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern +Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes +the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and +onward. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. +</P> + +<P> +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The +story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, +but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love +affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of +Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the +neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. +</P> + +<P> +"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had +nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. +But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance +of the rarest idyllic quality. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +FRECKLES. Illustrated. +</P> + +<P> +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which +he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs +to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. +</P> + +<P> +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty +of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. +</P> + +<P> +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The +story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. +The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and +its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated. +</P> + +<P> +A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and +humor. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. +</P> + +<P> +This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy +reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a +mother's experiences. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +SATURDAY'S CHILD. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. +</P> + +<P> +Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a +quest for happiness. She passes through three stages—poverty, wealth +and service—and works out a creditable salvation. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock. +</P> + +<P> +The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be +swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied +interests, and has her own romance. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert. +</P> + +<P> +How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted +herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE HEART OF RACHAEL. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. +</P> + +<P> +Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out +these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of +fiction's most appealing characters. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +THE NOVELS OF +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +STEWARD EDWARD WHITE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE BLAZED TRAIL. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. +</P> + +<P> +A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who +blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE CALL OF THE NORTH. Ills. with Scenes from the Play. +</P> + +<P> +The story centers about a Hudson Bay trading post, known as "The +Conjuror's House" (the original title of the book.) +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE RIVERMAN. Ills. by N. C. Wyeth and C. F. Underwood. +</P> + +<P> +The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between +honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the +other. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lejaren A. Killer. +</P> + +<P> +The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes +into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft," and comes into the +romance of his life. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +GOLD. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. +</P> + +<P> +The gold fever of '49 is pictured with vividness. A part of the story +is laid in Panama, the route taken by the gold-seekers. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE FOREST. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. +</P> + +<P> +The book tells of the canoe trip of the author and his companion into +the great woods. Much information about camping and outdoor life. A +splendid treatise on woodcraft. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE MOUNTAINS. Illustrated by Fernand Lungren. +</P> + +<P> +An account of the adventures of a five months' camping trip in the +Sierras of California. The author has followed a true sequence of +events. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE CABIN. Illustrated with photographs by the author. +</P> + +<P> +A chronicle of the building of a cabin home in a forest-girdled meadow +of the Sierras Full of nature and woodcraft, and the shrewd philosophy +of "California John." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE GRAY DAWN. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. +</P> + +<P> +This book tells of the period shortly after the first mad rush for gold +in California. A young lawyer and his wife, initiated into the gay +life of San Francisco, find their ways parted through his downward +course, but succeeding events bring the "gray dawn of better things" +for both of them. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Westerners, by Stewart Edward White + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTERNERS *** + +***** This file should be named 34399-h.htm or 34399-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/9/34399/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Westerners + +Author: Stewart Edward White + +Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34399] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTERNERS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "SHE'S MY GIRL!"] + + + + + +THE WESTERNERS + + +By + +Stewart Edward White + + + + +NEW YORK + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + + + + +Copyright, 1900 and 1901, by + +STEWART EDWARD WHITE + + + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE HALF-BREED + II. THE WOMAN + III. THE MAN WHO STOOD "99" + IV. ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER + V. LAFOND DESERTS + VI. THE WOMAN AND THE MAN + VII. THE REINS OF POWER + VIII. THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE + IX. THE BROTHER OF GODS + X. THE PRICE OF A CLAIM + XI. THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE + XII. THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS + XIII. THE DISSOLVING VIEW + XIV. INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS + XV. IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL + XVI. AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN + XVII. BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION + XVIII. TIRED WINGS + XIX. THE BROAD WHITE ROAD + XX. THE EATING OF THE APPLE + XXI. LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND + XXII. IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND + GLORIFY PETER + XXIII. A FOOL FOR LUCK + XXIV. BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND + XXV. JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT + XXVI. AND HAS TO GO TO WORK + XXVII. PROSPERITY + XXVIII. LAFOND GOES EAST + XXIX. BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES + XXX. ANCESTRAL VOICES + XXXI. LAFOND'S FIRST CARD + XXXII. IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING + XXXIII. FUTILITY + XXXIV. LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED + XXXV. OUT OF THE PAST + XXXVI. UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS + XXXVII. ASHES + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"SHE'S MY GIRL!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +A SIOUX COUNCIL + +THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!" + +"COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..." + +"WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!" + +JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT. + +"ARE YOU STILL MAD?" + +"MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED. + + + + +I + +THE HALF-BREED + +A tourist of to-day, peering from the window of his vestibule train at +the electric-lit vision of Three Rivers, as it stars the banks of the +Missouri like a constellation against the blackness of the night, would +never recognize, in the trim little modern town, the old Three Rivers +of the early seventies. + +To restore the latter, he should first of all sweep the ground bare of +the buildings which now adorn it, leaving, perhaps, here and there an +isolated old shanty of boards far advanced toward dissolution. He +would be called upon to substitute, in place of the brick stores and +dwellings of to-day, a motley collection of lean-tos, dug-outs, tents, +and shacks, scattered broadcast over the virgin prairie without the +slightest semblance of order. Where the Oriole furniture factory now +stands, he must be prepared to see--and hear--a great drove of horses +and oxen feeding on bottom-land grass. And for the latter-day +citizens, whose police record is so discouraging to the ambitious +chief, and so creditable to themselves, he must imagine a multitude +more heterogeneous, perhaps, than could be gathered anywhere else in +the world--tenderfeet from the East; mountaineers from Tennessee and +Kentucky, bearing their historic long pea rifles; soft-voiced +Virginians; keen, alert woodsmen from the North; wiry, silent trappers +and scouts from the West; and here and there a straight Indian, +stalking solemnly toward some one of the numerous "whiskey joints." +The court-house site he would find crowded with canvas wagons, noisy +with the shrill calling of women and children. Where Judge Oglethorpe +has recently erected his stone mansion, Frank Byers would be running a +well-patronized saloon. Were he to complete the picture by placing +himself mentally at the exact period of our story's opening, he would +find the whole town, if such it might be called, seething, turbulent, +eager, and--it must be confessed--ready for trouble. + +For all these varied swarms had gathered from three points of the +compass for the purpose of pushing on to the gold discoveries of the +Black Hills. They had rushed eagerly to this extremest point--and +stopped. As far as the border of the great wilderness it was possible +to journey individually; beyond that mysterious boundary nothing could +be accomplished alone. Trained scouts and plainsmen there became +necessary, and these skilled men declined to attempt the journey. + +Their reasons were simple and cogent. Throughout all of the previous +winter unusual snows had covered the pasturage to such a depth that +much of the range stock, on which the plainsman relied to draw his +heavy "schooners," had died of cold and exhaustion, while of the +survivors but an insignificant remnant was fit to travel. After +causing this damage, the snow had melted in four days, leaving the +streams swollen, and the trails in an awful state, especially in the +Bad Lands, where, in the deeper gullies, they must have been quite +washed out. As an incidental climax, piled on top to make good +measure, the Ogallalas were on the war-path; and of all the Sioux the +Ogallalas are the worst. + +Nobody gave a thought to the Ogallalas. That was part of the game. +But a blind man could see that those emaciated cattle couldn't stand +the racket. And so Three Rivers steadily congested, and the conditions +of life daily became more exacting. + +One of the many who had reached the frontier town, only to find himself +checked in his desire to push ahead, was a young man of twenty-two or +three. He had made a long journey, and he was correspondingly +disappointed when he foresaw, as his immediate prospect, a summer's +sojourn in a sun-baked, turbulent, unprofitable region. Not that he +was content with a superficial proof of its necessity. He sought the +preventing causes at the very sources of them: he examined the cattle +carefully; he questioned closely the men who knew the trails, the +fords, the Indians. When he had quite finished his patient +investigations, he swore briefly and gustily, and then went on a +three-days' spree, from which he sobered into a quiet cigarette-smoking +lounger, waiting for what might turn up. Nothing did. + +The days followed one another until a month had passed, which seemed as +long as a year. Men gambled away one another's small store of wealth, +drank away their own disappointments, shot each other's lives out +unmolested. Three spasmodic vigilance committees hanged six men by the +neck until they were dead, but speedily allowed themselves to dissolve +and the town to relapse, because of a happy combination of sheer +laziness and sympathy with the offenders. + +Rumors of an advance flew thick. They were always brought heavily to +earth by a charge of common-sense or investigation. Nevertheless, +others were speedily on the wing; and men looked at them. Ensuing +disappointment came in time to possess a cumulative force that amounted +to a dull, sullen anger against nothing in particular. + +The young man of whom mention has already been made, took his month +with an outward seeming of imperturbability, but with an increasing +inner tension. He was a tall, dark, straight young man, +broad-shouldered and clean built; strong, but with fine hands and feet. +His hair was straight and black; his features clean-cut and swarthy. +By his restless eye and a certain indefinable cast of expression you +knew him for a half-breed. He gave out his name as Michail Lafond, and +he lived much in himself. Toward the close of the troublous thirty +days, a practised observer might have noticed that his slender fingers +were rarely still. Otherwise the half-breed appeared the most +indifferent member of the community. + +His apparent idleness did not prevent him from investigating in his +painstaking manner each rumor as it took form. This was the reason +why, when finally the formation of a genuine train was undertaken by +three of the specialists known as scouts, Michail Lafond was one of the +earliest to know of it, and one of the first to apply for admission. +He owned four strong little horses of mustang stock, and a light, +two-wheeled wagon of the bob-tailed type. Most of his life had been +spent in the great Northern wilderness. He was expert in his own kind +of woodcraft, accustomed to hardships, and a good shot. In every +respect he knew himself fitted to become a member of such an expedition +as the present. He had no doubt of his acceptance. When he realized +that at last his waiting was ended, he saddled one of his horses, and +rode three miles out on the lonely prairie, where he jumped up and +down, shook his fists in the air, and screamed with delight. This was +the half-breed of it. Impassibility may be stupid or intensely +nervous. Then, all a-tremble, he rode back to where the three +specialists in question were camped, just on the border of the town, +and proffered his formal application. + +The three to whom he addressed himself were practically at the head of +their profession. It was not a profession of easy access, but one to +which only a long and dangerous apprenticeship gave admittance. Its +members were men who had lived their lives on the frontier, either as +express riders, hunters, trappers, army scouts, or as members of the +Indian tribes themselves. They were a hardy, bold, self-reliant race, +equal to all emergencies, and exacting from the men in their charge the +most implicit obedience. To their wonderful resourcefulness is due the +fact that so many comparatively weak forces were enabled to penetrate +in safety a hostile country teeming with the most treacherous and wily +foes. + +As with all crafts, they had their big men--the masters, as it +were--whose deeds they emulated, whose feats of skill and divination +they spoke of with awe, whose names they worshipped. Of such were Kit +Carson, Wild Bill, Jim Clarke, Buffalo Bill, Slade, and the three men +with whom we have to deal--Jim Buckley, Alfred, and Billy Knapp. + +Billy Knapp was dark, tall, broad-shouldered, long-haired, wearing a +bristly mustache and goatee. A stranger might have remarked his +frowning, beetling brow with a little uneasiness, but would have taken +heart from the energetic kindliness of the eyes beneath. In fact, +eager, autocratic energy was the dominant note in Billy's character. +He succeeded because this energy carried him through--with some to +spare. + +Jim Buckley was also tall and large, but he gave one less the idea of +nervous force than of a certain static power. He was a mass which +moved slowly but irresistibly. His seal-brown beard, his broad +forehead, the distance between his wide, steady eyes strengthened this +impression. One felt that his decisions would be hardly come at, but +stubbornly held. Success was inevitable, but it would be the result of +slow thinking, deep purpose, and a quiet tenacity of grip that never +let go. + +As for Alfred--everybody has heard of him. His place in the annals of +the West is assured, and his peculiarities of person and character have +been many times described. Surely no one is unfamiliar with his short, +bandy legs, his narrow, sloping little shoulders, his contracted chest, +his queer pink and white face, with its bashful smile, his high bald +head. Everybody knows his fear of women. Everybody knows, too, that +he never had an opinion of his own on any subject. His speciality was +making the best of other people's, no matter how bad they were; and +competent judges say he could accomplish a more gloriously perfect best +out of some tenderfoot's fool notion than another man with the advice +of experts. Some people even maintain that Alfred was the best scout +the plains ever produced, only he was so bashful that it took an expert +to appreciate the fact. + +When Lafond approached the camp of these men and threw himself from his +pony, he found only Jim Buckley, sitting in the shade of one of his +wagons, smoking his pipe. + +"One says that you will tak' train through thees summer," began the +half-breed abruptly. "Ah lak' to go also." + +Buckley looked his interlocutor over keenly. + +"Yes," said he slowly, between puffs. "That's right. We aims to pull +through, but we don't aim to take no lumber with us. You married?" + +Lafond shook his head. "No! No! No!" he cried vehemently. + +"That's all right. Got any cattle?" + +"Four horses." + +"That one of them?" + +"Yes." + +The scout arose, still with the same appearance of deliberation, and +inspected the pony thoroughly, with the eye and movements of an expert. + +"Others as good?" he inquired. + +"Bettaire," assured Lafond. + +"Wagon?" pursued the laconic Buckley. + +"Bobtail," responded Lafond with equal brevity. Though young, he +already possessed some shrewdness in the reading of character. + +Buckley sat down in the shade and relit his pipe. + +"Where are you from?" he asked bluntly. + +"Ontario." + +"Woods?" + +"Yes." + +"Thought you wasn't no tenderfoot. Ever hit the trail?" + +"Not on those plains. In the woods many times." + +"We ain't takin' but damn few," went on Buckley dissertatively, "and +them that goes has to be right on to their job. No women; good cattle. +That's our motto. Reckon you-all fills the bill. Cyan't tell. Got to +ask the others." + +Lafond knew that this, from a man of Buckley's stamp, was distinct +encouragement. At the moment, the other two members came up. Buckley, +in a few words, told them of the newcomer's desires and qualifications. + +Billy looked him over briefly. + +"Yo're a breed, ain't yo'?" he inquired with refreshing directness. "I +thought so." He turned to Buckley, with the air of ignoring Lafond +altogether. "That bars him," he said, with a little laugh. + +"He's got a mighty good line of broncs," Buckley objected. + +"Don't care if his hosses _are_ good," stated Billy decidedly. "He's a +breed, an' that's enough. I seen plenty of that crew, and I ain't +goin' to have one in the same country with me, if I can help it, let +alone the same outfit." + +He began to whistle and rummage in the back of the wagon, with a +charming obliviousness to the presence of the subject of his remarks. + +"That settles it," said Buckley, curtly and indifferently. + +The half-breed, his nervous hands deep in his side-pockets, walked +slowly to his horse. Then, in sudden access of rapid motion, he leaped +on the animal's back and disappeared. + + + + +II + +THE WOMAN + +Barely had the dust of the half-breed's sudden departure sifted from +the air, when Buckley arose and announced his intention of "taking a +little look round." He was gone two hours, and returned looking solemn +and earnest. Billy and Alfred were cooking things over a small fire. +Buckley spat in a propitiatory manner toward seven small bushes, and +conversationally informed the northwest corner of the canvas top on a +nearby schooner that he, Jim Buckley, had decided to take along a woman. + +Billy and Alfred thereupon spilled the coffee, and could not believe +their ears. + +"She's goin', if I have to take her by myself," Buckley concluded. And +then Alfred and Billy looked up into his face, and saw that he was in +earnest. + +Alfred turned pink and wriggled the bacon, trying immediately to think +how he was going to make the best of this. It did not look easy. + +Billy Knapp exploded. + +"You go to hell!" was his method of objection. + +"She goes," repeated Jim, with even greater quietness of manner. "An' +if you-all don' like it, why, jest say so. I quits. You got to have +her, if you have me." + +"I'd jest like to know why," complained Billy, a little sobered at this +threat. + +Whereupon Jim found himself utterly at a loss. He had not thought as +far as that. He suddenly appreciated the logical weakness of his +position; but then, again, intuitively, he realized more subtly its +strength. So he said not a word, but arose lightly, and brought unto +them the woman herself. + +She was a sweet little woman, with deep, trusting blue eyes, and she +accompanied Jim without a thought of the opposition she had excited. +Jim merely told her she was to meet the other two men. She intended +only to show her appreciation of their kindness. + +She approached the fire, and assumed her most gracious manner. + +"I want to thank you both, as well as Mr. Buckley, for being so good to +me," she began, with real feeling. "I know how hard it is for you to +take me just now, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I don't +know what we would have done. You need not be afraid that we shall be +much trouble, for we will all be brave, and not murmur. Your goodness +has made me very happy, and I am going to pray to God for you +to-night," said the little Puritan with simple reverence. It meant a +great deal to her. + +Alfred, as usual, was wrigglingly shy. Billy Knapp several times +opened his mouth to object, but somehow closed it slowly each time +without having objected. The woman saw. She thought it meant that her +presence embarrassed them both, so with true tact she wished them a +gentle good-night, and went away. + +The three looked at one another. + +"Well?" asked Jim defiantly. + +Billy coughed. He spat in the fire. He exploded. "Damn it! She +goes!" he roared with the voice of a bull. + +They both looked expectantly toward Alfred. Alfred nodded his head. +He was wondering how long it had been since anyone had prayed for him. + +"Thar is a man with her," remarked Jim, after a moment's silence. +"He's a tenderfoot. And a kid. The kid has blue eyes, too," he added +irrelevantly. + +"The camp'll be mighty riled," put in Alfred. + +"Let's go see the tenderfoot," suggested the practical Billy. + +They dropped everything, and went over to the "hotel," where they +viewed the woman's husband at a safe distance. He was a slight, bent +man, with near-sighted eyes behind thick spectacles, straight, light +hair, and a peering, abstracted expression of countenance. He wore a +rather shiny frock coat. + +"Gee Christmas!" ejaculated Billy, and laughed loudly. + +Alfred shook his head. + +Jim looked grave. + +They returned to camp, and began to discuss the question of ways and +means. There would surely be trouble when the affair became known. +The inclusion of a tenderfoot from Chicago, on account of his pinto +team, had almost resulted in a riot of the rejected. Not one of the +three was fatuous enough to imagine for a moment that Jack Snowie, for +instance, who had been refused because he wanted to take his wife, +would exactly rejoice over the scouts' decision. In fact, Jack had a +rather well-developed sense of injustice, and a summary method of +showing it. And he was by no means alone. + +Jim agreed to transport the three in his schooner, which was one point +well settled. Billy suggested at least a dozen absurd methods of +keeping the camp in ignorance until the start had actually been made, +each one of which was laughed to scorn by the practical Jim. + +"She might put on men's clothes," he concluded desperately. + +"For the love of God, what for?" inquired Jim. "Stick to sense, Billy. +Besides, there's the kid." + +Billy tried once more. + +"They might meet us 'bout a hundred mile out. He could take Jim's +schooner, here, and mosey out nor'-west, and then jest nat'rally pick +us up after we gets good and started. That way, the camp thinks he +palavers with Jim and us to get a schooner, and maybe they thinks Jim +is a damn fool a whole lot, but Jim don't mind that; do you, Jim?" + +"No, I don't mind that," said Jim, "but yore scheme's no good." + +"Why?" + +"He wouldn't get ten mile before somebody'd hold him up and lift his +schooner off him. They's a raft of bad men jest layin' fer a chance +like that to turn road agent." + +Billy turned a slow brick-red, and got up suddenly, overturning the +coffee-pot. A dozen strides brought him to the camp of the Tennessee +outfit. There he raised his voice to concert pitch. + +"We aims to pull out day arter to-morrow," he bellowed. "We also aims +to take with us two tenderfeet, a woman, and a kid. Them that has +objections can go to the devil." + +So saying, he turned abruptly on his heel and returned to his friends. +Jim whistled; but Alfred smiled softly, and began to recap the nipples +of his old-fashioned Colt's revolvers. Alfred was at that time the +best shot with a six-shooter in the middle West. + +Seeing this, Billy's frown relaxed into a grin. + +"I'm thinkin' that them that does object probably will go to the +devil," said he. + +In half an hour the news was all over camp. When Michail Lafond heard +of it, he left his dinner half eaten and went out to talk earnestly to +a great variety of people. + + + + +III + +THE MAN WHO STOOD "99" + +The three scouts would never have been able to explain satisfactorily +their reasons for being so easily persuaded, or their obstinacy in +adhering to the determination so suddenly made. Prue Welch would have +thanked a divine providence for it. The doctor, her husband, took it +as quite in the natural course of events. + +He was a queer man, the doctor, a pathetic little figure in the world's +progress--an outgrowth of it, in a certain way of thinking. + +Born of good old New England stock, he spent his studious, hard-working +boyhood on a farm. At sixteen he went to the high school, where he was +adored by his teachers because he stood ninety-nine in algebra. +Inconsequently, but inevitably, this rendered him shy in the presence +of girls, and unwarrantably conscious of his hands and feet. So, when +he went to college, he spent much time in the library, more in the +laboratory, and none at all in the elemental little chaos of a world +that can do so much for the wearers of queer clothes and queerer habits +of thought. He graduated, a spectacled grind, bowed of shoulder, +straight of hair, earnest of thought. + +Much reading of abstract speculation had developed in him a reverence +for the impractical that amounted almost to obsession. Given a bit of +useless information and a chunk of solid wisdom, he would at once +bestow his preference on the former, provided, always, it were +theoretical enough. He knew the dips of strata from their premonitary +surface wiggles to their final plunges into unknown and heated depths. +He could deliver to you a cross-section of your pasture lot, streaked +like the wind-clouds of early winter; and he could explain it in the +most technical language. Nothing rock-ribbed and ancient escaped him +in his frequent walks. He saw everything--except, perchance, the +beauty that clothes the rock-ribbed and ancient as a delicate aura, +invisible to the eye of science--and he labelled what he saw, and +ticketed it away in the pigeon-holes of his many-chambered mind, where +he could put his finger on it at any given moment in the easiest +fashion in the world. + +It is very pleasant to know where the Paleozoic has faulted, and how; +or why the stratifications of the ice age do not show glacial scorings +in certain New England localities. To verify in regard to lamination +green volumes of obese proportions, or to recognize the projection into +the geological physical world of the thought of a master, this is fine, +is noble; this makes to glow the kindly light in spectacled blue eyes. + +Adoniram Welch left college with many honors. He returned to his +little New England village, and for a space was looked upon as a local +celebrity. This is a bad thing for most youths, but Adoniram it +affected not at all. It availed only to draw upon him, in sweet +contemplation, another pair of blue eyes, womanly, serious blue eyes, +under a tangle of curly golden hair. + +And so, although Prue Welch was a homely name, and Prue Winterborne a +beautiful one, when Adoniram accepted the chair of geology offered him +by his alma mater, the owner of the blue eyes went with him, and the +new professor's thick spectacles somehow glowed with a kindly warmth, +which even fine specimens of the finest fossils had never been able to +kindle. He settled down into a little white house, in a little +blossomy "yard," under a very big, motherly elm, and gave his days to +the earnest mental dissection of the cuticle of the globe. His wife +attacked the problem of life on six hundred dollars a year. + +Now, from this state of affairs sprang two results. The professor +evolved a theory, and Mrs. Professor, although she did not in the least +understand what it was all about, came to believe in it, to champion +it, to consider it quite the most important affair of the age. The +professor thought so, too; and so they were happy and united. + +The theory was a tremendous affair, having to do with nothing less than +the formation of our continent. It was revolutionary in the extreme, +but shed such illumination in hitherto dark corners of this and allied +subjects that its probability, _prima facie_, was practically assured. +To Prue Welch it seemed to be quite so; but the inexorable eye of +science discerned breaks in the chain of continuity, gaps in the +procession of proofs, which, while not of vast importance in a specious +argument designed to furnish with peptonized intellectual pabulum the +more frivolous-minded layman, nevertheless sufficed to destroy utterly +its worth as a serious hypothesis. These breaks, the professor +explained, could never be filled except by actual field-work. The +proper field, he assured her, was the country of the Black Hills of +South Dakota, then as distant as the antipodes. He proved this +scientifically. Prue agreed, but did not understand. A number of +years later she did understand, from hearing Billy Knapp joking with +Alfred. + +"These yar hills," said Billy, "was made last. The Lo'd had a little +of everything left when he'd finished the rest, so he chucked it down +on the prairie, an' called it the Black Hills." + +However, the mere fact of her comprehension mattered not one iota. If +Adoniram said a thing was so, to Prue its truth at once became age-old. + +So it happened that the great theory hung fire wofully, and the country +of their dreams came to lie beyond the frontier wilderness, whose tide +was but just beginning to ebb back from the pine woods of Wisconsin and +the oak openings of Illinois. This was finality. What lay beyond they +did not trouble to inquire. The professor sighed the sigh of patient +abnegation. The professor's wife believed, with beautiful trust, that +a divine providence would provide, and that with the earth-wide fame +that must accrue to the author of _New World Erosions_ would come added +opportunity for added reputation. + +For a number of years the kind-hearted little professor looked +steadfastly out of the window during examinations in geology, and +turned a resolute deaf ear to the rustling of leaves as the despairing +student manipulated a cleverly concealed volume. For a number of years +he came home at four o'clock in the afternoon, and feverishly corrected +blue books until six, in order to ransom from professional duties the +whole of the precious evening. For a number of years he consulted +authorities in German and other difficult languages, and waxed ever +more enthusiastic over the new theory of erosions. During the interim +the baby learned to walk, and Prue's belief in its father strengthened, +if such a thing were possible. In time the professor and his wife grew +to be quite old. He looked every bit of his thirty, and she was an +aged dowager of twenty-five. Little Miss Prue was just two and a half. + +One day, early in the spring, the professor was called to the door of +his class-room to receive a telegram. He read it quietly, then +dismissed his class, and went home. + +"Prue," said he to his wife, "my father has just died. I must go up +there at once, for he was all I had left in the world, and it is not +seemly that I should be from his side." + +You can see from his manner of speech that the professor had by now +read a great many bookish books. + +"We will go together," replied Prue. + +So they put away mortality in the old Puritan fashion, standing +wistful, but tearless, hand in hand, on the hither side of grief; for +though in perspective the figure of the old New Englander loomed with a +certain gloomy and ascetic grandeur, in the daily contact he had always +held himself sternly and straitly in fear of God. For him the twin +lamps of Science and Love had burned but darkly. + +Adoniram Welch found himself sole heir of a few thousands and the old +home. + +On the way back to the college town, they planned the Western trip. +The professor was to resign his chair at once. He and Mrs. Prue and +little Miss Prue would travel by rail to Kansas or Iowa, there to join +one of the wagon-trains which now, in the height of the first great +gold excitement, continually braved savage warfare and brute thirst to +gain the dark shadows of the hills. + +During the next three weeks, Prue was a busy woman. The professor +resigned, becoming thereby only "the doctor"; had an explanatory +interview with the president of the college, and gave himself over to a +series of delightful potterings. He pottered about among his +belongings, and personally superintended just how everything was not +stowed away. He pottered about among the faculty, to the members of +which he talked mysteriously with ill-concealed exultation, for the +theory was also a secret. He lovingly packed his books and papers and +a small portion of his clothes, all of which Prue had to hunt out and +repack. Altogether, he had a delightful, absent-minded time, seeing in +the actual world no further than the end of his nose, but in the +visionary world of his most technical hopes far beyond the farthest +star. + +But Prue had a New England village to answer; she had the family's +belongings to take care of--no great task in itself; she had little +Miss Prue to oversee. Grave men who were professors of astronomy, or +Greek antiquities, or Hebrew, and who, therefore, knew all about it, +told her, in language of whose correctness Addison would have been +proud, that the aborigines of the American plains were bloodthirsty in +the extreme. Fluttering women detailed anecdotes of sudden death at +the hands of Indians. One and all bade her good-by with the firm +conviction, openly expressed, that she would never return; upon which +all whom weeping became wept, while others displayed their best +handkerchiefs as a sort of defiant substitute for more open emotion. +Prue saw the little town fade into distance with mingled feelings, of +which terror was the predominant, until her husband explained to her, +by the aid of an airy little octavo which he had stuffed into an +inadequate bag, that Professor Nincomb's theory of glacial action was +not only false, but would be conclusively proved to be so by the new +theory of erosion. At this she brightened. Prue owned to a vague +impression that glacial action had something to do with the North Pole, +so the argument _per se_ had little weight with her. But Prue was a +New Englander, and devout in the New England fashion, and she settled +back on Divine Providence with great thankfulness. She argued that no +scheme of things could dispense ruthlessly with so wonderful an affair +as the theory of erosions. Therefore the scheme of things would take +care of the only possessor of the theory. Indians lost their terrors, +she and little Miss Prue fell asleep together, leaving the doctor still +poring excitedly over the octavo of Professor Nincomb. + +Their first serious difficulties were encountered at Three Rivers. Of +course, in the circumstances, the mild little doctor quite failed in +his attempts to secure transportation. How should he, a scientist, +know or care anything about gold excitements? The hustle confused him, +the crowd stunned him, the fierce self-reliance and lack of +consideration of these rough men alarmed him. + +He came back to the board hotel very much discouraged. "There is not a +conveyance of any sort to be found," he informed Mrs. Prue, "and there +is great difficulty in estimating the precise duration of the present +state of affairs. It may continue into next summer; or so, at least, I +was informed by a very estimable person." + +That was unbearable. Think of little Miss Prue being required, in the +third year of her diminutive life, to face the heat of the plains in +midsummer! Think of the cost of living a twelvemonth in such a place +as Three Rivers! Prue put on her hat and went out into the turbulent +camp. Until that moment she had deemed it wisest to remain in her room. + +She was greeted only with respect. Men paused and looked after her. +You see, Prue had such grave, calm eyes, that looked straight at you +with so much confidence; and such a sensitive, serious mouth, that +argued such a capacity for making up quiet opinions of people--and +acting on them--that you were always very much inclined to take off +your hat, even if you were Tony Quinn and middling drunk. It was not +ten minutes before she had corroborated the doctor's bad news; but she +had also heard incidentally of Billy Knapp, Alfred, and Buckley. The +hotel-keeper pointed out the latter--that quiet man with the brown +beard. Prue went straight to him and stated her case. + +In the statement she laid great stress on the importance of the dip of +strata. If the doctor did not get to work before long, he would be +unable to finish his explorations before his means had become +exhausted. Prue waxed quite technical. She used a number of long +words and a few long phrases, hoping thus to awe the calm and +contemplative individual in front of her. + +Buckley did not comprehend the reasons. He did comprehend the +unutterable eloquence of the eyes, for though her logic went for naught +with the scout, it succeeded nevertheless in impressing Prue herself, +in bringing more vividly before her the importance of it all. She +clasped her hands, and tears choked her. When she had finished, Jim +said gravely that she should go. + + + + +IV + +ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER + +Michail Lafond merely spread the news, and made it a subject of +discussion. In his statements he said nothing of his own grievance, +nor did he suggest a plan. He knew that this was not a case for +violence, nor did he care that it should become such. His actions +always depended very much on how an impulse hit his queerly constructed +nature. In the present instance he might either resolve to get even +with Billy Knapp by means of personal vengeance, or his anger might +take the direction of a cold, set determination to get through the +plains journey in spite of the scout's prohibition. That the latter, +rather than the former course happened to appeal to him, was purely a +matter of chance. So, though he said little to the direct point, the +plan finally adopted in secret by a choice few had a good deal of his +desire mingled in its substance. + +The quiescence of the camp astonished and puzzled the three scouts. +They had expected an outbreak, and were prepared for it. It did not +come. + +The three days slipped by; everything was packed; and early in the +morning, before the dawn's freshness had left the air, the little band +defiled across the prairie. A curious crowd gathered sleepily to watch +it go, but there was no demonstration. Billy openly congratulated +himself. Alfred looked to see that his revolvers were still capped. + +The party comprised an even dozen "schooners," each drawn by four tough +ponies. Besides these, a dozen men rode on horseback. On occasion, +their mounts could be pressed into draft service. The men themselves +were a representative lot; tall, bronzed, silent. They had taken part +in the fierce Indian wars, then just beginning to lull; they had ridden +pony-express with Wild Bill; they had stalked revenue officers in the +mountains of Tennessee. As they strode with free grace beside their +teams, or sat, with loose-swaying shoulders, their wiry little broncos, +they drew to themselves in the early light the impressiveness of an +age--the age of pioneers. + +At their head rode Billy Knapp. At their rear rode Jim Buckley. +Alfred was a little of everywhere at once. As a matter of habit, these +three carried their rifles cross-fashion in front of them, but the new +Winchesters and the old long-barrelled pieces of the other score of men +were still slung inside the canvas covers, for the Indian country was +yet to see. Beneath the axles hung pails. The wagons contained much +food, a good supply of ammunition, and a scanty equipment of the +comforts of life. In one of them were three wooden boxes, two trunks, +the doctor, Mrs. Prue, and little Miss Prue herself, laughingly proud +at being allowed to dangle along the dew-wet grass the heavy coil of a +black snake whip. + +The men shouted suddenly, the horses leaned to their collars, the +wagons creaked, and the swaying procession began to loom huge and +ghost-like in the mist that steamed golden-white from the surface of +the prairie. + +Then, from the haze of the town, six more wagons silently detached +themselves, and followed in the wake of the first. + +This second caravan differed from the other in that it deployed no +outriders, and from the close-drawn canvas of its wagons came, once in +a while, the sharp cry of a child, followed immediately by the +comforting of a woman. The men drove from the seats, and across the +lap of each was a weapon. + +About five miles out, the first caravan halted until the second drew +nearer. Billy Knapp cantered back to it. One of the men in the +foremost wagon thereupon clamped the brake and jumped to the ground, +where he stood, leaning on the muzzle of his big mountaineer's rifle, +chewing a nonchalant plug. + +"What's this?" demanded Billy, reining in his horse. + +The man shifted his quid. + +"Nawthin'," he drawled, "'xcept that this yare outfit's a-goin' too." + +Billy's eyes snapped. + +"We settled all thet afore," said he, with outward calm. + +"This yare outfit's a-goin' too," reiterated the man. + +"The hell it is!" cried the scout angrily. "We all said no women and +no poor hosses, and that goes. Yore hosses are a lot of crowbait, +and----" + +"The women is women as is women," cried another voice, "and not yore +leetle white-faced, yaller-haired sort that'd keel over if yo' said boo +to her!" + +During the laconic dialogue, the schooners had gradually drawn nearer, +until now they were grouped in a rough crescent around the two men. +Billy looked up to see a tall woman in blue gingham haranguing him from +behind one of the seats. + +"I reckon if she can go, we can; and you jest chalk that down, Mr. +Speckleface!" she went on. Billy was slightly pockmarked. + +Other canvas flaps opened, and the audience was increased by half. + +"We're goin'," went on the woman, "whether you want us to or not; an' +what's more, you got t' take care of us in the Injun country, an' if +you don't I'll curse you from the grave, you white-livered, no 'count +cradle robber, you! Folks has some rights on the plains, an' you know +it jest's well as I do, an' if you think you can shake yore ole pals +for a lot of no 'count tenderfeet, an' not find trouble, you jest fools +yoreself up a lot, let me tell you that. If Dave yere had th' sperrit +of a coyote, he'd fix you, Mr. Seoul!" with vast contempt. + +"You men are all alike! A pretty face----" began the virago again, but +Billy had fled at speed. + +The man, who had been chuckling silently, spat and threw the rifle into +the hollow of his arm. + +"Good for you, Susie," he remarked. + +"You shut up!" replied Susie with acerbity, and retired within. The +man had yet to learn that one should never voluntarily step within the +notice of an angry woman. + +The two wagon-trains proceeded as before--one behind the other by about +half a mile. + +At intervals Billy or Jim went back to expostulate. They might be able +to undertake the responsibility of one woman, hardly of nine! But they +never got a hearing, as all the conversation was vituperative and +one-sided. + +Alfred led the party to a deep, swift crossing of the Platte. By the +aid of the extra ponies the ford was made without loss. The second +party had a hard struggle, but emerged dripping and triumphant. + +Billy and Jim were again put to rout in an attempt at mere verbal +dissuasion. + +Alfred took them roundabout through a piece of country, cut and gullied +by rains. Some hills they climbed by the help of long ropes. The +second party dragged their wagons up singly, using all their animals to +each wagon. They lost some time, but the evening of the day following +they strung out in the rear as imperturbably as ever. Alfred ordered +all the riders into the wagons, and, by alternating the ponies, made +forced marches, hoping thus to shake the others off. The others, +however, discovering that Alfred's party had been doubling and twisting +through the worst country, detached a single rider, whose business it +was to search out the directest and easiest route. Thus they caught +up. Alfred discovered it too late, for they were now on the borders of +the Indian country. + +Here a serious problem presented itself. The second party had, up to +now, made no attempt to close in and join forces. On entering the +Indian country, they would certainly do so. The question was, whether +they should be resisted or received. + +If they were not repulsed, could they be brought through successfully? +If they were resisted, would the resistance be effective? One thing or +the other must be decided immediately, for, whatever the policy +adopted, it must be a settled policy before entering hostile ground. + +In the contest of endurance, the score of men comprising the main party +had taken part amusedly. They were under the command of the scouts. +When the scouts ordered speed, speed was made. When they said to climb +hills, hills were climbed. When they advised difficult fords, the +difficulties of crossing were overcome. If the other train had trouble +keeping up with the procession, why, that was good enough fun. But +actual resistance was a different matter. After all, according to +their lights, these other men were entirely in the right. They had +been excluded from the expedition, on the basis of a rule which had +been agreed to after some grumbling; and now that the rule had been +broken by the very framers of it, there seemed to be no longer fair +grounds of exclusion; and therefore a certain rough sense of justice +inclined them to take sides with the bearers of the pea rifles in the +rear. At the same time, they felt the truth of Billy's statement, that +it would be impossible to get so unwieldy a caravan over the rough +country and through the dangers to come. So, seeing reason on both +sides, they maintained a guarded neutrality. + +Resistance being out of the question, the three next considered the +other horn of the dilemma. Alfred rode over to examine the prospective +addition to the party. He found the animals in poor condition, partly +because of the forced marches he had himself imposed. In his opinion +they would not last out the journey, and he so reported, to the great +consternation of the other two. + +While they lamented, Prue came up and heard a part. She demanded the +whole, and they told her frankly. The heroine of romance, realizing +herself the cause of the trouble, would have offered to return with the +other women, and so the whole question would have been resolved; but +Prue was only a very nice little woman, in love with her husband. Her +chief concern was not the triumph of eternal justice, but whether the +whole expedition would come to nothing. She pondered. + +"If you can't keep them from going with us, and if you can't get +through if they do go with us," she said finally, "it seems to me that +the only way to fix it would be to do something so they couldn't +go"--with which vague hint this Puritan looked wickedly at them all, +and went away, clinching her small hands with anger. From the hint, +they made a plan to which all three agreed. + +Next morning Jim roused the camp an hour earlier than usual, and +insisted on an immediate departure. The horses were hitched, and the +breakfast things put away. Then Alfred rode over to the other camp, +with Jim and Billy following at a little distance. + +People start a camp on the plains, in a safe country, by arranging the +wagons in a rough semicircle. Behind this semicircle the horses are +hobbled, and left to graze. In front of it the cooking-fire is built. +During the night, besides the regular sentinels, one man is assigned to +ride herd, but this is unnecessary in full daylight; so at breakfast +the horses are left to graze quite unprotected. In a hostile country, +picket ropes and more care are needed. This party had so hobbled +twenty-four animals--four for each wagon, which is a scant supply. + +Alfred cantered rapidly up to the herd from the east. He had made a +long detour, so as to approach in the eye of the sun. With the twelve +chambers of his revolvers he killed eleven horses. As I have said, +Alfred was one of the best pistol shots in the middle West; After this, +he put spurs to his mount, and shot away like an arrow in the direction +of his own camp. + +The unsuspicious mountaineers, at breakfast, did not gather their wits +until too late. Then eight of them leaped fiercely upon some of the +remaining animals, and pursued the wagon-train, which, under the +frantic urging of Billy and Jim, was already under way in close order. +A few of their bullets spattered against the wagon-bodies, and they +wounded a horse. + +This roused the other men. Neutrality was all right enough, but they +could not afford to lose horses, so they made such a brave show of +rifle muzzles that the eight fell back. Three to one was too big odds; +but their rage was great. + +Then Jim took his life in his hands, and rode a little way out on the +prairie toward them, waving a white handkerchief. Somebody shot at +him, and bored a hole through the looseness of his flannel shirt, +whereupon he dismounted and dropped two horses with his new-model +Winchester. His own horse was killed in the exchange, but Jim could +take care of himself in frontier fashion. + +Before the men could reload or move, Jim, imperturbably, arose from +behind his dead mount, and waved his white handkerchief again. There +was a moment's hesitation, then someone returned the signal. Jim +promptly advanced. His remarks were brief and businesslike, and were +received in sullen silence. + +"You fellows have got to go back," said he. "You have hosses enough +left to get your women back with, by goin' slow. If you try to shoot +us up any, we'll kill every hoof you have. So don't come any funny +business." + +He turned squarely on his heel, and walked away rapidly. He wanted to +get his distance before the reaction came. Michail Lafond, no longer +impassive, shook his rifle after him. + +"You damn skunk!" he shouted, hoarse with anger. "Tell your damn woman +I'll pull every hair from her head!" + +Jim did not turn his head, but ducked into the long grass, where he +wriggled along Indian fashion. Lafond, who had thrown his rifle into +position for a shot, started forward in pursuit, his face twisted with +passion, but he was dragged back by main strength. Two of the horses +bore double, and the little group turned sullenly toward the east. + +The mood of the original party, after this incident, was grim. The +bonds of plains brotherhood had been lightly broken. + +Alfred had resorted to such desperate measures in making the best of +undesirable conditions brought to pass by someone else. + +Billy Knapp had done so because he had entered into a game, and +declined to be beaten by anyone. + +Jim alone was happy. He had done it solely and simply for a woman; and +the woman had seen him fight for her. + + + + +V + +LAFOND DESERTS + +The eight men of the attacking party returned slowly to the little dip +of land which held the temporary camp. They were defeated, baffled, +and angry. If a stranger had accosted them at that moment, he would +probably have been gruffly answered one minute and assaulted the next. +But for the present they were silent. They were Anglo-Saxons and +Tennessee mountaineers for the most part; hence they were also +adaptable, and attuned to the fatalism that comes from much +contemplating of cloud-capped peaks and wind-swept pines. + +Not so with Michail Lafond, who alternately raved and wept, frantically +brandishing his rifle. An impassive mountaineer sat behind him, +holding him to the party. If not thus restrained, he would, in the +heat of anger, have attacked the whole train single-handed, for he was +brave enough in his way. The sober second-thought of the Indian in him +might perhaps have caused him to pause on the brink of the charge and +sink into the long grasses to await the chance of a more silent blow; +but the impulse up to that point would have been real and whole-souled. +So it was now. The man raved as a maniac might. He called down the +curses of heaven on his companions for cowards. + +And in this, when he reached camp, he was ably seconded by the women. +They surrounded him in a voluble and indignant group, and listened to +him with sympathy, casting glances of scorn toward their passive lords +and masters in the background. In their way they became as excited as +Lafond. One or two wept. Most employed the variety of their +vocabularies in giving the world what is known as a "piece of their +minds." + +In the still air of a prairie morning their hysterical cackle rose like +the crying of an indignant band of brant. Lafond told, dramatically, +what should have been done. The women, in turn, told how effectively +they would have done it. The men were taking stock of the situation. + +The mountaineers wasted little discussion on what might have been done. +The question before them was that of the most practical method of +returning over the long miles of prairie they had traversed in their +pursuit of Alfred and his outfit. They entertained not a moment's +doubt as to the necessity of the return. Their equipment consisted now +of ten horses and six wagons. By humoring the animals they might be +able to get through with a pair to each schooner. This meant the +abandonment of one of the wagons, and the lightening of the others. It +was decided. One of the men strode to the group of women. + +Lafond was in the midst of a tirade, but when he saw the mountaineer +approach, he prepared to pay eager attention to the plan of action. + +"H'yar," announced the latter, with a little the heavier shading on his +accustomed drawl, "that's enough of this h'yar jaw, I reckon. You-all +come along and pack up." + +"And when is it that we do pursue them?" asked Lafond eagerly. + +"Pursue nothin'," replied the man. "We're goin' back." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"And you intend not to get that revenge?" the half-breed inquired. + +"Revenge!" snorted the man. "You damn fool--with _that_ outfit?" He +swept a descriptive gesture toward the women. "Besides, what's the +good now?" Lafond fell silent, and withdrew from the group. + +The man of mixed blood is not like other men, and cannot be judged by +the standards of either race. From his ancestors he takes qualities +haphazard, without balance or proportion, so that the defects of +virtues may often occur without the assistance of the virtues +themselves. And, besides, he develops traits native to neither of the +parent races, traits which perhaps can never be comprehended by us who +call ourselves the saner people. He is superstitious, given to strange +impulses, which may unexpectedly, and without reason, harden into +convictions; obscure in his ends; unscrupulous in his means. No man +lives who can predict what may or may not suffice to set into motion +the machinery of his passions. A triviality is enough to-day. +To-morrow the stroke of a sledge may not even jar the cogs. But, once +started, the results may be tremendous, and quite out of proportion to +the first careless touch on the lever. Such passions are dangerous, +both to their possessor and to those who stand in their way. + +[Illustration: A SIOUX COUNCIL] + +Now, from the gainsaying of his lesser revenge--the proving to Billy +Knapp the futility of his objections--Lafond conceived the desire for a +greater. There entered into his life one of those absorbing passions +which are to be encountered in all their intensity only in such men as +he--passions which come to be ruling motives in the lives of those who +harbor them; gathering to themselves all lesser forces which are spread +more evenly over saner existences; losing their first burning +intensity, perhaps, but becoming thereby only the more sustained, cool, +and deadly; so that at the last they lie unnoticed in the background of +the man's ordinary life, coloring, influencing every act--a religion to +which, without anger, but without relenting, he bends every +long-planned effort of even his trivial and daily deeds. You may not +understand this, unless you have known a half-breed; but it is true. + +Interrupted in the midst of his flow of anger, and deprived of the +immediate solace of shooting things at his enemies, Lafond fell into a +sulking fit. During the rest of the day he brooded. After dark that +night he wound his way silently through the grasses, crept up behind +the solitary sentinel considered necessary in this peaceful country, +stabbed the man in the back, and returned to camp. Thus his way was +clear. Then he took from the wagons three slabs of bacon, a small sack +of coffee, a large supply of powder, lead, and caps, a blanket, and a +frying-pan and cup. With these he mounted the hill, past the dead +sentinel, to the ponies. Two of the latter he drew apart from the +herd. One of them he saddled; the other he packed with his supplies. +Then the half-breed led them silently westward for a good half-mile. +Then he mounted and rode away. + + + + +VI + +THE WOMAN AND THE MAN + +The wagon-train under the command of Billy Knapp, and Alfred, and Jim +Buckley had a very hard trip before they were done with it. The only +difficulty they did not encounter was lack of water. There was too +much of that. Several times the party had to camp in one spot for days +while the wagons were laboriously warped across rivers of mud and +quicksand, with steep, slippery clay banks. How little Prue stood the +journey so well, neither her father, her mother, nor the men of the +party were able to divine; but she did, and, what is more, she seemed +to think it great fun. So cheerful was she, and so sunny, that the men +came to grudge each other her company. And as for Mrs. Prue and the +doctor, who could help loving the patient sweetness of the one, or the +pathetic, gentle, impracticable kindness of the other? + +Yes, it was a hard journey; but somehow the feeling was not entirely of +joy and relief when the stockade of Frenchman's Creek shimmered across +the broad, flat foot-hills. There they separated. The dangers were +over. + +Then, to the surprise of everyone, the doctor waked up and knew just +where he wanted to go. He displayed an unexpected familiarity with the +general topography of the hills. It puzzled Billy. And, to the vaster +astonishment of both his _confreres_, Jim suddenly announced, with +quite unwonted volubility, that he had been intending all along to +start in prospecting at the end of this trip, and that here he meant to +quit scouting and leave the society of his brothers in arms--unless, of +course, he added, as a doubtful afterthought, they wanted to join him. +They profanely replied that they did not. + +Most of the men pushed on immediately to Rockerville, whither a +majority of the former inhabitants of Frenchman's Creek had already +emigrated. Alfred and Billy decided to get over in the Limestone for a +"big hunt" before returning East. Prue said good-by to them with real +feeling, and most of them threw out their chests and were very gruff +and rude because they were sorry to leave. Prue understood. They were +kind-hearted men, after all, these rough pioneers. Billy remembered +for almost two years how she looked when she said that, which was +extraordinary for Billy. He had led so varied a life as pony-express +rider, stage-driver, scout, Indian, bronco-buster, hunter, and trapper, +that he had little room in his memory for anything short of bloodshed +or a triumph for himself. + +Finally, after all the rest had gone, Jim and the doctor made the +mutually delightful discovery that they had selected the same locality, +the one for his prospecting, the other for his scientific +investigations. So the doctor simply left his outfit in Jim's wagon, +and they all went up together. + +The little scientist was as excited as a child. To him the country was +as a document--a document which he had studied thoroughly in the pocket +editions. He now had it before him in the original manuscript, open +and unabridged. + +And indeed, even to an ordinary observer, the Black Hills are a strange +series of formations. + +They run north and south at the westernmost edge of the northern +prairie, and are, altogether, about as large as the State of Vermont. +Unlike other ranges, they possess no one ridge that serves as a +backbone to the system. The separate peaks rise tumultuously, like the +rip of seas in a tideway, without connection, solitary, sombre. +Between them lie deep gorges, or broad stretches of grass-park, which +dip away and away, until one catches the breath at the grand free sweep +of them. Huge castellated dikes crop up from the ridge-tops like +ramparts. Others rise parallel in the softest verdure, guarding +between their perpendicular sides streets as narrow and clean-cut as +the alleys of a city of skyscrapers. + +Through it all, back and forth, like the walls of a labyrinth, run the +broken, twisted, faintly defined geological systems, which cross each +other so frequently and so vigorously that all semblance of order is +lost in the tumultuous upheaval. Here are strata deposited by the +miocene tertiary; here are breakings forth of metamorphic rocks of many +periods; here are the complex results of diverse influences and forces. +Down in the south is a great cavern--of which ninety-seven miles and +twenty-five hundred rooms have, at this writing, been explored--which +was once the interior of a geyser. For ages it spouted; for ages more +its fluids crystallized and petrified into varied and beautiful forms; +and then, finally, many layers of stratified rock were slowly overlaid +to seal forever this dried-out, beautiful, lifeless mummy of a cave. +It lies there now, as it has lain through the centuries, with a single, +tiny opening by which it can be entered--a palace of vast re-echoing +halls, hung with jewels, a horror-haunted honeycomb of unsounded +depths, a solemn abode wherein not the faintest drip of water, not the +gentlest sigh of air through the corridors, breaks the eternal silence. +Only its mouth roars continually as the winds rush in or out. The +Indians assign to it the spirits of their dead warriors, and cannot be +induced to approach it. Geologists rave over it, and cannot be +persuaded to come away. + +But this is in the latter day of railroads and tenderfeet. At the time +of which this story treats, little was known of the country. It was +simply a great second-hand shop, of a little of everything in the +geological line. + +When the party arrived at Spanish Gulch, the doctor was so eager to get +into the wonderful hills that only with the greatest difficulty did he +constrain himself to help Jim erect a log cabin for the accommodation +of his family. Even then he was not of much use, although he could at +least help to lift timbers. Jim practically did it alone, and it took +him almost a month; but when it was done, it was very nice. The doctor +accepted the free gift of the scout's labor and skill quite as a matter +of course, just as he had taken the free gift of an ordinarily +expensive pilotage across the plains; but the woman appreciated, and +perhaps she understood, for she suddenly became very shy in Jim's +presence. And then, sometimes, she would gaze at him, when he was not +looking, with an adoration of gratitude filling her eyes. + +After the doctor's home was finished, Jim betook himself into another +gulch, where he constructed a less elaborate shelter for his own +occupation. Thenceforward he spent much of his time in mysterious +prospecting operations; but two or three times a week he liked to sit +perfectly silent under the tree which overshadowed the doctor's cabin, +watching Prue, if she happened to be near, playing with Miss Prue, or +trying to talk with the doctor. He never went inside the house, even +in the winter; and he never seemed to try to know Prue any more +intimately. It would have been difficult for him to say just what +pleasure he discovered in these visits. + +After a little, the routine of life became fixed. The doctor took up +his work systematically. Each morning he plunged into the hills. His +little bent form moved from ridge to ridge, following his own especial +leads as earnestly as the most eager gold prospector of them all. +Sometimes he got lost, but generally he managed to reach home at +sunset. He was entirely preoccupied. He ate his meals as they were +set before him without question, he pulled on his well-mended clothes +without noticing the new patches, he warmed himself before his fire +without a thought of whence came the wood, blazing up the mud-chimney. + +Prue at first wondered a little at this, for even in his intensest +absorption the doctor's home-life had been much to him; but in time she +came to appreciate his mood, and to rely on herself even more than +usual. She had such an exalted opinion of his work that she easily +fell into the habit of sacrificing herself to it. She watched for the +things that pleased him, or, rather, did not bother him, for his +pleasures were negative; she carefully excluded all disturbing +influences, and came to look on this lonely time as only a probation, +sooner or later to be over, after which, in the fulness of his success, +he would turn to her with his old love. To hasten this she would have +cut off her right hand. + +So, much to the disgust of Jim Buckley, the brave little woman took the +management of things upon herself. During the long days, while the +doctor was away, she schemed to make both ends meet. She raised a few +vegetables in a plot of open ground on the sunny side of the creek, +working in it daily with an old spade. Her face was hidden in the +depths of a sunbonnet, and her hands were covered with a pair of +deerskin gauntlets, for she could not forget, poor woman! that she was +gently bred, and she hated to see her skin reddening in the dry air of +the hills. + +Items of necessity she bought scantily, sparingly, of travelling +pedlars, for prices were high. Candles for the winter, corn-meal, +occasionally flour, coffee, sugar--all these counted. Things cost so +much more here than she had anticipated. Prue saw the end coming, +distant though it might be. She sometimes did little bits of mending +for passing miners, and was paid for it. Oftener she skimped on the +daily meals, pretending that she was tired and did not care to eat. +The doctor never noticed, nor did she mean that he should. + +In the presence of his work, he could think of nothing else. Once, +when they ran out of wood, she told him of it. It worried him for a +week. Material necessities drew his mind away from the attitude of +calm scientific investigation. The pile of fuel that goes with every +new shack lasted the first winter through. After that was gone, Prue +used the chips made when the house was built, as long as they held out. +Then she tried to chop down a tree herself. Jim Buckley found her +sitting on a stone, the axe between her knees, her face buried in her +hands. Beside her was a pine scarred at random with weak, ill-directed +blows. He made a few profane remarks into his thick beard concerning +the doctor, then took the axe from her, and started to work. In a week +enough firewood was piled over against the house to last the winter. +During that week he ate his noon meals in the little cabin. The woman +did her best, and used up a fortnight's provisions in the attempt to +make a respectable showing before the hungry man. But in spite of that +he saw through her pitiful efforts, and offered to let her have money. +She drew herself up and showed him the door. When he had gone, +bewildered, she went out and looked at the white shining wood-pile and +wept bitterly. + +But in spite of economy the closest, and the sacrifice of absolutely +every non-essential, the time came when the last cent had gone. The +woman stood face to face with want. And, as ill-luck would have it, at +this period the doctor was especially brimming with enthusiasm, for he +had almost achieved the one result he needed to fill out his scheme. +He worked feverishly to forestall the snow. He was full of his system, +alternating between glowing enthusiasm and a haunting fear that the +winter would set in too early. He must have uninterrupted time for +work until then, he said. On this depended his professional +reputation, their fortune. + +She set her lips firmly and looked about her. The flour and meal were +gone; there were no candles, and without candles how could the doctor +put the last touches to his book when winter fell? Little light +filtered through the oiled paper of the windows. She sold her ring to +some passing gamblers. The money soon slipped away. For a few days +she fought hard with her pride. Then she put on her sunbonnet, and, +kissing the child tenderly, went, with heightened color, down the gulch +to Jim Buckley's. + +She found him sitting on a stump in front of his dirt-roofed shack, +pounding into sand some quartz in an iron mortar. He did not hear her +until she stood beside him. Then he arose, drawing his gaunt form up +quickly, taking off his broad hat, and wiping his grimy hands on his +jeans. + +"Mr. Buckley," she said hurriedly, before he could speak, "I have come +to tell you how sorry I am that I was so rude to you. You have been +very kind to me, and I had no right to speak to you as I did. No, no!" +she implored, as Jim opened his mouth to expostulate. "I must tell you +that, and _please_ don't interrupt me. + +"My husband is doing some very valuable work," Prue continued, "very +valuable, and when he gets it done he will be very famous and very +rich. But just now it takes all his time and attention, so that he +doesn't realize--how--poor--we--are." The little woman's cheeks +burned, and she lowered her head until the sunbonnet hid her face. "Of +course, if I should tell him," she went on proudly, "he would attend to +it at once. But I mustn't do that. He needs _such_ a little time to +finish his work, and I mustn't--must I?" And she suddenly looked up +into Jim's honest eyes with an imploring gesture. + +Jim was standing, his broad hat against his knee, looking at her +fixedly. No doubt he was thinking how, when he had first seen her, her +cheeks were as full and ripe as the apples of his old home in New +England; and was wondering if the dip of strata were worth this. +Seeing that he intended no reply, she looked down again and went on. + +"I came here to see you about that. Once, Mr. Buckley, you offered to +lend me some money, and I--I--am afraid I was very rude. And now--oh, +dear!" And suddenly the poor little figure in faded and patched calico +sank to the ground, and began to sob as if her heart would break. + +Jim was distressed. He started forward, hesitated, looked up at the +sky and down the gulch. Then he threw down his hat and darted into the +cabin, returning in a moment with a buckskin bag, which he tossed +impulsively into her lap. + +"There, there!" he said distractedly. "Why didn't you say so before? +Stop! _Please_ stop! Oh, the----" + +She looked up suddenly with a blinding smile. + +"Now, don't say anything naughty!" she cried airily through her tears. +She laughed queerly at Jim's open mouth and astonished eyes. He could +not grasp the meaning of her change of mood. Before he could recover, +she was on her feet, a roguish vision of blushing cheeks and dancing +eyes. She shook the buckskin bag in his face. + +"Aren't you afraid you'll never be paid, sir?" she demanded; then, with +a quick sob, "I think you are the kindest man in all the world!" The +next instant the alders closed about her fluttering figure on the +trail. For a week after, her cheeks burned, and she was afraid to look +out of the cabin lest Jim should be coming up the path. + +As the winter wore away, however, she began to see the bottom of the +little buckskin bag. The doctor was as absorbed as ever. She could +not bring her pride to the point of asking Buckley for another loan, +and so again the terror of poverty seized upon her. Her eyes looked +harassed and worn, and her mouth had queer little lines in the corners. +She would stand watching the flames in the chimney for hours, and then +would turn suddenly, hungrily, and snatch up the little girl, devouring +her with kisses. Sometimes she would wrinkle her brow, peeping into +the doctor's manuscripts, trying to make out how near the end he was, +but she always laid them down with a puzzled sigh. She did not eat +enough, and she grew thin. She tried expedients of which she had read. +For instance, one day she went down into the creek bottom and cut some +willows. She peeled the bark from them, and from the inside rind she +collected a quantity of fine white dust, with which she made a pasty +kind of dough. The biscuits were tough and of a queer flavor. Even +the doctor, after tasting one of them, looked up in surprise. + +"What do you call this, my dear?" he inquired. + +She clapped her hands gayly, and laughed with a catch in her voice. + +"Oh, a queer Indian dish I've learned, that's all. You never _do_ pay +any attention to what you eat, so I thought I'd make you for once." + +"Oh," said the doctor, smiling faintly. + +The willow flour appeared no more. + +So the long winter drew to its close, and still the brave little woman +set her face resolutely forward, striving to help the doctor with his +life-work as only a woman can. She could see no way out. The case was +hopeless, and often she shed impotent tears over her inability. He +worked so hard, and she did so little! + +And then the spring brought with it the solution. + + + + +VII + +THE REINS OF POWER + +For two weeks after, Michail Lafond, cut loose from the crippled +wagon-train returning to Three Rivers, travelled westward by the sun, +sleeping under the stars, living on bacon, coffee, and an occasional +bit of small game, drinking muddy water from buffalo wallows which +providential rains had filled. At the end of that time he was raided +by the Sioux. When they approached him, he led forward his two ponies, +placed his rifle on the ground in front of their noses, unslung his +powder-horn and laid it beside the weapon, and stepped back, throwing +his arms wide apart. The Indians rode forward silently, a strange, +naked band, whose fancy ran to chrome yellow, and took possession of +Lafond and his equipment. + +The half-breed became a squaw man, and lived with these Indians for +some time. At first he was given drudgery to do. He did it, but kept +his eyes open, and learned the language. After a little his chance +came. + +The band captured a wagon-train, and massacred its men and women. It +found itself in possession of fifty or sixty horses, half a score of +wagons, some provisions, and a goodly quantity of blankets, axes, +utensils, and the rude necessities of life on the frontier. An Indian +cannot possess too many ponies, he is always ready to eat, and blankets +come handy in winter; but he has absolutely no use for the rest of the +plunder. So he usually puts a torch to the lot, and has a bonfire by +way of celebration. + +On this occasion, Michail Lafond succeeded in getting Lone Wolf to +postpone the bonfire, to lend him twenty ponies, and to detail to his +service half as many squaws. The feat in itself was a mark of genius, +as anyone who knows the Indian character will admit, and cost Michail +many of his newly learned words, put together with all of his native +eloquence. + +The twenty ponies, driven by the ten squaws, drew the schooners and +their contents to the Bad Lands, where Michail concealed them in a +precipitous gully of the deeply eroded sort so common in that strange, +rainless district. Then he returned fifteen of the ponies to Lone +Wolf. Lone Wolf's band took up quarters within striking distance of +the cached schooners. + +All this was done by Michail Lafond, and when it was completed he drew +a long breath. He felt that the foundations of his influence were +laid. It was no light thing thus to have drawn self-willed savages +from their accustomed ways of life. He had done it only by vague +promises of great benefits to accrue in the immediate future, said +benefits to be "big medicine" in the extreme. Lone Wolf had pondered +much; had seen an opportune shooting star; had consented. + +A month later, a half-breed returned alone across the plains from the +hill country. At Pierre he announced open trail. He had himself come +through without the least trouble, he claimed, although he had seen +many Indians. This was strictly true. He went on to say that he would +sell his outfit cheap, as he was anxious to go on east. The gold +prospects were good. He had a partner squatting on several claims, to +whom he would return the following year. He hinted mysteriously of +capital to be invested and exhibited a small nugget of placer gold. +Most of this was untrue, and the nugget he had found, not in the placer +beds, but in a small pasteboard box in one of the schooners. + +The outfit brought three hundred and fifty dollars, for the half-breed +sold cheap. With this money and the horses he departed the day +following. + +Michail was now richer by three hundred and fifty dollars and five +horses than he had been before his capture by the Indians. Were it not +for two considerations, he might have decamped with the proceeds. +Conscience was not one of them. In the first place, his Caucasian +instincts taught him to look ahead to larger things. In the second +place, his Indian blood would not let him lose sight of certain bits of +savagery he had in contemplation. So, instead of decamping, he +purchased with the money, in a town where he was unknown, five of the +new breech-loading rifles and nearly five thousand rounds of +ammunition. His tale here was simple. The trail was _not_ open, and a +wagon-train was soon to attempt the task of opening it. He loaded the +munitions on his five broncos, and joined Lone Wolf, who was outlying +near at hand. + +In the course of the next six months a certain half-breed, with various +stores and outfits, was observed in several small towns on the border +of the frontier. In half of them he was headed east and sold his +outfit; in the other half he was headed west and bought rifles. At the +end of the year there remained no more schooners in the _cache_ of the +Bad Lands, but Lone Wolfs band was the best armed in all the West. +Michail Lafond had let slip the chance of embezzling some thousands of +dollars, but he had gained what was much mere valuable to him--power +over an efficient band of fighting men, and the implicit confidence of +a tribe of Sioux Indians. He was respected and feared. His unseen +influence was felt throughout the whole plains country. + +Lafond was too shrewd either to repeat his venture or to become +identified with the tribe. His influence, as has been said, was unseen +and unsuspected. Lone Wolf's band was successful from the Indian +standpoint, pernicious from the white man's. That was all that +appeared on the outside. Lafond himself became a savage. He slept out +with little cover, and often rode with none at all. He ate dog and +rattlesnake, when dog and rattlesnake happened to be on the bill of +fare. He carried a knife deep in the recess of a long, loose buckskin +sheath; and from the ridge of his tepee hung five clotted horrors, torn +from the heads of the victims of his personal prowess. The number of +these might easily have been augmented, but Michail struck seldom in +his own person. When he did, not one of the victims escaped, for no +man must have seen Michail, the savage. Michail, the civilized, would +need a clear field before him when once again he appeared in the towns. + +The life was fascinating to such as he. He loved it, but he did not +forget his purposes. When at last he had gathered firmly the reins of +his power, he shook them, and the twin steeds of Murder and Rapine +swept destroyingly through the land. + +For the present there was peace on the plains. Wagon-trains came +across the Pierre trail, or further down along South Fork. Custer +explored. White men settled in the Black Hills, in spite of the +treaty. The Indians hunted buffalo, and their wives made robes, and +cut tepee poles from the valley of Iron Creek. + +But in spite of all the seeming tranquillity, the seeds of discord had +been sown broadcast, and Lafond, with his devilish cleverness of +insight, could see that the struggle was not long to wait. Both sides +felt aggrieved, and both sides had more than a show of reason for +feeling so. Perhaps, in the long run, this was an inevitable result of +the advance of civilization; but it is a little unfortunate that the +provisional races must be set aside so summarily. That fact serves +occasionally to cast a doubt in reflective minds on the ultimate +benefit of the civilization. + +We who look upon our tamed country, or those plainsmen who have +perforce to struggle in the thick of the avenging troubles which follow +injustice as surely as symptoms follow the disease, may not be able to +see the Indian's side of the question. We, the peaceful citizens, +enjoy the security of policed cities and fenced prairies; and we are +convinced that it is worth the price. They, the pioneers, fight, and +are maimed; they lose their worldly possessions, and their +heart-strings are twanged to the tuning of grief; and so they become +partisans, to whom the old scriptural saying that "he who is not for me +is against me" comes home with a sternness brewed of tears. + +But to those others who looked on from the height, to the men who sat +safe, but moved the pawns on the board--to them there was a real +justice, and they infringed it; a real duty, and they failed it. They +held the whip hand and spared not the lash, and it shall be visited +unto them. + +Nearly fifty years ago, a Lieutenant Warren, at the head of a small +exploring party, approached the Black Hills. He was met near the South +Fork by a friendly but firm deputation of Sioux chiefs. Pah-sap-pah +was sacred. Pah-sap-pah must not be entered. All the rest of the +country was open, by the courtesy of the red men, to their white +brothers, but sacred land must not be profaned. Warren acquiesced, and +contented himself with ascertaining the general extent and +configuration of the forbidden district. When, in the fulness of time, +the government entered into treaty with these Indians, Warren's policy +was continued, and the Black Hills were, by a special clause, exempted +from white invasion forever. According to the Indians, the place was +the abode of spirits, and each tree, each rock, each dell, had its own +especial _manitou_ whom it were sacrilege to offend by the touch of +profane hands. + +For many years the treaty was respected. Then a Pawnee brought into +one of the reservations a small quantity of gold dust, which he +confessed to have found in the Hills. + +The following spring, Custer, at the head of an expedition of one +thousand two hundred men, entered into a long scout with the avowed +purpose of exploring the Black Hills for indications of gold. In this +he acted directly under his governmental orders. Thus was the treaty +first broken. + +Next year the Hills were overrun with miners, illegal miners, just as +the troops had been with illegal explorers. They scattered through the +wilderness in vast numbers, and about a hundred of them staked out, +near the centre of the Southern Hills, a town which they named Custer +City. The irony was unconscious. What followed was farcical, and was +relished as such by the participants. Bodies of troops were sent to +enforce the treaty. Legally they did so. Although inferior in numbers +to the miners, and no better armed, they succeeded several times in +sweeping all the trespassers together into one band. The latter +submitted good-naturedly. The culprits were then turned over to civil +authority. Civil authority waited only for the disappearance of the +troops to set the miners at liberty; whereupon they scurried, as fast +as their animals could carry them, back to the prospect-holes of their +choice. It was all a huge joke, and everybody knew it. + +In the meantime the Indians were becoming restive. It may not be known +to the general reader, but it is a fact, that one of the strongest +virtues of the red man's character is his fidelity to his given word. +A liar is, in his moral code, the most despised of men. He cannot +conceive the possibility of broken faith, and there are recorded +instances wherein an Indian condemned to capital punishment has been +set free on his oral promise to return for his hanging; and he has +returned. Therefore the Sioux could not understand the infraction of +the treaty. + +They had viewed with alarm the scouting expedition by Custer. On the +invasion by the horde of miners, the following spring, an outbreak was +only avoided by the prompt action of the troops in evicting the +trespassers; but now, this winter of 1875, the more sagacious of the +Indian leaders were beginning to suspect the truth, namely, that the +eviction had been nothing but a form, and that Pah-sap-pah, in spite of +the treaty, was lost to them forever. Affairs were ripe for a great +Indian war; and, realizing this, the department set on foot Crook's and +Reynolds' unfortunate expedition toward the Big Horn. + +The savages at once began to gather under a famous chief, Sitting Bull. +The storm rumbled, and Custer was despatched to effect a junction with +his brother officers somewhere north of the Hills. + + + + +VIII + +THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE + +Meanwhile a personal animus had sprung up against that general because +of a mild stroke of justice on his part against a singularly proud man. + +It seems that the personnel of Custer's former expedition to the +Yellowstone included two civilians, a Dr. Honzinger and a Mr. Baliran. +These men were not, of course, subject to the full rigor of military +discipline, and so were accustomed to depart from, and return to, the +main line of march at will. When they did not reappear in due time +from one of these little trips, search was made; and they were found +killed with arrows. Dr. Honzinger's skull was crushed in, but neither +man was scalped, for the doctor was bald and the other wore his hair +clipped short. Some time later, knowledge of the murderer's identity +came to light, through information stumbled upon by one of Custer's own +scouts. + +At that period, rations and ammunition were distributed regularly at +the various agencies. In return the savages promised to be good +Indians and to submit to the white men's laws. This promise they kept +faithfully enough, but according to their own standards. At the times +of distribution, when inevitably a great many of the Indians were +gathered together, the occasion was signalized by feasting and ghost +dances. The latter are uncouth exhibitions enough, consisting +decoratively of much cheap body-paint, many eagle feathers, and trashy +jewelry; musically of most unmusical pounding and screaming; and +physically of a crouching posture and a solemnly bounding progression +from one foot to the other around a circle. They are accompanied by a +recital of valorous deeds. + +Such a dance was organized at the Standing Rock Agency, below Fort +Lincoln, in the winter of 1875. As usual, besides the gathering of old +warriors and squaws, assembled to watch the dance, the audience +included a number of white men, present on business or pleasure. Among +them was Charley Reynolds, one of Custer's scouts. This man stood +exchanging idle comment and chaff with another scout, and throwing an +occasional glance in the direction of the vortex of dancers, swirling +about in gaudy confusion, like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. Suddenly +he closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward at keen attention. +He had caught a few words that interested him. + +The dancers had reached the point of frenzy. They leaped forward with +solemnity still, but it was a quivering solemnity held in leash. Their +bodies were tense, and the trailing knives and hatchets trembled with +nervous force. Each warrior, nostrils distended and eyes flashing, was +declaiming his deeds with an ecstasy that bordered on madness, rolling +out tale after tale of murder, theft of horses--the only sort of theft +countenanced by the Indian code--and fortitude under suffering. +Noticeable among these dancers was a young warrior painted in the +manner of the Uncpapa Sioux. He was of magnificent physique and +striking countenance, but the most remarkable feature of his appearance +was a huge, ragged scar across the muscles of his back. When the scout +looked toward him, he was shaking in the air the chain of a watch, and +declaiming at the top of his voice in the Sioux language. + +"And he was great in body," he chanted, "and he fell, and I killed him +with a stone, and the other fled, and I shot him, and so they died! I +killed them! I am a great warrior, for I killed two white men, and +these things are tokens that I speak the truth!" + +He rattled the chain, and went through a vivid pantomime of the slaying +of the two white men. Charley Reynolds recognized the trinket as +belonging to Dr. Honzinger. + +The young warrior was called Rain-in-the-Face, and he was at that time +esteemed as the bravest of the northern Sioux. Others, such as Crazy +Horse or Sitting Bull, might have been greater in generalship, but +neither had the Uncpapa youth's reputation for sheer personal bravery. +In the sun dance he had hung for four hours. The incisions behind the +great muscles of the back, through which the rope was threaded, had +been cut too deep, and the flesh failed to give way when +Rain-in-the-Face was suspended. For some time he hung in midair, his +whole weight depending from the loops of torn muscles, the blood +streaming over his limbs, and the hot sun beating down upon him. Then +the chiefs attempted to cut him down, but Rain-in-the-Face refused to +permit it. Four hours later the flesh rent away from his bones, and he +fell. That day made him the idol of the Sioux nation. + +Charley Reynolds lost no time in informing Custer of his discovery, for +the policy of the period was to punish as many culprits as possible, in +order that the whites might establish, as soon as might be, a moral as +well as military supremacy over the turbulent savages. The commander +resolved to arrest Rain-in-the-Face. To that end he detailed a hundred +men under Captain Yates. + +Contrary to what one unused to the Indian character might expect, no +difficulty was anticipated in finding the culprit. To be sure, the +plains were broad and the hiding places many, but Rain-in-the-Face was +at once an agency Indian and a reckless man. He drew his rations and +he drew them boldly. With his blanket wrapped about him and his rifle +peeping from its folds across his left arm, he stalked here and there +among the agency's few buildings. Any distribution day at the +reservation would discover him there. + +But, on the other hand, the captain was not at all sure of being able +to arrest him when found. A hundred men would stand but small chance +in a fight with six hundred well-armed savages; whereas the appearance +of a larger expedition would serve merely to frighten every agency +Indian out into the wilds. The situation was not encouraging. How not +to alarm the quarry, and how still to possess strength enough to seize +it, was the problem that confronted Captain Yates. + +His first move may seem, when cursorily examined, most unwise. He +detailed a lieutenant and forty of his little command, whose orders +were to proceed farther down the river, ostensibly for the purpose of +making inquiries concerning three Osage Indians wanted for murder. +Thus his available force was reduced to sixty, and with that handful he +intended to capture and take away, in the face of ten times the number, +one of the most popular fighting men of the Sioux nation. + +But, as a matter of fact, in so dividing his forces the captain was +correct in his tactics. He realized that surprise was his only +effective weapon, and his ruse made surprise certain by lulling any +suspicion as to the object of the expedition. + +Arrived at the agency, a cursory examination disclosed the fact that +Rain-in-the-Face was not among the groups of Indians camped on the +prairie. He must, therefore, be inside the agency building itself. +Captain Yates distributed his men near the little structure, and +Colonel Tom Custer went inside with half a dozen soldiers. + +The room was found to be full of blanketed Sioux warriors, muffled to +the eyes, indistinguishable in the half light, except as +eagle-feathered silhouettes. Greetings were exchanged, pipes filled, +and a grave silence fell on the little group. The minutes passed, but +no one moved. The atmosphere was dense with smoke, and still the +parties watched each other--the whites with veiled eagerness, the +Indians with unsuspicious stolidity. Finally the agent piled dry wood +on the fire, and the blaze leaped up the chimney. The heat became +oppressive, so after a moment the warrior nearest the fireplace threw +back the blanket from his shoulders. It was Rain-in-the-Face himself. + +On this rather dramatic disclosure, one of the troopers uttered an +exclamation. The Indian, always suspicious, at once leaped back and +cocked his rifle; but before he could raise the piece or pull the +trigger, Colonel Custer wound his arms around him from behind. The +other Indians rushed from the room. + +The captive's hands were tied as rapidly as possible, but by the time +he was brought to the door, the Indians were running angrily from all +directions toward the building. + +Captain Yates had succeeded in intimidating the first comers by a show +of force, but he was soon outnumbered and a struggle seemed imminent. + +However, an old chieftain began to declaim in the violent, high-pitched +monotone so much affected by Indian orators. This delay afforded the +soldier a much needed respite, but it tended also to concerted action +later. The white man seized his opportunity. Through the interpreter +he called upon the chiefs to stand forward for a parley. + +"My brothers will hear me," said the interpreter for him, "because it +is right, for they wear the Great Father's blankets and his food is in +their bellies. This young warrior is brave and his enemies are as the +feeble wind to him. But his eye became blinded. He thought he saw +before him the Pawnees, the enemies of his people; but they were old +men of my race. He killed those old men, and now the Great Father +would know why. He must tell the Great Father of his blindness. +Therefore it is well that he should go. + +"So restrain your young men and I will restrain mine. It might be that +your young men would kill many of mine; and it might be that my young +men would kill many of yours. But why kill them? It is useless, for +first of all, by my hand, this young warrior would die." + +At the advance of the chiefs, the Sioux warriors had suddenly, from the +wildest confusion, calmed to the deepest attention. They stood +motionless against the white background of the snow, only their fierce +eyes rolling from the speaker to their own chiefs and back again. One +of the latter replied-- + +"It is not well to talk so," he said brusquely. "The words of my +brother are idle words and mean nothing. My young men are many, and +yours are few; yet shall your young men go unharmed if you give to us +our warrior." + +He swept his blanket over his shoulder with a sudden gesture, and +scowled. For answer Captain Yates drew from its holster his army +revolver and presented it at Rain-in-the-Face's breast. The Sioux +looked far away beyond the horizon, but his nostrils dilated. + +"It is well," said the chief hastily, "for my brother's words are words +of wisdom. Take _two_ warriors to the Great Father, but leave us this +young man, that he may teach us that blindness is not wise." + +In answer to his gesture two Indian youths stepped forward, proud of +the distinction. + +"See," went on the chief, "these shall go with your young men, and all +will be well." + +Yates lowered his pistol, and turned. + +"Tell him," he said to the interpreter, "that this man goes with us. +If I see the muzzle of a rifle, I'll shoot him dead." + +The savages listened gravely. Their first burst of rage had passed, +and, as always with their race, they were loath to engage in a stand-up +fight in cold blood. The Indian is brave enough, but he likes to be +brave in his own way. The chief turned and waved his hand. Ten +minutes later bands of savages were speeding swiftly away in all +directions, and the agency was entirely deserted. + +The little command shortly after set out on its return trip. Yates +fully expected to be attacked before he rejoined his chief; but +although many savages were at various times visible, hurrying by, the +troops arrived at Fort Lincoln in due course, and Custer stood face to +face with his future slayer. + +There is little need to repeat here the details of Rain-in-the-Face's +captivity. It is interesting, but not of the story. He received +visits from great warriors representing various tribes of the Sioux +nation--Brule, Yankton, Teton, Ogallala--all uniting to honor him. To +the surprise of the few white spectators, these visitors kissed the +young captive on the cheek, a mark of respect and affection almost +unheard of among this savage people. Two of the younger warriors asked +and received permission to share his captivity for a time. +Rain-in-the-Face bore the imprisonment well; was docile, friendly, +apparently happy. He had many talks with General Custer, and came to +be well liked. + +But he had much leisure for thought, and he was a proud man. + +After some months, two white men, grain thieves, were placed in the +same guard house. Being enterprising pioneers, they promptly sawed a +hole and escaped. Rain-in-the-Face availed himself of the opening. + +Once under the open sky, he adjusted his moccasins and struck boldly +across the prairie for the West. Rain-in-the-Face was no longer an +agency Indian, but a hostile. + + + + +IX + +THE BROTHER OF GODS + +Rain-in-the-face had no very definite idea of where he should go. The +main and pressing need was to put a certain distance between himself +and his pursuers as rapidly as possible. + +To this end, he pushed diligently north-west in a bee line. At first +he covered his trail skilfully, so that Custer's men would have to +guess his direction of flight as any one of the three hundred and sixty +degrees of the complete circle. After a little, this was unnecessary. +It became desirable to fall in with a camp of the Sioux, in order that +he might be directed to his own tribe of that people, the Uncpapa. + +But as day followed day, Rain-in-the-Face owned himself puzzled. In +the space of time that had elapsed since his escape, he should have +encountered a dozen bands, for he was intimately acquainted with the +country and with the Indian habit of life. The village sites were +deserted, the plains were empty. The Indian did not know of the two +expeditions, commanded respectively by Crook and Terry, which, the one +from the south and the other from the north, were converging at the Big +Horn; nor that in that district nearly every plains Indian had +encamped, either openly allied with Sitting Bull, or near enough to +become so should such a move seem expedient. + +So for a week he subsisted alone as only an Indian can. + +Let loose a tired pony at night on the plains, and in the morning he +will turn up well fed and full of vigor. It is the same with a savage. +He knows expedients for getting food, for preparing it, for combating +thirst, for sleeping in bad weather with some degree of comfort, which +a white man never acquires without a long and hazardous apprenticeship. +It is a case of the survival of the fittest; and the Indian always +survives. + +Toward the end of the week, Rain-in-the-Face drew near the low hills of +the Cheyenne River, in good condition, except that his moccasins were +nearly worn out. Then he became aware of a camp. As beseemed a good +warrior, he scouted carefully until he had satisfied himself that the +lodges were those of people of his own nation. Then he allowed himself +to be captured by the herd boys and escorted to Lone Wolf, the chief of +the band. + +Lone Wolf had been easily persuaded by Lafond that it was not good +policy to join Sitting Bull. The tribe was well fed and rich. It +could gain nothing by such a war, and could lose much. Now was the +time to prepare against the coming winter; now, in the early summer, +when the energy of the band was at its flood. War it had enjoyed but +recently with the Pawnees; so the hearts of the young men were big with +valor. Let them equally enjoy the chase, the other branch of a brave's +education. + +These, and a hundred like reasons, Lafond had urged so plausibly that +the chief had come, without difficulty, to his way of thinking. After +all, why not at least await the plum season, and the great gathering of +prairie chickens which was invariably consequent on the ripening of the +fruit? With that plan in view, the warrior had moved his band and all +its household goods to the banks of the Cheyenne, where he settled down +peaceably to a season of plenty. There Rain-in-the-Face found him. + +The camp had been pitched, after the usual rambling manner, in a broad +grass park of sandy subsoil, below hills on which wandered the ponies +in times of safety, or lurked the sentinels in time of danger. Above +the lodges, like blazoned arms, were suspended the spears and shields +of the warriors, and before the open flap of each the owner could be +seen sprawled in dignified idleness among his favorite squaws. +Children sat grave and silent near at hand, or whirled in mimic and +noisy warfare farther out over the prairie. Dogs skulked here and +there. Kettles above shallow fire holes bubbled and steamed. About +over the ground was strewn the indescribable litter of a long-used +camp. Through the early summer air rose shrill laughter, the sounds of +good-natured chaff, the yelp of dogs and the hum of lower conversation; +for, no matter how shy or stoical an Indian may seem before strangers, +he is sociable enough among his own people. Near the centre of the +village stood the lodge of Lone Wolf. At his hand sat Michail Lafond. + +The half-breed had in the past two years reverted almost to the type of +his more savage parent. His hair was long and worn loose, after the +Sioux fashion. The upper part of his body was naked. About his neck +hung a string of bears' claws. Paint streaked his countenance. White +buckskin leggings, ornamented with beads, covered his legs. Only the +shifty character of his eye and a certain finer modelling of the bold +lines of his face differentiated him from the full-blooded Sioux at his +side. The two were conversing in the Sioux language. + +To them the boys brought their stranger. From various directions +squaws and children sidled nearer for a look. The warriors, disdaining +such an exhibition of womanish curiosity, remained placidly smoking in +the sunshine. Near at hand the sounds of laughter and of conversation +died, and the solemnity of ceremony fell. + +As he approached, the stranger raised his right hand, palm forward, in +token of peace, and then drew the edge of the same hand across his +throat from left to right. This latter is the "sign" of the Sioux, and +thus Lone Wolf was made aware that he received one of his own nation. +Lone Wolf inclined slightly, and raised his hand with the peace +gesture. The three then sat and the inevitable pipe was produced. + +Thus Rain-in-the-Face was received with all ceremony. Later, the first +dip into the kettle of boiling meat was conceded him, and in that +manner he was made free of Lone Wolf's lodge. No question was asked as +to his identity, and he vouchsafed no information; that would come +later, when the warriors gathered for a formal powwow. + +And in the meantime, Michail Lafond's roving French eyes took in every +detail of the stranger's appearance, and his keen French mind drew its +own conclusions. Near the close of the afternoon, he left his seat and +addressed the stranger. + +"My brother knows ponies," said he. "Will he look upon one of mine?" + +It was equivalent to an invitation to call. The savage arose and +stalked by the half-breed's side in the direction of Lafond's fine +lodge of whitened skins. As they approached, two young squaws glided +away. Lafond spoke a word to one of them, and a moment later the boys +of the camp raced eagerly in the direction of the band of ponies on the +hill. + +[Illustration: THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"] + +The lodge of Michail Lafond stood just beyond the village proper and on +a slight elevation. The entire camp lay spread out before it, a +panorama to be seized by a single sweep of the eye. + +The savage paused for a moment before entering the doorway, and looked +about him with a little envy. Never had he visited a band so well +supplied with ponies, so efficiently armed, so wealthy in robes and +lodges and kettles and all the other articles of Indian wealth which go +to make up prosperity. Lafond watched him closely. The Indian turned +inside the doorway, and sat down on a heavily furred buffalo skin near +the entrance. In the background wallowed a dim confusion of skins, +robes, and utensils. Lafond placed himself beside his guest and the +pipe was lighted. + +The stir following the stranger's arrival had lulled. The women and +children, having satisfied their curiosity as to his personal +appearance, returned to their wonted occupations, so that once again +the mingled noises of the camp rose from the little valley. + + +In a moment the young squaw led up a pony. The animal was fine above +the average. Its limbs were deer-like in delicacy, its nostrils were +wide, its neck slender and tapering--quite in contrast to the ordinary +Indian pony's clumsiness in this respect--and, above all, it was marked +black and white in the _pinto_ fashion. This last is considered to +indicate superior spirit and is much prized. The woman had twisted +pieces of bright-colored cloth and eagle feathers into the mane and +tail. + +At the sight of so beautiful an animal, the stranger exclaimed in +delight. + +"It pleases my brother?" inquired Lafond politely. "It is his." + +The squaw led the beast forward, touching the young warrior's hand with +the end of the halter in token of proprietorship. Lafond rose and +closed the tent flap. The noises of the camp were at once muffled, and +twilight fell. + +"My brother is a great warrior," he began after a moment, "yet he has +need of ponies, for he comes on foot and his moccasins are worn." + +The stranger, impassive but watchful, made no answer. + +"My brother has come far?" went on Lafond cunningly. + +"Far," repeated the youth politely. + +"His eyes have seen the waters of the Great River?" + +The savage bowed. + +"Perhaps his pony was lost there?" + +"It may be." + +"The sight of the white man frightened him and he was drowned?" + +The Indian's eyes flashed. + +"It may be so." + +"On his back my brother bears great scars," said Lafond suddenly after +a short pause; "but they are the scars of a brave man. He bears other +scars on his face; they are the scars of shame." + +He ceased abruptly at the stranger's fierce ejaculation. The Indian +seemed about to spring on him. + +"But," the half-breed went on in haste, "my brother will destroy the +shame, and the scars will go." He leaned forward and touched the +savage lightly on his bare shoulder. "They are the scars from the +white man's prison," he said. + +For a moment the stranger's face was a study in livid hate. Then all +expression died from it, leaving it stolid as before. + +The half-breed smoked in silence. His surmises had been correct. This +was indeed the young hero of the sun dance, the news of whose +imprisonment had, by chance, come to his ears but a short time before. +He considered. Finally, he turned to his guest once more. + +"My brother has travelled many miles," he said. "Tell me, has he seen +the lodges of his people?" + +"The prairies have been waste." + +"I will tell you why. The great white war chief has gone with his +young men beyond Pah-sap-pah. There the warriors will strike him and +destroy him. My brother's people are there." + +The hate came back into the Indian's face with a flash. He fingered +the haft of a knife that lay near his hand. + +"I will join my people," he said. + +"And aid them. It is well. But will my brother go alone and without +arms?" + +"What would you?" replied the Indian bitterly. "Am I a chief that I +should go attended? Do arrows and rifles grow on the prairies?" + +The half-breed craftily permitted another impressive but momentary +silence to fall. + +"But if my brother were to ride with a hundred fighting men; on his own +pony; with a rifle in his hand--would not that be more in accord with +his dignity as a brave warrior?" he suggested suddenly. + +"Where are a hundred such?" + +Lafond arose and pulled aside the flap of the tent. The camp lay in +the half glow as a flat picture, and its noise burst in through the +open doorway like a blare of music. The Indian's expressive eyes +flashed comprehension. + +"And if they go?" he asked. + +"I, too, have enemies," replied Lafond. + +Rain-in-the-Face smoked meditatively. If this man held the power to +sway thus the policy of the camp, why did he not use it to crush the +enemies of whom he had spoken? What added force could a young, unarmed +stranger bring him that would compensate for the trouble and expense to +which he was putting himself? + +Lafond saw the hesitation and dreaded aright. + +"My enemies dwell in Pah-sap-pah," said he simply. + +In that sentence he exposed the weakness of his position. Pah-sap-pah +was sacred, so sacred that for many years miners fled to it as to a +sanctuary, certain that once within its dark border pursuit would +cease. Hunts in it were undertaken only at certain times of the year, +and under peculiar auspices. War died into peace when it dashed +against those sombre cliffs. The winds in the trees were voices of +Soulless Ones, bewailing always their fate; the frown of sun-red +Harney--or the peak afterward known under that name--was instinct with +the brooding wrath of some great manitou, who slept lightly only when +his children disturbed him not. Even the powerful influence of Michail +Lafond had failed to induce Lone Wolf to enter the Black Hills on an +errand of murder. + +But the name of Rain-in-the-Face was one to conjure with in just such +matters as these. He was not only a brave man and a great warrior, but +he was favored of the gods. In the belief of the Sioux nation, his +wonderful endurance in the sun dance was at once evidence and warranty +of it. Without divine favor he could not have endured so long; +enduring so long had brought to him great abundance of divine favor. +So, without actually professing to be a medicine man, he had freely +accorded to him all the confidence a member of the priestcraft usually +enjoys. If Lafond could induce Rain-in-the-Face to lead, the warriors +of the band would follow blindly, even into Pah-sap-pah itself. + +The Indian started as he caught the import of Lafond's words. + +"My brother has looked upon the face of the angry Manitou," went on +Lafond eagerly; "and he has not been afraid. He has danced the dance +of death, and the great Manitou has stretched out his hand and held him +up. My brother is favored of the Great Spirit, and he is not afraid." + +"It is Pah-sap-pah," replied the Indian sombrely. + +"Yes, it is Pah-sap-pah, and Pah-sap-pah is sacred. In Pah-sap-pah are +two men, and they go here and there breaking her rocks, cutting her +trees, defiling her streams. They profane the spirits. On the clouds +of the mountain Gitche Manitou frowns because his children permit it. +'Why comes not one to take these away?' he says. 'My children have +forgotten me.'" + +"Gitche Manitou is great," said Rain-in-the-Face thoughtfully. "Why +does he not destroy his enemies?" + +"Gitche Manitou destroys through his chosen. Destroy thou, and it will +be Gitche Manitou who destroys through thy hand." + +The wily half-breed had caught this doctrine of the Jesuit in his old +north country home, and his crafty use of it impressed its force +strongly on the savage's mind. Lafond proceeded-- + +"And who more fitted than Rain-in-the-Face?" + +The Indian glanced at him with new respect at this knowledge of his +name. + +"For he stands near to the Great Spirit, and the warriors will follow +him." + +The half-breed paused, pretending to consider the difficulties. + +"The men are but two and there is a woman. There are here a hundred +warriors, and each warrior has a gun and much powder. When the profane +ones have been destroyed, then Rain-in-the-Face will turn northward and +enter the camp of Sitting Bull at the head of many fighting men. It +little beseems so great a warrior of the Uncpapas to go begging a rifle +from the Tetons!" + +The mind of Rain-in-the-Face, thus relieved of some degree of its +superstitious fear, lay fully open to this last appeal to his pride. +He picked up the pipe and puffed stolidly on it twice. + +"The enemies of my brother shall die," said he. + +Before the formal conference of that evening, Michail Lafond had +arranged to carry out his side of the bargain. He had done this very +simply. After the conversation in the lodge he had gone to Lone Wolf. + +"The stranger is Rain-in-the-Face, of the Uncpapas," said he. "He is +pleased with our warriors and he wishes to lead them against the great +white war chief near the Big Horn. There are also strangers in +Pah-sap-pah whom it is the will of Gitche Manitou that Rain-in-the-Face +should destroy, and he desires your help." + +Lone Wolf was delighted. That so famous a warrior should choose his +band was honor enough to repay any effort. + +In all this transaction, the offices of Michail Lafond could easily +have been dispensed with. If Lone Wolf had gone to Rain-in-the-Face +and said, "Behold, here are my young men. Lead them," the latter would +have accepted the tender with joy. If, on the other hand, the stranger +had merely announced his identity to Lone Wolf, that chieftain would +gladly have furnished him with everything he needed. But each was in +the dark as to one fact, of which Lafond had knowledge. +Rain-in-the-Face did not suspect how his imprisonment had increased his +importance, nor did he know that the deep content which brooded over +Lone Wolf's camp was only apparent, and had been carefully fostered by +Lafond. Nor did Lone Wolf recognize Rain-in-the-Face, nor realize how +anxious the youth was for an escort to uphold his pride. It was by +seeing little things of this sort, and acting upon them, that the +half-breed had gained so much influence. + +Four days later, Lone Wolf's camp swept northwestward toward the Big +Horn Mountain. On the 25th of June, Rain-in-the-Face confronted +General Custer, on a knoll near the river of the Little Big Horn. A +great battle was all but over, and the few remaining troopers, their +last cartridges gone, were fighting desperately with sabres. + +The savage shot the white man through the heart. + + + + +X + +THE PRICE OF A CLAIM + +All through this time of dread and danger, of plot and counterplot and +intrigue, of brooding war and half-awakened pillage, the doctor went on +peacefully collecting his funny little statistics, utterly oblivious to +everything but their accumulation and arrangement. Every morning of +the warmer months he went out into the hills for the day. There he +would grub about among his ledges and leads, pecking away at the rocks +with his little hand pick, filling his canvas bags, jotting down notes +and statistics in his notebook. + +During its progress he was blind to everything but his work. One day, +as he walked along the top of a ridge, a huge bear rose up in his path. +The doctor politely lifted his hat and passed to one side. The decline +of the sun alone he noticed. When the shadow of Harney crept out to +him he turned toward home. As he neared the log cabin his placid eyes +fairly beamed through his spectacles. When he came in sight of it he +ran forward, his specimen bags swinging heavily against his legs, +caught up the child stumbling to meet him and carried her, laughing and +struggling, to the woman in the doorway. Then they had supper all +together--bacon, or perhaps game, with vegetables from the garden, and +corn bread. Occasionally they had white bread and coffee, and always +fresh water from the cold mountain creek. After supper the doctor went +outdoors to arrange his specimens and plot out his notes as long as the +daylight lasted. His wife moved about inside softly. After a time she +brought out the little girl in her nightdress to be kissed. So the +twilight neared, and the long day was done. + +As the yellow glow crept down, she came outdoors too, and sat pensively +looking over the peaks of the lower mountains to the distant Cheyenne +and the prairies. Beyond them was the East. There were cities and +books and other women and the beat of human life in the air. Here was +a still, lonely grandeur that even the wind in the pines did not +relieve. + +The doctor finally had to put aside his work for lack of light, and sat +at her feet leaning against the logs of the cabin. She looked down on +his little figure, his round shoulders, his forehead even now abstract +and wrinkled with speculation, his kindly blue eyes, his sensitive +mouth, and then she softly reached out and took his hand. The two sat +there until the moon rose over the Bad Lands. Then they went inside. +In moments such as this the woman lived. + +In winter time the doctor sat near the fireplace, writing by the +candlelight on his great book. She was in the shadow, looking at him +with tenderness, smiling wearily at the eager quivering of his chin, +and rocking gently back and forth. The little girl played demurely on +the floor within the circle of firelight, her curls falling down on her +forehead. She piled up her blocks, and occasionally, as one would +fall, she would look up in deprecation of her mother's hush. The +golden heads of the mother and child were like sunshine before the dark +walls of the cabin. Against them the firelight gleamed. Outside, the +thin, light snow drifted fitfully by the pane. The doctor wrote. The +woman watched in patience. The child played. + +As spring came on, the doctor got out into the hills again. + +One day he came back and found the woman murdered and the child gone. +The cabin was ransacked from one end to the other, but no attempt had +been made to fire it. + +The doctor put his specimen bags methodically in their places, and then +sat down by his dead wife. + +At evening some passing miners found him there holding her hand. With +some difficulty, and by the exercise of a gentle force, they persuaded +him to rise, after which they tenderly laid the body on a couch, +concealing as best they might the red tonsure where the scalp had been. +They set the cabin in order and cooked supper from the provisions in +their wagon. The doctor ate and drank in silence, making no sign when +the men spoke to him. + +After supper he went outside and began to arrange his specimens. When +darkness fell he came in, stood undecided for a moment, and then lay +down on a bear-skin, Jim's gift, and slept. + +The men looked at one another in a puzzled way, conversing in low +tones. Soon they too rolled themselves up and went to sleep on the +floor. + +Early in the morning Jim Buckley came down the gulch with part of a +deer. The men told him the news hurriedly, between mouthfuls of +coffee. Jim looked at the dead woman with a hardening of the mouth and +a softening of the eyes; then he went out and for the first time took +the doctor's hand. + +When they had finished breakfast, the men made a rough bier of willow +branches plaited, on which they gently laid the body. Two went down to +the soft earth by the creek bottom and began to dig. The others +followed with their burden, which they laid beside the growing +excavation, and then stood with bared heads, waiting for the diggers. +The doctor would not come. After a little persuasion they left him +sitting on the ground, leaning against the logs of the cabin, looking +out over the bluffs of the Cheyenne to the east. + +The men in the trench worked rapidly and skilfully, one loosening the +gravel with his pick, the other shovelling it out on the grass. +Suddenly the latter stopped in the act of tossing a shovelful. He +pushed his stubby forefinger in among the gravel for a moment and drew +out an irregular bit of metal. It was gold. + +They buried the young wife elsewhere, and staked out the claim, and +others, lying along the creek. + +So Prue slept quietly at last. Her little life was drab-colored in +spite of the lights of adventure and drama that had played over it. It +contained a great love and a great sacrifice. So little of the gold +would have made her happy, and yet all the wealth of these new placers +could not have saved her at the last! + +A rider dashed up to them at the cabin, bringing news of the outbreak. +It was directed to the towns of the North, and had only brushed Spanish +Gulch on its destroying way. The men camped on the site of the new +placer. They built cradles and pumped water down from Spanish Creek, +so that in a little time the gulch contained quite a town. The first +discovery is known as the Doctor's Claim, and so you can find it +recorded in the records of Pennington County to-day. It turned out to +be very rich. + +And as for the doctor--he died. + + + + +XI + +THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE + +The day following the conference, Lone Wolf struck camp. The squaws +quickly removed and rolled into convenient bundles the skin coverings +of the tepees. The poles of the latter were strapped on each side of +the ponies in such a manner that, their ends dragging on the ground, a +sort of litter was formed for the transportation of the household goods +and the younger children. Before the sun was an hour high, the caravan +was under way. + +From this, the South Fork of the Cheyenne, the main band, under Lone +Wolf, were to push directly through to the Big Horn. Lafond, +Rain-in-the-Face, and the warriors detailed for the expedition were to +carry out the adventure of Pah-sap-pah to the half-breed's +satisfaction, and were then to rejoin the main body as soon as possible. + +The smaller band cut in to the Black Hills shortly after daybreak one +morning. It rode up Spanish Gulch a little before noon. + +Most of these warriors had never before entered the dark limits of +Pah-sap-pah. They were plainly in awe of its frowning cliffs and +rustling pines. They rode close together, whispering uneasily. Even +Rain-in-the-Face failed to reassure them. Why should he? He was a +little afraid himself. + +Lafond's knowledge of the topography of the place was excellent. He +had visited it several times. He had watched the doctor, step by step, +throughout a long day of geological searching. He knew Jim Buckley's +dwelling, where he worked, what hours he kept, and just how late he sat +up at night. Innumerable times he had viewed the doctor, Prue, and the +scout through the buck-horn sights of his long rifle; yet he had never +been even tempted to pull the trigger. Why? Because he was a Latin, +and so theatrical effects were dear to him; because he was an Indian, +and so revenge with him seemed to lie not so much in the mere +infliction of injury as in the victim's realization that he was being +come up with. Lafond not only wanted the doctor and his companions to +be killed, but he wanted them to know why they were killed, and by +whom. It was finer to be able thus to do the thing with all the stage +settings. The dramatic instinct was part of the barbaric quality of +his nature, like a love for red. + +So Lafond had let slip innumerable opportunities of picking off his +victims single-handed, merely to gain the local knowledge necessary to +a final _coup de theatre_. Consequently, he knew where the cabin was +situated, and quickly scouted the state of affairs. The coast was +clear. He gave the required signal; the savages silently approached on +foot, and they entered the little house together. + +Now at this time of year, in the Black Hills, there occurs a daily +meteorological phenomenon of a rather peculiar character. The hot air +from the prairies sweeps over from the Missouri River, crossing a +number of lesser streams in its passage, until it strikes the slope of +the hills. There it is deflected upward, gradually becoming colder as +the elevation rises, until, at the barrier of Harney, it gathers in +rain clouds. These are at first mere wisps of down, streaming in +ragged ribbons from the peak; but with incredible rapidity they gain in +density and extent, until they spread over a considerable area of the +surrounding country. Then they empty themselves in a terrific deluge +of water and hail, accompanied by thunderclaps so reverberant that they +seem to arise from the rending of the hills themselves. After this +short crisis, the dismembered clouds float out over the prairie and are +dissipated in the hot air, even before they reach the first white +turrets of the Bad Lands. + +So rapidly does the storm gather and break, that there is but a short +half hour between the morning and the afternoon clearness of the skies. +To those who have never experienced this phenomenon, it is startling in +the extreme; to those who have, it is a matter of seeking temporary +shelter until the disturbance blows over. In any case, the first +indications are but scant warning. + +By the time the little band of Indians had reached the doctor's cabin, +the first wisps of cloud were clinging to Harney. While they were in +the house, the blackness gathered and loomed and darkened until the sun +was obscured and the western hills lost themselves in rain. + +The doctor was in the hills. Prue was making the bed in the little +bedroom, and little Miss Prue was asleep on a rug in one corner of the +larger apartment. The savages stole in with noiseless, moccasined feet +behind the stooping woman. Lafond, forgetting in his excitement +everything but the lust of killing, stabbed her deeply twice in the +broad of the back. She fell forward on the bed without a murmur, and +the murderer, seizing the knob of her hair, circled her brow with his +knife's edge, and ripped loose the scalp. Then they all glided back +into the other room. + +Three of the savages took from the wood box near the crude fireplace +some of the dried kindling with which Jim Buckley had supplied the +family, and began to build a little wigwam-shaped pyramid against the +side of the wall. Others moved about furtively, prying here and there +for possible plunder. They preserved absolute silence, for the +superstitious terror of the place was working on them, and they had +begun to experience that panic-like tremor which seems to create an +invisible clutch ready to seize from behind. + +Even the encouraging presence of Rain-in-the-Face was not potent enough +to prevent this. Out on the plains the personality of the man had +loomed large, but here the legend was greater than he. The warriors +felt the imminence of the frowning, brooding manitou of Harney; they +almost heard the moaned syllables of the Soulless Ones' complaint. +Their movements were those of timid mice, advancing a little, +hesitating much, ready to flee in panic. + +Not so Lafond. He strode roughly over to the corner where the child +lay. In his mind, with new vividness, burned that old picture of his +humiliation. He began to realize, now that the patient repression of +his hate was over, how potent it had been. Alfred and Billy Knapp were +out of his reach for the present, but here were the others ready to his +hand. He seized little Prue by the hair of her head. + +The child, thus suddenly awakened, screamed violently, shriek upon +shriek, as her terror became more fully conscious of the savage and his +bloody knife. About the room the warriors paused nervously. +Accustomed enough to screams of this sort, they were now dominated by +superstition and were thrown off their wonted balance. + +And then a fearful thing occurred. Before their eyes, in the open +door, groped and staggered the woman Lafond had stabbed but a moment +before. From the red raw surface of her scalp blood streamed--streamed +over the remaining fringe of her hair, matting it down; streamed down +into her eyes, blinding them; over her drawn countenance; over the +dabbled, sticky, clinging fabric of her garment, reddened still more by +the pulsing flood from the two great wounds in her body. Her breast +heaved painfully, the breath coming and going with a strange bubbling +gurgle. Her face was turned upward almost to the ceiling above in the +agony of her endeavor. Her little hands, become waxen, clutched and +unclutched the side of the door. The child screamed yet again, +mercifully hidden from this awful sight by the intervention of Lafond's +body. The woman made a supreme effort to advance, plunged forward, and +rolled over and over on the cabin floor. + +At the same instant, with a shriek of wind and a roar of rain, the +voice of the thunder spoke. + +The savages, who had watched with strained eyes this resurrection from +the dead, yelled in an ecstasy of superstitious terror and rushed for +the door. + +Lafond, utterly unmoved, called to them in Indian and swore at them in +French, but they were gone. He hesitated for a moment in evident +indecision as to what should be done next. Then he rapidly bundled the +little girl in a blanket and threw her across his shoulder. As he +hurried to the door, he paused for a moment over the motionless heap of +blood and rags on the floor, coolly thrusting his knife again and again +into the unresisting flesh. + +He caught the fugitives only below the canyon of Iron Creek. They had +made no pause until well out of the hills, and were still shaking with +superstitious dread. Even Rain-in-the-Face, bold and self-confident as +he was, had yielded to the panic; nor could the persuasions, threats or +ridicule of the half-breed induce them to return. + +For a time Lafond was of two minds as to his own course in the matter. +Should he leave things as they were for the present or should he return +alone to complete the work? Finally he decided on the former. The +Gallic love of the spectacular again intervened; besides, he was +possessed of a certain large feeling that the world was not wide enough +to save his victims from him when he should judge the time fit. He +found much joy in gloating over what he imagined the two men would say, +do, and think when they returned to the cabin. And he was a good deal +of a savage. He looked forward with fierce delight to the great battle +which he foresaw would soon take place between Sitting Bull and his +white enemies. So he rode on with the little band of warriors to +overtake Lone Wolf. + +The savages plainly could not understand his encumbering himself with +the child. The custom had always been to seize such a victim by the +ankles, whirl it once about the head to get a good swing, and then to +dash its skull violently against a bowlder. They saw no reason why the +rule should be departed from in this case. Neither did Lafond; but the +queer, zigzag intuition of the half-breed had caused him to feel dimly +that he should preserve the child, and as he was in the habit of +gratifying his whims, he proceeded to carry out his intention in this +case. Once his decision was expressed in emphatic form, his companions +acquiesced. The child was Michail's captive; with his own captive he +could work his will. That is the Indian code. + +So little Miss Prue was carried for seven days on the back of a horse. +She did not cry much, and this saved her from violence. Her two years +of outdoor life had made her constitution robust, and this helped her +in inevitable privation. At the end of the week, the band caught up +with Lone Wolf and his camp, and Miss Prue was given over into the care +of Lafond's two young squaws. With them she underwent the customary +two days' jealousy, and then entered fully into the heritage of +kindliness which every Indian woman squeezes, drop by drop, from her +arid life and lavishes on the creatures who are gentle with her. + +She had, to be sure, to learn the Indian virtues of silence and +obedience. She had to do the little tasks that are set to girl babies +everywhere among the savage tribes. And, above all, she had to learn +to endure. But, in recompense, the two Indian women adored her. They +decked her out in beaded work and white buckskin; they put bright +feathers in her hair and bright beads about her little neck; they saved +choice bits for her from the family kettle; and when night came they +lay on either side of her and softly stroked her hair as she slept. +Over her head, among others, hung her mother's scalp. + + + + +XII + +THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS + +It is not the purpose of this story to describe the battle of the +Little Big Horn in detail. That has been done many times. There is +little about it that is remarkable, excepting always the heroism of the +men who fought so desperately. The scene itself must have been +impressive, as viewed by the non-combatants of the Indians from the +bluffs near at hand--the swirl of brown about the melting patch of +blue. After Custer fell, the savages turned eagerly down the valley to +attack Reno, leaving the dead as they lay. Lafond did not accompany +them. The sight had aroused certain reflections in his breast, and he +wished to work the thing out. + +After sunset, he went alone and on foot over to the battlefield. The +troopers lay as they had fallen--first, Calhoun's company in line, with +its officers in place; then Keogh's; finally, on the knoll, the +remnant, scattered irregularly among the dead of their enemies. In the +cold light their faces shone white and still, even yet instinct with +the eagerness of battle; an eagerness which death had transmuted from +flesh to marble. Near the centre lay Custer, his long yellow hair +framing his face, his hands crossed on his breast. He alone was +unmutilated, save by the shot that had taken his life. + +The half-breed did not hesitate on the outer circle of the combat, but +picked his way among the corpses until he stood on the summit of the +little knoll. Then he folded his arms and looked steadily down on the +white man's inscrutable face. + +Whatever might be Lafond's intellectual or moral deficiencies, lack of +perspicacity was not among them. Through the red glory of this +apparent victory, the most sweeping ever accomplished by the plains +Indians, he saw clearly the imminence of final defeat. The dead man +before him lay smiling, and Lafond perceived that he smiled because he +saw his people arising to avenge him. The beat of the muster drum +calling the avengers to the frontier now sounded in prophecy to his +hearing, and the echoes of the last battle shot merged into the clang +of an iron civilization, which was destined to push these exulting +victors dispassionately aside. It was a striking picture of light and +of shadow--this dark, savage figure silhouetted against the softened +brightness of the sky, this bright-haired warrior lying bathed in the +glorification of a Western night; the white man humiliated, defeated, +slain, but seeing with closed eyes that at which he smiled with deep +content; the savage, proud in success, triumphant, victor, but +perceiving somehow, in the very evidences of his achievement, that +which made him knit his brows. How little was this great victory +against the background of the people whom it had outraged, and yet how +mightily it would stir that people when once it became known! + +Michail Lafond the savage stood before the body of Custer the fallen, +for an hour, moving not one muscle all the time. At the end of the +hour Michail Lafond the civilized turned slowly away, and walked +thoughtfully toward the lodges on the other bank of the Little Big Horn +River. The sight of a brave man, who had died as he lived, had +reformed Lafond, but whether moralists would have approved of the +reformation is to be doubted. + +The night ran well along toward morning. The squaws, who had been +plundering and mutilating the dead, had long since returned to hear the +report of the warriors who had gone to attack Reno. The attack had +failed, but the fight had been desperate and the losses on both sides +heavy. Six of Custer's command, captured alive, were burned to death. +At last, the entire camp, with the exception of the women sentinels, +had gone to rest. Toward daybreak, even these became drowsy. + +Lafond arose quietly. He gathered a few necessaries into a pack, +placed them outside the doorway of the lodge, hesitated a moment, and +then returned. His two squaws slept, as usual, one each side of the +little girl. Lafond lifted the child carefully in order that he might +not awaken her guardians or herself, and wrapped her closely in his +blanket. At the doorway he again hesitated. Then, chuckling grimly, +he deposited the child by the bundle he had already prepared, and +returning, took down from the tent pole the string of scalps which went +to show how successful and how savage a warrior he had been. By the +light of the stars he selected one of these and laid it carefully +between the two sleeping women. It was the scalp of the little girl's +mother. Then he rehung the string on the tent pole, and went outside +immensely pleased with his bit of humor. + +It was his good-by to the wild life. From that time on he dwelt in the +towns, where in a very few years his name became known as standing for +a shrewdness in management, a keenness in seizing opportunities, and an +inflexibility of purpose rarely to be met with among his Anglo-Saxon +competitors. His present objective point, however, was the Spotted +Tail Agency, which was, from the valley of the Little Big Horn, an +affair of five days. Michail Lafond did it in four; or at least at the +end of the fourth he was within a few miles of the agency buildings. +By the evening of the third day, he had transformed both himself and +the little girl into an appearance of civilization, reclothing her in +the garments she had worn at the time of her capture, and himself in a +complete outfit which he had collected piece by piece on that last +night with the savages. The change was truly astonishing. + +His last camp in the open was pitched within sight of the Spotted Tail +reservation. The darkness was almost at hand. He had fed himself and +the child, had put the latter to rest under one blanket and was just +about to wrap himself in the other, when he became aware of a prairie +schooner swaying leisurely across the plains in his direction. He at +once sat up again. Every man was to him an object of suspicion. + +Not until the wagon had halted within a few feet of him could he +distinguish the occupant. Then he perceived that the latter was a +gentle-faced, silver-haired individual of mild aspect, dressed decently +but strangely, and possessed of introspective blue eyes, which he +turned dreamily on Lafond. + +"May I camp here?" he inquired deprecatingly. + +The half-breed considered. + +"I s'pose so," he said without enthusiasm. + +The old man descended and uncoupled his two animals. After he had +picketed them, he returned, and, extracting from the wagon body the +materials for a meal, he proceeded to make himself at home over +Lafond's fire. + +"I never did like to camp alone," he confided to the latter. + +Lafond watched him intently. No further words were exchanged until the +stranger had finished his supper and had restored his kit to the wagon. +Then the younger man offered the hospitality of the plains. + +"Yo' smok'?" he inquired, tendering his tobacco. + +"Thank you, no," replied the old man with a tone of breeding which +Lafond felt but could not define. + +The half-breed could not make out the newcomer, and the conversation +failed to enlighten him. That was an epoch when all the world turned +to the West; but it was a practical world. There one might in time +meet all sorts and conditions of men, from the English lord to the +turbulent Fenian; from the New York exquisite fallen on hard times to +the "bad man" who had never been east of the Mississippi. One never +betrayed surprise at anything one might bring ashore from this flotsam +and jetsam of the human race. But all these odds and ends were at +least made of tough material, strong enough to run wherever a rapid +current might dash them, capable of supporting hard knocks against one +another or the obstructions in the way; while this placid old man +seemed to Lafond like a crystal vessel, of rare quality, perhaps, but +none the less fragile. At the last he asked bluntly, "What do you +here?" + +The old man fell silent for a minute or two and gazed into the coals of +the dying fire. + +"My name is Durand," he said at last, with an infinitude of sorrow in +the tones of his voice. "I am an entomologist. I am here to get +specimens--butterflies; but it is not here that I belong. My place is +elsewhere, and that I know. But it is not in my country, and----" he +broke off. Lafond looked on curiously, for the dreamy haze had faded +from the speaker's eyes. "My friend," Durand went on, "there are times +when one cares not to see the face of man except in the bosom of the +great nature. I do not know that you understand that. It is with the +bitterness of a wrong that such knowledge comes, and with it comes the +hate of cities and of the things men do. Some men have had their will +of me, and I am come to the wilderness. They called it revenge to +drive me here." + +"Revenge! But you still live!" repeated Lafond in wonder. + +"And is it that you think the taking of life is revenge?" cried Durand, +with sudden energy. "They who take their revenge in killing are +actually the merciful ones, and they cheat no one but themselves." + +"Yes?" asked Lafond, his soul in the question. + +The other turned in surprise at his companion's vehemence. He saw a +stolid; dark-skinned man gazing impassively into the fire. + +"They are fools," went on Durand bitterly, after a moment; "just fools. +These others were of more ingenuity; they knew what would hurt, what +would avenge them better than the killing." + +"I do not understand," said the half-breed, feeling his way slowly, for +the fear of damming this flow of confidence. He looked away, for his +eye glowed, though his voice was steady. "W'at is it? If one kills, +if one takes that life, w'at is worse?" + +"Worse, worse?" cried Durand, flinging his hands impotently upward. "A +thousand things!" He suddenly became calm, and turned to Lafond with +impressive forefinger. "Listen, my friend. Life is a little thing. +Anyone can take it who has a gun, or a knife, or even a stone. But the +true revenge is in finding out what it is that each man prizes the +most, and then taking it from him. And that requires power! power! +power! + +"Few there are who have not something they prize more than life," he +added gloomily. The fire died from his eye. He became once again the +timid old butterfly hunter, pushing blindly out into the wilderness, +wondering at himself for thus exposing an old wound to a chance passer; +and yet perhaps feeling in some dim fashion--so inscrutable are the +instincts of these half-childish natures--that in so doing he was +following for a moment the lines of greater destinies than his own. + +And certainly, long after the dipper had swung below the pole star, +Lafond sat staring into the ashes of the fire, just as four days since +he had stared into the ashes of a brave and chivalrous life. In his +history there were the two crucial hours--one after the greatest battle +of the plains; the other after a dozen sentences exchanged with a +half-crazy old entomologist. From the potent reflections induced by +these one hundred and twenty minutes it resulted that Michail Lafond +became civilized and a seeker for wealth in the development of the +young country. In wealth he saw power; in power the ability to give or +take away. + +The depriving each man of that which he prizes the most! + + + + +XIII + +THE DISSOLVING VIEW + +While things have gone on, we have conducted our business and returned +each evening to our armchairs by the fire. There we have sat at ease +and reviewed the world. Events have come to pass. Diplomats have +quarrelled gravely over the wording of a document. From our evening +papers we have gathered a languid interest in the controversy. Six +months later we pick up the paper and find that the dispute is still +going on. A German and an Englishman play a game of chess over the +cable. This too is reported in our journal, and we follow its progress +with attention through the weeks of its duration. Somebody agitates +the establishment of a new industry in our native town. It will raise +the value of our real estate, so we attend meetings for some months and +talk about it, after which the industry is assured. Two years later it +is in operation and we congratulate ourselves. Friends of our younger +days marry; and before we know it their houses are noisy with the +shoutings of children. Leisurely we grow older. Our ideas become +fixed, often by the most trivial of circumstances. Africa means +tangled forest; India, a jungle; Siberia, broad snow plains; all South +America, a dripping stillness of tropical verdure; simply because +somewhere, some time, a book or paper, the woodcut of a child's lesson, +has so generalized them for us. Against these preconceived notions the +events we read about are cast. + +In very much this way the constant facts of the West have been to us +the Indian and the buffalo. Before our eyes the Master Showman has +held insistently this picture. Against the background of the +occidental hills or the flat reach of the grass-nodding prairies has +posed in solemn gravity the naked warrior, leaning from his pony upon +his feather-bedecked lance; or, in the choking dust of its own +progression, has lumbered heavily the buffalo myriad. These have +seemed permanent--the man and the beast. + +Then, before our protesting conservatism, the scene has dissolved in a +mist of strange shapes and violent deeds, only to steady a moment later +into a new picture. The mounted figure has disappeared, and in his +place, against the glow of sunset, the sturdy form of the husbandman +grasps the shaft of his plough, gazing past the tired horses, and +brooding the slow thoughts of his calling. The last rays catch the +sheen of grain--a sea of it--and shimmer lightly until they lose +themselves in contrast with the square of ruddy light that marks the +windows of a farmhouse. + +This is the new West. We rub our eyes and wonder. The diplomats still +squabble; the chess game dawdles its languid way; the factory is +getting ready to pay its first dividend; our friends' children are +about to enter the high school. Everything has developed along the +usual lines of growth, and yet this greater change has come about in a +night. We turn back the files of our paper, and find that it has +occupied in the world's history just fifteen years! In that little +space of time the institutions of untold ages have been overthrown and +new ones substituted for them. + +Deadwood was founded in 1876. In 1890 Sitting Bull and his tribe were +utterly destroyed in the mid-winter fight at Wounded Knee. Between +those dates, the Dakotas have manufactured at home an article of quite +adequate civilization. + +To be sure, the product is perhaps a little crude. Although enormous +grain fields attest indubitably that the farmer has tamed the soil, +equally enormous Indian reservations as indubitably dispute too +sweeping an assertion of it. Electric railways may be instanced in +some towns. The sprightly six-shooter is in others the quickest road +to the longest journey. Hot Springs has a modern hotel and an improved +bar; a scant thirty miles north is the unsheriffed log-mining camp +where the "bad man" terrorizes in all his glory. + +These things are true, but they count for little. The great facts +remain, and they are these: a cowboy named Tenney tried to lasso the +last buffalo some years since and got himself yanked over several +irregular miles of country; the Sioux are herded nicely on their +reservations and shoot at nickels with bows and arrows for the +amusement of passing tourists. The old frontier conditions have gone. +If you want trouble, you must go out to look for it; it no longer comes +to you unsought. In a word the broad sea of the wilderness has +shrunken to bayous and bays surrounded and intersected by dried areas +fit for the cultivation of paper collars and tenderfeet. The frontier +still exists, but exists in its isolation only because it is not as +commercially desirable as the rest. + +This is true of the country at large. It is also true of Pah-sap-pah, +the Black Hills. Already a railroad has pushed its way up the main +valley. The folders show a map with the usual blood-red artery of +mathematical straightness, passing through myriads of small-type towns, +clinging desperately by their noses to the blessings of commerce, and +sundry dignified, large-type cities, standing more aloof on their own +merits. It all looks imposing enough on paper; but in reality the line +does little more than keep itself warm in the narrow valley of its +route. On closer inspection the myriads of towns disappear. +Minnekahta is a station in the midst of a vast plain, Pringles a +sawmill, Stony Point just nothing at all. For the Black Hills are +great of extent, and one county of the Dakotas could swallow an eastern +State. + +All this, from border warfare to comparative order--say from Canute to +Elizabeth--not in a thousand years, but in the brief age of a man-child +growing out from his kindergarten into his college! + +To one who has lived with the country, the process has been an +education more thorough than that usually vouchsafed men. It has +lacked in the graces and accomplishments, perhaps, but it has brought +to the highest pitch the two qualities of self-reliance and of power of +insight into men's characters. Whatever blunders a frontiersman may +commit when visiting his neighbor cities in the East, they are never +the bashful blunders of a countryman. Bunco men can clean him out in a +gambling joint, but who ever heard of their selling him a gold brick? +He has lived through all this hundreds of years ago, when Wild Bill was +killed at Deadwood, or perhaps a century or so later, when, the year +following, Alfred took the Caldwells to the Hills and was so nearly +rushed by the Sioux. His life has been an epitome. He has met most +conditions at one time or another, and is no longer afraid of them. + +In a tale dealing with this period of the dissolving view--when in +changing from one slide of the lantern to the other the Master Showman +has permitted us a little glimpse of hurrying, heroic figures and +dazzled us with the clouds of great deeds swiftly done--the teller must +adopt one of two methods. He must either generalize, or be content to +spend his space on single episodes. In that period, every day was a +book. Men counted as nothing experiences filled with an excitement or +a pathos or a beauty intense enough to render significant the whole +life of a quiet New Englander. Acts were many, and trod close on one +another's heels, yet to each act there was a sequence of motive, of +desire, of logical effect, as well capable of being sought out and +described as though they were not entangled and confused in the rush of +the moments. The story teller could find his task in the dissection of +these, and the task would be interesting. But to one who is concerned, +not with a period, but a life, this is impossible. + +The fifteen years saw a marked change in the fortunes of the half-breed +known as Michail Lafond. During all that time he had led an apparently +honest and law-abiding life. No man could say that he had been cheated +by him or that he had been favored; but one and all with whom the +half-breed had come into contact could speak with admiration and fear +of the latter's power of seizing the best of the main chance. He had +left the child at the Spotted Tail reservation, giving her name as +Molly Lafond and making arrangements for her maintenance. He turned +some gold claims to advantage, but abandoned that sort of thing as too +uncertain. He participated mildly in the prosperity of several of the +mushroom towns of the period, but soon drew out of booms as possessing +also too much of the element of luck. + +He did the hundreds of other things to which men in a new country can +always turn their hands, and in each he made his profit; but in each he +found something lacking to the elaborate scheme of power he had builded +one evening before a prairie camp fire. Finally he hit upon whisky and +dance halls and there he stayed. Abandoning all other enterprises, he +gave his individual attention to these two, for he found in them not +only the surest and largest monetary returns, but the certain +popularity which men accord to those who minister to their pleasures. +From Deadwood to Edgemont there gradually grew up a string of saloons +bearing the name of Lafond. Some of them were paying, some on the +point of paying, some merely lying latent for the boom which Lafond +thought to see in the near future. For, as of old, he delighted in +discounting the future. He liked long shots in his investments. + +Over each of these various establishments their owner was in the habit +of placing a man chosen according to the needs of the place, and this +man fell more or less under Lafond's personal supervision according as +the exigencies of the case seemed to demand it. The half-breed's +policy was to keep in actual touch with the most prosperous, and to +give personal effort to the most promising. The others could take care +of themselves until their time came. So at Mulberry Gulch, where the +camp consisted only of a number of grub stakers, he owned a little log +cabin which he had never seen. At Deadwood, an old and prosperous +camp, he was proprietor of a begilded and bemirrored splendor so well +established that it needed only a periodical supervising visit to keep +it running smoothly. At Copper Creek was also nothing but a log-cabin +saloon; but Copper Creek bade fair to amount to something. Perhaps the +spirit of the three kinds was best indicated by the signs over their +counters. Mulberry Gulch exhibited a rudely lettered device informing +the public, "Pies, Whisky and Pistols for Sail Here." Deadwood thirsty +ones learned that they should "Ask for Our 1860 Old Crow; the Finest on +Earth." Copper Creek sententiously remarked: "To Trust is Bust." + +All this symbolized nothing more or less than the commercial history of +a successful man in the West. It meant nothing except that Lafond had +the instinct and the cleverness, and so was getting rich. More +interesting than the change of his fortune was the change of the man +himself. + +In the old days he had been crafty in a subtle way; but he had been +impulsive, eager, excitable, inclined to jump at the bidding of his +intuitions. Now his character seemed to have expanded and modified. A +powder explosion had slightly bent his straight figure, halted his +gait, and seamed his face with powder marks. To hide these last, he +wore a beard. The effect was one of quiet responsibility, and a +certain geniality, though a keen observer might have hesitated to call +this geniality kindly. + +His manner was very quiet. He never reproved his subordinates or +addressed a hasty word to anyone, unless he became thoroughly convinced +of the culprit's incapacity. Then his anger was at white heat. He +could forgive deliberate attempts to evade his commands or conscious +efforts at rascality, for with them he could cope; but mistakes he +never condoned. An occasional slight inversion of the natural order of +words or phrases was all that remained to him of his old accent. + +Altogether he was a personage whose public position was +unexceptionable. In the West no man has a past, unless that past is +personified and carries a rebuking six-shooter. He had wealth, +popularity, an acquaintance as wide as the Hills themselves. All that +meant power, especially when combined with a shrewd ability to read +men's characters. + +But of the old order one thing remained--his religion. In the storm +and stress of a period hot with events, his life work was conceived and +laid out. The lines of its plan had been seared into his soul by +crime. He no longer felt the smart, but the cicatrix was there, and he +daily bowed to its symbolism, often without a thought of what it really +meant. His was like the future of a boy who has entered the army; his +line of conduct was all prearranged, and his independence of it never +occurred to him. There was no glowering hate in this; only a certain +sense of inevitability. In other words, it was his religion. + +[Illustration: "COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..."] + +Certain things were to be done. First of all he must become wealthy. +Very well; wealthy he became. He must become popular. Agreed; he +cultivated his fellow men. He must know how to read character and to +hit upon weaknesses. Exactly; he bent his cleverness to the task. +There was a larger end to which these three were but the means; but +that would come later. Just now life meant quiet, earnest compassing +of the three things. Until they were quite within his grasp, he could +afford to shut into the background what their ultimate signification +should be. Lafond lived tranquilly a perfectly moral existence. + +But without his volition the great idea crystallized into some sort of +shape. It was always in the background, to be sure; but, after all, a +background fills the picture. _That which men hold to be most dear_! +The years had taught him what it was, without his actually demanding it +of them. Men hold most dear property, reputation, honor among their +fellow men, and the love of women. Women hold most dear virtue and a +good name. + +About fifteen years after he had quitted the Indians, Lafond suddenly +realized that he had gained the power and knew how to use it. Quite +dispassionately he looked ahead to the next step. + +There were Jim Buckley, Billy Knapp, Alfred and the doctor's family. +The latter now included only the girl, whom Lafond had himself caused +to be raised to young womanhood. Of the others, Jim Buckley and Alfred +had long since left the country--Alfred for Arizona, where he had gone +into cow punching; Buckley for Montana and Idaho, in whose mountains he +was supposed to be prospecting. These two, then, were out of the way +for the present. They would never be difficult to find, and in +comparison with Billy they had held quite a secondary place at the time +of the half-breed's molten state, before he had cooled into the fixed +forms of his conduct of life. + +The reason for this throws not a little light on Lafond's character. +The feminine streak in him hated Billy Knapp personally, simply because +that individual was loud in talk, great in size, and blustering in +manner. He could restrain his resentment against the bashful Alfred or +the imperturbable Jim; but not that against a man who seemed always, to +the high strung half-breed, the potential bully. He would have +followed Billy Knapp to China, if necessary. + +But it so happened that that individual, after a checkered career, had +settled down in the village or camp of Copper Creek, not forty miles +from Lafond's headquarters at Rapid. Billy's vicissitudes were those +of many of his class. Trained in the liberal give and take policy of +the early frontier times, he found himself, on their ebb, stranded high +and dry without appropriate means of progression. Billy was used to +relying on his plainscraft, his courage, his skill with firearms, and +his personal strength. Such qualities as economy, accuracy of +estimate, frugality, and patience in the overcoming of abstractions +would have been, to his early life, practically useless. He came to be +a big-hearted, generous fellow, without the slightest idea of the value +of money or the burden of debt. He was apt to be seized by many whims, +which he was wont to gratify on the spot. + +"Know Billy Knapp?" ruminated an old plainsman once. "Billy Knapp? +Seems to me I do; he's the feller that would buy the co't house yonder +if he could get trusted for it, ain't he?" + +It described him. And as in the old days his prestige had depended on +individual prowess of a rather spectacular order, it came about that +Billy was just a little fond of strutting. He liked to play the +patron, he liked to distribute favors, to treat to drinks, to stand as +the representative of great unseen forces, whether of military power in +the old days, or of extensive capital in these latter. + +For a great many years this vanity had remained ungratified. Billy had +not the virtues to succeed in the rising commercialism of the new West. +After the last great campaign against the Sioux, he found his usual +occupations almost wiped from the slate. The plains were as safe as +Illinois. He picked up a livelihood still, mainly by reason of his +wonderful gift of persuasion, for Billy could talk black white, if only +the particular shade and the discussion were situated in the West. He +drove stage, broke horses, bossed cattle outfits, and finally drifted +into prospecting. + +There his chance came. By a lucky stroke of trading he became +possessed of some really good quartz claims and a small sum of ready +cash. Two weeks later he was in Chicago. It was his first trip east +of the Mississippi, but he knew just what he wanted, and he got it. +Three days of Billy's golden oratory led to the purchase by an Eastern +syndicate of an option on his group of claims, and the understanding +that toward the middle of the following summer a committee of owners +should visit the property in order to discuss ways and means of +developing the various quartz leads. + +The delighted Billy returned to Copper Creek. There at last he found +himself the important figure he had always dreamed of being. He posed +to himself and to everybody else. The camp gradually filled, and the +claims round about were snapped up greedily. + +Lafond had easily kept himself informed of all this. It was +sufficiently notorious. Now when he came to a realization that the +next move in his game of life was due and that he should put to its +appointed use the power he had so long amassed, he decided to study +Billy Knapp in order to see which of the four--property, reputation, +honor or love--that volatile individual held most dear. He could make +a shrewd guess, but he wanted to be on the ground. And as he thought +about it, there came to him a great wave of enthusiasm and eagerness +over this game he was about to play; a delight in the magnitude of the +stakes and the power of the instruments employed, an intellectual +glorying quite different and separated from his personal feelings in +the matter, or that religious obligation of it which lay at the back of +his soul. + + + + +XIV + +INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS + +The first thing Michail Lafond did in pursuance of his new +determination was to visit the Spotted Tail reservation in order to +reclaim the girl henceforth to be known as Molly Lafond. + +No one knows why he had followed out his first impulse to preserve her +life and bring her up. After a time, however, she came to symbolize, +in his half-mystical perception of such things, the first cause of all +that had happened. Personally he liked her because she was such a +free, independent, fiery little creature. He liked to talk to her and +be ordered about by her. He liked also to watch the graceful, decisive +movements of her lithe young body and the sparkle of her hair. She +looked a good deal like her mother. + +He even listened with what would appear to be close sympathy to her +complaints of the agent's wife and the life to be led at a reservation. +She and the agent's wife never did get on well. The latter was a +stern, commonplace, fat woman without sympathy. And the life! There +were no men, nothing but Indians. All you could do was to read all day +and all the evening, or ride straight out in any given direction that +led nowhere. Michail Lafond, in his semi-annual visits, was inclined +to agree with her and even to pity her a little. His personal likings +were on the surface, and had nothing whatever to do with the deeps of +his nature. + +Just as the surest way of satisfying his thirst for revenge upon Billy +Knapp was to deprive the man of his reputation and his property, so he +had determined to make of Molly a dance-hall girl, like Colorado Jenny. +It would deprive her of virtue and good name, the things a woman holds +most dear. He also felt keenly, in his instinctive dramatic sense, the +fitness of throwing this fine-fibred daughter of a nobler race to the +hungry passions, of watching her reversion little by little to the +brute type; but a formulation of it never came to the surface of his +mind. And yet, I must repeat, there was in one sense nothing personal +in this. Lafond felt no aversion to the girl herself. He took no +pleasure in the thought of cursing her or beating her, as might a man +seeking a hotter revenge. It was just cold, malignant, calculating +hate of something in opposition to him, which she symbolized. + +This intellectual form of hatred is a peculiar characteristic of +half-breeds. + +When Lafond suggested to Molly that she should leave the agency and +take up her residence with him in Copper Creek, she assented very +gladly, for she felt her present life insupportable. The day before, +she and Mrs. Sweeney, the agent's wife, had come into violent collision. + +"Where was you yesterday afternoon?" Mrs. Sweeney had asked, as Molly +came into the kitchen. + +It was before breakfast, so Molly shrugged an impatient shoulder. + +"Riding," she replied briefly. + +"Riding where?" insisted Mrs. Sweeney with heavy persistency. + +"Over west." + +"See anybody?" + +"No." + +"Sure?" + +"Yes." + +The old lady wound her hands in her apron and fixed her charge severely +with her eye. + +"Strange how blind some folks is," she went on after a moment. "Now, I +was indoors washing an' I see that young sergeant over there scoutin' +'round." + +The words were simple; the tone was not. + +"What do you mean?" cried Molly sharply. "Do you mean to say I was +riding with him?" + +Mrs. Sweeney wagged her head with aggravating sagacity. + +"Nobody needn't put on no shoe that don't fit 'em," she said, and +sighed with the air of a martyr who has discovered all and is +disappointed. + +Molly knew that her question had been justified by the woman's +insinuation, that she had put on no shoe, and that if there were a +martyr in the room it was not the agent's wife. Thereupon she said +things excitedly. The agent's wife assumed an injured placidity, than +which there is nothing more aggravating. Finally Molly flounced out of +the room. + +The agent's wife, being utterly in the wrong, sulked after the manner +of women for the rest of the day, and had to be sued for forgiveness. + +And yet next day, when Molly and the half-breed drove away, Mrs. +Sweeney remembered that the girl had been with them nearly fifteen +years, and wept; and the agent booted a trespassing Indian from his +office with unwonted energy. + +Molly, on the other hand, was as happy as a lark. Every man knows the +thrill of anticipation when he stows the gun case under the seat and +induces the pointer to curl up in the straw, just as every woman knows +the delight of an entrance to a room which her presence brightens more +than any other's. Molly experienced the same thrill, the same delight. +She had the instincts of the coquette; the confidence of inexperience; +the false ideals of a knowledge drawn from books and speculation; and +her heart had not yet awakened her conscience. She looked forward to +her own power over men, for she was intelligent, and realized the +extent both of her charms and of her knowledge. The latter was not +inextensive, for in her reading she had enjoyed the overwhelming +advantage of heredity. Heredity is a little scheme by which, to a +great extent, one recognizes knowledge, instead of acquiring it. + +They drove along for some distance without speaking. The girl was too +happy and the half-breed too preoccupied to talk. + +"Mike," she commanded suddenly after a time, "quit that smoking. I +don't like it." + +The half-breed hesitated, narrowing his brow, and looking straight +ahead. Then he silently knocked the ashes from his pipe and slipped it +into his pocket. Molly's eyes flashed with triumphant amusement. The +game had begun. After a time the sun sank into the dark hills, and the +great shadow of Harney crept out of them. + +The wagon rattled down a short incline to the broad, shallow bed of the +Cheyenne. Molly turned it aside into a little grass plat. + +"We'll camp here to-night," she announced. + +"There is better water two mile further, on the trail, on Fall River," +said Lafond, without moving. + +"I said we'd camp here!" repeated the girl sharply. + +The half-breed descended and began to unharness the horses. + + + + +XV + +IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL + +The camp which was to be the scene of Lafond's operations and of the +girl's anticipated triumphs, lay between Ragged Top and Tom Custer. It +consisted of a double row of log cabins situated in the V of the deep +ravine. The men generally ate in the long dining-room of the hotel, +worked at prospecting in the hills, and spent their evenings in the +centrally situated Little Nugget saloon, the property of Michail Lafond. + +The night of the half-breed's arrival the usual crowd was carrying on +the usual discussions on the usual subjects. + +One fresh from the East entering the building would have been struck +first with the strangeness of the room. It was long and low, and on +three sides dark. Against the fourth wall was stretched tightly a +white cotton sheet, imitating plaster, in front of which stood the bar. +The bar was polished, narrow, with a foot rest in front and two towels +hanging from metal clasps just under the projecting eaves of it. It +had been brought in sections, by wagon, at considerable expense. Some +three feet behind the bar, stretched a shelf of the same height, towel +covered, on which stood four bottles in front of a little mirror. The +shelf was piled symmetrically with glasses of all shapes--tumblers, +ponies, fine-stemmed wineglasses--arranged in pyramids and squares. +They glittered in the glare of the lamps, and the indirect light from +the white sheet. A dim pink reflection was given back by the +mirror--dim and pink because the glass was draped with pink mosquito +bar. Overhead hung the sign which read, "To Trust is Bust." + +Beneath the reflector of the largest lamp lounged the barkeeper reading +a paper. He had spread the paper on the bar, and, having crooked his +elbows out at wide angles around its margin, was bending his head of +straw-colored hair close over the print. He was dressed in white as to +the upper part of his body. Occasionally he read aloud in a monotone +from the paper. At other times his lips moved slowly, shaping the +invisible words as they took form in his sluggish brain. + +"The latest creations in ties," he read, "are described by our buyer as +being natty effects in the narrow plaids." + +Outside this glare of light from the white-dressed man, and the +glittering pyramids and squares and glasses, and the dim pink +reflections, and the white sheet imitating plaster, the rest of the +room seemed dark by contrast. Near the door and the small front +window, glowed a red-hot stove. Along the walls were ranged chairs. +In the chairs sat many men smoking. Above the men a few cheap pictures +were tacked against the rough walls. One of them represented an +abnormally slim and smooth race horse against a background of vivid +green. Another showed an equally green landscape, throwing into relief +a group of red-coated men on spider-legged horses, pursuing a huddle of +posing white hounds. One of the spider-legged horses had fallen, and +the rider, being projected horizontally forward, was suspended rigidly +in mid air, like Mohammed's coffin, and with as much apparent prospect +of coming to earth. Still another presented the sight of an +exceedingly naked woman descending from an exceedingly flat and marble +couch. One foot was on the floor, and the other knee rested still on +the flat and marble couch. It was labelled "Surprised." + +Three large lamps with reflectors illuminated this part of the room. +Then came a strip of comparative dusk; then another hanging-lamp +disclosed a smooth-topped table, on which was a faro lay-out. + +The men in the chairs smoked industriously and spoke seldom. The air +was thick with the smoke of strong tobacco, such as "Hand Made" and +"Lucky Strike." Very near the stove sprawled old Mizzou, +low-foreheaded, white-bearded, talking always of women and the merits +of grass-widows and school-ma'ams. + +"They is nothin' like 'em!" he asserted with ever-fresh emphasis of +tone. "Back in Chillicothe, whar th' hogs an' gals is co'n-fed, they +is shore bustin'! When one of them critters comes 'round, I feels jest +like raisin' hell and puttin' a chunk under it!" + +"Th' _hell_ you do!" snorted Cheyenne Harry, scowling his handsome +brows, "th' _hell_ you do! Give us a rest with yore everlasting +females." He pulled his hat over his eyes, and drew savagely on his +pipe, his right hand over the bowl, his left clasped tight under his +armpit. + +Billy Knapp was telling about his mine. + +"On that thar Buffalo lode," he said impressively, "I got a lead twenty +foot wide. _Twenty foot_, I say! And it holds out; it holds out a +lot. It's great. I says to them Chicago sharps, I says, 'You won't +find sech a lead as thet thar nowhere else in the Hills,' and by gravy +I believe that's right! I do for shore! An' I says to them, I says, +'It only takes a little sinkin', an' a little five stamp mill, t' put +her on a paying basis to wunst. Ain't no manner of _doubt_ of it! I +tell you it's a chance! that's what it is!'" + +He breathed hard with the enthusiasm into which his words lifted him. +He vociferated, telling over and over about his twenty foot lead. He +held his great hand suspended in the air through whole sentences, +bringing it down with a mighty slap as he came to his conclusions. The +men about him listened unmoved. They believed what he said, but they +had got over being excited at it. Jack Graham, his hat on his knees, +twisted his little moustache and smiled amusedly. As the scout +appealed to him from time to time, he nodded silent assent. Over +beyond the bar of dusk, two men were staking small sums at faro. The +keen-eyed dealer was monotonously calling the cards. "All ready; all +down; hands up; jack win; queen lose!" he drawled. + +In the corner nearest the door, a youth of eighteen huddled on the +floor asleep. Here and there wandered an active wire-haired dog, +bigger than a fox terrier and of different color, but with the +terrier's bright eyes and alert movements. It was a strange beast, +brown and black on the head, black on the body, badger gray on the +legs, with sharp white teeth, over which bristled gray whiskers of the +stiffness of a hair brush. As it passed the various men, it eyed them +closely, ready to wag its stump of a tail in friendship, or to circle +warily in avoidance of a kick. It was a self-reliant dog, a dog used +to taking care of itself. Men called it Peter, without abbreviation. + +Peter was possessed of the spirit of restlessness. He smelled +everything, first with dainty sniffs, then with long, deep inhalations. +Thus he came to know the inner nature of table legs and chairs, of +men's boots and of dark corners. Between investigations he would stand +in front of the bar and stretch, sticking first one hind leg, then the +other, at stiff angles behind him, and then, fore feet far in front, +pressing the chest of his long body nearly to the floor. + +These things irritated Cheyenne Harry. He attempted to command Peter +harshly, but Peter paid no attention. + +"Off his feed," observed Dave Williams to young Barker in an undertone. + +"Yeah," agreed the latter. + +About eight o'clock Blair and the stage drew in and drew out again, +after warming at the red-hot stove a little cross man who cursed the +whole West--climate, scenery, and all--with a depth and heartiness that +left these loyal Westerners gasping. Billy Knapp had attempted to +reply, but had not held his own in the interchange. + +After the stranger had gone out, the pristine calm broke into a froth +of recrimination. The room shouted. It blamed Billy. It cursed the +stranger. It thought of a dozen things that might have been said or +done, as is the fashion of rooms. Billy vociferated against the +tourist. + +"Little two by four prospec' hole!" he cried. "He may be all right +whar he comes from, which don't rank high anyhow, but when he comes out +yar makin' any sech fool breaks as that, he don't assay a cent a ton +fo' sense!" + +"Oh, hell," growled Cheyenne Harry. "You-all make me tired!" + +"Shake yore grouch, Harry," they advised good-humoredly. Cheyenne +Harry was popular, fearless and a good shot. He had a little the +reputation, in some quarters, of being a "bad man." + +Billy went on with his tirade. The men shook their heads. "You wasn't +ace high, Billy," said they. Billy insisted, getting more and more +excited. They looked down from the calm of superior wisdom. Their +anger vanished in Billy's. He was angry for the whole crowd. + +"Moroney ought to have been here," they observed regretfully. "He's +th' boy! He'd have trimmed th' little cuss good. Can't get ahead of +Moroney nohow." + +Billy denied that Moroney could have done better than he, Billy, did. +The men championed Moroney's cause with warmth. A new discussion arose +out of the old. With a prodigious clatter every man drew up his chair +until a circle was formed. Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, the +barkeeper, leaned his head on his fists across the bar, trying to hear. +The two men at the faro game cashed in and quit. The faro dealer, +imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like, shuffled his cards. Around the +outside of the word-hurling circle Peter wandered, sniffing at chairs +and the boots of men. + +Then on a sudden Molly and the half-breed arrived, to the vast +astonishment of Copper Creek, which had no women and expected none. + +The newcomers appeared in the doorway, apparently from nowhere, pausing +a moment before entering the saloon. Molly leaned a hand on each jamb, +and calmly surveyed the room. Lafond blinked his eyes at the light, +imperturbably awaiting the girl's good pleasure. After a moment she +stepped inside, and again looked the apartment over, slowly, +searchingly. She saw in that long sweeping glance everything there was +to be seen--the men and their various attitudes, the bar, the glasses, +the mirror draped with mosquito bar, the white cotton sheet, the lamps, +the faro table, even the three sporting pictures on the wall. + +In that moment she made up her mind what to do. Her heart was beating +fast and her color was high. She experienced all the sensations of a +man going into battle, but not a timid man, or one not sure. Rather, +she felt a new access of force, a new confidence, a new imperious power +that would bend conditions to suit itself. She knew in a flash just +how to tame these untamed men. + +Then she stepped swiftly forward and marched up to the bar, against +which she leaned the broad of her back, running her arms along the rail +on either side and resting one heel against the foot rest. She tossed +her curls back, and again looked coolly at the silent men. + +An observer might have found it interesting to note how the different +inmates of the room took this unexpected appearance of the First Woman. +Billy Knapp stared with round, gloating eyes, in which a hundred +possibilities awoke. Cheyenne Harry, aroused from his slouching +attitude, thrust his pipe into his pocket and furtively smoothed his +moustache. Graham looked the newcomer over with cool inquiring +scrutiny. Frosty began to polish a glass, finding relief from his +embarrassment in accustomed and commonplace occupation. The faro +dealer shuffled his cards, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like. Peter +sat upright on his haunches, sniffing daintily, first in the girl's +direction, then in the man's, watching, bright-eyed and alert. Peter +was the only being in the place who noticed the girl's companion. The +latter, in turn, inspected the room deliberately, with a crafty +calculation. + +"Well," said Molly Lafond, with slow scorn, "how long are you going to +sit there before you take care of a lady's horses?" + +Then they suddenly became aware of the half-breed and of the +white-covered schooner, dimly visible through the door. They began to +regain control of their wits. The arrested currents of life moved once +more. Who was this girl? Why should she command? Above all, why did +not this little black hairy man take care of his own horses? Men +helped themselves in the West. + +They stirred uneasily, but no one responded. The girl's eyes flashed. + +"Move!" she commanded, stretching her arm with a sudden and regal +gesture toward the door. + +The three men nearest jumped up and hurried out. The girl stood for an +instant, her arm still outstretched; then she dropped it to her side +with a rippling laugh. + +"You boys need someone to make you stand 'round, that's all," she said. +"Next time I speak, you _rustle_!" + +She placed her hands behind her on the bar, and jumped lightly upward, +perching on one corner and swinging her little feet to and fro. She +sat in the focus of one of the larger lamps, seeming to radiate with a +strange hard brilliancy. Her eyes sparkled and her curly golden hair +escaped from under her old peaked cap in a bewildering tangle of +twisted and glittering fire. She went on easily, without +embarrassment, chattering in so assured a manner that the men were +silenced by the very shyness that should have been hers. + +"We got here a little late, boys," she said, conversationally, "on +account of a hot box, but here we are--me and Mike. You don't know us +though, do you? Well, this is Mike Lafond." She looked toward the +half-breed, and a sudden inspiration lit her eye. "Black Mike!" she +cried, clapping her hands. "That's it; Black Mike." She paused in +happy contemplation of the appropriateness of this nickname. It seemed +to fit; and it stuck forever after. "He owns this joint here, he says, +and I reckon he says right," she went on after a pause. "He ain't +pretty, but I'll tend to that for the family." She perked her head +sideways, proving the point beyond contest. + +Peter, who had been watching her, his own head in the same attentive +pose, took this as a signal. He barked sharply. "Shut up, dog!" +commanded Molly. She seized a pretzel from a tin pan at her side and +threw it at Peter. Peter considered the pretzel as a contribution, so +subsided. + +"Well, boys, I'm glad to be here. I'm going to stay. You might look +more pleased." She cast her eye along the group of men, each in a +tense attitude of uneasiness. Graham's nonchalant and lounging +self-poise struck her. "Aren't you glad?" she asked, pointing her +finger at him. His quizzical smile only deepened. Failing to confuse +him, as she intended, Molly hastily abandoned him. "You ought to be," +she asserted, skilfully turning the remark in the direction of Cheyenne +Harry. "Come here and let's look at you. I want to know your name. +You ain't bashful, are you?" + +Harry put on an appearance of ease and sauntered over to the bar. He +would show the boys that he was used to society. He grinned at her +pleasantly. + +"Can't no one look purty nex' to you!" he said boldly. + +"Well, well!" cried Molly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. +"That's the first pleasant word I've had, and after I've told you I was +coming here to live, too!" + +Billy Knapp bounced up, eager to retrieve his reputation. + +"Th' camp bids you welcome, ma'am, an' is proud and pleased that such a +beauteous member of her lovely sect is come amongst us!" he orated. + +The men moved their chairs slightly. One or two cleared their throats. +The constraint was beginning to break. + +"Thank you," replied Molly prettily. "This is an occasion. Mike here +asks you all to have a drink. Don't you, Mike?" + +The half-breed nodded. He was watching the progress of affairs keenly. + +Frosty set out glasses, into which the men poured whiskey from small +black bottles. Harry gave his own to the girl, and then procured +another for himself. Mike sat by the stove. Peter approached +tentatively, but decided to remain at a wary distance. At the other +end of the room the faro dealer shuffled his cards, indifferent, +imperturbable, cat-like; a strange man, without friends, implacable and +just. The men who had gone to stable the horses entered and received +their glasses. The girl raised hers high in the air. + +"Now," she cried, "here's hoping we'll all be good friends!" + +The men drank their whiskey. They were slowly developing a certain +enthusiasm over the new girl. Constraint was gone. They lounged +easily against the bar. Two stood out near the middle of the floor, +where they could see better, their arms across each other's shoulders. +Molly touched her lips to her glass, and handed it to Billy, who stood +on the other side of her. "Drink it for me," she whispered +confidentially in his ear. + +"It'll make me drunk," he said in mock objection. She looked +incredulous. "You have touched it with yore lips," he explained +sentimentally, and drank to cover his confusion. He felt elated. He +had made a pretty speech, too. + +The girl laughed and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. At +either knee was one of these great men; about were many others, all +looking at her with admiration, waiting for her words. This was +triumph! This was power! And then she looked up and found Graham's +calm gray eyes fixed on her in quizzical amusement. She turned away +impatiently and began to talk. + +Never was such airy persiflage heard in a mining camp before. The +prospectors were dissolved in a continual grin, exploded in a perpetual +guffaw. Now they understood the charm of woman's conversation, which +Moroney had so often extolled. They spared a thought to wish that +Moroney were here to take part in this. "Moroney can do such elegant +horsing," they said. What a pair this would be! How she glanced from +one member to the other of the group with her witty speeches! She +rapped each man's knuckles hard, to the delight of all the rest, and +yet the fillip left no pain, but only a pleasant glow. They laughed +consumedly. + +And then, after a little, she asked them if they could sing; and +without waiting for a reply, she struck up a song of her own in a high, +sweet voice. With a gripping of the heart and a catching of the +breath, they recognized the air. Not one man there had ever heard its +words in a woman's voice before. It was "Sandy Land," the universal, +the endless, the beloved, the song that brings back to every Westerner +visions of other times when he has sung it, and other places--the night +herd, the camp fire, the trail. With the chorus there came a roar as +every man present sang out the heart that was in him. The girl was +surrounded in an instant. This was the moment of which she had +dreamed. She half closed her eyes, and laughed with the gurgling +over-note of a triumphant child. + +Cheyenne Harry straightened from his lounging position at the girl's +left, slipped his arm about her waist, and kissed her full upon the +lips. + +The room suddenly became very still. Peter could be heard scratching +his neck with stiffened hind leg behind the stove. Graham half started +from his seat, but sank back as he saw the girl's face. Mike never +stirred or missed a puff on his short pipe. + +The girl paled a little, and, putting her hands behind her, slid +carefully off the edge of the bar to the floor. Then she walked with +quick firm steps to the offender and slapped him vigorously, first on +one side of the head, then on the other. He raised his elbows to +defend his ears, whereupon she reached swiftly forward under his arm +and slipped his pistol from its open holster; after which she retreated +slowly backward, holding both hands behind her. Cheyenne Harry turned +red and white, and looked about him helplessly. + +"You ain't big enough to have a gun!" she said, with scorn. "When you +get man enough to tell me you're sorry, I'll give it back." + +She crossed the room toward the street, dangling the pistol on one +finger by the trigger guard. + +"I reckon I'll go now," she said simply. She passed through the door +to the canvas-covered schooner outside. + +A breathless but momentary silence was broken by Cheyenne Harry. + +"I know it, boys, I know it," he protested. "Don't say a word. +Frosty, trot out the nose paint." + +Billy was fuming. + +"_Hell_ of a way to do!" he muttered. "Nice _hospitable_ way to welkim +a lady! _Lovely_ idee she gets of this camp!" + +Harry turned on him slowly. "What's it to yuh?" he asked malevolently. +"What's it to yuh, eh? I want to know! Who let _you_ in this, anyway?" + +He thrust his head forward at Billy. + +"For the love of Peter the Hermit, shut up, you fellows!" cried Jack +Graham. "Don't make ever-lasting fools of yourselves. That girl can +take care of herself without any of your help, Billy; and it served you +dead right, Harry, and you know it." + +"That's right, Billy," said several. + +Harry growled sulkily in his glass. "Ain't I knowin' it?" he objected. +"Ain't I payin' fer this drink because I know it? But I ain't goin' t' +have any ranikahoo ijit like Billy Knapp rubbin' it in." + +"Billy didn't mean to rub it in," said Jack Graham, "so shake hands and +let up." + +The threatened quarrel was averted, and the men drank on Harry. Then +Mike set up the drinks to the furtherance of their friendly relations. +They talked to Mike at length, inquiring his plans, approving his sense +in choosing Copper Creek as a residence, congratulating him on his +daughter, commending her style. Mike hoped they would make the Little +Nugget their evening headquarters. They replied with enthusiasm that +they would. Mike made himself agreeable in a quiet way, without saying +much. Everybody was "stuck" on him--everybody but Harry. Harry sulked +over Billy's insults. His sullen mood had returned. Finally, late in +the evening, he pushed his chair back abruptly and went up to the bar. + +"I'm goin'," he announced. "Give me that bottle." + +He poured himself a stiff drink, which he absorbed at a toss of the +wrist, and turned away. + +"Mr. Mortimer," called Frosty, "did you pay for this?" + +"Chalk it down to me," called Harry, without looking back. + +Frosty caught the snake eye of his proprietor fixed upon him. He +twisted his feet in terror beneath the bar. "It's agin the rules," he +called at last, weakly, just as Harry reached the door. + +The latter turned in heavy surprise. Then he walked deliberately back +to the bar, on which he leaned his elbows. + +"Look yere," he said truculently, "ain't I good fer that?" + +"Why, yes, I reckon so," cried poor Frosty in an agony. "But it's agin +the rules." + +"Rules, rules!" sneered Harry. "Since when air you runnin' this joint +on rules? Ain't you chalked drinks up to me before? Ain't you? +Answer me that. Ain't you?" + +"But it's different now," objected Mudge. + +"Different, is it? Well, you chalk that drink up to me as I tell yuh, +or go plumb to th' devil for the pay. And don't you bother me no more, +or I'll have to be harsh to yuh!" Harry loved to bully, and he was +working off his irritation. The men in the room stood silent. Harry +liked an audience. He went on: "I'll shoot up yore old rat joint yere +till you ain't got glass enough left to mend your wall eye, you +white-headed little varmint." + +Lafond had come softly to the end of the bar. "Naw," he interrupted +quietly, "you are not shooting up anything." + +Harry turned slowly to him and spread his legs apart. "And did you +address me, sir?" he begged with mock politeness. "Would you be so +p'lite as to repeat yore remarks?" + +"You are not shooting up anything," reiterated Mike, "and it is you who +will settle for this drink. Behold the sign which you have read!" + +Harry turned to the room wide eyed. "Did you hear the nerve of it?" he +inquired. "Tellin' me what I'll do! You damn little greaser," he +cried in sudden fury, "I'll show you whether I'm shootin' up anythin'!" + +He reached for his gun, remembered on the instant that his holster was +empty, and sprang for Lafond. The half-breed calmly lifted a whiskey +glass, near which he had taken the precaution to stand, and slopped its +contents full in the other's eyes. Harry, blinded, struck against the +corner of the bar. Mike slipped to one side and produced his revolver. + +Several sprang between the two men. The room was in an uproar. Peter +barked, clamant, frantic. Everybody tried to talk at once. In the +background the faro dealer ceased shuffling his cards, and began +imperturbably, indifferently, to pack together his layout. He had made +little that night. After a moment he went out, without a glance toward +the excited group. + +The men were forcing the blinded and raving Harry toward the door. +Mike leaned over the bar, watching with bright eyes, his arms folded +across his chest and the pistol barrel peeping over the crook of one +elbow. + +When they had all gone out, most of them shouting good-natured +farewells, he turned savagely on the pale-faced Mudge. The native +cruelty of the man blazed forth. He scored the barkeeper with a tongue +that lashed like a whip, vituperating, crushing with the weight of his +sarcasm, frightening with the vividness of his threats. Mudge shrank +back into the corner of the space behind the bar, spreading his arms +along either side, watching the half-breed with wide-open fascinated +eyes, as one would watch a dangerous wild beast. + +After a little the storm passed. Lafond asked in surly tones where the +bunk was. Frosty showed him his own, behind the saloon, in a little +shack of hewn timbers. Without a word Lafond turned in, dressed as he +was, and closed his eyes. For a time he ruminated slowly. He had seen +his man, and already he could put his finger on one weak point in +Billy's personality--love of the spectacular, of bombast. A blow to +his vanity would hurt. The half-breed had also taken fair measure of +most of the other men in the room. He knew how to ingratiate himself, +and his bold move in the case of Cheyenne Harry had had that object +directly in view. He did not as yet see clearly just what form his +blow to Billy's vanity was to take, but that would come with time. +Lafond's calling and his position in the new town gave him unlimited +opportunities for observation, and he was in no hurry. After waiting +fifteen years, another twelvemonth would not matter. + +"Go slow," said Black Mike to himself. + +His doze was abruptly broken by Frosty's scared voice asking a +question. The barkeeper's thick wits could not take in the situation. +He was frightened almost out of his senses, and incapable of +consecutive thought. + +"And where shall I sleep, sir?" he asked stupidly in a timid little +voice. + +Mike turned over explosively. "You can sleep in hell for all of me!" +he shouted angrily. "Get out!" + +Frosty returned to the main room of the saloon. There he spread a +horse blanket, redolent of the stables, on the floor behind the stove. +After a time Peter lay down beside him. The barkeeper, frightened, +stupid, vaguely nervous, in his slow nerveless way, gathered the +strange intelligent dog to him, and the two slept. + +The men took Harry to the creek, where he washed out his eyes. They +had many comments to make, to none of which Harry vouchsafed a reply. +But his sulkiness was gone. Suddenly he paused for a moment in his +ablutions, and laughed. + +"Damned if they ain't a pair!" he asserted. "And that gal----" + +"She shore beats grass-widders and school-ma'ams!" said Old Mizzou. + + + + +XVI + +AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN + +The girl had seen all that Lafond had seen and more. She knew now that +Billy Knapp was easily the most important figure in the camp; that +Cheyenne Harry was the most admired and feared; that Jack Graham was +the most likely to be heard from in the future. The other men fell +into the background behind these three figures. The situation was +simplified by the fact. All she needed now for complete triumph was, +to discover the vulnerable points of these three, attack them craftily, +and the game was hers. + +She thought she knew the way. She fell asleep dreaming of it. She +awoke in the early morning with the day's plan clear and perfect in her +mind, each move in the game she was to play clearly outlined before +her. It had come to her in the night without conscious effort on her +own part. + +She dressed herself in the semi-obscurity of the wagon-body, and +stepped out into the morning. The brook was not far away. She +discovered it, and bathed her face and throat in its ice-cold waters. +Then she returned to the wagon, where she made breakfast of a huge +irregular chunk of bread and slices of cold bacon, sitting on the wagon +tongue and swinging her feet carelessly back and forth while eating. +Occasionally she threw a remnant to the few silent Canada jays that +drifted here and there in the sleeping town, fluffed out like milkweed +pollen in the summer, searching for scraps. They swooped to her +offerings on swift motionless wing, and then retreated to a distance, +whence they abused their benefactor with strident voice. The girl +watched them idly. + +How to impress her personality in the most agreeable way on the +greatest number of men! The problem was many faceted. She must not +show favoritism; therefore the method must be general. She must render +herself and not merely her sex agreeable: therefore it would have to be +personal. It must appeal to the men's sense of protection rather than +to their mere admiration; therefore in it she must efface herself, and +exalt them. This was all apparently contradictory. But no; she saw it +clearly in a flash. She must let them do her a favor. Instinctively +she realized, though she did not formulate the thought, that this is +one of the sure ways of gaining a man's good will. She cast back over +the necessities of the case, and saw that it would suffice. In doing +something for her, they would at once stand well in their own eyes, +because of a certain consciousness of unselfish effort; they would +expand protectively toward her, because of her weakness, implied in the +fact that they could do her a kindness. What was the favor to be? The +wagon behind her answered the question. They should build her a house. + +All this passed through her mind, as a drift setting in from upstream, +gliding before her consciousness, and floating on down stream in +unhasting progression. She did not realize that she was thinking out a +problem; at least she made no effort to do so. It came to her as she +needed it. To all appearance she was watching idly, with unruffled +brow, the tenuous threads of smoke which indicated that the camp was +awakening. The number of these smoke signals suggested a new problem. +She could hardly enlist the entire population of a camp the size of +Copper Creek in the task of building one little log cabin. The idea of +the swarming multitude struck her as so funny that she laughed aloud. +She must choose; and the choice must be judicious. The men selected +must represent the influential element, the leaders of opinion; while +those denied the privilege of serving her must be the sort who always +follow with the majority. Here her intuition balked, and her scanty +knowledge could not help it out. She was frankly puzzled. + +As she sat there knitting her brows, a boy came up the street. He was +bare-foot, straw-hatted, freckled. He had wide gray eyes, a snub nose, +and an impudent mouth. His clothes were varied and inadequate. Over +his arm he carried a little rifle. About him, at a wary distance, +frisked Peter, escaped from the Little Nugget through some mysterious +back exit. + +The boy occasionally threw an impatient stick at Peter, whereupon Peter +would suddenly place two paws in front of him and bend his back down, +with every appearance of delight. Then the boy would issue commands to +Peter anent returning home, to which Peter paid not the slightest +attention. So absorbed was he in his effort to get rid of what he +evidently considered an undesirable companion, that he did not notice +the girl until he was within a few yards of her. He then gave his +entire attention to her inspection. He stood on one spot and stared +without winking, digging a big toe into the dust. His unabashed eyes +took in every detail. He was without embarrassment, and evidently gave +not a thought to the effect of this extended scrutiny on the object of +it. + +"Hello, kid!" called Molly. + +The boy completed his leisurely inspection. Then, "Hello," he +answered, with reserve. + +"Won't you come over and see me?" + +He weighed the point and drew nearer. + +"Who are you?" he asked bluntly. + +"My name's Molly; what's yours?" + +"Dennis Moroney. They call me the Kid. What-chew doin' here?" + +"I'm going to live here." + +"Oh," said he, and looked her all over again. "This rifle's a +flobert," he observed. + +"Is it? Let's see. What do you shoot with it? Is there much game up +here?" + +"Don't snap it; it's bad for it. They's lots of game. I got a fox +squirrel the other day. He was so long. He was up a big pine, and I +hit him right through the head." + +"You must be a good shot. Will you take me hunting with you some day?" + +"I dunno," he replied doubtfully. "Girls ain't much good." + +"Try me," urged Molly, smiling. + +"I'll let you shoot her off anyway," he said magnanimously. "But you +gotter help clean her. If you don't clean her, she gets rusty and +won't shoot straight. Here's the catridges." + +"What little bits of things! Will they kill anything?" + +"Hoh!" replied the Kid with contempt. + +"Is that your dog?" hastily inquired Molly, conscious of her error. +Peter was busily engaged in acquiring an olfactory knowledge of the +four wheels and two axles of the wagon. + +"Him? Naw. He's the bigges' fool dog I ever see. He goes along +unless you tie him up. And he keeps rummagin' around, and he scares +all the game there is. _I_ can't _make_ him stay home." + +A cabin door opened quickly, and a miner issued forth. + +"There goes Dan Barker," said the Kid. + +In twenty minutes Molly knew the history of everyone of any importance +in town. She found the child's primitive instinct of hero worship an +unerring touchstone by which to judge of each individual's influence in +this little community. He reflected the camp's opinion, and this was +exactly what she wanted to learn. She encouraged the boy to talk--not +a difficult matter, for his attentions had hitherto been quite ignored, +saving by Frosty and Peter. Frosty had proved valuable always in the +matter of skinning game or extracting refractory shells, but he had +never, even in his youngest days, been a boy. Between Peter and the +Kid was waged a perpetual war on the subject of hunting methods. The +Kid believed in stalking. Peter held the opinion that the chase was +the only noble form of the sport. The child had been lonely, strange. +Now he chatted to Molly with all the self-reliant confidence which +pertains of right to healthy boyhood, but which heretofore he had been +denied. He boasted with accustomed air. He spoke lightly of great +deeds. Molly did not laugh at him. His heart warmed to her, and he +fell in love with her on the spot. This was perhaps the most important +conquest the girl was destined to make, for there is no devotion in the +world like that of a boy of thirteen for a girl older than himself. + +[Illustration: "WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!"] + +In a little time, Molly had gathered a number of men about her, and was +holding them by sheer force of charm. + +"How are you?" she called pleasantly to the first. + +"Purty smart," grinned the man, slouching past awkwardly. "How's +yourself?" + +"Good. Come on over and see me and the Kid for awhile." + +She talked to him lightly, while he lumbered along after with his slow +wits. Other men came out, to all of whom she called a greeting, and +some of whom she summoned to her. She held them easily. It became an +audience, a court. They had a good time. There was much laughter. No +one grudged the delay. Each man held his axe shouldered, expecting to +go on to work in a moment or so, but still lingering--because she +willed that he should. + +After a time, the hotel began to give up its inmates. The gambler came +forth into the sunshine and lit a cigarette. Graham joined him, +casting an amused eye at the men about the wagon. Two or three others, +including the proprietor, leaned against the hitching rail watching the +animated group. Finally Cheyenne Harry sauntered carelessly forth. +His broad hat--straight-brimmed in a lop-brimmed camp--was pushed to +one side. He swaggered a little. + +The girl saw him and jumped down from the wagon tongue, breaking off +suddenly in a remark she was making. + +"Hi, you!" she called. + +He paid no attention. + +"Hi, you!" she repeated, jumping up and down with a pretty impatient +flutter of the hands. "Hi, you! Come here! You're wanted!" + +He looked up surprised. + +"Come here!" she repeated. + +And he went. + +"Now, boys," she said, when he had joined the group, "I'm going to live +with you, and if I live with you, I must have a place to live in. So I +want you to build me a shack. Will you do it?" + +The men looked at one another. + +"All right," went on Molly, taking their silence for consent, and +assuming a small air of proprietorship which became her well. She +specified site and size. "And you," she commanded Cheyenne Harry, "are +to boss one gang and I'll take the other. You stay here and level up, +and I'll go with some of the boys to cut the timber." + +She knew Harry would not refuse because his pistol holster was empty +and all the camp knew why. And yet levelling up is a most disagreeable +job, for it is a question of pulverized rock and wood blocks, in soft +ground; and of blasting with dynamite, in hard ground. + +Molly issued her orders rapidly. Axes were found, log chains exhumed +from the warehouse dust, horses harnessed. She waited long enough to +see the gang under Cheyenne Harry well started in its work; and then, +herself mounted on one of the horses, she and the other men took their +way down the ravine in search of timber. She was satisfied with having +been able to give Cheyenne Harry just the position of authority in the +little undertaking which he now held, but she confessed to a feeling of +disappointment that Billy Knapp had not been forthcoming, for he too +should have had a place in her scheme. She had observed Jack Graham +near the hotel, but she had other ideas in regard to the management of +that refractory individual. + +But it so happened that, in regard to Billy, chance helped her out. +The route selected ran up the valley, and about the bend was situated +the Great Snake lode, Billy Knapp's famous claim, before the shack of +which its proprietor was at that very moment fuming savagely over the +non-arrival of certain men he had hired to build more fitting quarters +for the new company's inspection. Billy blew a big cloud from his +pipe, and swore, when he finally caught sight of a group of axemen and +horses headed in his direction. + +The men saw him too. They began to laugh. "Good one on Billy Knapp," +they agreed. "He must be pretty hot when his axe gang don't come any." + +The girl overheard them. + +"What's that about Billy Knapp?" she asked sharply. + +"Didn't mean y' to hear, ma'am," replied the speaker. "Don' matter ez +fur's we's concerned. But Billy, he aims to put up a shack to-day, +gettin' ready for them tenderfeet that's comin' from Cheecawgo to look +over th' property; an' he hires a lot of th' boys t' put it up fer him, +an', you see, you runs off with 'most the hull outfit yere to build you +a shack. So, natural, we thinks it makes Billy hot." + +"I see," said Molly. She reflected a moment. "Where is it?" she asked. + +"That's it, right to the lef'. And that's Billy walkin' 'round loose." +They laughed again. + +Without a word she turned the animal she was riding sharp to the left, +and began to mount the little knoll. The men followed in +consternation. Billy's patience was not noted for its evenness. + +"Hullo, Billy!" she cried when she was near enough. "Good morning!" + +Billy had not at first caught sight of her, and was now plainly a +little nonplussed over his unexpected guest. Clearly he could not at +this moment "cuss out" the delinquents as they deserved. He removed +his broad black hat. + +"Good mo'ning! Good mo'ning!" he replied to the girl's greeting. +"Come up t' see th' wo'ks?" + +"Whoa!" called Molly. The men stopped. "No," she said flatly, "I +didn't. Not to-day, that is. I'm busy. I'm hunting for good timber." + +Billy looked puzzled. "Timber?" he repeated. + +"Yes, timber. I'm going to have a shack built, and these boys are +going to put it up for me." + +Thus she broke the news gently. Billy looked the men over one by one. +He turned a slow red. + +"Huh!" he observed at last. "I thought they was goin' to wo'k fo' me!" + +"Did you?" asked Molly sweetly. "Well, they're not; at least, not now." + +That was categorical. Billy's wits did not respond to this sort of +emergency very quickly. He did not want to be rude; he did not care to +lose his men. Molly looked down. + +"Come here and tie my shoestring," she commanded, holding out her foot, +and gripping the harness with both hands. + +Billy did not remember that he had ever seen so small a foot. He +looked, fascinated. + +"Well!" she said impatiently. + +He raised his head and gazed plump into the imperious depths of a pair +of blue eyes. His anger melted. He approached and attempted to tie +the shoe. + +None but Molly ever knew how hard that horse was kicked by the other +little shoe. Indeed, no one knew at all how it happened. Some of the +eye-witnesses theorized concerning bumblebees. Others said horseflies. +As to the main facts, there was no doubt--that he, the horse, gave a +sudden startled plunge; that she, the girl, screamed slightly and +started to fall; that he, Billy Knapp, caught her full in his arms, +held her the fraction of a second, and set her lightly back on the +again motionless animal. + +Molly caught her breath and steadied herself on Billy's shoulder. +Three men officiously held the horse's head. + +"My!" she gasped. "I'd like to be as strong as that!" + +Billy whirled on the axe gang with a great bluster. + +"Yere, you fellers!" he shouted. "What 're y' standin' around yere +for? Take them hosses up in th' brush behind my shack, an' cut th' +lady some timber!" + +"Go ahead, boys," said Molly. She slid down from the horse. "I'll be +'long in a minute. I'm a little scairt." + +They clambered on up the hill, grinning. A clank of chains told when +they had stopped. A moment later the ring of axes was heard. The Kid +and the rifle had disappeared in the direction of Peter's rapid and +scrambling exit. The boy and the dog hated each other apparently, and +yet they could not bear to be long apart. + +The girl sat down on the ground and made Billy talk about himself, +which was the obvious thing to do. Billy was one of those expansive +sanguine individuals without much ability in what we call practical +affairs, and yet with a certain dexterity in gathering unto himself the +means with which to be impractical. Because of this, he had a good +opinion of himself, which at the same time he was much given to +doubting. Molly induced him to flatter himself, and then deftly agreed +with him. + +After a time they went up through the pines to where the workmen were +felling trees. Toward noon the whole party returned to town, dragging +behind the horses a number of tree trunks chained together with steel +chains. These were slid to the site of the house, and left in the road. + +The men in camp had nearly finished their job of levelling up. +Cheyenne Harry had worked hard with his own hands. In the shade of the +Little Nugget, Black Mike and Graham sat, chair tilted, contemplatively +watching the process. Through the open door could be perceived a gleam +of white that indicated Frosty; otherwise the street of the town was +empty. The prospectors were all out in the hills, preparing a suitable +showing for the inspection of the boom which they felt sure must be +close at hand. + +The united forces rolled the foundation timbers in place, straining, +sweating, grunting, for it was no easy work. The sun stood straight +overhead. After a little, observing this, Molly called a halt for the +noon hour. To each man she addressed a word of thanks, and a reminder +that the job was but half over. The reminder however was unnecessary, +for, under the stimulus of concerted effort, public sentiment had +crystallized into the opinion that the housing of a "first woman" was a +public duty. + +In a few moments the street was deserted, save for Cheyenne Harry and +the two men under the eaves of the Little Nugget. From the chimneys of +some of the cabins the smoke of cooking arose. + +Cheyenne Harry, volatile, changeable, fickle, stood still in the middle +of the dusty road and cursed himself for a fool. He had blistered his +hands, overheated himself most uncomfortably, and made his muscles ache +with unwonted lifting. For what? For a girl who, the evening before, +had boxed his ears and stolen his gun. Fascinated by a pair of pretty +eyes and a petty display of courage, he had worked himself like a +horse. He dropped his head in a brown study, moodily digging away at +the ground with his heel, ruminating bitterly over his egregious folly. + +"Thank you very much," said a soft little voice, breaking in on his +irritation like a silver bell on a moody silence. + +He raised his head, and beheld Molly standing before him, looking up at +him with grave sweet eyes. There was a hint of weariness in her +drooping eyelids that appealed subtly to his own weary spirit. She +seemed, standing there in the deserted street, to typify for the moment +the aloofness of his mood. + +"You've been good to me this morning," she went on in a quiet monotone, +"mighty good!" + +She stepped nearer to him until her breast almost touched his. + +"I want you to look up at that pine over there until I tell you you can +quit," she said as gravely as a child about to bestow a sugar plum. + +Harry turned his eyes to the hill. + +She stooped swiftly and drew the band of a holster and belt around his +hips. Unmindful of his promise, he looked down on her in surprise. + +"Don't be mad," she pleaded. "I got Frosty to get it for me from your +shack, so I could put your gun in it. And now you'll wear it for me, +won't you? I said you couldn't have it till you told me you were +sorry. Well, you have told me you were sorry, in the best way--by +doing something. I know how it is. I've had to work. It's no fun to +be laughed at; and you'll always be as good and brave as you were this +morning, won't you?" + +A rush as of something beautiful swept over him. His eyes filled and +he tried to speak, but turned away. + +"Now, run along," she exclaimed gayly, giving him a little pat on the +shoulder, "and don't forget you've got a job for this afternoon!" + +She stood for a moment in the middle of the road watching him. + +Graham, sitting under the eaves of the Little Nugget, surveyed the +little scene with cynical eyes. He watched the girl walk toward the +saloon. She had taken off her sunbonnet and the noon sun was gilding +her hair. She was pensive and thoughtful, and looked down. He told +himself that she did this because it was a becoming pose. Graham was +the sort of man whom pretence, craftiness, guile, always roused to +arms. So long as he was antagonized, or thought he was, his bitterness +and scorn were unappeasable; but once his ascendancy was freely +acknowledged, he threw away its advantages with the utmost generosity. +He thought he saw through this girl, and so he despised her and her +tricks alike. + +As she approached, Lafond arose and went inside the saloon, where he +began to inquire of Frosty in regard to dinner. The girl sat down in +the vacated chair. Beyond a curt little nod to Graham she did not +notice his presence. + +Over Tom Custer an eagle was wheeling slowly to and fro, barking with +the mere delight of being on the wing. Molly fixed her eyes dreamily +on the bird, but without apparent consciousness of more than the mere +fact of its wide motion. Graham imperturbably whittled a pine stick, +and whistled at the sky. + +This state of affairs continued for some time. + +"How do you keep the dirt from coming through the roof?" asked Molly +suddenly, her mind, to all appearance, entirely on the work in hand. + +Graham explained briefly. + +"Thank you," said Molly. + +After a few minutes more Graham shifted his knife into his left hand, +and began idly to stab the bench with it. Several times he opened his +mouth to speak. + +"You've got him well trained," he observed finally, with a slight curl +of the lip. + +"Who? What do you mean?" she cried, genuinely surprised out of the +indifference she had assumed. + +"Him--Lafond. He knows when to go away. Why did you want to get rid +of him?" + +"I didn't want to get rid of him. It was so I could be alone." + +"That's consistent! It was nothing of the kind. It was so you could +be alone--with me." + +She looked him over, flushing angrily. Then she deliberately turned +her shoulder to him. + +"You are very impudent," she remarked coldly. "You seem to forget that +I don't even know you. I don't know why I sit here and listen, except +that I am comfortable, and don't care to be driven away." + +"You wanted to capture me some way or another," he went on musingly, +catching a glimmer of the truth; "same as those poor fools out there in +the sun. I'd just like to know how you meant to do it and what you'd +have done to me. Would you have flattered me, or coaxed me, or what?" + +The girl did not reply. + +"How?" he urged, expecting an angry outburst, but profoundly +indifferent to it. + +"You are cruel," she answered softly, after a pause, "and very unjust." +Her cheeks were glowing and there was a glint in her eye, but he could +not see that. "They are only kind and good, not fools." + +"Of course they're good, but they are good because you fool them into +it," persisted Graham, spitefully pressing home his point. "You want +to win 'em all, just like a woman, but you're too clumsy about it. +Anybody can see through that sort of tommyrot, if he isn't a fool. So +I call them fools, and I stick to it." + +"With you it's different," she replied, hesitating almost before each +word. "You ain't the same kind. I know it's foolish, but I can't help +it, and I don't think I'm so much to blame. Perhaps I _am_ trying to +make them like me. Is there so much harm in that? Nobody has ever +liked me before. I have no mother and no sisters--only Mike. I want +to be liked, and--and--I'm _sorry_ if you don't think I ought to, but +it can't be helped." + +She looked out again at the eagle slowly circling over Tom Custer, with +eyes vaguely troubled. Graham could examine her closely without the +danger of detection. He did so. + +There was something pathetically child-like about her after all, +something delicate in the oval of her face and the sensitive modelling +of her chin, which appealed to a man's protective instincts. Her eyes +were so wide and blue and wistful, and again so pathetically young, +like those of a little child gazing upon the shower-wet world from the +safety of a window. Graham suddenly realized that this was no +self-sufficient, capable woman whom he was so bluntly antagonizing, but +only a pinafored innocent playing with forces of which she did not know +the meaning. He began all at once to feel sorry for her. Against her +probable future in this rough camp, how small the present looked, how +little were her coquetries, her innocent wiles! + +She sighed almost inaudibly. The eagle folded his wings and dropped +like a plummet from the upper air, only to swoop upward on outspread +pinions a moment later. + +Graham began to be ashamed of himself. His thoughts took a new +direction. He wondered what her previous history, her education, could +have been. Her face was pure, her eyes clear. Could she have lived +always with the half-breed? Both spoke English of an excellence beyond +the common--in that country, at least. Then he began idly to watch the +sunlight running nimbly up and down a single loose tress of her hair, +as the wind lifted it and let it fall. + +The girl turned and caught his eyes fairly. + +"What is it?" she asked simply. + +"I was wondering," he replied with equal simplicity, "whether you had +always lived with him." + +"No," she replied, without pretending not to understand the purport of +his question. Then, in the same little voice, in which was a trace, +just a trace, of an infinite dreariness: "I have lived all my life at +an Indian agency. He came and took me away a little while ago. He is +good to me," she said doubtfully, "and I am glad to be away. The agent +was good to me, but there were only a few people, and I only read and +read and read, or rode and rode and rode, and knew nothing at all of +people. I got tired of it. Nobody cared for me there. Nobody cares +for me anywhere, I reckon, except Mike, and his caring for people +doesn't count so very much." + +She turned upon him again that vaguely troubled gaze, which seemed to +see him, and yet to look beyond him. + +"Poor little girl," said Graham, on a sudden deeply moved. + +"Poor little girl!" he repeated with infinite tenderness, and took her +idle hand in both of his. + +"Poor little girl!" he said for the third time. She put her other hand +before her eyes; then, releasing herself gently, she rose and glided +through the door without a word. + +Once inside the portal her eyes cleared with a snap. She laughed. + + + + +XVII + +BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION + +In the course of this same morning, Lafond had discovered an old +acquaintance. + +He arose early, and spent some time after breakfast investigating and +criticising the premises. Frosty's administration had, it must be +confessed, been rather slack, and there were many loose ends. These +Black Mike gathered into a cat o' nine tails with which to lash his +subordinate. After he had done more for Frosty's character in sixty +minutes than that young man, unaided, could have accomplished in as +many months, he left the scene of his reorganizations behind, and +strolled about in the one narrow street of the village. + +He soon saw all there was to be seen there. With a vague idea of +finding his way to the famous Great Snake Mine, he rambled out from the +double row of log cabins, around the bend, and into the lower gulch. +He had defined to himself two things very clearly--that Billy Knapp was +now easily the most important figure in the community, and that a +continuance of this importance depended entirely on his effecting a +combination of his group of claims with Eastern capital. In the Black +Hills nearly all of the promising leads are of quartz, requiring in +their development more expensive machinery than any ordinary man is +able to afford. Until the good angel arrives, they are so much +crumbling red rock or white crystal; but with the erection of a stamp +mill, within wagon distance, they become valuable. Mike had set +himself to the task of depriving Billy Knapp at once of his property +and of his prestige; but since he could not hold him up at the point of +a pistol, as might have been done had it been the question of a watch +or a scarf-pin, he did not at present see just how it was to be +accomplished. Ruminating these matters, he found himself all at once +in a canyon much grown with underbrush, full of birds, and possessing a +general air of the gentler aspects of nature. + +Immediately before him stood a double cabin, its two parts connected by +a passage way. The foundations of its timbers were encircled by broad +bands of red geraniums. Behind the buildings, chained to posts, he +perceived three wild animals. One was a short, comical, and shaggy +bear; the second, an equally furry but more eager-looking raccoon; the +third, a bobcat with tasselled ears. + +Mike paused and surveyed them with amusement. As he stood there the +door of the cabin opened and the owner stepped out into the sunshine. +The half-breed never forgot a face which a vital incident had impressed +on his memory; and though this old, white-haired, mild-eyed man had +passed in and out of his life in the space of one evening fifteen years +ago, Lafond recognized without difficulty the stranger whose words had +given him so powerful an impetus toward his new way of life. It was +Durand, the butterfly hunter. + +He was little changed. And again the coarser man felt, as fifteen +years before, the air of gentle and quaint courtesy, which a keener +observer would have associated with an old-fashioned society now quite +passed away. It should have gone with ruffles and silken hose, with +powdered hair and silver shoe buckles. + +The naturalist caught sight of the newcomer and approached. + +"They are quite gentle," he assured, explaining the beasts. He rubbed +the heavy fur of the raccoon the wrong way. "Ah, Jacques," he said to +the little animal, relapsing quaintly into a sort of old-time speech, +"thy hair doth resemble in stiffness of texture the bristles of thine +own curry brush." + +The raccoon uttered his high, purring over-note, and seized the man's +fingers with his little black hands, almost human. The bear waved his +paws appealingly. The bobcat danced back and forth at the end of its +leash. "Peace, my children," chided the old man, bestowing on each a +pat. "It is not yet the hour of noon." He stooped to unsnap the +raccoon's chain; and then, as though recalling the half-breed's +presence, he turned with an air of apology. + +"You are a stranger here?" he asked. "Yes? And you walk this morning +for your pleasure? Yes? That happens not often in these parts." He +went on, conversing shyly but easily, with the obvious desire of +pleasing the half-breed rather than himself. Lafond had opportunity to +observe the great solidity of the logs composing the cabin walls, and +to recognize that the structure must belong to the earlier period of +the primitive architecture of the Hills--for there are such periods. + +"You have lived here long," he suggested, following out this inference. + +"Yes," laughed the old man softly, "very long. The camp there came to +me. I was an old timer when the first house was built." + +After a little, they entered the cabin together, and Lafond found +himself in a sheet-ceiled room, strewn with all sorts of literary and +scientific junk. The imagination could discover much food for +speculation in the curiosities literally heaped about the apartment, +but most wonderful of all, seizing the eye, holding it from all else, +were the scores of shallow glass-fronted boxes hanging everywhere on +the wall. They were lined with white paper pasted over a layer of +cork. In them, row after row, were impaled butterflies of many colors. +Thousands of the pretty insects were there outspread, varying in size +from the tiny blue _Lycaena_ to the great _Troilus_ or the gorgeous +yellow and black _Turnus_. They were exquisitely prepared, with just +the right lift on the wings, just the proper balance of the long +antennae, until it seemed that they must be on the point of flight, and +one almost expected that in another moment the air would be filled with +a fluttering, many-hued splendor. + +The men seated themselves in two home-made chairs. The raccoon, +evidently from old winter-time habit, waddled in a dignified fashion to +the fireless stove, where he curled up like a door-mat with keen, +bright eyes. Mike's gaze roamed about the apartment. + +"You are a great scientist," he observed, intending the remark for a +compliment. + +"In a way, in a way," replied the old man humbly. "One must occupy the +mind when one is alone, and what task more fitting to our highest +faculties than that of investigating, with all due reverence, the +workings of God's mechanism?" + +He said it with a simple piety which could not provoke a smile. +Michail Lafond caught himself wondering what he did there. Surely +there was nothing to interest him in stuffed insects and a garrulous +old man, especially as the conversation insisted on retaining its +formal footing. + +"You are not a miner?" the entomologist inquired, after a moment's +pause. + +"No," replied Mike. + +"I am glad to hear it. I like not this eager scrambling for what does +so little good. I too once---- But now I am content; yes, content. +There is always good if one will but find it. I myself might with +justice be accused of being a miner. I find my leads, I develop them, +I assay my ores; but always in miniature--on a small scale." + +Then, in a flash, Michail Lafond saw at least the outlines of his plan, +and he knew why he had come in here to talk to the garrulous old man. + +"You know the assay, then?" he inquired conversationally. + +"In a modest way--a few simple tests." + +"But that is much. Do you not know that it is at Rapid, in the School +of Mines, that the nearest assayer is? You have a profession here at +your lands." + +A sudden scream broke through the apartment, a rush of wings, a growl. +The old man ran nimbly to the stove, and rescued the little raccoon +from the savage attacks of a magpie. The magpie sailed back to his +perch on one of the butterfly cases, where he ruffled his feathers +indignantly. The raccoon curled up in the old man's lap. + +"You are French?" inquired the latter, with more interest than he had +hitherto shown. + +"I have some French blood," replied Lafond cautiously. + +"I knew it," said Durand, immensely pleased. "I am rarely mistaken. +It was a twist of your words that suggested it, an idiom. _Et +maintenant nous pouvons causer_," he added in the purest Parisian +accent. + +"_Oui, oui, oui,_" cried the half-breed, suddenly swept up by an +uncontrollable excitement he could not himself understand. "_La belle +langue!_" + +He felt an unwonted expansion of the heart at thus hearing once more +the language of his youth. The formality of the interview was gone. +They conversed freely, swiftly, animatedly. Durand had been educated +in Paris, and had a thousand reminiscences to impart. He told of many +quaint customs, and Lafond, with growing emotion, recalled similar or +analogous customs among his own expatriated branch of the race in the +pine forests of Canada. His sullen, taciturn manner broke. He became +the Gaul. He gesticulated, he overflowed, his eye lighted up, he said +a thousand things. + +After a time Durand opened a chest at the foot of the bed, from which +he abstracted a bottle and two long-stemmed glasses. These he placed +on the table with a quaint little air of ceremony. + +"Sir," said he, "we must know each other better. We speak each the +language we love. We talk of old days. Sir," he concluded, bowing +with stately grace as he poured the red wine into the glasses, "I ask +you to drink wine with me to our acquaintance. My name is Durand." + +He inclined, his hand to his heart, and somehow there seemed to be +nothing ridiculous in the act. + +"I am Michail Lafond," replied the half-breed simply. + +A silence fell. The realities came back to Lafond's mind. + +"I would ask you a favor," he said abruptly. + +"Name it; it is yours." + +"I want you to teach me how to make an assay." + +"It would be a pleasure. I will do it gladly." + +"Is it difficult?" + +"Not very." + +"When shall we begin?" + +"When you say." + +Lafond reflected. "Well, I will bring some ore in a day or two." +Then, after a pause, as though in deference to the attitude he knew the +old man held in regard to such things, he added, "It must be very +interesting, this making of gold from the rock." + +"And more interesting still," supplemented Durand gently, "is the +thrill of a shared thought." + +The raccoon stood on his hind legs in his master's lap, and began +deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets, deftly +inserting his little black hands, almost human, and watching the man's +face with alert eyes. Durand took the animal's small head between both +his palms, and smiled at him affectionately. + +"Ah, Jacques, _polisson_! Thou art a rogue, and dost learn early what +thy master's race doth teach. See, Lafond, how the little villain +would even now rob the very one who doth give to him his daily bread +and all that which he hath." He softly rubbed the small, black nose +with the flat of his palm, much to its owner's disgust. Jacques backed +off deliberately to the floor, where he sneezed violently, while Durand +gazed at him with a kindly smile. + +After leaving the cabin, Black Mike no longer slouched along unseeing. +He burned with the inspiration of an idea. Just where the idea would +lead him, or how it would work out in its final processes, he did not +know; but he had long since grown accustomed to relying blindly on such +exaltations of confidence as the present, sure that details would +develop when needed. He believed in letting the pot boil. + +Through the town he walked with brisk, business-like steps, out into +the higher gulch. There he soon came upon signs of industry. Up a +hill he could hear the ring of axes and the occasional rush of a +falling tree, sounding like grouse drumming in the spring. He followed +the sound. Half way up the knoll, he discovered a cabin and three +shafts. A rude sign announced that this represented the surface +property of the Great Snake Mining and Milling Company. Lafond halted +abruptly when he saw the sign. For perhaps half an hour he looked +over, with the eye of a connoisseur, the three piles of ore at the +mouths of the three shafts, approving silently of the evidence of slate +walls, crumbling between his strong fingers the oxygenated quartz, +putting his tongue to the harder specimens to bring out their color by +moisture, gazing with some curiosity at the darker hornblende. Finally +he selected a number of the smaller specimens, with which he filled the +ample pockets of his shooting-coat. After this he returned to town and +the Little Nugget saloon, where he emptied his pockets on the bar. + +"Get some of that packin' stuff out behind," he commanded Frosty, "and +with it construct a shelf there by the mirror." + +He stood over Frosty while the latter, frightened into clumsiness, +hammered his fingers, the wall, the rude shelf, anything but the nail. +Finally, Lafond thrust him aside with a curse, and finished the job +himself. On the completed shelf he ranged about half of the specimens +which he had picked up from the ore dumps. Beneath these he tacked a +label, indicating that they were from the Great Snake Mine. + +Then he joined Jack Graham outside, and settled down to watch the group +of men engaged in laying the foundation timbers of a new log shack. + + + + +XVIII + +TIRED WINGS + +In spite of the fact that she had laughed at Graham's blindness in +falling into her trap, Molly Lafond felt enough curiosity to induce her +to enter into several conversations with him during the course of that +afternoon. He sat by the door whistling. Out in the sun the men cut +logs, notched ends, heaved and pushed. The girl alternated between +personal encouragement of the workers, and a curious examination of the +idler. + +Graham interested her because he puzzled her. The young man no longer +held to the quizzical and cynical attitude he had assumed in the +morning, but neither did he at once manifest that personal interest +which she had imagined inevitable. He caught at her statement that she +had done nothing but "read, read, read." In the course of twenty +minutes he had made her most keenly aware of her deficiencies, and that +without the display of any other motive than a frank desire to discuss +the extent of her knowledge. He opened to her fields whose existence +she had never suspected; he showed her that she had but superficially +examined those she had entered. Authors she had much admired he +disposed of cavalierly, and in their stead substituted others of whom +she had never heard. + +"I like Bulwer," she remarked, secure in her classic because it had +been the only one of Sweeney's collection to come in a set and bound in +brown leather. + +"Bulwer, yes," said Graham, pulling his little moustache, and speaking, +as his habit sometimes was, more to himself than to his companion. "We +all go through that stage, but we get over it after awhile. You see, +he's superficial and awfully pedantic. There is much beauty in it, +too. I remember in one of his novels--I forget which--there is a +picture of a child tossing her ball skyward, with eyes turned upward to +the skies, that is worth a good deal." + +"It's in _What Will He Do with It?_" cried Molly, aglow at being able +to interpolate correctly. + +"Yes," assented Graham, indifferently. "It has something to do with +youth, I think. Before our critical judgment grows up and finds him +out, there is a peculiar elevation about Bulwer's themes and treatment. +His world is blown; but it is big, and his figures have a certain +scornful nobility about them. If I were to compete with the gentleman +under discussion," he concluded, with a slight laugh, "I would say that +he throws upon the true gold of youthful ideals, hopes, and dreams, the +light of his own tinsel." + +Molly was subdued, humbled. She was deprived at a stroke of all her +weapons. For the first time she found herself looking up to a man, and +wondering whether she could ever meet him on terms of equality. She +caught herself covertly scrutinizing Graham to see if he too realized +his advantage. He was genuinely interested; that was all. He seemed +to take it for granted that she was already on his level. This +encouraged her somewhat. + +Whenever she again joined the group of sweating men at work on her +house, she felt subtly that she was returning from a far country. She +had brought back with her something new. The nature of the +conversation had lifted her to the contemplation of fresh possibilities +of human intercourse. With a defiant toss of the head she indulged +herself to the extent of imagining several Bulwer-like conversations, +in which she dealt out brilliant generalities to the universal +applause. It was the first flight her wings had essayed; the first +charm not merely physical that she had experienced with one of the +other sex. She felt she was going to like this man Graham. + +And yet that very elation was one of the reasons why, after dinner in +the "hotel," she walked with Billy Knapp, although Graham was plainly +waiting for her. It had been her first flight; her wings were tired. +The reaction had come. + +The dinner itself, and its manner, had much to do with bringing this to +her consciousness. Entering at one end of the hotel dining-room, she +first became aware of the cook stove at the other, and, behind it, +tins. Down the centre extended the three bench-flanked board tables, +polished smooth by the combined influences of spilled grease and much +rubbing. At certain short intervals had been stationed tin plates, +over each of which were stacked, pyramid fashion, an iron knife, fork +and spoon. Tin cups spaced the plates. Down the centre of each table +were distributed thick white china receptacles containing sugar, lumpy +and brown with coffee; salt; and butter on the point of melting. At +dinner-time the cook placed between these receptacles capacious tins, +steaming respectively, with fried and boiled pork, boiled potatoes, +cornmeal mush, and canned tomatoes; besides corn bread, soda biscuits, +and a small quantity of milk for the coffee. Then, wiping his +glistening face on the red-checked little towel that hung at his waist, +he entered the "office" and, seizing a huge bell, clanged forth, now to +the right, now to the left, that his meal was ready. + +The men ate in their shirt sleeves, those farthest half obscured by the +clouds of steam from the uncovered dishes. The cook stove, the dishes, +and the men heated the low unventilated room almost to suffocation. +They gobbled their food rapidly, taking noisy swigs of the coffee from +the tin cups. As each finished, he wiped his plate clean with the soft +inside of a soda biscuit, drew his knife across the bread once or +twice, swallowed the gravy-laden biscuit at one mouthful, and departed +without further ceremony into the outer air. + +It was all thoroughly Western, thoroughly material, thoroughly restful +to tired wings. + +As the meal progressed, the exaltation faded slowly. Molly received +the assiduous attentions of everybody. After dinner, as has been said, +she and the wonderful Billy Knapp disappeared into the twilight, +leaving the disconsolate miners to find their way to the Little Nugget +when it pleased them to do so. + +Billy talked. He poured out his confidences. He told how great was +Billy, how bright were Billy's prospects, how important were Billy's +responsibilities. He was glad to show this young girl the town; it was +Billy's town. He was pleased to tell her the names of the hills +hereabouts; these hills concealed within their depths the veins of +Billy's lodes. He delighted in giving the history of the men they met; +for these men looked up to Billy as the architect of their future +forties. He spoke enthusiastically of the prospects. + +"Thar is a lode," said he earnestly, "over on the J.G. fraction that's +shore th' purtiest bit of quartz lead you ever see. The walls is all +of slate, running jest's slick side by side, with a clear vein between +'em, and she'll run 'way up, free millin'. I tell you what, Miss +Molly, thar's big money in it, thar shorely is! When I get those +Easte'n capitalists interested, and ready to put a little _salt_ in, +and git up a few mills and necessary buildin's, you'll jest see things +hummin' in this yar kentry." + +Out of the darkness a silent little figure glided and fell in step with +the girl. + +"Hullo, bub," said Billy indifferently, and went on to tell what he was +going to do. Billy had great plans. + +Molly said nothing to the new member of their party, but she reached +out her hand and patted the little cotton-covered shoulder. She looked +about at the dark town and the hills, and drew a deep breath. This was +real, tangible. She felt at home in it, and she was adequate to all +that its conditions might bring forth. Above all, she was confident +here. Graham and his ideas seemed to her at the moment quite nebulous +and phantom-like. + +"Let's go to the Little Nugget," she suggested suddenly. + +They turned to retrace their steps. As they passed an open doorway, a +big man darted out with unnatural agility and seized the Kid by the +scruff of the neck. + +"I beg your pardon, miss, whom I am overjoyed to meet. Standing as I +do _in loco parentis_, the claims of the rising generation constrain me +to postpone that more intimate acquaintance which your attractions +demand of my desire. Come along here, you!" and he dragged the Kid, +struggling and crying out, into the dark cabin. + +"Ain't he great?" cried Billy, with real enthusiasm. "Ain't he just? +They ain't a man in th' whole Northwest as can sling the langwidge that +man can when he tries. You just ought to see him when he cuts loose, +you just ought." + +"Who is he?" asked Molly. + +"Him? What, him? He's Moroney!" + +His tone denied the need of further question. They entered the saloon. + +The first half hour of Molly's evening in the Little Nugget was +constrained. Up to this point she had met the men of the camp under +extraordinary circumstances. Now she was called upon to face them in +their time of relaxation and accustomed comfort. Such moments of +leisure crystallize for us men everywhere our opinions of people. +Anybody is welcome to sail with us, hunt with us, fish with us, ride +with us, work with us, provided he is personally agreeable and +understands the game. We are not so undiscriminating when it comes to +a study fire and an easy chair. Translate the study fire and the easy +chair to the Little Nugget and a quiet game, and you will see one +reason for the constraint. No unkindness was intended. The situation +was merely, but inevitably, awkward for everybody. + +In such emergencies as this, where a creature of coarser fibre would +fail, Molly's hereditary fineness of instinct stood her in good stead. +She saw intuitively the attitude she should take. In the first place, +she held herself in the background, left the lead to others, behaved as +if she suspected herself of being an intruder; so that the men suddenly +felt themselves very paternal and adoptive. + +In the second place, she encouraged them to show off; which they did +with the utmost heartiness. The first embarrassment wore away before +long, and Molly took her place in the corner of the bar with the tacit +approval of every man in the room. + +The remainder of the evening was enjoyable. Some features of it would +scarcely have impressed a refined Easterner favorably, for these were +rough men, with crude tastes and passions. Once having accepted the +girl as one of themselves, they lapsed to some extent, though not +entirely, into their accustomed manner. It is a little difficult +sometimes to interpret the West in terms of the East. An act which in +the older country would be significant of too licensed freedom, on the +frontier is a matter of course. Everything depends on the point of +view and the attitude of mind. + +Around Molly Lafond seethed a constantly changing group of men. They +joked boisterously at one another and at her. The standard of wit was +the saying of insulting things with a laugh that showed that the remark +held in itself something of facetious sarcasm. Through thinner skins +it would have bitten cruelly. Behind this lively group sat another, +more silent, smoking the amused pipe of contemplation, all alert to the +chances of conversational battle, ready to jump up and enter the lists +whenever a bright idea suggested itself. In the corner just behind the +bar, lurked Black Mike, keeping a sinister eye on Frosty's +dispensations. The faro dealer called his cards imperturbably over his +scantily patronized game. Occasionally someone, glowing with the +good-natured excitement of jesting, would break away from the laughing +group, and, standing the while, would stake a few red chips on a turn +or so of the cards. + +Peter, obsessed of some sudden and doggish affection, ceased his +restless wanderings. He took up his position, resting on one hip, both +hind legs to one side, directly beneath Molly's feet. There his shaggy +head was of such a height that the girl could just reach it with the +point of her shoe. From time to time, when the exigency demanded such +a pose, she looked down prettily, and stirred the animal's button ears +with her little foot. On such occasions Peter gravely rolled his eyes +upward and wriggled his stump of a tail. + +A young fellow by the name of Dave Kelly stood nearest her. He was a +handsome young fellow, with a laughing boyish face. As time went on, +he became more and more elated and sure of himself. Occasionally, when +the press of men behind would push him forward, he would reach across +the girl to regain his balance. Once he put his hand lightly on the +point of her shoulder. He paused, with a strange delicious thrill at +the feel of the round young arm under the loose stuff of the gown, +which slipped beneath his grasp to emphasize the smoothness of the +skin. Aware of the touch, she looked toward him for a minute, +laughing. Somehow it gave him a strange feeling of intimacy with her, +inexplicable, subtle. Without knowing why he did so, he felt his own +shoulder underneath his loose flannel shirt. It gave the same +impression, only rougher, coarser. + +There suddenly sprang into his mind a sense of physical kinship between +himself and her. He took frequent opportunities of repeating the +contact, always lightly, always with the same delicious thrill. At +each touch the girl turned to him for a vaguely smiling instant. She +was absorbed in the men about her. The youth at her side had fallen +silent, but her good nature extended to everybody. + +Late in the evening somebody suggested that Frosty had been singularly +unemployed. Glasses were filled. Molly's was handed to her. + +"I don't want any," said she. + +"It'll do y' good," "Try her," "Aw, come on!" urged a dozen voices. + +She sipped a little. It tasted to her like liquid fire, with a strange +gagging property as it reached the region of the epiglottis. She +sputtered and choked. + +"Ugh!" she shuddered. "Ugh! I couldn't get a glass of that stuff down +if it killed me." She shut her eyes and shivered with a pretty +disgust. "I simply can't," she repeated. + +"Ain't ye got anything else, Frosty?" they cried reproachfully. "That +stuff's purty rank fer a lady, that's right. Skirmish around thar, an' +see what y' kin discover." + +Frosty skirmished around, and finally bobbed up, red-faced, with a +bottle of some light wine. Molly drank this slowly, with little more +satisfaction. Some people never care for the taste of anything with +alcohol in it, and the cheap wine had more than the suspicion of a wire +edge. But she liked the warm glow that followed, and she found that in +a moment or so she was much pleased with herself. + +"Give me another of those," she smiled to Frosty, holding out the empty +glass. The men chuckled. This was something like. + +Molly drank the other glass. In a few minutes she felt sleepy. "I'm +going to turn in," she said abruptly, and slid down on the unsuspecting +Peter. They disentangled the trouble with merriment. Molly consoled +Peter. The room was full of noise and light. + +"May I take you over?" Kelly was asking in her ear. She nodded assent. +The other men looked chagrined. It had not occurred to them. + +Dave Kelly and Molly stepped gayly from the heated, garish saloon into +the still night. The contrast made them feel yet gayer. They remarked +on the stars and the moon, to do which it became necessary to look +upward and slacken their steps. He was very close to her. He slipped +his arm about her waist, his great hand resting firmly beneath her +small bust, and they stumbled on together in breathless silence. He +felt very bold and elated and happy. + +Suddenly she looked down with an air of mock surprise. "What is this?" +she cried, lifting one of Dave's fingers and letting it fall. "Why, it +looks like your hand!" + +"That's so!" grinned Dave. + +"I wonder how that could have got there!" + +Dave, finding himself unequal to persiflage, made no reply. She +nestled up to him a little and sighed. She liked it. She had not the +slightest idea that there was anything out of the way in it. Why +should she? Morals, as we understand them, she had never been taught. +They slowly approached the wagon, which during the day had been dragged +to a less conspicuous but more distant locality. + +Ah, Molly, Molly, those wings are very tired! + +At the moment when Kelly first pressed the girl to him, he experienced +a sudden lessening of her charm. It was not that she was less +feminine, or that, in his eyes, she had lost any moral excellence by +her easy surrender. Dave had probably as rudimentary ideas of the +finer moralities as Molly herself. But one very definite element of +her attraction had been given up--that of mystery, of remoteness, of +difference between herself and him. She was no longer a creature of a +wonderful and other sphere; she had become the female of his species. + +All this was subtle and slight and quite unappreciated and unanalyzed +by Dave himself. But the keen intuition of the girl discovered it. +She felt the difference. Suddenly she became aware of the fact that +whatever a woman gives to a man takes something from her attraction, +and adds something to his. With the discovery, she resolutely put his +hand away. + +"That's enough of that," she said in the sensible voice which some +women use so effectually. + +Dave, unwilling to let the sensation go before he had drained it, +attempted to seize her by force. She slipped away and ran like a deer +to her wagon, gleaming white through the darkness. Dave sprang in +pursuit. At the instant Peter, who had followed unperceived, leaped +with a growl and fastened his teeth into Dave's cowhide boot. The +miner paused a moment undecided, and then, his natural good nature +coming to his rescue, he laughed. An answering laugh echoed from the +direction of the wagon. + +"That's a pretty trick," he called, trying to disengage Peter's jaws. +Peter shook his head savagely and growled. + +"You ought to learn to run," came the voice from the safety of the +wagon. + +"Run!" laughed Dave. "Run with a dawg hangin' to you? Call him and +see if you can get him to leave go." + +"Dog?" repeated the voice in puzzled tones. + +"Yes, dog--this yere Peter. He seems to have took up with you-all. +He's got me by th' laig!" + +Molly reappeared cautiously. Then she saw Peter, and advanced boldly. +The two young people looked at the eager and determined little dog, and +laughed with great good nature. Their crisis had passed, fortunately +without harm to either. Molly took Peter by the collar. Peter at once +let go. + +"Good night," said Molly decidedly to Dave. + +"Good night," said Dave, and turned back. + +Molly walked on to the wagon, closely followed by Peter. As she +climbed in, she turned and caught sight of the little animal, eyeing +her wistfully. + +"Want to come in?" said she. + +Peter jumped to the whiffletree, then upon the seat, then into the +wagon. Molly followed. + +"Peter," said she, "we won't do that any more. I don't believe it's a +good scheme. What do you think, dog?" + +Peter wagged his stump of a tail, but as it was quite dark, this +expression of approval was lost. "I hope he won't say anything about +it," she went on reflectively. "But if he does"--she tossed her +head--"much good may it do any of them!" Then, after some time, +"Peter, let's go to sleep." + +Peter whined with content. + + + + +XIX + +THE BROAD WHITE ROAD + +Copper Creek had begun as a half-way house, and had ended as a camp. +Thus the hotel was its oldest structure. + +Situated about half way between Rockerville and Custer, on the old +Spring Creek trail, it often happened that the stage running from Rapid +to the last-named town would stop for the evening meal, or even for the +night, at the little log structure which Bill Martin had been sagacious +enough to erect there. The soil was good for potatoes, which was +lucky, for Bill Martin could never have prospered as a hotel keeper +pure and simple; because purity, simplicity, and temperance principles +have nothing to do with a Western inn. Bill cooked, made beds, and +raised potatoes. Then a fortuitous "grub staker" discovered the Great +Snake lode. A town sprang up in the night, so Bill Martin hired Black +Jack and built additions. And finally, since his food was good and +cheap, it came to be the proper thing to eat late dinners at two +dollars a week in the long dining-room of Bill Martin's new building. +After the Little Nugget, a later but more enterprising venture, Bill +Martin's Prairie Dog, with its small office, its big eating room, its +little square bedrooms above the office, and its ancient and musty +copies of distant journals, was acknowledged to be the most important +institution of the place. + +From the narrow, roofless stoop its proprietor looked out tranquilly on +the growth of the camp. He was a tall, cadaverous, facetious +individual, slightly stooped, with thin impassive face, deep eyes, and +a beard that seemed always just two days old. He spoke with a drawl +that was at first natural, but later, as the quaint old fellow grew to +appreciate its humorous qualities, it took on a faint color of +affectation. He adopted always the paternal attitude, as was clearly +his right. + +Bill Martin was probably the only man who could have told you the +history of Copper Creek, for he had been, through all of its changes of +population, the one stable character. First came the original "grub +staker" and a score more like him--impecunious, giving, many of them, +their labor and experience, in exchange for tools and provisions +furnished them by a speculator in the towns. The speculator took half +of what was found. These men were hardy, bold, enduring, skilful. +They grubbed about in the hills with the keen restless instinct of ants +over a mould of earth, moving rapidly, pausing often, lighting finally, +with an accuracy that to the outsider would have seemed something +preternatural, on the one quartz vein of the many, or the one +significant lead in the multitude of systems that seamed the country in +all directions. Thereupon they staked out claims with white pine +posts, and blasted little troughs to show milk-white quartz or red ore +filling. And finally they disappeared, like bats before daylight, +leaving not an echo of themselves to recall their presence to the hills +in which they had toiled. + +Their places were taken by the speculator, the miner with a little +money, the small capitalist willing to invest and not unwilling to work +with his own hands. These men paid a certain modest amount to the +first discoverers for the chance to take chances on the embryo mines. +The prospector never had the patience to wait, or scheme, or develop, +to the justification of a better price. The excitement of the chase +was his. He was a master who sketched, in bold comprehensive strokes, +the design of a work which men patient in the little details must fill +in with color and value. Having thus outlined the lifetimes of men, +the prosperity of the whole great industry that was to be, he was +content to move on to where a new and virgin country offered a fresh +canvas to his creative genius. He was always poor, but he never pitied +himself. + +The new owner, then, represented the investor. He expected no +immediate returns. He was willing to wait. Meanwhile he spent as much +time in going over the fifty thousand square yards of his one claim as +his predecessor had in examining the whole twenty-five hundred square +miles of the district. He carefully analyzed the lead, its tendencies, +its virtues, its defects. When he had fully satisfied his mind, he +sank neat, square-timbered shafts, from fifty to two hundred feet in +depth, from which ramified tunnels, both across and along the drift. +The debris he piled outside, without attempting to save its value. In +this manner, gradually, he came to possess points of view from which +the next purchaser of the claim could plainly see its worth and +possibilities. + +For this second proprietor never expected to make his profit from the +ore. That accrued later, and to another man. When the country became +a little known, the other man would happen along; he, in his turn, +would be willing to invest; and the present holder of the property, the +middleman in this queerly constructed industry, could measure the +success of his undertaking by the difference between the price he had +paid to the original "grub staker" and the price he now received from +the future developer. Meanwhile, he worked hard with his hands. + +Thus the camp presented the phenomenon of a community prospering on +nothing more tangible than hope. When the cabins began to crowd +thicker and thicker between the walls of the little gulch, Bill Martin +had been forced to give up agriculture because of lack of room; so that +Copper Creek produced absolutely nothing, not even potatoes. Every +cent of its present and actual value came from outside, either with the +men themselves, or with some investor who brought in the price of wages +for a contemplated improvement. Only as long as there existed in men's +minds the comparative certainty of a future stamp mill, by which the +quartz could be made to give up its treasure, would the machinery of +life run well. Hope depended on confidence. + +The miners built themselves cabins in which to live, and so there came +into being a town. It was a dusty, new little town; but venerable in +its age--old air from the first. The cabins themselves were low and +dark, flanking the street closely, a sort of monotone of brown, by +which the stable, the saloon, and the hotel were thrown into stronger +relief; the one by virtue of its wide-open door, the other two because +of their porch and painted front respectively. These structures held +the eye. One noticed the cane chairs on the stoop; the bench outside +the saloon; the dumped down saddles, the hay dust, the lazy loafers +about the stable. And always one drew aside instinctively to the edge +of the broad, white, dusty street, as if to let pass a horse race, or a +train of cars, or something equally swift and irresistible. + +The camp lived on each side of that river of blinding white; never in +it. Later, perhaps, when Copper Creek reached the industrial or +producing stage, and became domestic, it would be a Rubicon over which +contending armies of small boys would dispute the supremacy of the +north and south side of the town. Now it wore a constant air of being +quite empty. Perhaps nothing was more characteristic, struck the eye +more forcibly, lingered longer in the memory as the dominant note in +the impressionistic picture of the place, than this single silent road; +not even the sombre cabins, or the great pine-clad hills, or the clear +mountain air imparting a quality of its own to the very appearance of +things, or the little singing brook that ran behind one row of cabins +and the stable, or the eagles wheeling and screaming so far up in the +blue Western sky. The town seemed to draw back on either side of the +road to avoid spoiling its effect, over-awed by it, humbled by its +dignified solemnity. Copper Creek would have been willing to have its +history recounted by that road, which was primarily, indeed, the cause +of its being. + +And Bill Martin, in the cane chair of his stoop, the only man capable +of recounting that history, owed most of his unique knowledge of events +to the ancient thoroughfare. Men came from the lower gulch, abode +their brief hour, and disappeared into the thin air of the upper curve. +From one wing, across the white stage, out by the other wing, the +actors changed; the setting remained always the same. + +Now each morning early the old innkeeper saw defile before his windows +the Optimist, intent on developing his dream. A motley crew, these +Optimists, having little in common with one another but the inner +spirit of hope. There was Old Mizzou, short, squat, grizzled, +good-natured, with back-sloping, bald forehead, and a seven dollar suit +of clothes, from which he suffered severely, because it was "store +made." He owned a little claim over beyond Ragged Top, on which he +made infinitesimal progress. No one seemed to believe it amounted to +much, Old Mizzou least of all, but he was old, and he had lived the +life, and so he liked to amuse himself still in playing at the game; +contented to chip away a few slivers of rock in order to persuade +himself that he was a miner, to sip a little whiskey so that men might +honor him as a drinker, to talk so loudly from his warm corner in the +Little Nugget that the sound of his voice might persuade him he was a +bold bad man; although everyone knew that Old Mizzou had never harmed a +fly. + +And then again, there was Jack Graham, the Easterner, but never the +tenderfoot. His selections of claims had been judicious. He was not +afraid of work. He had the good sense of the timely word, so the men +trusted and liked him, even though he was college-bred and +quiet-mannered and a little aloof. + +And again, there was Dave Kelly, who was red-cheeked, and blushed, but +was a good man for all that; and Cheyenne Harry, who owned two claims +and never did any work on them; and Houston, the strongest man in the +camp; and, of course, the great Moroney. These, and a hundred like +them, were actual miners, wielding sledge, drill and pick. Besides +them were others--Frosty, and the faro man, and Bill Martin, and the +stable boys, and the proprietor of the New York Emporium, all of whom +lived in ministering to the wants of a prosperity that was still in the +air. + +Each morning the camp emptied itself into the hills. The claims were +usually held in partnership; when they were not, two of the men "traded +work," so that they could labor in pairs. At rude forges near the +shafts they sharpened their heavy steel drills, resembling crowbars, +beating the red-hot point out with the sledges. Then one held, while +the other struck--crash! Turn, crash! Turn, crash! And so on, in +unwearying succession, until the hole became so clogged with the +powdered rock and the water poured in to cool the drill, that it had to +be spooned out with a special T-shaped instrument. + +After a time the hole would be deep enough. The operators would load +it, touch the fuse, scamper for shelter. The earth would become +cumbered with broken vein matter, and this had to be removed +laboriously with pick and shovel. When the shaft grew deeper, the fuse +was cut a little longer, and the miners would climb out as fast as they +could on a notched pole. Cases have been known when that was not fast +enough; as the time old Brady, the paralytic, was blown out along with +the vein filling, and died almost before the horse was saddled to go +for the doctor at Custer, fifteen miles away. + +The rock was hard and the immediate results invisible. Well earned was +the title of Optimist, for that these coarse, untrained men should so +devote themselves to a futurity certainly indicated optimism, and of a +fine sort. If the capitalist should not come! The net result would be +a few acres of hilly stony land, a well hole where there was no water, +and an exhausted pocket-book. + +At noon some of the miners ate a lunch which they had brought with +them, heating coffee over the little fire used to warm the powder; +while others picked up something in their own cabins. Bill Martin's +table entertained only the gambler, Graham, Cheyenne Harry, and two +other men, whom the camp laughingly designated as "proud." About four +or five o'clock, the workers returned from the claims. At six sharp +Black Jack served dinner to the entire camp. Then came the Little +Nugget, a quiet smoke, a glass or so of whiskey, and a sound night's +sleep. + +Sometimes there was a celebration. One or two members of the little +community were inclined to become a trifle over joyous too often for +their health. The standard of humor and manners was not one of the +most quiet and delicate. But, on the whole, Copper Creek was no worse +nor better than a hundred other similar prospecting camps in the West. + +Naturally, to such a community, in the hobbledehoy stage of its +development, as it were, the advent of so strange a phenomenon as a +woman was in the nature of an event. Later, when it had become used to +the sex and its possibilities and limitations, the personal relation +might become the motive of much very complicated action; but now it +accepted Molly as a bright spot of color on a gray canvas, as a +holiday, as a fortuitous bit of music, as an unexpected burst of +sunshine in the winter. For all her strong feminine charm, she was to +most of them as sexless as a boy. They were too many; and she was +alone. The spectacle of one gigantic rivalry for her favor would have +been grotesque, and no one has a keener instinctive sense of the +ridiculous than the Westerner. They accepted her fascination as a real +but impersonal influence. In her they honored the great abstraction, +woman; and in himself each individual saw, not his own single +personality, but the blended apotheosis of the man of Copper Creek. +Molly was held in partnership, each miner making not only his own +impression for her good graces, but the camp's as well. + +And this without mawkish sentimentality or comic opera delicacy of +conduct. It must not be understood that the newcomer became any +romantic idol of the camp, or that the men displayed the old-fashioned +courtesy affected by the miners in Western romances. These were +pioneers. Their lives were rough, and their conduct matched their +lives. When angry, they said very emphatic things in inelegant +language. When facetious, their jokes were apt to be as broad as the +prairies themselves. When at their ease, they chewed tobacco, or ate +with their knives, or forgot to wash their shirts that week, or sat in +their shirt sleeves with the collars of said garment wide open. But +they never equalled the frankness of a Parisian soiree in talking of or +joking at some natural but usually unmentioned functions of life; nor +were they ever without that solid bedrock of good nature which is the +American's saving grace. Molly Lafond led a safe life among them +because she trusted them. In the face of that trust no one of them +conceived the possibility of harming her. This feeling was personal +however. Nobody would have felt called upon to protect her against +anyone who did conceive the possibility. In other words, she took just +the independent position in the community which would have been +accorded to a man coming in from outside. She was a good comrade. + +In her elation at finally escaping the restrictions and petty +bickerings of her life at the Indian agency, Molly had turned eagerly +first of all to the conquest of the masculine heart. This was theory, +built up from a long course of romantic reading. The heroine always +"ruled her little court." Molly would like to rule her little court +also. She felt the genuineness of her fascination, the possession of +which she realized to the full degree--that sort of fascination which +succeeds where beauty, intellect, spirituality fail. It was a power, +great, untried, unmeasured. Naturally her first impulse was to test +it, to use it. She luxuriated in it. Nothing could be more delightful +than to command and be obeyed; to smile into answering, smiling faces; +to frown and see swiftly, as in a mirrored reflection, the countenances +about her become dark. That was natural. + +But after a little she found herself tiring of it. The game was too +easy. Even from the first evening, when she had astounded and subdued +the whole community at one fell blow, she had never experienced the +slightest difficulty in getting these men to like her. Why should she? +She was young and pretty and dainty, and delicately commanding and +winsome, and she knew instinctively each man's weak point. One and all +gave her unqualified approbation. There is no fun in asserting +yourself, if everyone agrees with you; and to be a queen you must +maintain your dignity and aloofness. It was a pose. You cannot be +hail-fellow with your subjects. + +So little by little, as the joy of out door life got into her veins, as +it does into the veins of every healthy young creature in the open air +of the Hills, she dropped the coquette. Then she first began to +appreciate the real charm of things, and she was perfectly happy. Not +a tiny cloud of regret veiled the tiniest corner of her skies. + +The cabin had been finished within the week, but under the advice of +the builders she did not move into it until nearly a month later. + +A new shack never dries thoroughly in less than three weeks; and, +besides, the sawdust from the new insect borings always pours down from +the walls and ceilings in aggravating abundance. A dozen other houses +were placed at her disposal. The men were only too glad to double up +temporarily. But the summer air was warm, and Molly was by now as used +to the narrow confines of her canvas-top, as a yachtsman to the cabin +of his boat. She declined their offers and continued to live in the +wagon. She was quite content to wait thus. In the meantime she took +much delight in fixing up various curtains, chaircovers and tablecloths +from light fabrics unearthed at the New York Emporium, and in +cultivating carefully boxes of geraniums, almost the only garden flower +in the hills. Curiously enough she enjoyed this. Perhaps it was a +hereditary bequest from her unsuspected New England ancestry. + +Jack Graham lent her many books, which she perused greedily. She had +never seen a large city, or a boat, or a trolley car, or a tailor-made +gown; but that counted little. Such things are not so much matters of +actual experience as of natural aptitude. Some people can go to Europe +and get less out of it than do those who read steamer advertisements at +home. Molly Lafond was keen of intellect and vivid of imagination, by +the aid of which two qualities she constructed for herself a +culture--real, in spite of the fact that it was somewhat ill-balanced. + +She spent much of her time out of doors, but the road and the gulch saw +little of her. Her delight was to strike directly back across the +brook, and up the overgrown hill, to the vast pine-clad heights above. +There the castellated dikes frowned like mediaeval ramparts; the pine +needles were soft and slippery and fragrant underfoot; the breeze swept +by on swift wings, humming songs of the distant prairie; the little +squirrels chattered and the big squirrels barked; the sun shone silver +clear; and below, far down, the summits of other hills dropped away and +away like the tiers of some enormous amphitheatre, until the brown +prairie suddenly flowed out from underneath and rose to the level of +the eye. It was very far from everything up there. And then one could +go through the dikes down into Juniper Gulch, where one would find a +whole group of claims and one's friends at work on them. + +Molly grew to be an expert in the dip of quartz. She was accustomed to +perch on a neighboring dikelet, near a claim, where she could enjoy the +breeze, and converse without too much effort. There she looked +charming, and bothered the workers a little. All workers like to be +bothered a little. It is a wise woman who does not bother them too +much. The attention is flattering as long as it is not annoying. When +the men were below the surface of the ground she shouted down the shaft +and insisted on a ride in the bucket. Or she rambled long delicious +hours with Peter and the Kid, from whom she learned the philosophy of +hindsights and the pregnant possibilities of holes under tree roots. +These two adored her beyond all measure. The homely, bristle-whiskered +animal was always at her heels; the Kid was ever ready to waste +precious cartridges on her behalf. + +They did much elaborate stalking after grouse, rabbits, and squirrels. +Most of these approaches failed, for the reason that they were too +elaborate and too eager. Wild creatures seem to be sensitive to +telepathic influences. A stolid Indian, whose fatalism does not permit +him to become much excited, can often walk directly up to a flock of +ducks, when a white man with a breech-loading gun and a desire for a +bag could not sneak within fifty rods. Instance also the well known +and uncanny knowledge of the common crow as to your possession of +firearms. His proneness to distant flight when you are armed, and his +sublime indifference to your approach when you are not, may arise not +from a recognition of the instrument, but from a reading of the desire +for his slaughter. + +Be this as it may, the bagging of game was a rare enough event to throw +all three into wild excitement. Usually, a grand rush was made in the +direction of the fallen. Peter arrived first, and danced, tip-toed, +bristle-backed. Molly and the Kid were not far behind. Then came +shouts of proud joy and feminine shrieks at the gore. The story was +detailed again and again of just how the shot was made. Peter agonized +that he could not talk. Finally the grouse or squirrel was borne +proudly down to fierce-moustached Black Jack, the cook, who +expostulated and grumbled. + +"G' 'way, you two!" he growled. "Git out; don't want you around! +Goin' t' bake! Vamoose! Ain't hired t' skin no squirrels or pluck no +birds. Cyan't be bothered. G' 'way, you two." Black Jack always +talked like this--in short, disconnected sentences. + +Then the girl would beg prettily, while the Kid, fully aware in whom +dwelt the most effective persuasion, stood by, and Peter snuffed around +in the forbidden kitchen. And finally Black Jack would yield, with a +vast show of bad grace. + +"All right, all right!" he would cry, shaking his great head. "Just +this once. Never again, mind you, never again. Cyan't be bothered. +Wouldn't do it now, only just t' get rid of that dawg. That's it. +Cyan't have no dawg around. Cyan't nohow." + +He took the partridge or squirrel, still grumbling. + +"Oh, thank you, _dear good_ Mr. Black Jack!" cried Molly. "And you'll +save me the wings and tail or the skin, won't you?" + +At this point Black Jack always exploded violently and bundled them +out, taking a neatly avoided kick at Peter. Then he would watch them +quite out of sight, after which he would expend the utmost care in the +concoction of wonderful stews or potpies. + +These clear, sunshiny, healthy days tanned Molly's skin to a golden +brown, brightened her eye and her smile, and filled her strong young +body with abounding health and vitality. Even her evenings did not in +any way cloud her spirits. They were of bad influence, but why should +she know that? She was a delicious little animal, keen, shrewd, of +good impulses, though her moral nature was quite untrained. She +possessed instincts--strong instincts--which seemed arbitrarily to +place a limit beyond which she did not dream of going; but that, she +thought, was because she did not care to go. The question of right or +wrong, consciously chosen, never entered her calculations. Her only +standard was her desire--and, perhaps a little, what Graham would think +of her--but she did not bother her head one way or the other. She was +happy, and was doing nothing she regretted. That was enough. + +And yet the evenings were not good--not good at all. They were bound +to exercise a certain deleterious influence. + +By habit, Molly spent her time after dark on a corner of the bar at the +Little Nugget saloon. There she received attention. The peculiarity +of her position lay in the fact that her good comradeship had +dissipated constraint. The men talked and drank and gambled about as +usual. It must be repeated that the girl was in no sense a romantic +"idol of the camp." The miners would have been well enough pleased if +she had drunk her whiskey with them as freely as they did with each +other. As she did not, they merely put the fact down to personal +idiosyncrasy, like Dave Williams' horror of cooked rabbit. Rough men +do not demand the finer virtues, and she was treated to the reverse +side of this idea. She saw what men call life. She learned the game +of faro and how men act who have won or lost at it. She gained a +knowledge of the strength of whiskey and what men say who have drunk of +it. She heard loose speech; she saw loose conduct. All this is not +nice for a young girl. + +The men felt especially drawn to her because she smoked paper +cigarettes gracefully. About ten o'clock she went to bed. + +These few days, between her first triumphant arrival and her +establishment in her new cabin, were the most care-free and happy of +her stay at Copper Creek. She lived thoughtlessly, conducting herself +exactly as she pleased, entertaining no regrets, conscious of no sense +of wrongdoing, and therefore of no sense of guilt. Then a little +incident stirred into wakefulness that fine-wrought conscience which is +an element of so many natures that draw their life from New England. + + + + +XX + +THE EATING OF THE APPLE + +One morning Molly found herself awakened very early by the sound of +whistling just outside. She opened her eyes to discover Peter, who had +occupied one end of the wagon, sitting, head and ears up, listening to +the same sound. The whistling was young, tuneless. Finally she peered +through the crack in the canvas. + +Outside, on the wagon tongue, sat the Kid patiently waiting, his little +rifle across his knees, one bare foot digging away at the dust, his +lips puckered to cheerful sibilance, his wide gray eyes turning every +once in awhile to the canvas cover of the schooner. He discovered +Molly looking out. The whistle abruptly stopped. + +"Come on out, Molly," said he. "I ben waiting for you a long time." + +"My! it's so awful early!" yawned Molly. "What do you want to do?" + +"I'm going to take you hunting," confided the Kid. "We perhaps can get +a squirrel down the gulch, or perhaps a cotton-tail. Come on, hurry +up!" + +"Why, I ain't dressed yet," objected Molly. + +"Well, dress!" said the Kid impatiently. + +By this time she was well awake, and the glorious morning was getting +into her lungs. Her eye disappeared, and in a few minutes she emerged +fully clothed. The Kid looked her over. + +"Y' ain't going that way?" he asked incredulously. + +"Course not. You wait till I come back." + +She stepped down on the whiffletree, her heavy waving hair falling in +masses of curls and crinkles over her shoulders. + +"Oh, Lord!" cried the Kid pathetically. In the entrance stood Peter, +his head on one side. Molly laughed. + +"I thought I'd got rid of _him_," complained the Kid, "and here he is!" + +"Never mind," said Molly soothingly, "I can make him stand round. Come +here, Peter!" + +At the pool of the lower creek Molly knelt, turning back the sleeves +from her white arms, loosening the dress from about her round young +throat. After a little she leaned back against the mosses and piled +the strands of her hair, watching the interested Kid with shining eyes. + +"My, but you're purty!" he cried. She nodded to him, laughing. + +They took their way down the gulch, walking soberly in the road, while +Peter skirmished unrestrained among the possibilities of the thickets +at either hand. In the judgment of the Kid, this was too near town for +the best hunting. The Kid talked. + +"You never been down here, have you?" + +"No," replied Molly, "I've always been up in the hills, you know; it's +more fun, I think. Do you think we'll find anything down here near the +road?" + +"Not just yet; but after we get by Bugchaser's--Say, you've never seen +Bugchaser, then, have you?" + +"No," laughed the girl, "I should think not. What in the world is +Bugchaser?" + +"It isn't a 'what'; it's a 'him.' He's crazy. He has a 'coon, and a +bear, and a bobcat. I'd like to go up an' see 'em, but I'm scairt of +him." + +"Is he dangerous?" asked Molly. + +"Pop says he eats little boys. Hoh! that ain't so, of course. But +he's crazy, you know." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"He chases bugs with a fishnet." + +"Oh!" cried Molly comprehendingly, and began to laugh. + +The Kid looked at her with offended reproach. + +"Well," he remarked finally, "you can do what you want; but you betcher +life I'm keepin' away from him!" + +His eyes were wide with childish wonder, strangely incongruous in this +solemn, lonely little creature with his ways of early maturity and his +ridiculous cut-down clothes. + +"There, there," laughed Molly soothingly. "I wonder what's up with +Peter!" + +Peter was barking like a bunch of fire crackers. + +"Sounds exciting!" said she. "Maybe it's a squirrel up a tree. Let's +see!" + +The Kid threw his rifle into the position of a most portentous ready, +and the two entered the bushes. Peter was discovered, his hair +bristling between his shoulders, jumping eagerly around some object +which lay, invisible, on the ground. He snapped with excitement. The +Kid ran forward with a shout. Molly picked her skirts up and followed +with equal rapidity and considerably more grace. They nearly ran over +a large coiled rattlesnake. + +The Kid yelled and leaped to one side. Molly stopped stock-still and +uttered a piercing scream, after which she climbed rapidly to the top +of a near-by bowlder, where she perched, her skirts daintily raised, +her eyes bright with excitement. Peter leaped madly about. The Kid +discharged rapid but ineffectual pea bullets at the reptile. + +"I imagine you need a little help," said a voice so unexpected that +Molly nearly fell from the rock. The Kid gave one look at the newcomer +and fled with a howl of terror. "A most peculiar youth," observed +Durand reflectively as he advanced. "Most peculiar--seemingly obsessed +of an unwarranted terror for my person. Strange! I have never acted +in any way brusquely toward him." He picked up a stick, and, advancing +without the slightest hesitation, killed the whirring snake with a +single blow. "You may now descend," he assured her, turning with +exquisite grace to offer his hand. + +He led the way out to the road. Peter followed until within sight of +the animals chained to the posts, and then he quietly disappeared in +search of the Kid. This was not cowardice on Peter's part, but he had +long since tested by experiment the futility of challenging barks. + +Molly had recognized the newcomer from the Kid's description; and her +first glance assured her that her surmise as to his calling had been +true. She had been reading the _Life of Wilson_, the naturalist, +recently; and so knew of the existence of such men. To her they seemed +rather romantic. + +"Oh!" cried she on catching sight of the chained animals. "Are they +tame? Are they tame enough to pet?" + +The old man smiled a little at her enthusiasm. He had been looking her +over with pleasure, but without surprise. Michail Lafond, his new +friend, had mentioned his "daughter"; but never, Durand now thought, in +fitting terms. This girl was really beautiful. The little interview +became an audience to which Durand brought his exquisite court manners. + +"Jacques, the little raccoon, certainly is," he replied to Molly's +question, "but the others--I do not know--they are tame enough for +me--but a stranger----. We can try, cautiously." + +Molly had run forward and fallen on her knees before the 'coon. She +was delighted with his grizzled, round body, with his bright eyes, his +sharp little nose, the stripes across his back, his bare, black hands, +almost human, and above all with the clean, fresh woods-smell that is +characteristic of such an animal when not too closely confined. +Finding him quite gentle, she took him in her arms. Jacques proceeded +at once to investigate busily the recesses and folds of her dress. + +"He seeks for sweetmeats," explained the old man, who was looking on. + +From Jacques they proceeded to Isabeau, the lynx. Isabeau spat a +little and looked askance, but under reproof permitted a dainty pat on +the tips of his tasselled ears. Patalon, the great clown bear, was +good-natured, but rough. He desired to be rubbed here and there, he +wished affectionately to return this young lady's attentions with a +mighty hug. He smelt rank of the wild beast. Molly returned soon to +little Jacques. + +"How did you get them?" she asked, tapping the end of Jacques' nose to +see him wrinkle his face. + +"It is not difficult. One captures them young, when they are mere +cubs; and so, although they never will lose their wild instincts, they +become as you see them." + +"But the mothers----?" + +"Ah, that is the pity," replied the old man simply. "Sometimes it +becomes necessary that they die." + +Molly looked on him with new wonder, this slayer of bears and wild +cats, who nevertheless appeared so gentle, whose eye was so mild. It +was indeed a marvellous world. She forgot the Kid and the hunting +party, and gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment. + +From the pets they wandered to the flowers. These interested Molly +exceedingly, for she herself was struggling with the boxes of +geraniums. It was fully half an hour later when Molly finally said +farewell to her host and continued on down the gulch in the direction +taken by her little companion. + +The Kid was waiting with all the heart-rending impatience of youth. +The precious time before breakfast was slipping away in futility. He +had made a sacrifice in taking this girl. Never would he do it again! +never! never! And then he saw her coming, and forgot everything except +his relief. + +"Took you long enough to break away," was his only complaint as he rose +to conduct the party. + +"Have we got time to hunt now? Ain't it 'most breakfast-time?" +inquired Molly dubiously. "Don't you think we'd better let it go for +this morning?" + +"Lord, no! Come on! For heaven's sake don't let's waste any more +time!" cried the Kid with a gusty impatience that surprised his +companion. She did not realize the humiliated disappointment that had +this last hour seethed in the little breast. "I s'pose we might 's +well get up on the ridge," suggested the Kid, still grumbling. + +They turned sharp to the left, through the thicket, where the birds +were already hushing their songs, and the early dew was quite dried +away. The Kid pushed ahead with almost feverish rapidity. Here and +there in the brush Peter scurried, head down, hind legs well drawn +together beneath his flanks. He snuffled eagerly into the holes and +forms, doing his dramatic best to create some game, if necessary. +Every once in awhile his bristly head, all alert, peered, cock-eared, +over a bush, searching the hunter's face for directions, and then +plunging away suddenly as his own judgment advised. It was most +scienceless and unsportsman-like. The Kid peered eagerly to right and +left, holding the muzzle of the little rifle conscientiously at an +angle of forty-five degrees, as he had been taught, and vainly striving +to avoid dry twigs, although Peter was making enough noise for a circus +parade. The girl followed a step or so in the rear. It was +breath-taking, this excitement. Every stir of the bushes needed +examination, every flutter of wings was a possibility, every plunge of +Peter might send a covey whirring into the pine tops, or rouse a +squirrel to angry expostulation. As they went on up the side hills, +still without result, but therefore with expectation the more +sharpened, and as Molly's cheeks became redder and redder under her +brown skin and her eyes brighter and brighter, and as she bit her under +lip more and more, and as the straight level line of her brows grew +straighter and straighter with the concentration of her thoughts, it is +to be doubted if the most enthusiastic lover of scenery could have torn +his eyes from the pretty picture even for the sake of the magnificent +sweep of country below. So at least thought Cheyenne Harry, on his way +across the ridge to his claim. + +He surveyed the eager three with some slight amusement. + +"Hullo!" he called suddenly. + +The boy and girl started. + +"Hullo!" answered Molly after a moment, when her intent hunting +expression had quite fled before her cheerful look of recognition. +"That you?" + +The Kid too paused, but evidently under protest, and with the idea of +moving on again at the earliest polite moment. + +"How's hunting?" inquired Harry facetiously. "Killed all the game down +below there?" + +"All we've seen," replied Molly promptly; "and the hunting's very +good." She put ever so slight a stress on the word "hunting." "We're +going over the ridge now. Want to come along and help carry the game?" + +Harry looked speculatively at the Kid, who was standing first on one +bare foot, then on the other. "Naw, guess not," he replied. The Kid +brightened at once. "I'm going over to the Gold King for a while. +You'd better come along with me." + +"Haven't had any breakfast," objected Molly. + +"Oh, that's nothing. Neither have I. I'm just out to look around. +Come ahead." + +Molly did not care a snap of her fingers about the Gold King claim, +except that it belonged to Cheyenne Harry; and, owing to the rarity of +that individual's visits to his property, she had never seen it. +Besides this, she had been a good deal the last few days with Graham. +That young man had been interesting her greatly with a most condensed +and popularized account of the nebular theory, which seemed to Molly +very picturesque and intellectual. She was much taken with the idea of +thus improving herself and she gave herself great credit for the +effort, but it was so far above the usual plane of her intellectual +workings that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. The evening +before, she had gone to bed keyed up to wonderful resolves. To-day the +pendulum had begun ever so slowly to swing back. All the influences of +out-door life had drawn her to the earth; the clear freshness of the +early morning, the rank smell of the wild beast, the incipient +hero-worship in her admiration of the old man's supposed prowess as a +slayer of bears, the actual physical contact with the slapping clinging +brush through which she had passed. She breathed deep of the crisp +air. She broadened her chest, and stretched her muscles, and drank the +soft caressing sun warmth. She felt she would like to get down near +the grass, to breathe its earthly smell, to kiss it. It was the +gladness of just living. + +And to her in a subtle manner Cheyenne Harry symbolized these things, +just as Graham symbolized that elusive intangible humiliating power of +the intellect. He was strong and bold and breezy of manner, and +elemental of thought, and primitive in his passions and the manner of +their expression. He appealed to that spirit in her which craved the +brusque conqueror. + +So for the moment the idea of a scramble with him over these rough +dike-strewn ridges seemed to her the one idea in perfect tune with the +wild Western quality of the newborn day. And therefore, to the +consternation of the waiting Kid, she replied-- + +"Why, yes. I think it would be good fun, though I don't believe there +_is_ any Gold King claim. I believe it's just an excuse for your +loafing around, for you certainly never spent much time on it." + +"It's the finest thing ever," Harry assured her with a laugh. "I'll +show you." + +The Kid stood stock-still in consternation. + +"Oh!" cried he, when he could get his voice, "and how about our hunt?" + +"You come along with us," invited Cheyenne Harry good-naturedly. "It's +good hunting all the way." + +But the Kid knew better. This heedless climbing and loud talking would +be quite different from the careful attention necessary for the +destruction of the wily "chicken" or experienced squirrel. He looked +very sad. + +"Yes, come on," urged Molly; "we'll get something over in 'Teepee.'" + +The Kid shook his head, unable to trust himself to speak. Cheyenne +Harry turned away a little impatiently. + +"I'm sorry," continued Molly with hesitation. "I think you'd like it. +But we've had quite a hunt already, haven't we? And we can go another +time." + +She joined Cheyenne Harry. Peter stood looking first at the Kid, then +at the two retreating forms. He was plainly undecided. Molly's +gingham dress fluttered for the last time before she turned the corner +of a bowlder. Peter suddenly made up his worried mind. The Kid was +left alone. + +He sat down on a rock, and rested his chin in his hands, and looked +away across the valley to the peak of Tom Custer. A tiny white cloud +was sailing down the wind. He watched it until, swirling, it dissolved +into the currents of air. Far back in the forest of pines a little +breeze rustled, faint as a whisper: then it crept nearer, ever waxing +in strength, until, with a murmur as of a throng of people, it passed +overhead, and vanished with a last sigh in the distance. The Kid +listened attentively to the birth and death of the voice. A squirrel +directly above him broke into a rattling torrent of chattering rage. +The Kid sat, his chin in his hands, looking out over the valley with +unseeing eyes, his little rifle resting idly against his knee. The +moments passed by, one after the other, distinct, like the ticks of a +great clock. + +A soft muzzle nosed its way gently between his wrists. He looked down. +Peter's homely, gray-whiskered face with the pathetic eyes looked up +into his own. The Kid flung both arms about the dog's coarse-furred +neck, and burst into a passion of tears. + +From the top of the ridge, where she had paused a moment to take +breath, Molly saw the whole of this little scene. She suddenly felt +very irritated. + +That Kid was certainly the most unreasonable of children! Why, she +spent three-quarters of her time doing nothing but amuse him. She had +got up cheerfully at an unearthly hour, walked several miles without +breakfast, followed him uncomplaining through a lot of damp grass and +underbrush, and now, because she wouldn't spend the rest of the day +with him, he sulked. Forsooth, was she to give up all her friends, her +amusements, for the sake of that boy? Molly was most impatient--with +the Kid--and she became so preoccupied in pitying herself that she +hardly answered Cheyenne Harry's remarks, and was a very poor +companion. She deceived herself perfectly; yet in the background of +her consciousness was something she did not recognize--something +uncomfortable. It was an uneasiness, a heaviness, a slight feeling of +guilt for something which she could not specify, quite indefinable, and +therefore the more annoying. It made her feel like shaking her +shoulders. There seemed no valid reason why she should not be as +light-hearted as she had been a few minutes ago, for her reason saw +nothing in her conduct to regret. And yet she was uneasy, as though +she had done something wrong and was on the point of being found out. +She could not understand it, but it was very real, and, because she +could see no reason for it, it made her angry, with a sense of +injustice. + +It was the first manifestation of another phase of heredity--the New +England conscience. + + + + +XXI + +LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND + +Michail Lafond made much less of a stir in the life of the camp than +had his ward. He fitted in quietly. + +Behind the Little Nugget was a room and a shed. Lafond took possession +of the room, and relegated Frosty to the shed. His position as +proprietor of the saloon sufficiently explained his idleness, if +anybody's idleness ever needed explanation in a mining camp. He seemed +to do nothing, merely because he was to be seen almost any hour of the +day either smoking contemplative pipes near his place or Bill Martin's, +or wandering with every appearance of leisure from claim to claim in +the Hills, or disappearing in the direction of Durand's cabin in the +lower gulch. That was a mistake. He really did a great deal. + +For instance, he made himself agreeable in a cool, drawling fashion to +anybody who cared to talk to him. He kept his eyes wide open, no +matter where he went. He puffed as many speculations into his brain as +he did smoke-clouds into the air. That was not much perhaps; yet, by +the time the Chicago men came to Copper Creek, the half-breed knew just +about everybody's business in that camp. The student of character +never needs to ask blunt questions. + +He soon discovered that his first surmise as to Billy's peculiarities +was correct. The man was above all things spectacular. He liked to +fill the stage. If Lafond could strip him of his property--the Great +Snake--his prestige as promoter of the camp would be gone. Black Mike +could imagine nothing more galling to one of Knapp's temperament. + +He soon discovered that it would be no easy matter to do this, however. +He had felt sure that he would have no difficulty in taking advantage +of the proverbial carelessness of Westerners in general, and Billy +Knapp in particular, as to some of the finer points of mining law. +There are many technicalities to be observed before a claim belongs +indubitably and for all time to the man who occupies it. A "discovery" +of certain specification must be made; the measurements and stakes must +conform to definite regulations; the development work must be carried +on and reported according to the letter of the law; and so in a dozen +other trivialities which the miner is like to honor only in the most +general fashion. But Billy's requirements were all fulfilled. The +claims were undoubtedly his in the fullest sense of the word. At +present he could not be deprived of them legally; and as it was no part +of Lafond's scheme to allow Billy even the smallest comfort of +self-pity when his humiliation came, he did not care even to consider +the possibilities of chicanery. + +The only glimmer of light he could discern lay in the chance that +something might offer at the time of the transference of the property +from Billy to the Eastern capitalists. This was the inspiration that +had occurred to him in Durand's cabin. He had come to know Billy's +sanguine temperament, his enthusiastic predilection for seeing things +rose-hued, and he thought it very possible that the Westerner's +representations to the capitalists might not bear too searching +analysis. Overpraise of property might easily be construed as false +representation. Too graphic a description of natural advantages might +easily be twisted into an attempt to obtain money under false +pretences. A skilful man might be able to discredit Billy so far that +the transaction would fall through; and with the failure of this sale, +on which the hopes of Billy's companions were built, the promoter's +prestige would collapse entirely. + +With this sketch of a plan in mind, Lafond applied himself diligently +to acquiring a thorough knowledge of the property. That, at least, was +not difficult. All he had to do was to go to Billy, and say, "Look +here, Knapp, they tell me you've got quite an outfit here. Show me +around, won't you?" The Westerner was only too glad of the opportunity +to expatiate. He took Lafond down every prospect shaft, over every +surface indication. He explained them all minutely. When he had +finished, he gave Lafond carefully selected samples from all of the +vein fillings. The half-breed told him he wanted them for the purposes +of exhibition. + +"I got a first class shelf down in the Nugget," he said; "an' I think +if we'd jest put a line of samples along it from all the claims, and +label 'em, it would be a pretty good 'ad,' don't you?" + +Billy did. So the two "sampled" as carefully as for an assay test in +the School of Mines at Rapid. About half of the result Lafond +exhibited as he had suggested, but the rest he preserved carefully for +assay tests of his own. + +To be sure, Billy had quite freely shown him his own official tests +made at the School of Mines, but Lafond wanted his information more +direct. He could not doubt the accuracy of the reports. But there was +always a possibility that the sampling had not been fairly done. He +was sure of these other "averages," for he had helped take them. He +liked to have things under his own eye, and it was for this reason he +had first suggested to Durand that he would like to take lessons in the +art of assaying. + +At first he had intended to use the old entomologist merely as a +convenience, but later, as he became more intimate with the man through +his work, he actually began to entertain for him a friendship--his +first in over fifteen years. With all men he had been friendly; with +none had he been friends. Here he proved a really generous emotion, +opening his heart to the soft influences of affection and memory, +allowing himself in this one instance an intimacy absolutely without +ulterior motive. It all dated from the first day, when a chance +question of Durand's touched the springs of the half-breed's youth. + +They had adjourned that afternoon to the workshop, where Durand built a +charcoal fire in a little furnace and gathered about him a choice +assortment of curious implements. After the furnace was well heated, +he roasted the ore Lafond had brought with him, heating it through and +through, until finally the fumes of sulphur, antimony and arsenic +ceased to arise from the chalk-lined iron basin. While the process was +going forward Durand explained pleasantly the various steps of the +chemical change, interspersing much extraneous information--as, for +instance, how Winkler, Tcheffkin and Merrick claim that there is here a +loss of gold, which Crookes denies--to all of which Michail Lafond lent +but an inattentive ear. He was little interested in theory; but +observing the old man's delight in the scientific aspect of the +experiment, he feigned corresponding pleasure on his own part. + +Then they spread a flux of granulated lead over a crucible, in +appropriate juxtaposition with the roasted ore. For nearly two hours +it was fused; and as there was nothing to do until the slag of +impurities had formed about the bright metal in the centre, the men +talked much to each other while waiting. + +When the ore was completely fused, Durand seized the result in a pair +of forceps. With a small hammer he broke away the great masses of +clotted slag. A small bright metal button remained. + +"This is the lead, the silver and the gold," explained Durand, "and it +is here that we exercise care. All else is as child's play." + +He flattened the button on an anvil, and cut it into several pieces. +These he placed in the little porous vessels made of compressed bone +ash, called cupels, which had been slowly heating in the furnace. The +surface of the lead filmed over. In a moment it turned bright. Then +fumes began to arise. + +Durand's attention became fixed. His hand was constantly at the +furnace valve, admitting or excluding more air according as he desired +the temperature to rise or fall. + +"It is this which is difficult," he explained from the corner of his +mouth. "If the heat is too great, some precious metal escapes with the +lead. If the heat is too little, the lead is not all driven away." + +Lafond was attentive enough to this. He desired above all the +practical knowledge. + +"Observe the fumes," said Durand; "that is the true test. When they +whirl above the molten metal, then is everything well. When the fumes +do creep slowly like the mist on a stream, then the heat is not +sufficient. If, on the other hand, they do rise straight upward, then +it is necessary to reduce the heat at once." + +After a time the remaining impurities, under Durand's skilful +manipulation, were absorbed by the cupels. The little vessels were +drawn from the furnace and placed to one side to cool. A small yellow +button was finally detached with pincers. + +"That then is the gold!" cried Lafond. + +"And silver," corrected Durand gently. He weighed the button with +great care. Then with nitric acid he ate out the silver. The result +was weighed. The assay was finished. By comparing the weights of the +original ore, the cupelled button and the final product, statistics +were obtained. + +The men drew a long sigh of relief now that the task was quite finished. + +"It is hard work," observed Durand. + +"It is very good of you to take so much trouble for me," replied +Lafond, for the sake of politeness. + +"I like you," explained the old man simply, "because you speak French +and because there is something in your face that shows that you too +have been wronged, and that perhaps, like myself, in your youth you +have been light-hearted and were loved by maid and man with the love +that is given the reckless--and foolish," he concluded with a little +bitterness. + +Inexplicably this appealed to Lafond, so that he almost wept with the +sheer joy of it. + +"It is true, and you are my brother to have seen it thus," he cried, +lapsing unconsciously into the idiom of the Sioux. + +They washed their hands and went into the other cabin, where they sat +in the chairs made of barrels, and Lafond talked, talked, talked, until +the dusk of twilight descended upon them and stole away even the white +butterfly cases. + +He spoke swiftly and animatedly and with much gesticulation. Men will +tell you to-day that his speech was deliberate, scant, reserved. + +It was all of his youth. He described with abandon and fire the tall +pines, the still darkling river running beneath the cedars and birches; +the cabins, antler crowned, and the little gardens of their dooryard. +He related tenderly the life of those old days--the dance in winter to +the music of a single fiddle, and the snow shoe journey homeward under +the white stars, with mayhap a kiss upon a rosy cheek and a slap from a +mittened hand at the end of it; the wild exhilarating dangers of log +running in the spring; the canoe journey, the camping, the fishing, +through all that watered north country of the fir-girdled lakes and +trout-haunted streams in summer; the calling of the moose under the +round harvest moon, the stalking of the white-tailed deer, the corn +frolics whereat were more of the full-blossomed low-voiced chatterers +not unwilling to be wooed under that same great moon, through whose +shower of silver light the bull moose called to his mate, also not +unwilling. These things the half-breed told in that marvellous musical +voice which, with his expressive eyes, was now his greatest charm. He +told also more personally of his own youth. There had been a time when +Michail Lafond had been straight and clear-eyed and handsome. At the +dances and the corn frolics the fairest of the maidens was not so very +coy to him. In the log running Michail Lafond was the man always +called upon to skim over the bobbing logs under the very imminence of +the jam; his was the peavy that moved the bit of timber which locked +the whole; his the merry laugh as he had lightly escaped the plunging +foaming death. On and still on the voice rolled, until suddenly the +room was silent and dark, and the man in the corner had arisen abruptly +and gone out, and the white-haired naturalist was left alone, one hand +on each arm of his chair, looking straight before him, beyond the cabin +walls, beyond the years. + +Next day Lafond came again, and the next and the next. The assays were +all finished and tabulated. Still he continued to come, as usual, each +afternoon, for an hour or so at least. Durand did not smoke himself, +but he kept a pipe and a package of tobacco always on the table for his +visitor. They clasped each other's hands with fervor when they met and +parted. They called each other "mon vieux." And, what is more, they +could sit quite silent for hours without embarrassing each other in the +least. + +The men in the camp noticed this intimacy and commented on it. + +"Clar case of millennium," said Bill Martin, "Lion an' th' lamb. Ain't +no other way to explain it, fer what good Mike ever gets out of that +nutty old Bugchaser is beyond me!" + +Not that anyone cared. Everybody was at this moment speculating +earnestly on all possible results, good, bad, or indifferent, of the +pending visit of the Chicago tenderfeet. Although, strictly speaking, +their decision had only to do with the Great Snake, it was well +understood that it fixed also the value of every other piece of +property within a circumference of fifty miles. Little did those three +tenderfeet realize, as they dutifully changed cars at Grand Island, +Edgemont and other way stations, how much their holiday jaunt, as it +was to them, meant to a whole community of reasonably hard-working men. + +Lafond was the most interested of all, because, to his disgust, the +assays had been good, so good that the "false pretence" scheme would +have to be given up. He found himself, as usual, facing a situation +with not much more than luck to depend on. But he always had good luck. + + + + +XXII + +IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND GLORIFY PETER + +The most important event in the history of Copper Creek was indeed at +hand. The long-awaited Easterners were to arrive that very day to look +over the property. Billy Knapp had already driven to Rapid to meet +them, and their coming was momentarily expected. + +The camp had discussed long and heatedly the method of their reception. +Billy Knapp, and with him a strong contingent, advocated best clothes, +an imported brass band, and a generally festal appearance of evergreens +and bunting. But this, Moroney, Lafond and Graham decidedly opposed. + +"The way to make men give you things," said the last, "is to pretend +you don't want them." + +But it was Moroney's eloquence that carried the day. In fervid +rhetoric he pointed out that men were more apt to join an already +prosperous community than to furnish prosperity to one sadly in need of +it. He also pointed out many other things, including the Battle of +Bunker Hill and the Bird of Freedom. But that was what he meant. + +So when Billy and the buckboard drove dashingly up to Bill Martin's +stoop, the white road was to all intents and purposes +deserted--unnaturally so, for not a living thing was to be seen from +one end of it to the other. + +"Look's if your town was dead," remarked one of the Easterners, with a +laugh. + +"Oh no!" reassured Billy, seized with a sudden anxiety lest the thing +had been overdone. "But the boys is all off in th' Hills workin'." + +As a matter of fact the boys were doing nothing of the kind. They were +behind the cracks of doors and the darkness of windows, watching +eagerly every move of the disembarkation, on which they whispered +excited comments. Bill Martin was there outside, of course; Lafond +sauntered over from the Little Nugget; the gambler sat chair tilted, +blowing cigarette rings toward Ragged Top, never even turning his head +to see the arrivals, imperturbable, indifferent as ever; Graham and +Moroney were on hand by especial request; and of course no one could +keep Peter and the Kid away. The men in the cabins were satisfied with +their representatives. They need not worry about Graham and Moroney +anyway. + +[Illustration: JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT.] + +The first of the newcomers rolled out over the wheel, stood up on two +fat legs, and shook himself in a manner which proclaimed to the dullest +that his round face did not belie his good humor. He at once looked +about him and laughed. The second was seen to be a tall spare man, +gray-faced, deep-lined, but with the wrinkles of laughter about his +eyes. He wore a long linen duster and was evidently of the sort that +seasons its most serious transactions with a dry and facetious humor. +The third was short, small, and irrepressible. He looked as though he +should be named Frank, as in fact he was. Although all three were +dressed for travelling, they carried with them a solid air of financial +responsibility quite foreign to Copper Creek's experience, a certain +shrewdness which no new circumstance could ever abash to the extent of +forgetting the swiftest means to the main chance. But over this +shrewdness now was brushed a film of optimism, the over-abundant +hilarity of a business man on a holiday outside his accustomed +surroundings, expanding in high spirits, persiflage, and practical +jokes. During their stay in Copper Creek this never left them. They +were as delighted with the country as children with a new toy, and took +it about as seriously. + +The concealed onlookers saw the little group stand talking a moment, +and then turn into the hotel. Black Jack unloaded from the back of the +buckboard several substantial leather-bound valises. Billy drove the +horses home and returned on foot. He was pounced upon eagerly. Billy +was still glowing with self-induced enthusiasm over Copper Creek. + +"It's all right, boys!" he cried exultantly. "They shore has the right +idee! They tells me they thinks this is shore the finest kentry they +ever see!" + +"What to do next?" they inquired anxiously. + +"Do? Nothin'! This ain't no circus. When the grub bell rings, mosey +on over as usual, and a'ter feedin' we institutes some sort of a game +outside." + +When the grub bell rang, the miners filed solemnly into the +dining-room, darting covert glances at the three visitors, already +seated with their entertainers. Some nodded solemnly. The Easterners +were laughing and joking each other in the most childish fashion. + +"By Jove, there's a girl; only one I've seen!" cried the little man +named Frank, as Molly came in and took her seat at another table. + +"What of it?" asked Stevens, the tall man, with his mouth full of Black +Jack's boiled potatoes. + +"But she's a pretty girl." + +Murphy, the fat jolly one, carefully removed his butter and soda +biscuits, of which the visible supply seemed limited, beyond Frank's +reach, and ventured a glance. + +"She is pretty," he agreed, firmly thwarting the little man's attempt +to steal the butter in spite of his precautions. + +He turned to Dan Barker and resumed a labored discussion of the +country's game and fishing. The tall man took up his conversation with +Billy. + +"Yes," said he, "I go through that every morning. I find it +invaluable. It keeps me as hard as nails. Feel there!" + +He doubled his arm, and Billy placed his huge fingers gingerly over the +Easterner's biceps. Down the long table the miners and prospectors ate +uneasily, with frequent glances toward the noisy strangers, exchanging +rare low-voiced comments, and twisting their feet. Between Molly and +the man whom the others called Frank there sprang up an incipient +flirtation of glances. + +After dinner everybody went outside into the open air, where the +gathering relaxed its formality and men breathed mere freely. Murphy +conversed with several on the subject of Colt's forty-fives. He +expressed a desire for a shooting match, to which end he borrowed +Billy's six-shooter, and handled it so recklessly that everybody wanted +to duck. + +Finally he planted the muzzle firmly between his fat legs, rested both +hands on the butt, and looked about him triumphantly. + +"What'll I hit?" he asked. + +"God knows!" ejaculated the tall man; "but you can shoot at this." He +drew an envelope from his pocket, and turned toward a small board box +resting against the stump of a tree. Bill Martin started forward in +alarm. + +"Hol' on!" cried he, "I got some chickens in that thar coop!" + +The tall man turned and wrung his hand in a mock access of gratitude. +"Thank you! thank you!" he cried fervently. "To think how near I came +to having the blood of those innocent chickens on my head! I shall +never cease to feel grateful to you, sir!" + +He marched over to the coop and pinned the envelope square in the +middle of it. + +"There," said he, stepping back with an air of satisfaction. "Now the +chickens are perfectly safe!" + +The proprietor grinned very doubtfully. Several men laughed, one after +the other, as the joke penetrated. + +"You go to hell, Steve," said the fat man, bubbling all over. + +He raised the long six-shooter with an easy gesture. + +"They're just as good as meat!" he asserted confidently as he squinted +over the sights. A breathless pause ensued. + +"Always cock your pistol before shooting," Frank finally admonished in +a soft and didactic voice. + +Murphy, red-faced, muttered something about self-cockers and tried +again. This time the pause was succeeded by a deafening report, and +the pistol leaped wildly. From the coop burst a single frightened +squawk. Murphy beamed. + +All crowded about the box, examining for the bullet hole. On the +instant, Frank became wildly and triumphantly excited, dancing about +the motionless end of an index finger which pointed toward the +unscratched coop. The marksman looked nonplussed for a single instant. +Then his face cleared. + +"It went right in through that!" he claimed arrogantly, pointing the +barrel of the revolver toward a small knot hole. The other two men at +once gave vent to snorts of derisive contempt. "Prove that it didn't," +insisted the fat one. "Just prove that it didn't, and I'll pay up." +He tucked his thumbs into the lower pockets of his waistcoat, +supporting the revolver pendent on one forefinger, and smiled broadly. + +Billy's straightforward mind saw no diplomacy beyond the inexorable +logic of the situation. "Thar ought t' be a bullet hole in th' other +side of th' coop then," he suggested in a modest voice. + +Murphy cast upon him the glance of reproach. + +"I give up," he confessed with grieved dignity, and, without awaiting +an investigation, turned toward the saloon. "It means drinks," he +observed laconically. "All of you!" he added to the crowd. + +Near the door Peter fell in with the procession. The tall man seized +upon him before even that experienced animal could escape. After an +ineffectual lunge or so backward toward his haunches, the homely dog +seemed to realize that no harm was intended, and so became quiet. +Stevens passed his hands rapidly down Peter's back and haunches, lifted +him first off his fore legs, then off his hind legs, watching carefully +the exact position he assumed when he touched the ground again, pushed +his gums away from his teeth, and moulded through the fingers the +outline of his head. + +"It's a genuine Airedale," he asserted with interest. "Who does he +belong to, and where did he come from?" + +Nobody knew. + +"I don't suppose there's another west of the Mississippi," he went on. +"It's a peculiar breed, built for scrapping." The men gathered about +with a new interest in Peter. "Don't know just what the strain is, but +it's bred in the valley of the Aire, in England. The laboring classes +there mostly make furniture, and as they work by the piece, they can +take all the time off they want. Consequently they're a sporty lot, +and go in for cock fighting and racing and badger baiting, but, most of +all, dog fighting. They evolved this strain from something or other. +A good Airedale can lick anything except a Great Dane, and he falls +down there only because the Dane's too big for him." + +"I know of a bull terrier--" began Murphy. + +"Your bull wouldn't be ace high. Look at the teeth on him! Get on to +the thickness of those bones! Do you think teeth would stick on that +slippery bristle coat of his? or, if they did, do you think they would +get into that tough loose hide very hard?" He suddenly released Peter +and stood up. "Frank," said he, "come here and size up this pup." + +Peter shook himself and walked gravely into the arms of the adoring +Kid. The Kid had listened open-mouthed to every word of the expert's +statement. + +But Frank had disappeared. The incipient flirtation had developed. + + + + +XXIII + +A FOOL FOR LUCK + +When it is a question of mining, the most cautious business man loses +his head. + +It is very difficult to realize the fact that the Western property must +not be judged by Eastern standards. + +These two short paragraphs state the main reasons why, in the first +place, so much capital is sown in waste places; and why, in the second +place, Western gold mines have so bad a reputation among investors. +Nine out of ten of the legitimate mines of our Western States would be +good investments if they could be run as carefully and intelligently as +is any wholesale grocery. The expectation of big gambling returns +seems to render men careless as to the smaller details. + +Why this should be so, it would be difficult to say. Of the truth of +the statement there is absolutely no doubt in the world, as anyone who +knows the history of the West can testify. + +During the three days' duration of their stay, the Easterners looked at +facts, incomprehensible to the eyes of such as they, through the +explanations, honest enough in intention, of Billy Knapp. He led them, +perspiring but pleased, from prospect to prospect, from shaft to shaft, +from hill to hill. He showed them leads, fissure veins, red quartz, +white quartz, water supplies, timberings, hanging walls, country rock, +pan tests, and he talked about it all with that easy fluency of +eloquence, that flattering assumption of the other man's +sophistication, which is so peculiarly a talent--nay, a genius--of the +Westerner. + +Some trades there are for which all men imagine themselves qualified +without especial training--such as horse buying, writing stories, +judging pictures, and mining. This is a little strange when one +reflects that other things, such as painting, skating, keeping +accounts, or making a horseshoe, while not a whit more difficult, are +acknowledged to require a certain amount of technical education and +practice. Perhaps it is because the initial concept is so simple; as, +in this case, the digging of ore from the ground, and the reduction of +it. Details come, not from observation, but from actual experience. +Anybody, on the other hand, can see, without understanding, the +complexity of double-entry bookkeeping. + +On the afternoon of the third day, the Easterners, Billy Knapp, and +Michail Lafond gathered formally to talk it over. The latter contrived +to be included because he was a man of experience. After some little +preliminary discussion, in which the Easterners showed by their airy +familiarity with the topic just how much of the local color had soaked +in, Stevens rapped on the table. + +"Although this is not strictly a business meeting," he began, "perhaps +we can get at what we want better by putting some little formality into +its discussions. The question before us is this: Mr. Knapp here +possesses certain property which he wishes to dispose of. We have been +over it thoroughly in the last few days, we have examined the figures +relating to its assays and the gross value of the claims. They have +been satisfactory. We have next, as it seems to me, to figure on the +probable working expense, in order that we may, with some intelligence, +estimate the margin of profit." He sorted over some papers on the +table before him. "Let us take up the Great Snake lode first. What, +in your idea, would be necessary for its development?" + +"Wall," began Billy, rising formally. "They is practically two leads +on th' Great Snake; an' if you-all decides to work 'em both, you'd want +a shaft on each. A plain-timbered shaft costs you yere about twenty to +twenty-five dollars a foot. Then you needs cross-cuts, and drif's at +about five or ten a foot besides--that includes everythin'--men, tools, +powder. Then yore pump an' hoist is worth about two or three thousan'. +includin' minin' expenses for two months. That's all th' actual +expense connected with th' Great Snake itself; but of course you has to +have yore stamp mill and washer for all the group of claims. A good +stamp mill costs you ten thousan' dollars, but it's good forever." + +"How much shaft and tunnel would you have to sink before getting to a +paying basis?" asked Frank briefly. + +"That would depen'. You wants to get to water level, of course, afore +yore shore; but it might pay right squar' from th' surface. Count on a +hunderd foot." + +"And when you get to pay level, what capacity a day would you have?" + +Billy laughed. "That depen's too. You can put on more or less men. +Call her from fifteen to twenty ton a day." + +They bent their heads together over the figures. After a little +Stevens read the following tabulation:-- + + 2 shafts of 100 feet each @ 20.00 . . . . . . . $4,000.00 + Cross-cuts and drifts, say . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200.00 + Pump and hoist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000.00 + 1-10 of the cost of mill (there were ten + claims) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000.00 + -------- + Initial expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8,200.00 + + +"That thar figger," observed Billy, "brings her right up to date +without no squealin' whatever. Yere you figgers on taking good hard +rock out of four hunderd foot of tunnel an' shaft. Lots of that is pay +quartz. You got to figger that you gets some return out of it all. +They's a good many ton of ore in four hundred foot of shaft!" + +"That is true," said Murphy. "There won't be eight thousand outlay +without any return." + +"Yore dead right!" agreed Billy. + +"Let that go for now," interrupted Stevens. "We can call that +'velvet.' Now what we want to know is, what will be the working +expense of converting the ore into gold when the initial expense is +over?" + +"Call her about five dollars," replied Billy promptly. + +Stevens consulted the assay table. "The ore on the Great Snake as +shown by samples taken from various spots in the prospect shaft +averages $8.55," said he. He figured for a moment. "Allow $3.00 a ton +profit at twenty tons a day, it would take only a little over four +months to catch the initial expense." + +"Of course there's your running expenses of a camp," suggested Frank. + +"Oh yes, but look at the margin to cover them." + +They went on to the next, and the next, until the ten claims were all +figured over. Not all showed as alluring a prospect as the Great +Snake, for that was admittedly the banner claim of the group, but all +yielded a good margin of profit. It was simple as a proposition in +algebra. Assay value minus cost of production equals profits. There +was no unknown quantity in sight. Lafond alone saw one, and he held +his peace. + +One more item the Easterners had to include, and this, falling within +their business habits, and out of Billy's, they arranged to their own +satisfaction. It was Billy's price for his claims. + +"Now what are your ideas on the subject, Mr. Knapp?" asked Stevens +briskly. + +Billy hesitated. "Mebbe it's funny," he confessed; "but I hadn't +settled on a price. I know you gentlemen 'll do what is right. But I +would like to stay with her a bit." + +"Stay with her?" + +"Yes," explained Billy, embarrassed. "Keep a holt; sort to be +interested myself, you know." There spoke Billy's vanity. + +The three talked together low-voiced for a moment. They had conceived +a vast respect for Billy's capacity in the West, however +unsophisticated he might appear in the East; and they had long before +talked out in anticipation just this point. Stevens voiced their +decision. + +"We have decided, Mr. Knapp," he began, "to ask you to be our +superintendent, provided of course the company is formed. We feel sure +that your best efforts will be expended in our behalf, because your +interests will be ours." Then he went on briefly to flatter Billy +exceedingly, until that individual was ready to weep with joy. "Our +proposition is this," he concluded. "We intend to form a stock company +of two hundred thousand shares at one dollar a share, non-assessable. +Of this amount a majority will be held by the promoters of the company, +some other smaller amount will remain in the treasury, and, say, fifty +thousand will be floated on the market. Our offer is, to make you +superintendent at a nominal salary of five thousand, and to give you in +addition thirty thousand promoter's shares as your price of the claims. +These shares you may either sell or keep. Thus you may either take a +certain sum of money, or you may pool your interests with ours, +confident that every good showing made by you as superintendent will +increase the value of your holding as participator in the enterprise. +In other words it gives you a personal interest in your work here. +What do you say?" + +"Heads I win, tails you lose," said Lafond over in the corner, but he +said it under his breath. + +To Billy it was all gorgeous. He saw only that he was offered thirty +thousand dollars and five thousand a year, in addition to keeping the +position of prominence he coveted. To him the paper dollar shares +looked as good as paper dollar bills. + +"What do I say?" he cried, "I say 'put her thar,' and thank you. Let's +go have a drink!" + +So the meeting adjourned, wonderfully inspirited, especially Michail +Lafond, for at last he saw a chance. + + +As he looked up at the stars that night before turning in, he made a +quaint little sign on high. It was the Indian gesture of worship. +"Lafond," he purred to himself, "you are a fool for luck. Rippling +Water used to say you were born under a lucky star, and by the Turtle, +I believe she was right!" + +For though the Easterners thought they had done well in paying Billy +with a paper futurity, Lafond saw two sides to the question. The +meeting had been conducted, apparently, in the most business-like and +painstaking manner, yet it was to be noted that the fundamental facts, +the facts on whose accuracy depended the whole value of the subsequent +figuring, were accepted on Billy's mere say-so, without an attempt at +outside verification. Billy was honest, but he was superficial. His +temperament did not force him to search out the little details. +Michail Lafond was in the habit of searching them out very thoroughly. + +He saw that one claim, because of its peculiar situation, would require +an ore bin of equally peculiar construction; that it might perhaps be +necessary to flume water to another; that a third, though its surface +showing was good, gave indications of being nothing but a blow-out; +that though the assay of a certain ore was high, the actual working +value might be low, because of the refractory character of the rock. +In regard to mere externals of camp-building, his experience taught him +that the Easterners' estimate would turn out to be superficial. His +view from the inside showed him that every last article of equipment +for the buildings, and every pound of machinery, would have to be +brought in on mules; that men might not always be easy to get in a new +country; that hay for horses came from a distant prairie, at prices +that corresponded to the distance; that the enthusiastic promoter is +rarely or never the careful, painstaking superintendent. And so with a +hundred other items, which the Easterners had entirely overlooked. It +is marvellous that they should have done so. Translate gold into +button hooks, the Hills into a factory, Billy Knapp into an impecunious +small proprietor anxious to sell, and not one of the three would have +gone into the affair so blindly. But it is true. And more, the +history of this operation at Copper Creek is the faithful history of a +myriad of exactly similar enterprises in the West. Ask your broker +friend, or anyone in a position to watch the floating of schemes on +Change; he will tell you. + +Having settled the business of the trip, the Easterners spent a few +ridiculously juvenile days in pleasure. Billy worked himself nearly +blind to get them a shot at deer, but without success. They visited +Custer. On their way back to the railroad, they took in the Pine Ridge +Reservation, where they saw five thousand Sioux, and bought beaded +moccasins and short ill-made arrows. Finally they piled on the +Pullman, vastly pleased with their sunburn, and a little inclined to +swagger in the presence of these clean-shaven, quietly civilized +travellers who had not just left the exciting dangers of a pioneer +country. + +Billy accompanied them. His presence was necessary in Chicago where +the new company was to be "floated" and its final organization brought +about. + +None of the results of the visit were as yet known officially, but of +course a well verified rumor had got about that the Easterners were +really going to "take hold" and every man in camp was at the hotel door +to bid the visitors farewell. Michail Lafond was the last man at the +hub of the wheel before the horses started. + +"I am glad you came," said he, holding Stevens' hand while he spoke, +"and I am glad you are going to invest here. It will help us all, and +I sincerely hope it will help you." + +Stevens looked at him suddenly, as if to discover whether the lack of +confidence in the words was reflected in the man's face. Apparently +satisfied, he replied easily, "Course it will." + +"Always figure on the safe side," suggested Lafond. + +"You're dead right there," responded the other, "and that is just what +we've done. We've put down that fifty thousand as dead clear outlay +for a starter, without any offsets by way of return, and surely some of +that ore will pay something before we get down two hundred feet. Oh, +we're all right on that. You'll see us booming before spring!" + +Lafond watched the wagon out of sight with a smile in his inscrutable +eyes. Then he went down to spend his afternoon with Durand, humming +the remnants of a little Canadian _chanson_. + +"A fool for luck," he repeated to himself; "a regular fool for luck, +Lafond. All you have to do is to sit right still, and it comes to you +without the effort on your part." + +Between him and his object there now intervened but fifty thousand +dollars. And fifty thousand dollars was not an unlimited sum of money. + + + + +XXIV + +BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND + +Billy was gone almost a month. + +During that interim Lafond had absolutely nothing to do but wait, for +his affairs, both domestic and foreign, were doing well. + +"A fool for luck, a fool for luck," he got into the habit of saying to +himself, but with somewhat of a congratulatory ring to it, as though he +were a little inclined to attribute fortune's favors to that lady's +appreciation of his shrewdness. If luck had not favored him, he would +have had to accomplish the same results himself. It was a labor-saving +device. Nevertheless, as time went on, the strong underlying mysticism +in his nature came to make of this luck of his a fetish of no small +power. Lafond went about in a continual state of elation. Things were +coming his way. Nothing could stop them. They were fore-ordained. +All he had to do was to stay awake so as to take advantage of the +circumstances which chance so nicely arranged for him. He had such +confidence in the fortuitous moment that he almost ceased to plan +ahead, sure that the crisis would bring its own solution. + +Fifty thousand dollars stood between Billy's credit and Billy's +downfall. Lafond had those fifty thousand dollars to get rid of. The +sum was not great, but neither was it small; and to induce another to +spend fifty thousand, in a few months, without any encouraging return, +might have seemed, to an ordinary man, a project worthy of careful +foresight. Not so Lafond. "A fool for luck," he repeated and awaited +Billy's reappearance. + +There was Molly's affair with Cheyenne Harry, for instance. What could +be better? Lafond had known Mortimer by reputation for a great many +years. He was acquainted with the details of the transaction of +Mulberry Gulch, and how he and a man named Dutch Pete had swindled all +Custer City; he knew too of Harry's various wild escapades in the early +Indian skirmishes--on both sides some men said; of his wonderful +fortitude in enduring hardship, and his equally wonderful periods of +relaxation when back again in the towns; and he knew, best of all from +his point of view, Harry's reputation as a man among women. Since this +flirtation had lasted so long, to Lafond's mind it must already have +passed the limits. The natural sequence would be followed out. In +time Cheyenne Harry would have a mistress the more. + +In other words, without the slightest trouble or encouragement on his +part, the girl would be debauched. Then, through artfully colored +vague hints, he would let slip the real facts of her breeding. He was +student enough of character to know that she would gnaw her heart out +with a passionate remorse, the more intense because of that very innate +purity of instinct which now made Harry's task a difficult one. Lafond +had absolutely nothing to do but congratulate himself, smoke his pipe, +and spend long hours with his friend the entomologist. + +After the first flutter over the Easterners' visit had subsided, the +camp settled back with wonderful celerity into its accustomed habits. +At first it expected Billy's reappearance within a few days. The +return was postponed to the end of the week. The end of the week gave +Copper Creek to understand that it would have to wait a short time +longer. Then came another postponement. And so on, until the little +community had taken up its usual prospecting, work o' day, play o' +night existence, and the return of Billy was looked upon as an +inevitable event, but hazily in the future, not imminent enough +immoderately to disturb the current of men's thoughts. + +Then all at once Billy was among them, splendid, powerful, energetic, +in a hurry, whirling the stagnant waters this way and that, until the +spirit of enterprise awoke within them, and a nervous atmosphere of +progress replaced the old monotony. + +Billy had credited to him fifty thousand dollars; Billy sported a new +hat and new clothes; Billy had vast enterprises to accomplish before +the ground froze up; Billy drew a salary; Billy possessed an engraved +certificate of shares, which he displayed; Billy had a new watch; Billy +was looking for men; Billy was deep in complicated plans which required +above all things haste, haste, haste; until the narrow little canyon +rang with the name of Billy, which was esteemed great in the land. + +The new superintendent entered at once into the discharge of his +duties. His first care was to sink the shafts mentioned at the first +informal meeting in his own shack. There were ten claims, on which +eleven shafts were planned. The very evening of his return, eleven of +the handiest prospectors in the camp were summoned to Billy's cabin, +where they found awaiting their signatures eleven contracts to sink on +the various claims a specific number of feet at a specified price. +Next morning they looked the ground over. Next noon they signed. Next +afternoon they hired two helpers each, bought powder and fuse, and +sharpened drills. The day after, thirty-five men were busily at work +on the new company's group of claims. It looked like business. + +The same noon, Billy's effects began to come in from the East. He had +received a liberal advance on the account of his salary, and the +results were various. Among them were new saddles, a new buckboard, a +new rifle, silver-mounted harness, and a quantity of clothes of rather +loud pattern. But most marvellous was a clean-limbed, deep-chested, +slender running horse, accompanied by a sawed-off English groom. Billy +spent a good share of the next week with this individual, constructing +a corral of small timber in which the new horse might roll about. Each +morning the groom led the animal, astonishingly hooded, blanketed, and +leather-banded, up and down the hundred yards or so of level road which +was all that strip of rugged country offered fit for such delicate +hoofs and fine limbs. The beast always progressed teetering a little +sideways, nearly dragging the groom from his feet. The camp speculated +that Billy had designs on the next great prairie "fair" in the spring, +but the truth is the Westerner had little idea of what his designs +were. He had been pleased with the horse, and had bought it, without +bestowing a thought on expediency. After the novelty of possessing so +thoroughbred a creature had somewhat worn away, he confessed to himself +a slight bewilderment as to what to do with it. + +Other interests claimed his attention now. The work on the mines +themselves no longer needed his care. After the hundred feet of shaft +had been quite finished and timbered, he would inspect them in his +official capacity. If the job came up to specifications, he would sign +its acceptance; if it did not, the contractor would have to remedy the +defect. In the meantime he had on hand the building of the camp +itself, for which he had already planned largely. + +Lafond climbed the gulch and the knoll, after activity had been well +under way for about a week. He found Billy paying the freight-bills on +several loads of heavy red-painted machinery, while the teamsters spat +and swore just outside the little shack, which he now used as an +office. Billy was signing slips from his new check book. Until he +should have finished, Lafond strolled about examining the grounds. + +Around the mouths of the shafts themselves the debris had accumulated +astoundingly, showing that the contractors too had been industrious, +but Lafond paid little attention to them. He was more interested in +the clearing, levelling, trimming and digging which seemed to indicate +the undertaking of rather extensive works above ground. Perhaps a +dozen men were at work. Some were engaged in "trueing" the four great +foundation beams of what was evidently to be a large building. Others +squared smaller timbers near at hand. The remainder were measuring and +indicating with a shovel the outlines of other and less pretentious +structures. In a moment Billy came out ready to dissertate at length. + +"That thar is the boardin' house," he explained, "I thought at first +I'd only make her big enough for thirty, 'cause that's as big a gang as +I starts with; but then I figgers it out, an' it won't be long before I +takes on more, so I thinks it jest as well to start where I ends. So +she's goin' to accommodate sixty, two-story, you know. Then yere's the +cookee's shack. I aims to have th' kitchen separate yere--don't like +that Prairie Dog game nohow." (The "Prairie Dog" was the hotel; and +the "game" was the inclusion of the kitchen and the dining-room in the +same apartment.) "Then yere's to be the office. I uses my old shack +for an office now. I aims to have three sleepin'-rooms, an' a +dinin'-room and kitchen." + +"What for?" asked Lafond, a little puzzled. + +"For me." + +"For----?" + +"I don't aim to eat with the men. And over yander 'll be th' stables; +and thar th' blacksmith's shop; and then the powder house is on th' +other side of the gulch. The chicken house is beyond th' blacksmith's +shop." + +"The what?" asked Mike. + +"The chicken house." + +"Oh," said Mike. + +"I ain't got the ground all broke yet," pursued Billy; "but the plans +is all ready, and it ain't takin' long when once we git started. The +stuff fer th' mill is comin' along slow," he observed, pointing to the +red-painted machinery; "but I ain't aimin' to put her up till nex' +spring. Can't do much with her till I gets th' shafts sunk." + +"No," agreed Lafond. + +"But I got th' plans fer that too. Come on in an' I shows them to you." + +He led the way into the little shack, and began to rummage in a valise +full of papers. Lafond found the place in a litter of confusion. +Scattered about in the wildest disorder were clothes, weapons, saddles, +harness, knick-knacks and mining tools. Among the latter the +half-breed noticed the sections of a pump--an expensive machine used +only after a shaft has penetrated below the water level, but which +Billy had already purchased. Lying half open among the dusty quartz +specimens, empty ink bottles, rusty pens and old pipes, which cumbered +the table, Mike perceived a large wooden box. + +"What's this?" he asked. + +Billy looked up red-faced from his search. + +"That?" he replied. "Oh, that's a stamper," and dived back into the +valise. + +Lafond drew the box toward him. He found it to contain a vast quantity +of rubber types of all sizes and styles, figures, ornaments and +ornamental rulings. The box itself was perhaps some thirty inches +square. It was a most elaborate outfit, whose use is confined almost +entirely to large department stores where there is much marking of +prices. + +Billy now stood upright, having found his roll of plans. + +"What did you say this is?" asked Lafond again. + +"A stamper." + +"What do you do with it?" + +"You sticks the types in this rule this way." Billy took out the rule +and some of the types, fumbled unskilfully with them for a moment, and +threw them impatiently down. "Anyway, they goes in; and then that +keeps them in a straight line." + +"Yes," persisted Lafond, "but what's it for?" + +"Why, to stamp things with, of course." + +"What things?" + +Billy hadn't thought of that. + +But his discomfiture was only momentary. He spread the plans out on +the rapidly cleared table, and discoursed concerning them. Lafond lent +an attentive ear, but said little. Billy's ideas were comprehensive. +They included every adjunct of use or expediency which the prospector +remembered to have seen in any of the numerous successful camps which +had fallen under his observation. In fact, when finished, the external +Great Snake would be a composite of the desirable features of many +other camps, including the great "Homestake" itself. It was evident +that before Billy's mind's eye, the Great Snake was already as +prosperous and as well entitled to its graces of mining luxury as any +of the older enterprises. After a little appeared a man who had some +horses to sell, so Lafond took his leave and retraced his steps to +town. Near the foot of the knoll he happened across still further +evidence of Billy's wandering activity in the shape of an ivory-handled +clasp knife of five-inch blade. Mike remembered that Billy had shown +it about in the Little Nugget the evening before as another example of +the Easterners' generosity; and he remembered further the Westerner's +delighted laugh over the inscription, "William Knapp." + +"Don't know myself that way," he had cried. "I clean forgets that +'Billy' does stand for 'William.'" + +Lafond's first impulse was to reclimb the knoll for the purpose of +returning his find to its owner, but on second thoughts it hardly +seemed worth the trouble. He slipped it into the side pocket of his +canvas coat, where, of course, he speedily forgot all about it. + +When he reached the Little Nugget, empty at this time of day, he sat +down in his chair and laughed aloud, peal on peal, wagging his head and +rubbing his eyes. Frosty, happening in, withdrew with celerity, firmly +convinced that his master had gone crazy. + +"A fool for luck, a fool for luck!" cried Lafond, "Why, the idiot is +playing right into my hands!" + + + + +XXV + +JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT + +The morning when the hunting party had so unhappily terminated on the +slope of Tom Custer, proved to be the turning point in Molly's +relations with the camp. + +The Kid forgave her in two hours, but her troubled conscience would not +let her forgive herself. Therefore she was irritated with the Kid. +Therefore her old innocent joyful trips into the hills in his company +suddenly came to an end. That is good psychology; not good sense. + +With the first realization of evil, slight though it was, her moral +nature began the inevitable two-sided argument. She was no longer +naive, but responsible. As a consequence her old careless, thoughtless +manner of life completely changed. In the beginning she had come full +of confidence to subdue a camp. Speedily she had discovered that it +was not worth the trouble, and that she infinitely preferred to play +out in the open with the winds and sunshine and the diverse influences +of nature. Now a subtle, quite unrealized sense of unworthiness, drove +her back to a desire for human sympathy, the personal relation. This +personal relation took the outward form of an entanglement with +Cheyenne Harry, complicated by her intellectual admiration of Graham. + +From the first, Cheyenne Harry had possessed for her a certain +fascination which had distinguished him from the rest of the men by +whom she was surrounded. It had dated from the evening when he had +kissed her. At the time he had been shown his place swiftly and +decisively enough, but it was a forceful deed, such as women like, and +its impression had remained. Besides this, Molly's spirit was +independent; she respected independence in others; and he, with the +exception of Graham, was now the only man in camp who was to some +slight extent indifferent. He showed frankly enough, with the rest, +that he liked her company and her good opinion; and yet he showed, too, +that if her presence and regard were not freely offered as he demanded +them, he could wait, secure in their ultimate possession. + +At first this fascination had been weak and unimportant. Now, however, +it rapidly took the ascendancy over everything else. The mere chance +that its influence had been the one first to touch the girl's moral +nature counted for much; as did, curiously enough, the fact that, in +her relations with Cheyenne Harry, Molly always felt a little guilty. +She resented her imperceptible retrogression, and the resentment took +the reckless form of a desire to go a step further. This was mainly +because she did not understand herself. She had done nothing wrong, as +she saw it; and yet They had put this heavy uneasy feeling into her +heart. Very well! If They, the mysterious unthoughtout They, were +bound to make her unhappy without her fault, she would enjoy the sweets +as well as the bitter of it! + +Harry had such a way of forcing her to act against her conscience. + +"But I can't do that!" she would object to some proposition of his. +"I'd like to. I think it would be great fun. But you know very well +I've promised Dave Kelly to go up with him this afternoon to look at +his claim." + +"That doesn't matter," replied Harry cavalierly. + +"But it _does_ matter," she persisted. "I've promised." + +"Oh, shake him. Tell him some yarn. _Do_ something. It isn't every +day I get an afternoon off this way." Though why he did not, it would +be difficult to say. + +"I know, but I've _promised_." + +"Oh, very well," said Cheyenne Harry, with cold finality, and began to +whistle as if the question were quite disposed of. This did not suit +Molly at all. + +"There isn't anything I can do, is there?" she asked after a moment. + +"You know best." + +"Oh, dear, I don't _want_ you to feel like that." + +"Why shouldn't I feel like that?" cried Harry in sudden heat. "Here I +look forward to a whole afternoon with you, and I'm thrown down just +because of a kid. I suppose you'd rather trot around with him than +with me. All right. Go ahead." + +He began to whistle again. He never said what the result would be if +she did "go ahead," and this very mysterious indifference had its +effect. Molly, genuinely distressed, knit her brows, not knowing what +to do. + +"Now look here!" commanded Harry, after a minute, with great decision; +"you go find that Kid, and send him up to Kelly's claim to say you +can't come this afternoon. You can fix it to suit yourself next time +you see him," and then he would himself find the Kid and despatch him. + +Molly always acquiesced, but with inward misgivings. She must now do +her best to conceal from Dave Kelly the real state of affairs; he must +not by any chance see her with Harry; he must not hear from outside +sources of her afternoon's excursion with that individual. An element +of the clandestine had crept into it. The idea oppressed her, for, in +spite of her store of spirits and her independent temper, she was not +of a combative nature when she felt herself at all in the wrong. The +necessity saddened her, brought to her that guilty feeling against +which she so sullenly rebelled. She was uneasy during all the +afternoon, and yet she was conscious of an added delicious thrill in +her relations with Harry--a thrill that first tingled pleasantly +through all her veins, then struck her heart numb with vague +culpability. In due course, she came to transfer the emotion from the +circumstances to the man. She experienced the same thrill, the same +numb culpability, at the sight of his figure approaching her on the +street. + +This tendency was emphasized, perhaps, by the fact that their walks +together--projected so suddenly, undertaken with so strong a feeling of +blame on her part--consisted always of continual skirmishes as to +whether or not Cheyenne Harry should kiss her. The interest of the +argument was heightened by the fact that the girl wanted him to do so. +This he was never allowed for a moment to suspect--in fact, by all +means in her power she gave him to understand quite the contrary--but +he could not help feeling subtly the subconscious encouragement, and so +grew always the more insistent. She held him off because her instincts +had told her the act would cheapen her. Molly always obeyed her +instincts. They were strong, insistent, not to be denied. They came +to her suddenly with a great conviction of truth, which she never +dreamed of questioning. Among other things they taught her that +without love each kiss adds to the woman's regard for the man, but +takes away from his desire for her. + +Cheyenne Harry used all his arts. He tried force only once, for he +found it unsatisfactory and productive of most disagreeable results. +Diplomacy and argument in themselves, as eclectics, contained much of +the joy of debate. The arguments in such cases were always deliciously +ingenuous. + +"Now, what harm is there in my just putting my arm around you?" he +urged. + +"There just is, that's all." + +"I'll have it around you when we dance." + +"That's different; there's people about then." + +"It's just a question of people, then?" + +"I s'pose so." + +"Will you let me put my arm around you to-night in the Little Nugget?" + +"Of course not." + +"But there's people there," triumphantly. "Now what's the harm? It's +different with us. Of course you ought not to let anyone else, but +we're different." + +They were sitting near together, and all this time the Westerner's arm +was moving inch by inch along the rock behind Molly. As he talked he +clasped her waist, gingerly, in order not to alarm. She shivered as +she became conscious of the touch, and for one instant gave herself up. +Then she sternly ordered Cheyenne Harry to take his distance. The +latter tried to temporize by opening an argument. The half-playful +struggle always ended in Molly's gaining her point, but the victory was +laughing, and so Cheyenne Harry was encouraged to reopen the attack on +new grounds. + +As one of the inevitable results, the emotion which Molly experienced +in at once denying herself and combating Harry was gradually translated +into a fascinated sort of passion for him. Then, too, since naturally +the interest of these indecisive encounters increased with each, the +two came to see each other oftener and oftener, until the habit of +companionship was well established. This habit is very real. The +approach of the accustomed hour for meeting causes the heart to beat +faster, the breath to come quicker, the imagination to kindle; while +the foregoing of a single appointment is a dull loss difficult to bear +with patience. It counterfeits well many of the symptoms of love, and +for a short time is nearly as burning a passion. + +Sometimes the attack would be more direct. Cheyenne Harry's stock of +sophistry would give out, as well as his stock of patience. + +"Oh, come on, Molly," he would cry, "just one! I've been real good, +now haven't I? Oh, come on!" + +"You've been nothing but a great big brute, Mr. Cheyenne Harry!" she +cried in a tone that implied he had not. + +Harry advanced a little, holding out his hands, much as one would +approach a timid setter dog. She put one finger on her lips, and +watched him, bright-eyed. When he was near enough, she boxed his ears, +and twisted her slender young body out of reach, laughing mockingly, +and wrinkling her nose at him. + +But then when they had returned to camp, and once more she found +herself alone, the delicious questions always came up; how far did he +intend to go? Did he see through such and such a stratagem? Was he +really vexed at such and such a speech, or was he merely feigning? In +what manner would he dare accost her when next they met? And so +another meeting became necessary soon--at once. They saw more and more +of each other, to the neglect of many real duties. + +For a time the influence of Jack Graham did something to stem the drift +of this affair, but that lasted only until he himself fell in love with +her. + +With him her first emotion had been of eager intellectual awakening; +her second, that of piqued curiosity; her third, of reactionary +dulness. As time went on she came to pass and repass through those +three phases with ever increased rapidity, until at the last their +constant reiteration might almost have relegated them to the category +of whims. She liked to be with him, because he made her aware of new +possibilities in herself. She could not understand him, because his +attitude toward her was never that of the lover. She experienced +moments of revolt, when she cried out passionately but ineffectually +against an influence which would compel her to elevations rarer than +the atmosphere of her everyday, easy-going pleasure-taking life. +Ineffectually, I say, for something always forced her back. + +Not that Graham ever preached. Preaching would have presented +something tangible against which to revolt, something orthodox to be +cried down. In fact, reformation of Molly Lafond's manners of mind or +body was the farthest from Graham's thought. He merely represented to +her a state of being to which she must rise. The rise was slight, but +it was real. It meant the difference between thinking in the abstract +or in the concrete. It meant that she was compelled to feel that to +men like him, or to women like her, this animal existence, with its +finer pleasures of riding, climbing, flirting and sitting on bars, +while well enough in its way, was after all but a small and incidental +part of life. If the girl had been requested to formulate it, she +would not have been able to do so. She apprehended it more in its +result; which was to make her just a little ashamed of her everyday +manner of existence, without, however, furnishing her with a strong +enough motive to rise permanently above it. This, in turn, translated +itself into a certain impotent mental discomfort. + +As long as Jack Graham preserved the personally indifferent standpoint, +the mere fact that he caused her momentary disquiet did not antagonize +Molly Lafond against him. Rather it added a certain piquancy to their +interviews. He threw out his observations on men and manners lazily, +with the true philosopher's delight in rolling a good thing under his +tongue. None of them possessed an easily fitted personal application. +And his utter indifference as to whether she talked or listened, went +or tarried, always secretly pleased her. She liked his way of looking +at her through half-closed lids, in the manner of one examining a +strange variety of tree or fern; the utter lack of enthusiasm in the +fashion of his greetings when she came, or his farewell when she +departed; his quite impersonal manner of pointing truths which might +only too easily have been given a personal application. And this was +the very reason of it, although again she might not have been able to +formulate the idea; that although his methods of thought, his mental +stand-points, his ways of life constantly accused hers of inertia, +carelessness and moral turpiture, nevertheless his personally +indifferent attitude toward her relieved them of too direct an +application. She enjoyed the advantages of a mental cold shower, with +the added satisfaction that no one saw her bedraggled locks. + +But when in time the young man went the way of the rest of the camp and +began to show a more intimate interest in her, the conditions were +quite altered. We may rejoice in anathema against the sins of +humanity, in which we may acknowledge a share; we always resent being +personally blamed. + +Graham indeed went the way of the rest of the camp. His progress from +indifference to love he could not have traced himself, although he +might with tolerable accuracy have indicated the landmarks--a look, a +gesture, a flash of spirit, revealing by a little more the woman whom +he finally came to idealize. That her's was a rich nature he had early +discovered. That it was not inherently a frivolous or vicious nature, +he saw only gradually, and after many days. Then his self-disguise of +philosophic indifference fell. He realized fully that he loved her, +not for what she did or said, but for herself; and with the knowledge +came an acuter consciousness that, whatever her possibilities, her +tendency was now to pervert rather than develop them. For the first +time he opened his eyes and examined her environment as well as herself. + +She spent half of her day alone with Cheyenne Harry. The other half +she was restless. The evening she passed in the Little Nugget saloon, +where the men, convinced that she was now the mistress of Cheyenne +Harry, took even less pains than formerly to restrain the accustomed +freedom of their words and actions. Graham viewed her indifference to +all this, and her growing absorption by Cheyenne Harry, with some +alarm. He conceived that the state of affairs came about more because +of a dormant moral nature than because of moral perversity; and as to +this he was partly right. But he could not fail to perceive the +inevitable trend of it all, no matter what the permitting motive. He +would have been less--or more--than human, if he had let it pass +without a protest. + +At first the protest took the form of action. He tried to persuade the +girl to spend the evening in other ways. While the novelty lasted, +this was all very well. He epitomized and peptonized his knowledge on +all subjects to suit her intellectual digestion. They called it their +"lesson time," and he made the mistake of taking it too seriously. He +was very much in earnest himself, so he thought she should be so. They +talked of nothing but the matter in hand. After a little, there came +an evening when she was a trifle tired. The matter in hand did not +interest her as much as it should. She leaned the back of her head +against her two clasped hands, and sighed. + +"I'm stupid to-night," she confessed. "Let's talk. Tell me a story." + +Graham was much in love, and so incapable of readjustments. He had +thought out carefully several new and interesting things to say. + +"I thought you said you were really in earnest about this," he +reproached her. "If you are going to improve yourself, you must work; +and work cannot depend on one's mood." + +All of which was very true, but Jack Graham could not see that there +inheres in truth no imperative demand for its expression. + +But when another night came, her enthusiasm was less marked, for she +saw no escape. After a time she skipped an evening. Then at last she +gave it up altogether. + +"I'm afraid I'm not intellectual," she confessed, smiling doubtfully. +"I told you I'd be a disappointment. It is all interesting and very +improving, but--well, I don't know--it seems to make us both cross. I +guess we'd better quit." + +Jack Graham seemed to indicate by his manner that he was disappointed. +A good deal of his disapproval was because he saw that her renunciation +of these "improving" evenings meant not only the loss of the +improvement, but her exposure to worse influences; but of course Molly +Lafond did not know that. She took the young man's condemnation +entirely to herself, and consequently, when in his presence, felt just +a little inferior. She concealed the feeling with an extra assumption +of flippancy. + +Because of these things, as time went on, she came to see more and more +of Cheyenne Harry and less and less of Jack Graham. The latter's mere +presence made her ashamed of her lack of earnest purpose. He, for his +part, viewed with growing uneasiness the augmenting influence of the +dashing Westerner; for he knew the man thoroughly, and believed that +his attentions meant no good. In that, at least for the present, he +did him a wrong. Cheyenne Harry merely amused himself with a new +experience--that of entering into relations of intimacy with a woman +intrinsically pure. The other sort was not far to seek, should his +fancy turn that way. But to Graham these marked attentions could mean +but one thing. + +His resolve to speak openly was not carried into effect for a number of +days. Finally, quite unexpectedly, he found his chance. + +Toward evening, as he was returning from a day's exploitation on his +three claims in Teepee, he came across her sitting on a fallen log near +the lower ford. The shadows of the hills were lying across the +landscape, even out on the brown prairie. A bird or so sang in the +thicket. A light wind breathed up the gulch. Altogether it was so +peaceful; and the girl sitting there idly, her hands clasped over her +knees, gazing abstractedly into the waters of the brook, was so pensive +and contemplative and sad, that Graham had to spur his resolution hard +to induce it to take the leap. But he succeeded in making himself +angry by thinking of Cheyenne Harry. + +She saw him coming and shrank vaguely. She felt herself in some subtle +way, which she could not define, quite in the wrong. What wrong she +could not have told. When, however, she saw that plainly his intention +was to speak to her, she smiled at him brilliantly with no trace of +embarrassment. + +They exchanged the commonplaces of such a meeting. + +"Why are you so solemn?" she broke in finally. "You look as if you'd +lost your last friend." + +He looked at her. "That is the way I feel." + +"Oh," said she. + +They fell silent. She did not like at all the gloomy fashion of his +scrutiny. It made her nervous. She felt creeping on her heart that +mysterious heaviness, the weight of something unknowable, which she had +lately been at such pains to forget. She did not like it. With an +effort, she shook it off and laughed. + +"What's the matter?" she cried with forced gayety. "Didn't he sleep +well? Don't he like my looks, or the freckle on my nose, or the way I +wear my cap?"--she tossed the latter rakishly on her curls, and tilted +her head sideways. + +"What is the matter?" she asked with a sudden return to gravity. + +"You are the matter," he answered briefly. + +"Oh dear!" she cried with petulance; "has it come to that?" + +"No, it has not come to that, not what you mean. But it has come to +this: that your conduct has made every true friend of yours feel just +as I do." + +She stared at him a moment, gasping. + +"Heavens! you frighten me! What _have_ I done? Come over here on this +log and tell me about it." + +Graham's vehement little speech had vented the more explosive portion +of his emotion. Whatever he should say now would be inspired rather by +conviction than impulse; and the lover's natural unwillingness +deliberately to antagonize his mistress made it exceedingly difficult +to continue. He hesitated. + +"You _must_ tell me now," she commanded; "I insist. Now, what have I +done?" + +"It isn't so much what you have done," began Graham lamely, "as what +you might do. You see you are very young, and you don't know the +world; and so you might walk right into something very wrong without +realizing in the least what you are doing, and without meaning to do +wrong at all. Everybody owes it to himself to make the best out of +himself, and you must know that you have great possibilities. But it +isn't that so much. I wish I knew how to tell you exactly. You ought +to have a mother. But if you'd only let us advise you, because we know +more about it than you----" + +The girl had watched him with gleaming eyes. "That doesn't _mean +_anything," she interrupted. "What is it, now? Out with it!" + +"It's Cheyenne Harry," blurted Graham desperately; "you oughtn't to go +around with him so much." + +"Now we have it," said the girl with dangerous calm; "I'm not to go +around with Harry. Will you tell me why?" + +"Well," replied Graham, floundering this side of the main fact; "it +isn't a healthy thing for anybody to see any one person to the +exclusion of others." + +"Yourself, for instance," stabbed the girl wickedly. "Go on." + +Graham flushed. "No, it isn't that," he asserted earnestly. "It isn't +for the benefit of the others that I speak, but because of the effect +on yourself. It isn't _healthy_. You are wasting time that might be +very much better employed; you get into an abnormal attitude toward +other people; you are laying stress on a _means_ to which there is no +_end_, and that is abnormal. I don't know that you understand what I +mean; it's philosophy," he concluded, smiling in an attempt to end +lightly. + +"No, I do not understand in the least. All I understand is that you +object to my seeing a certain man, without giving any particular reason +for your objections." + +"It isn't especially elevating for you to sit every evening in a bar +room crowded with swearing and drinking men who are not at all of your +class," suggested Graham. "The language they use ought to teach you +that." + +"They are my people," cried Molly with a sudden flash of indignation, +"and they are honest and brave and true-hearted. They do not speak as +grammatically as you or I; but you have been to college, and I have +been blessed with a chance to read. And whatever language they speak, +they do not use it to talk of other people behind their backs!" She +reflected a moment. "But that isn't the question," she went on, with a +touch of her native shrewdness. "I understood you to make a request of +me." + +Graham had not so understood himself, but he had a request ready, +nevertheless. "That you be a little more careful in the way you go +about with Mortimer, then," he begged. + +"And why?" she asked again. + +"Because--because he means to do you harm!" cried Jack Graham, driven +to the point at last. + +She rose from the log. "Ah, that is what I wanted to hear!" she +returned in level tones--"the accusation. You will tell him this to +his face?" + +Graham paused. His anxiety was a tangle of suspicions born of his +knowledge of men, his intuitions, and his fears. Looking at it +dispassionately from the outside, what right had he to interfere? +Graham was much in love, brave enough to carry through the inevitable +row, and quite willing as far as himself was concerned, to do so; but +he could not fail to see that, however the affair came out, it would +irretrievably injure the girl's reputation. No one would believe that +he would go to such lengths on suspicion of merely future harm. To the +camp it would mean his proved knowledge of present facts. So he +hesitated. + +"You will not, I see," concluded the girl, moving away; "rest easy, I +shall say nothing to Harry about it. I don't know what he would do if +he heard of it." + +She began to walk toward the ford, every motion expressing contempt. +She believed she had proved Graham a coward, and this had rehabilitated +her self-respect. She was no longer ashamed before him. At the +water's brink she turned back. + +"And remember this, Mr. Jack Graham!" she cried, her repressed anger +suddenly blazing out; "I may be young, and I may not know much of the +world, but I know enough to take care of myself without any of your +help." + +She picked her way across the stepping-stones and disappeared, without +once looking back. + + + + +XXVI + +AND HAS TO GO TO WORK + +From that moment Graham ceased to be an integral factor in the girl's +history. His only hold on her imagination had been his moral +superiority, and it was now gone. She treated him thenceforth as an +admirer whose sincerity deserves the consideration which his insistence +makes difficult to give ungrudgingly. He was not discouraged or +frowned on. He was forgiven promptly as a child is forgiven. But he +was kept always scrupulously to his place. The girl now held the whip +hand. After a little, when he became too insistent, she cut him +cruelly in punishment and only deigned to smile on him again when, to +sue forgiveness, he had quite abandoned his attitude of fault-finding. + +As for him, the girl's actions soon became hateful. He saw them all +wrong, yet he felt his powerlessness to alter them in even the +slightest degree. This aroused so powerful but so impotent a rage that +shortly he came to react irritably against everything Molly did whether +right or wrong. He instinctively arraigned himself in the opposition. +He did not want to do this, and his common sense accused him strongly +of unreasonableness, but he could not help it. It was greater than he. +No matter what the plan, discussion or even conversation, his morbidly +sensitive consciousness of the girl's error impelled him to object. + +"Let's go over to Rockerville to-day," she would suggest. + +"The horses aren't here." + +"But it's no great matter to get them. Let's send the Kid." + +"I don't know where the Kid is." + +"Well, Frosty then." + +"Frosty's busy." + +"It wouldn't hurt you any to get them yourself." + +"One of the saddles is broken." + +"You know very well it's only a cinch ring. It can be fixed in five +minutes." + +"We'll---- Don't you think it is going to be pretty hot?" + +"No, I don't; and if I can stand it, I should think you could." + +"And----" + +"Heavens and earth! It's harder than climbing trees to get you to do +anything. Never mind! _I_ don't want to go to Rockerville or anywhere +else if it's all that trouble!" + +And then Graham would wonder at his stubborn fit. Why shouldn't they +have gone to Rockerville? In five minutes he could have got the +horses, fixed the saddle. And the day was beautiful. What real reason +did he have? He did not know; only he felt an irresistible impulse to +object. This was because he loved her, disapproved of her, and was +quite powerless over her. + +When he was not merely contrary, he was urging strong advice on an +unwilling recipient. It was offered in either the pleading or the +blustering spirit. If in the former, Molly merely teased him. If in +the latter, she became very angry. It was always on the same subject. +The girl was wearied with it. + +And yet, if it were any consolation, Jack Graham could have comforted +himself with the truth that, next to Cheyenne Harry, he claimed a +greater share of her thoughts than any other in camp. His offices were +ungrateful, but they had a certain sincerity which prevented their +being ignored; and, not forgotten, their acid-like drop of truth ate +into that conscience of which she did not yet realize the existence. +Her horizon was becoming banked with thunderclouds, looming huge and +black and heavy with portent. Graham, as an ideal, had stood for a +higher existence. Now, however shrunken his image appeared, the ideal +itself remained as something tangible in her collection of moral +standards. She acknowledged to herself fiercely that she had fallen +from it. She told herself that she did not care. + +She was dreadfully alone. Lafond was always kind to her, but she never +felt that she knew him. Graham, in spite of his frequent presence, was +in reality quite estranged. The Kid and Peter and Kelly and Houston +and even old Bill Martin had fallen away from her somehow. She did not +know that the reason the older men were less intimate was because she +was supposed to be Cheyenne Harry's mistress, and the rule of such +cases is "hands off!" And then there was always the stifling formless +weight at her heart which she did not understand. She was very +unhappy. That with her meant that she was reckless. She threw herself +passionately into her affair with Cheyenne Harry as the one tangible +human relation left to her in its entirety. + +The days followed each other in a succession of passionate exaltations +and dumb despairs. Harry kissed her whenever he pleased now. She had +long since got beyond mere coquetry. It meant much to her hereditary +instincts so to yield, but she gave herself up to it with the abandon +of a lost soul delivering itself to degrading wickedness. For in spite +of her life and companions she was intrinsically pure, so pure that +even Cheyenne Harry, with all his extraordinary influence, did not +somehow care to go too far. He kissed her, and at the first, when the +long resistance had enhanced her value, he was persuaded that he loved +her--that these interviews meant to him what lovers' meetings mean--and +so he responded to her passionate devotion with what seemed to be +corresponding ecstasy. + +But then after a little insensibly the flood ebbed. In the old days +she had amused him with her bright laughter, her gay speech, her +mocking superiorities, her little coquetries of manner or mannerism. +Now she had thrown these weapons away. Her surrender was complete. +Her life had simplified to one phase, that of dewy-eyed pleading +adoration. At first it pleased his masculine vanity. After a time it +cloyed ever so little; Cheyenne Harry missed the "comic relief" in all +these heroics. He would have liked occasionally to have climbed hills; +or taken long walks; or even run a short race, say to the bend of the +road; or to have had played on him a small practical joke; or +experienced some other such indication that man is a laughing animal. +The girl seemed capable of enjoying nothing but slow and aimless +saunterings. In the beginning he had experienced the nameless ecstasy +and thrill inherent in the personal contact of the kiss. Now he missed +something of those qualities. It seemed no longer strange to him to +feel her body near his, to watch her wide eyes half-closed, to press +his lips against hers, half-parted. It was still delightful above +everything in the world, but there had been one thing better--the kiss +of yesterday. In a word Cheyenne Harry's experience was beginning +dimly to trace the word "satiety." + +Not that either he or the girl realized it. To their thinking minds +everything was as usual. But their subconsciousness appreciated it, +and interpreted it according to its value. Cheyenne Harry, as has been +pointed out, turned instinctively toward a desire for lighter phases in +their relationship. Molly Lafond clung the more blindly to her +passion. Her only excuse to herself for her abandonment of the better +ideal was the reality of that passion. When it should go, her +self-respect would vanish with it. + +Harry found a certain amusement, too, in seeing Graham jumping around +the outer circle like corn in a popper. Graham was usually possessed +of so much innate dignity. Now his self-abandonment to the essentially +undignified attitude of begging for the petty favor of a quarrelless +ten minutes or even a little good-humored smile tickled the other's +sense of the incongruous and pleased his vanity. To an extent he was +held to the girl now by his pride. A man likes to have a rival when +perfectly secure himself, especially when the girl tells him what the +rival says to her. This may not be honorable in her, but it is very +human. So amusing was it that Harry did not get angry over the reports +of Graham's repeated warnings against him. + +The latter seemed unable to keep off the subject. He knew that his +suspicions only strengthened the girl's obstinate opposition, but he +could not help their expression for all that. Sometimes he pleaded, +sometimes he threatened, sometimes he assumed the prophet's mantle and +foretold all sorts of dire disasters. The girl laughed, or became +angry. It would have puzzled Graham to tell which of these moods he +preferred: perhaps it would have depended on which of them he was +experiencing at the moment. + +His saving grace was a sturdy sense of his duty to himself. He felt +that sense to be sadly shaken in many ways; but he clung to his work +tenaciously, perhaps a little feverishly. + +"Nuthin' like a woman to make a man work," observed Bill Martin sagely, +"whether she's _fur_ him, or agin' him." + +"How about Billy?" inquired Old Mizzou. + +Bill Martin laughed. "Billy? Oh, he's _playin'_," he replied. + + + + +XXVII + +PROSPERITY + +Billy did not think so, however. He posed to himself as the most +industrious man in the territory. He had so much to see to that year, +for throughout the mild winter that succeeded he had pushed forward +with the greatest rapidity all work on the Great Snake and its sister +claims. The log structures, the plans of which he had displayed to +Lafond, were completed, so far as the mere erection of them went, +within a fortnight. Billy gave a great deal of personal direction to +this work; but after all it was simple enough, so he managed to chink +in a moment here and there for the completion of certain bargains which +came to him. For instance, a man in Spring Creek Valley offered eight +draught horses at a marvellously low figure. That made two teams. +Billy did not need two teams just then; but of course later, when the +mill was up, he would need a great many more than two teams for the +purpose of carting ore; and it seemed criminal to let such a bargain +go. Then he found he required a man to take care of them. Some days +later he came to the conclusion that it would be good economy to buy +the ore wagons now instead of waiting until later, for the following +ingenious reason: the horses must be fed; hay costs fifteen dollars a +ton in the hills and five on the prairie; with wagons the horses could +be utilized to haul their own forage from the plains at a net saving of +ten dollars a ton on all consumed. So Billy placed an order for two +heavy wagons, and dismissed the matter from his mind until they were +delivered. During the interim he sat on top of a ladder and dabbed +contentedly at a scroll-work cornice with a small red paint brush. + +From that elevation he bought a whim, also a bargain. The man was +anxious to sell, and it was a very good whim. To be sure one might +have argued that inasmuch as whims are machines for hauling ore from +depths which Billy's operations would not attain for a year at least, +the purchase was a little premature; but then it is equally certain +that all mines own whims, and another opportunity for getting one so +cheap might never again present itself. + +When the wagons came, he and the man drove fifty miles to Rapid, where +they hobnobbed with Tom Sweeny and looked over his establishment. +Billy bought his household goods. He also took a fancy to some large +brass-bound collar hoods for the horses which he had marked with the +company's initials "G. S. M. & M. Co.," also in brass. The return trip +was made with difficulty on account of the low-hanging branches of +trees. Then Billy spent an ecstatic week distributing things to suit +him. + +The work in the shafts went steadily forward. Billy was willing to +offer a bonus on the contract price for a quick job, so the contractors +took on extra men. They averaged almost a foot and a half a day, which +is wonderfully good. The work indeed went on so well that Billy saw he +would need the mill sooner than he had expected, so he resolved to +begin its erection at once. He hired all the available men, but soon +found that he would have to seek elsewhere for a gang adequate to such +an undertaking. He imported one from Rockerville. As the winter came +on, he found it expedient to start the boarding house in order, as he +said, "To get those cusses up in the mornin' afore the sun sets." The +move necessitated a cook and "cookee," and the weekly purchase of +provisions. Since he had the men handy, he argued, there was no reason +why he should not finish up the small details and odds and ends of the +camp in a respectable manner, and so he made many little extraneous +improvements, such as a flag pole and a rockery of pink quartz from the +Custer trail. Three or four were always away from the mill, levelling +up, clearing out or decorating. From Kansas City he imported some +chickens with crested heads and a number of pigeons of ancient lineage. +The latter promptly flew back to Kansas City. As the novelty of them +had worn off Billy took their loss philosophically. In regard to +externals the camp began to wear a very prosperous air. + +Copper Creek too was busy. Over forty men were hard at work on the +Great Snake itself. Upward of fifty claims were in the course of +development near at hand. With the completion of the mill would begin +the crushing of ore; with the crushing of ore would begin the camp's +commercial output; with that, provided it were satisfactory, would come +more capitalists anxious to invest. It behooved the claim owner to +have his exhibit of shaft and tunnel ready for the public inspection. +When you reflect that three men usually worked on a claim and that +Copper Creek's entire population at that date was a little over two +hundred and fifty, you can readily see that it was indeed a lively +camp. Even those who were not actually engaged in prospecting +operations found their time fully occupied in providing for those who +were. Black Jack had an assistant now. Moroney's paper came out as +often as once a fortnight and was beginning to be mentioned by the +_Deadwood Miner_ as "our esteemed contemporary." Bill Martin had been +seen sweeping out his own office. The dozen of women and girls who had +drifted in with newcomers, scrubbed, cooked, washed and sewed in a +struggle to keep even with muddy boots, miners' appetites, and the +destructive demands of miners' work. Even Frosty improved his +customary mooning slouch. + +The men who seemed to enjoy unlimited leisure could be counted on the +fingers of one hand. Cheyenne Harry laughed at it all. His one claim +was known to be a mere excuse for existence, a symbolic reason for his +connection with Copper Creek. Everybody knew really why he stayed. He +was supposed to be independently rich, though none claimed any +knowledge of how he came to be so. Then there was the gambler, the +faro man, who sat on the hotel "porch" all the morning smoking endless +cigarettes, his broad straight hat tipped a little sideways, his +moustache brushed neatly away to show his white teeth, his fine +inscrutable eyes looking cynically from his equally fine clear-cut +face, speaking seldom, smiling never, imperturbable, indifferent, +cat-like. And there was Durand, but he did not count. And there was +Michail Lafond. + +To be sure the half-breed was building a new dance hall, to which the +camp entire looked with anticipatory delight, but that was a matter of +four walls and a smooth floor. He needed only to give his orders. +After a perfunctory morning inspection he had the day to himself. + +The work at the Great Snake interested him, as it did everybody. He +occupied the morning about the works, poking into odd corners, +questioning the workmen, making suggestions to Billy. He sent the +horse dealer to Billy, and mentioned to the whim man that he might find +a purchaser there. He often was enabled in his vaster leisure to +perceive the little things that lacked and to point out their necessity +to Billy, which individual was of course always duly grateful and +hastened at once to remedy the defect. After a more or less lengthened +visit the half-breed returned to camp. If it happened still to lack +some time until dinner, he called on Moroney in the editorial rooms or +exchanged sententious comments with Bill Martin, or chatted with one or +the other of the visitors who happened to be in town. After dinner he +disappeared until supper. The time was spent with Durand. The +assaying was long since finished, but the two men had grown fond of +each other's companionship. It was a silent companionship for the most +part. Lafond smoked interminably his short black pipe, turned upside +down, watching the naturalist setting carefully the delicate wings of a +butterfly or arranging in a paper cylinder the skin of a bird, or +searching, spectacled, in black volumes of Government reports. +Occasionally, when Durand looked up from his absorption, they exchanged +a few swift remarks, elided, compressed, telegraphic; for they +understood each other so well that the unabridged form of speech was no +longer necessary. On fine days they beat the brushy creek bottoms for +the _Nitra_, the rare _Papilo_ which men supposed to be extinct. And +then, after the early darkness of winter fell, they would be seized by +strange obsessions of loquacity. Jacques, the raccoon, a ball of fur +under the faint red stove, blinked at them shrewdly, wondering what it +was all about. + +In the evening, of course, Lafond had the Little Nugget to take care +of. The saloon had as yet no rivals. The size of the town perhaps +warranted another establishment, but Lafond was a monopolist by nature. +He treated the men well, with a geniality behind which were unsounded +depths of reserve. Therefore they respected him. The space about the +iron stove before the bar came to be the Town Hall. Matters of public +importance were discussed every evening. Billy there told things he +ought not to have told. The atmosphere was expansive, encouraged one +to show off. After one had recounted the obvious, one was inclined in +the heat of the moment to fall back on the confidential, merely for +lack of something else to say. The camp to a man knew the amount of +Billy's expenditures, the number of his shafts. It heard extracts from +all his letters to and from the East. It was acquainted with all his +and the Company's plans. A good many of the cooler heads felt the +intrinsic injudiciousness of this; but after all there could be no +traitors among them, because in the end the prosperity of every man +present depended on Billy's success. + +But while the Great Snake was the main topic of conversation, and +always remained ultimately the most important, its present interest, as +spring drew near, became overshadowed by that of the new dance hall. + +The Westerner loves to dance. A street organ sets him shuffling. He +will drive twenty miles in a springless wagon and twenty miles back +again in the grayness of dawn to stamp his feet to the sound of an +accordion. Every camp has its organized dance joint, a sort of hall +mark of its genuineness as a camp. Now with the approach of the date +for formal opening this long musicless community woke up to its +deprivation. All the details of the new establishment were enjoyed in +anticipation. It had a planed floor. The boards had been brought by +wagon from McGuire's mill at Hermosa. It was to be lighted by real +locomotive lanterns of an impressive but meaningless number of candle +power. It was to be entirely draped with flags. The musicians were to +be imported from Spanish Gulch. Lafond dispensed this and similar +information sparingly, in order that it might be made the most of. He +promised the "opening ball" for May if possible. + +"That depends, of course," he always concluded his statements, short or +long. + + + + +XXVIII + +LAFOND GOES EAST + +About the middle of February Lafond varied the monotony of his daily +programme. He ceased to visit the Great Snake camp, on which work was +proceeding as rapidly as ever, and took to writing letters. He wrote a +great many, and always mailed them himself with Blair, the driver of +the stage. He announced one evening in the middle of March that he was +about to leave for a short trip. + +"I have the round to make," he said resignedly. "There are many places +which each year I must visit. I go to Deadwood, Spearfish, Custer, +Sheridan, Edgemont, Rapid, Buffalo Gap, many others. I may be gone a +month." + +"But yore comin' back, ain't you?" asked someone. + +"But yes," assured the half-breed. "Have we not the opening of the +dance hall?" + +So the very next morning he boarded the stage for Rapid. At Rapid he +bought a return ticket to Chicago. This was one of the results of the +correspondence he had been carrying on for a month past. His first +letter had run about as follows: + + +"Mr. Frederick Stevens, Chicago. + +"DEAR SIR--You will perhaps remember me as one of your hosts during +your late visit to this camp. If you do, you will remember also that I +am interested financially, and so the good of the camp is my good. You +will further recollect that I was present at the meeting held in +Knapp's shack for the purpose of settling with him. For that reason I +happen to know your plans and expectations. The expectations were that +your first investment of fifty thousand dollars would complete the +works to a paying basis. I have no means of knowing the exact amount +of Knapp's expenditures to now, but they must be considerable, and I +feel that my interests and yours require that you know just what the +returns are. + +"The results you should get with your fifty thousand dollars are, that +you should have, on each claim, shafts to below water level with +cross-cuts and drifts, a mill set up and ready, a pump and hoist on +each shaft, a month's fuel, a month's wages for men with food and +expenses and a camp in good working order. + +"The shafts are almost done, but they are sunk on contract and are not +paid for yet. The mill is half up; there is one pump and two hoists +not up yet. That is all that is done. It seemed to me Knapp has not +spent his money well, because there is much about camp which he does +not need. + +"I tell you this because I am interested." + + +Here Black Mike paused and tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the end +of his penholder. Then he smiled cynically to himself and went on--"To +speak plainly, I think the waste has gone beyond what you can afford. +Only a man living here and knowing mining well could make it pay. I do +not ask you to believe this, but see for yourself how you stand, and I +may be able to make you an offer." + + +By return of post Lafond was frantically called upon to explain. He +did so. Billy had been wasteful and extravagant. It was not Billy's +fault perhaps, but he was evidently not the man for the place. Lafond +had had but a vague idea of how things were going, but lately he had +been at more pains to gain an accurate knowledge of affairs. He had +found things as above stated. He did not write at all as a friend of +the Company, but because he believed he could perhaps make something by +taking the property himself. Instinctively the half-breed knew that an +insistence on his own selfishness was the surest way of impressing +these Easterners with his sincerity. For that reason he demanded his +expenses when he was asked to go East for consultation. + +The Chicago men were badly frightened. Lafond repeated clearly at +greater length what he had told them in his letters. It had been a +case of a man unused to the handling of money. He insisted that in +actual value there existed not one quarter of the sum Knapp had +expended; and he further claimed that affairs were in such shape West +that as much more would have to be invested before the mine could be +put on a paying basis. + +"Then," said he, "you have your cost of production and your camp +expenses always. From your profits above them you have to make up what +Knapp has spent and what you will have to spend. That takes your close +attention and many years. For that I think you will not wish to go +ahead; and for that I come to make you an offer that will make it for +you not an entire loss. I do not ask that you believe me. +Investigate." + +"Would you be willing to wait here while we investigate?" asked Murphy. + +"Always, for my expenses," replied Lafond calmly. + +The Easterners consulted. + +"Very well," said Stevens. "Call it that." + +Lafond in the little room at his hotel looked at himself closely in the +glass. + +"A fool for luck! a fool for luck!" he cried at the imaged reflection, +repeating his old formula. + +Stevens was gone just ten days. Of course he said nothing of Lafond's +presence in Chicago. He had merely dropped in to look over the +property, as was natural. Most of the men wondered why he had not done +so before. He was cordial to Billy, looked over what had been done, +asked many questions, listened attentively to all Billy had to say and +departed in the most friendly spirit. When he arrived in Chicago, he +went directly to his office in the Monadnock Building, where he had +already assembled his associates by telegraph. + +Stevens was brief, business-like and coldly impartial. In a man of his +sort that indicated that he was very angry and chagrined. + +"I have the following figures to submit," said he, taking up a paper. +"They are accurate, as I consulted with an expert as to the items of +future expense before leading Rapid. + + 10 horses at 105.00 . . . . . . . $1,050.00 + 10 sets harness at 60.00 . . . . . 600.00 + Mill machinery . . . . . . . . . . 6,500.00 + Pumps, hoists . . . . . . . . . . 1,250.00 + 4 months' wages at 4.00 a day . . 4,800.00 + 2 1/2 months' boarding expenses . 610.00 + Hay, tools, implements . . . . . . 1,165.00 + Wagons, household goods . . . . . 2,560.00 + Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . 2,112.00 + Building roads . . . . . . . . . . 829.00 + ---------- + $21,476.00 + + +"That is what has been spent up to date according to Knapp's accounts." + +"But hold on!" interjected Murphy; "he has drawn six drafts. That +makes thirty thousand. Has he eight thousand in hand? Why did he have +to draw the last draft?" + +"He doesn't know," replied Stevens grimly. "His bank balance," he +declared, consulting the paper again, "is just $1,126.40. He says he +doesn't know where the balance is." + +"Do you think----?" + +"Not at all. He is perfectly honest. That is the way he does things." + +"Here," went on Stevens after a moment, "is what remains to be done +before we can even start to work. It is an estimate, but it is a close +one; for, as I told you, I had assistance in making it out: + + Mills, pumps, hoists . . . . . . . $12,000.00 + Sheds, ore-dumps, etc . . . . . . 1,500.00 + 20 horses and harness . . . . . . 3,200.00 + Men, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 + Wagons and tools . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 + ---------- + $26,700.00 + +That is to bring us up to the efficient working point. Now here are +our liabilities: + + Miscellaneous bills . . . . . . . $850.00 + Contract on 1,100 feet of shaft and tunnel + at 20 a foot . . . . . . . . . 22,000.00 + ---------- + $22,850.00 + +That is what we owe, gentlemen," concluded Stevens, slapping his papers +on the table and looking about him. "Now if you want to throw good +money after bad, you can do so," he continued after a moment; "but this +is a limited liability company and I am done. I am strongly in favor +of pulling out some way to save our names as promoters of such a fool +enterprise, but I think we should pull out. This man Lafond thinks he +can do something with the property if he has a fair show, and perhaps +we can save something through him. Our fifty thousand is _gone_--and +more, after we've paid our debt to those men--and anything we can save +out of such a mess seems to me clear gain." + +And so with equal haste they scrambled out. + +The first inexplicable phenomenon is the sanguine blindness such men +show in going into mining; the second is the headlong thoughtlessness +with which they draw out. Anything to get back to daylight apparently. + +Again the parallel of the button-hook factory. In case of failure +these men would have first looked the ground over well for possible +retrenchment along the old lines of expenditure: that failing, they +would have examined closely for a possible new plan. But in the +present case they never even conceived the possibility of any scale of +operation different from that grand vision of eleven contiguous mines +all going at full blast which Billy's vivid imagination had called into +being. Lafond saw it clearly enough. Had he been so minded, he could +have set the whole matter right; just as, if he had been so minded, he +could have turned the trend of Billy Knapp's extravagance with a little +timely advice. + +"Gentlemen," he could have said, "has it ever occurred to you to start +on a small scale and work up gradually to a larger? You can mine one +shaft on one claim with one cheap five-stamp mill. In that way you +could at least pay expenses from the very surface. After a little you +can pay more. Then you might open up another claim. That would take +time to be sure; but what business does not take time?" + +His actual speech was of quite different tenor. When called before the +meeting by a special messenger, and asked to name the terms he was +willing to offer, he replied quite simply-- + +"Fifteen thousand dollars." + +This was, of course, quite unthinkable. An animated discussion ensued. + +"We have spent over twenty thousand dollars," said Stevens, "and we owe +twenty-six thousand more. Then the claims are worth something, surely. +It would be better to hold the property just as it stands, on the +chance of some future sale." + +"Of the twenty thousand you have spent," retorted Lafond, "fifteen has +been spent uselessly. I mean not that it was all waste, but that if I +had been running the mine I could have bought all I would need for five +thousand. And as for the twenty-six thousand you owe, what with +bonuses for fast work and contracts at a high price, it ought all to +have been completed for fifteen thousand. And besides, if it was I who +had developed the property, I would not have sunk all these shafts +before making the mill to work. I would have my mine to pay before. I +am making you the offer of five thousand for the mine and ten thousand +for the works." + +This argument carried some weight. It availed to induce an acceptance +of Lafond's final offer of five thousand cash, and the assumption of +the twenty-six thousand debt. A man in his position and in his +business could easily reduce the latter item. + +"Of course this is merely informal," explained Stevens. "We have to +call a directors' meeting yet to take official action." + +"We hold controlling interest," added Murphy, for the purpose of +reassuring Lafond. + +"I understand," said the latter. "And now another thing. What are you +going to do about the camp itself?" + +Stevens hesitated. "I suppose we'll shut down and give Knapp his +walking papers," he answered at last. + +"That is just it. I want that you look out for my interests in that. +If you shut down, that gives the camp a bad name, and a bad name is of +all things in the West the worst. And you know not that man Knapp. +You discharge him. Eh, well? He is angry; he is without law; he is +reckless. He is able to do that which he wishes. He can burn the +buildings, break the machinery. Who is it that will stop him? No, +when Knapp is discharged, it must be that the deeds are in my hands, so +that I can protect my property." + +All saw the justice of this argument. + +"What would you suggest then?" asked the chairman. + +"How is it that you intend to discharge him?" returned Lafond. + +"What do you mean?" + +"What is the formality? Do you just write and tell him he is +discharged?" + +"Oh! No; we call a directors' meeting, and pass resolutions to that +effect, a copy of which we send him. We will do that at the same time +we authorize the sale to you." + +Lafond drummed for a moment on the polished table near his hand. + +"Eh, well," he announced at last, "let it be like this. When it is +that you have had your directors' meeting and have passed your +resolutions, then you send your copy to me, and I will give it to +Knapp. Thus I will be on the ground to see that he makes no trouble. +And at the same time you send the deeds to this man"--he rapidly +scribbled an address--"he is a notary public at Rapid. You will have +time to look up his reliability. He can hold the deeds until I pay to +him the five thousand dollars and sign a contract to take the debt we +spoke of. Is that satisfactory?" + +"Quite," they agreed. + +"How long will it be before you finish your meetings?" + +"Ten days. It takes a week's notice for a special meeting." + +On the way to South Dakota again Lafond stared out of the windows with +unseeing eyes in which lurked laughter. "Ten days," said he to +himself, passing the fingers of one hand softly over the palm of the +other. His dark bearded face in the twilight lost its outlines against +the upholstery of the Pullman. A nervous little bride on her wedding +trip to California grasped her husband's arm. + +"What is it, dear?" inquired the latter. + +"Foolishness," she laughed, a little forcedly. "But see that man's +eyes. Aren't they uncanny?" + +"Looks a bit like a maniac," admitted the groom, "but it's this queer +light. Odd fellow. Looks as if he might have one of those interesting +Western histories you read about." + +"A fool for luck! A fool for luck!" Black Mike was repeating to +himself. "Ten days! I can fix the date for that dance-hall opening +now!" + + + + +XXIX + +BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES + +As has been hinted, the outward and visible signs of prosperity had to +some extent increased the feminine population of Copper Creek. Molly +Lafond had long since lost the distinction of being the only woman in +camp. Some of the newcomers were blessed with wives, one or two were +favored with daughters. All told, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty +of the gentler sex scattered among the new and old log cabins of the +valley. + +But from them Molly had little to fear in the way of rivalry. The +older women were either buxom and decisive, representing the sturdier +pioneer race, or dyspeptic and drawling, as typical of the effects of a +high altitude on nervous and underfed organizations. The young girls +were angular, awkward and shy, especially so when in the presence of +Miss Molly's breezy self-possession. They would all make good +"filling" at the new dance-house ball, but they would never obtrude +into the foreground. + +Then Bismarck Anne came to camp. She conceived the idea quite +suddenly, late one afternoon, and without so much as a word to anybody +she strapped her most becoming ball-gown inside a poncho and rode +across from Spanish Gulch on her little pinto pony. + +Bismarck Anne was at that time in the heyday of her youth and +prosperity. She was of the dark-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed +type, so "common" when it falls just short of attractiveness, but so +abundantly vital when, as in the present case, it does not fall short. +Bismarck Anne was instinct, charged with life. Into everything she did +she threw a verve and abandon that carried the adventure well through +with something to spare. And she was afraid of nothing. She denied +the possibility of nothing. + +About three o'clock of the afternoon she galloped in. A number of men +recognized her and ran to help her down from her horse. Everybody knew +her by sight or reputation, but few had ever dared attempt her +acquaintance, for ordinarily Bismarck Anne chose her coterie from the +powerful and wealthy. Now, however, there seemed to be little cause +for anxiety on that point. Bismarck Anne had come over for a good time +and she was going to have it. If the men who surrounded her on her +arrival felt any momentary restraint or trepidation, they were almost +immediately set at ease by the warmth of her manner. + +It was Old Mizzou, I believe, who steadied her stirrup, and Dave Kelly +who helped her from her horse and held her a moment longer than was +necessary, and, to his vast astonishment, instead of being slapped was +heartily kissed for his temerity. There was a breathless element of +unexpectedness in this which appealed to the miners' sense of humor, +and they all laughed consumedly and felt good comrades at once. Old +Mizzou mentally added another exception to his sweeping rule about +"grass widders and school ma'ams." There sprang up a rapid fire of +good-humored joking back and forth in which no man was favored, where +each had a chance to enter the lists, and in the course of which each +conceived an inner conviction that all he needed to "win out" was a +chance unhindered by the crowd. Bismarck Anne stood in the centre of +the group, flashing her black eyes back and forth from one to the other +and showing her white teeth in a series of dazzling smiles. + +Just at this moment Cheyenne Harry and Molly Lafond, returning from one +of their numerous expeditions, caught sight of the animated group near +the hotel, and naturally turned aside to investigate its cause. + +Bismarck Anne faced toward them. + +"Why, Harry!" she cried, holding out both hands, "you here? I didn't +know you-all hung out in this camp. You look just the same as ever. +'Spose you're goin' to take in th' dance to-night. Yes, that's what I +came over for; that an' nothing else. We'll have to stir this camp up +a bit and make her seem like old times. I'm afraid you boys have been +getting a little slow," she flashed good-humoredly at the others. +"Harry, you ought to have seen them when I kissed that boy over there, +just for a 'kid,' you know. I don't believe you've got a girl in this +camp who knows beans, and it's about time you did. I'm _mighty_ glad +to see you. But you got to watch out, though! This is a pretty +good-looking lot of boys, and you'll have to hustle to hold your job." +She said this still holding both his hands in hers, and alternately +smiling now at him, now at the men about her. She had taken rapid +stock of Molly--whom she now ignored for the moment--and had as rapidly +come to the conclusion that if a rival were to appear at all, it would +be Harry's companion. She hoped her speech would at the same time +attach Harry to herself, and render assiduous his devotions by a fear +of rivalry. + +"You bet we will!" cried Harry. His manner was enthusiastic, not so +much with joy over seeing Bismarck Anne, as with instinctive relief +from the tension of his rather sentimental interview with Molly. He +remembered the latter and performed some sort of an introduction. + +The two women looked each other in the eye. + +"How do you do?" asked Molly coolly, without moving an inch. + +"Very well, my dear," replied Bismarck Anne smiling, "and very glad to +get here." + +The endearing epithet relegated Molly at once to the category of little +girls. + +The conversation continued for some moments longer, the men standing as +silent spectators. Molly continued very reserved. The newcomer did +not appear to notice it, but chattered on unconcernedly in a +light-hearted fashion, appealing to the other just often enough to +convey the idea that there was nothing noticeably repellent in her +manner. In fact she did it so well that the group gained the +impression that Molly carried her share of the small talk, which was +not true. But in spite of the apparent good-feeling Cheyenne Harry +felt uncomfortably that something was wrong. Searching about for the +cause, he at last discovered it in Molly's attitude. + +So on the way to the cabin he was vexed, and showed it. And Molly felt +so strongly the innate justice of her position and appreciated so +keenly the skill with which she had been made to appear sulky and +unreasonable, that when she had finally shut her own door behind her, +she threw herself on her bed and cried as though her heart would break. +Then her blood told. She dried her eyes and in her inmost heart she +declared war against this woman, war to the knife and to the uttermost. +The momentary defeat dashed her at first, then it nerved her. After +all nothing definite had occurred. This creature had planted several +stinging thrusts which had hit home because Molly, in the innocence of +her heart, was not expecting them. She was on her guard now. It would +not happen again. Cheyenne Harry had known the woman before, +evidently, and surely it was natural that in the first surprise of +seeing her so unexpectedly, he should display a certain enthusiasm of +recognition. But his relations with her--Molly Lafond--were too +intimate, too long-continued, to be lightly broken. + +As the twilight fell she saw, through the oblong of her sliding window, +that men were hurrying by to dine early, in order that they might +prepare for the festivities of the evening. Across the square she +could make out the dim shape of the new dance hall, a long low +structure trimmed with evergreens and bunting. Frosty was even then +lighting the lamps in the Little Nugget. She sat there motionless, +staring out into the night, fingering the soft white stuff of the gown +lying across her lap, until a certain peace came to her and a +conviction that all would be well. + +The night was warm and balmy with the odors of early spring. Molly had +slid back the halves of her narrow window, and over the boxes of +flowers that fringed this little artificial horizon the mellow notes of +the first whitethroat, that nightingale of the north, floated in on the +tepid air. Beyond the nearer silhouette of the flowers another dimmer +silhouette of the hills wavered uncertainly beneath a few uncertain +stars. The girl watched these stars idly, dreaming in tune with the +plaintive notes of the bird. Then silently another bulkier silhouette +interposed itself, almost filling the window. + +"What is it?" she cried, starting. + +"It's I," came the voice of Jack Graham. The silhouette rested two +black-outlined elbows against the sill. + +"My, how you frightened me!" she cried pettishly. "What in the world +do you want? Why aren't you at dinner?" + +"Molly," said Graham solemnly, "I don't suppose you'll listen to me. +We haven't gotten along very well lately, have we? But I want you to +know that I am asking this for your sake, and that I believe it." + +She was impressed by the sincere quality of his tone. "Why, Jack," she +said softly, "I know you mean well, and I suppose I _am_ very frivolous +and careless. What is it?" + +"I wish you would not go to the dance to-night." + +There fell a pause. She was evidently in a softened mood and she +wished to conduct the interview considerately. "But, Jack," she +hesitatingly asked at last. "Do you think there is going to be +trouble?" + +"It will only give you pain. You are going to be forced against things +you have never had to combat before." + +"I don't understand you." + +"I am going to talk very plainly, Molly; I hope you won't get angry. I +can't help it if you do. It's because I love you so, girl; I love you +so!" + +His voice was deep and rich with emotion, so poignant and compelling +that it forced her attention in spite of herself. This was a +declaration, she dimly felt, and yet its import as such was somehow +lost in the more pregnant subject-matter to which it but added emphasis. + +"Go on," she said breathlessly. + +"You are well liked by everybody here," he continued, carefully +avoiding more pointed personalities, "and you have grown so used to +being liked by everybody that it would hurt you cruelly if you were +not. Isn't that true?" + +"Yes," assented Molly gravely, after a moment's consideration. + +"You want to hold first place in their thoughts and in their goodwill. +You want to be first with them and you want them to show to you and to +each other by their actions that they are your best friends and are +going to stand by you. Do I read you right?" + +"Yes, of course I want all the boys to like me. I've known them so +long, and I should feel dreadfully if they didn't. But what do you +mean by it? I don't understand." + +The silhouette moved uneasily. "Now don't get angry," he pleaded. +"Take to-night. To speak plainly, you want to be the woman who +receives the most attention at that ball. Answer frankly." + +"Well," confessed the gill after another moment's hesitation, "frankly +then, I do." + +"You will not." + +"Why?" + +"Because the woman who came this afternoon, Bismarck Anne, will take +your place." + +Molly Lafond would have become angry if her experience of the afternoon +had not already made her uneasy on just this point. + +"Do you consider her more attractive than me?" she asked a little +resentfully. + +"A thousand times No!" assured the silhouette. + +"Has she known the boys as long as I? Is she as good friends with +them? Can she talk better? Is she brighter?" + +"No." + +"Then I don't believe I quite see." + +"It's just this. The men all like you and admire you, and would do +anything for you, but at the same time they look up to you a little. +You are better than they are, so, more or less, they are a +little--well--a little _restricted_ with you. This woman is their +sort. She isn't a bit better than they are. When they are out to have +a good time, like at the dance to-night, they want somebody they can +have their sort of fun with. _You are too good for them_." + +"That is very theoretical." + +"It is very true." + +"And supposing, just supposing, it were. You want me to lie down and +quit without making a fight. Do you call that being game? What would +you think of a man who would run away because the other man was a +little stronger? Don't you think I'd fight?" + +"That's just it. You'd fight too well." + +"I don't----" + +"She has ways of drawing men to her which you know nothing about. They +are her weapons. I know you'd fight. You'd fight to the last because +it is in you to, and I'm afraid, very much afraid, that when you found +your weapons were not enough you'd use hers." + +There fell between them a long silence, while Molly slowly pondered +these last words and gradually apprehended their meaning. In the +darkness she could feel the blood tingeing her face, forehead, and +neck. At first she was inclined to be angry and to show it, but the +man's evident sincerity, coupled with the fervor of his incidental +declaration of love, softened her. + +"I don't believe I ever had anybody tell me such things before," she +could not restrain herself from saying, "and I don't know whether I +ought to thank you for your lack of trust in me. However, you'll be +there, and I can rely on your protection against these awful dangers." + +"I will not be there," contradicted Graham bluntly. + +"Well, then, there's Harry." She said the name out of bravado to show +that there was no reason why she should not say it. + +"Yes," cried Graham, with a burst of anger that astonished her. "It is +he I mean." + +It was the red flag to them both, the idea of this man. "I think you'd +better go now," she replied coldly. + +Graham turned away with a little curse. + +She sat down again and tried desperately to regain her confidence of a +few moments before, but it would not come. She was angry and insulted, +and she was vexed at herself that she could not throw off the +uneasiness which lay behind these emotions; but she could not. It grew +on her as her nervousness increased. She sat staring straight before +her into the dark, clasping and unclasping her hands, and striving with +all the earnestness of which she was capable to seize and formulate the +vague fear that seemed unreasonably to weigh on her spirits. Analyze +it as she would, she could find no adequate reason for it. It was +therefore the more terrible. The dinner hour passed quite unnoticed. +The nervousness increased until she could have shrieked aloud. And +then with a sudden start she recognized it--this old formless causeless +sense of an indefinite guilt, as for something left undone; the voice, +although this she did not know, of her inherited New England conscience. + +At the discovery she rebelled. She had always rebelled, and heretofore +she had succeeded in putting it down, in stifling it underneath mere +surface moods. But now the surface moods proved inadequate. The +uneasy guiltiness increased until it almost overflowed in tears. Molly +was afraid, just as a child is afraid of the dark. + +She lit the lamps and looked at herself in the mirror. This must not +go on. To-night, the one night when she needed all her powers, it was +foolish to allow a whim to weaken them. She shook her head at herself +and smiled. The smile was not a success. She turned away wearily and +thrust her hands through her hair. Why had Graham taken it into his +head to bother her this one evening of all others? It was his fault. +She stamped her foot angrily. All his fault. In spite of his denial, +she believed he would be there and would set everything. The thought +stung her pride and the desire for tears left her. She would show him +just how much his advice and his fears were worth. On the impulse she +spread her white dress out on the bed, and began hastily to smooth out +the wrinkles in its pleats. After a moment she turned decisively to +the mirror, and began to take down her hair. + + + + +XXX + +ANCESTRAL VOICES + +Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, dressed in a clean white apron, stood +behind the bar and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. It had +gone well, and for this one day his master had been in an unwontedly +good humor. + +Directly opposite, a wide door opened into the new dance hall. From +where Frosty stood one could see that it was a long low room, +flag-draped, with few windows, and furnished only by an unbroken line +of benches against the wall. One standing in the doorway, however, +could have perceived that at one end were placed for the musicians a +number of tall "look-out" stools--tall in order that the performers +might at once overlook the performance of the square-dance "figures," +and early prepare to avoid possible hostilities. A number of large +lamps with reflectors illuminated the apartment with crossed shafts of +light. + +Frosty polished glasses in anticipation of the evening's business, +which would be lively, glancing complacently from the fresh-scrubbed +floor to the lately renewed sheets, imitating plaster. As the outer +door was now closed, he was relieved from the necessity of ejecting +Peter. It did no good to tie Peter up: either the animal was ingenious +at escapes, or the men were mischievous in their desire to bother +Frosty. This was one of Frosty's many troubles. He led a life of care. + +After a little, the door opened, and three men came in. They steered +to the bar at once, as a sort of familiar haven in strange +surroundings. From its anchorage they took their initial view of the +hall. After subsequent arrivals had braced them to the point of +confidence, they made a first awful tour of that apartment, but soon +returned to more familiar surroundings. The saloon filled with a +heterogeneous gathering. All types were there in their best clothes, +from the spotlessly immaculate faro dealer, dressed in a black +broadcloth frock coat, to Dave Kelly, with his new red handkerchief and +his high-heeled boots. The main gathering remained crowded in the +saloon, whence small groups occasionally ventured into the hall, but +only for the purposes of temporary inspection. A hum of low-voiced +talk went up, which fell to expectant silence every time the door was +opened. The musicians from Spanish Gulch arrived and began to tune up. +They were closely followed by the first woman, a red-cheeked awkward +country lass, who took her position on the bench near one corner and +began at once to dispense smiles and loud small talk to the men who +followed her there. The assistants' spirits rose. They had known this +girl as Sal Jenks, of rather drab-colored disposition and appearance. +To-night, in the glamour of a light-colored dress and the illumination +of a ball room, she had suddenly become transformed into something +quite different and infinitely more attractive. The musicians played a +tune. The other women came in, gayly dressed and accompanied always by +a red-faced swain. Black Mike took his stand at the side of Frosty, +and began to assist that individual in dispensing drinks. Black Mike's +democracy was no small element of his popularity. At about half-past +eight those near the door saw him talking with Cheyenne Harry. A buzz +swept over the room. Copper Creek had been waiting in suppressed +excitement to see whom Cheyenne Harry would accompany--Molly Lafond or +the newcomer--and lo! he had come alone. + +Then, before the astonishment had subsided, the outer door opened again +and Molly entered, looking very pale and sweet and serious. + +She walked directly by the bar into the dance hall, where she seated +herself near the door and looked calmly about her. She was dressed +entirely in white. Cheyenne Harry was leaning over the bar talking +attentively, so that he was perhaps the only person in the room who did +not see her come in. A dozen men at once surrounded her and began to +chat. She answered them good-humoredly enough, but indifferently. + +The door once more flew open and Bismarck Anne, standing on the sill, +cried out in her clear, high voice, "Well, boys!" She paused a moment. +Cheyenne Harry, turning at the sound of her voice, remembered how, +about a year ago, Molly Lafond had stood there in just that attitude. +But he felt a great difference. + +Cheyenne Harry had for some time, as we have said, been growing a +little tired of his affair with Molly. The mental ingredients of +satiety were all present, but he had as yet received no conscious +notice of their existence. He imagined himself as much fascinated as +ever. If something lately had seemed to lack, he had laid it to +circumstances and not at all to the state of his relations with the +girl. But for all that, the satiety had been real. He only needed to +be told of it to realize it himself very plainly. Bismarck Anne had +told him. + +He saw now absolutely no attraction for himself in Molly Lafond, and +that without attempting to deny her intrinsic attraction for others. +He simply did not care for her any more. It seemed perhaps like a +sudden revulsion, but it was not so really; it had been inevitable from +the very first, and from the very first it had been slowly maturing. +Not even the results were sudden: only Cheyenne Harry's knowledge of +them. + +He had always felt his relations with Molly Lafond as more or less +restrictive, because the good is always so. He had dimly caught the +truth that, without a deep moral incentive, restriction is always +irksome; that although pure love is the most ideal condition in the +world, its simulation is the most wearisome after the novelty has worn +off; and all the rest of the long psychological train of emotion and +reasoning common to the trifler. But now for the first time he knew +it. He knew it because, standing in the doorway, looking at him with +bold black eyes, was the exact opposite of all this, and he recognized +a mighty relief. + +Bismarck Anne knew enough to dress all in black. She had the taste to +appreciate the effect of one red flower in her hair as her only +ornament. She had the sense to wear her dress cut neither too low +above nor too high below. And so she was exceedingly handsome as she +stood there, the devil of excitement in her eyes. + +Cheyenne Harry abruptly ceased his conversation with Lafond to shake +hands with her. They turned in company. Harry linked his arm through +hers, and they entered the dance hall close together, and took their +seats in a corner far removed from the musicians, where they continued +engaged in such earnest conversation that none of the men ventured to +approach them. After a time, when the music struck up for the first +dance, she seemed to be commanding something to which Cheyenne Harry +seemed to be objecting. Then the latter arose slowly and asked Molly +Lafond to dance the first dance with him. She accepted with a sharp +pang at her heart. The newcomer had scored. + +Owing to the scarcity of the gentler sex, it had been decided that no +one "set" was to be blessed with more than one girl. Thus they would +go around better. Molly, glancing across at her rival, saw that she +was surrounded by a laughing group of men. The woman was joking +broadly at each, wriggling her white shoulders, darting side glances, +half promising, half denying. In a moment the group broke, and the +members of it rushed in her own direction. They were already +quarrelling for places in her set. The matter was arranged somehow +after much wrangling. Then, too late, Molly saw that the other woman +had scored again. Bismarck Anne had not only selected her partner, but +also the other six members of the set. Thus she had made seven men +happy and none jealous. + +A Western dance is a sight worth seeing. The musicians call off the +figures. The head fiddler does it until his voice gives out. Then the +second fiddler and the accordion take a try at it, after which further +calling is unnecessary owing to the fact that most of the dancers are +very drunk. This comes to pass because, at the end of each dance, all +are supposed to visit the bar. The most heinous crime, next to horse +stealing or sluice robbing, is "shying drinks" at such times. As some +men can hold more than others this enforced equality of quantity +consumed brings about unexpected variation in the hilarity of the +consumers, all of which adds to the variety of the occasion. + +The interims between drinks are occupied by square dances. The men go +through some set of monkey shines which they call figures, the +principal object of which seems to be at once the tripping up of such +male and the prolonged squeezing of such female dancers as they may +come into intimate personal relations with on their grand rounds, which +is conducive to hilarity of the loud-mouthed variety. The exercise +itself is rather violent, and as the room is low, lit by lamps, and +comparatively windowless, the air soon becomes heavy with the reek of +perspiration and the fumes of tobacco. The floor acquires a heaving +motion and the lights sway back and forth. The homeliest of the +dance-hall girls somehow looks like a fairy through the haze--a rather +elusive fairy, with a rather heavy unfairylike gait. At this period +there is usually a good deal of noise. Then all at once it is morning, +and somehow the scene has changed to the ravine, and there is a tomato +can poking itself into the small of the back. + +Molly tripped gracefully and easily through the figures of the opening +dance, seeming scarcely to touch the floor. Bismarck Anne leaned +heavily on each man in the swing, and pressed her bosom against his +arm. Twice she half slipped and caught by the shoulder of her partner +of the moment, and her breath was hot against his throat. She said not +one word the whole dance through. + +With the last quaver of the fiddle came the harsh command-- + +"S'lute yore pardners! All promenade to th' bar!" + +They obeyed. The sets went in two by two, the men treating their +masculine partners with humorous politeness in the matter of assistance +in crossing the sill of the door. The non-dancers crowded after them +in a confused mob. + +At the bar Frosty had the drinks all ready on the back shelf. Black +Mike assisted him, and together the two, their sleeves rolled back and +their faces glistening with the sweat of honest toil, passed over +brimming little glasses of "forty rod" and jingled two-bit pieces into +the drawer. Bismarck Anne drank with the best of them, leaning +familiarly against the men nearest her, bandying jokes that were more +than doubtful. Molly sat on her corner of the bar but did not drink. + +At the beginning of the next dance the aspect of things was a trifle +changed. A bigger crowd gathered about Bismarck Anne soliciting places +in her set, and it was more familiar. Some one snatched a kiss of her. +She merely laughed and pushed him away. There seemed to have suddenly +sprung up between them and her a _camaraderie_ in which Molly had no +part, as though they and the newcomer had some secret to keep to +themselves which thrust the younger girl without the circle. + +Cheyenne Harry did not come near her again. He seemed wholly +fascinated by the stranger. The sight of his attentions to the other +aroused Molly. A bright red spot burned in either cheek. She was all +animation. Her laughter rang true, her eyes flashed with merriment. +For every one she had a joke, a half-tender, half-sympathetic aside. +She saw that as long as they were in her actual presence the men were +wholly hers. And yet she felt too the subtle growth of this other +woman's influence, and realized that eventually it would beat her down. +In spite of her brave appearance her throat choked her. Only by a +great concentration of the will could she prevent herself from lapsing +into silence, and then into tears. As the strain began to tell on her +nerves, the old feeling of unknowable guilt came to oppress her heart, +and with it a growing longing to get away, to hide somewhere; to begin +all over again humbly, below the lowest; to claim nothing, to attempt +nothing, to do nothing in opposition to that accusing Thought which +seemed greater than herself. All at once she was tired of struggling. +She was ready to give up this life, if only they would let her feel +like something besides a breathless naughty child, fearfully expecting +every moment the grave reproving voice of the Master. + +She chided herself for this. It was not game. Pluck she admired above +everything; and yet here she was, ready to run away at the first taste +of defeat. She smiled ravishingly on Dave Kelly, until he began to +speculate on the possibility of repeating that delicious experience +which Peter had so inopportunely cut short. + +[Illustration: "ARE YOU STILL MAD?"] + +As the evening progressed, the "forty rod" began to show its effects. +Williams had to have the full width of the floor whenever he tried to +walk, and his enthusiastic imitations of an angry catamount were most +creditable. Some one was always disgustedly repressing him. Several +others were in like condition with different symptoms. The soberest +manifested increased vigor of limb and fertility of imagination. A +happy combination of these two effects brought about the proposal of a +turkey walk. A ring was formed on the instant. + +Into the ring two men, chosen _viva voce_, were pushed. They began at +once to strut back and forth like turkey cocks in the spring. They +hollowed their backs in, stuck their chests and rumps out, slapped +their thighs, toed in, puffed their cheeks, ducked their heads, uttered +sundry gurgling whoops, and hopped about, first on one foot, then on +the other in a charmingly, impartial imitation of a Southern cake walk +and a Sioux Indian war dance. These performances tickled the crowd +immensely. When it came to noisy vote on the relative merits of the +performers, it vociferously shouted unanimous approval of all. +Therefore the contest was pronounced a tie. At this moment Dave +Williams staggered forward. His muddled brain had room for only the +most evident facts. He saw the ring and his drunken shrewdness had +retained cognizance of the evening's rivalry. He mixed the two ideas +up to effect a proposal. + +"Hyar," he shouted, "lesh do this ri'! I secon' Bismarck Anne!" He +let out a wild-cat yell--"Whe-ee!! Two t' one on Anne!" + +Some one hit him on the chest and sent him staggering backward. He +gyrated unevenly toward the corner, stumbled over his own feet, and sat +down heavily on the floor, where after feeling vainly for his gun he +relapsed into good humor. But his suggestion hit the popular fancy. + +The idea ran like fire. In a second the ring was formed again. Those +in front knelt; those behind looked over their shoulders. Even Frosty +and Black Mike deserted the bar and stood leaning in the doorway. The +girls were urged forward into the ring, which closed after them, and +the music was ordered to proceed. + +Bismarck Anne walked calmly into the circle and stood looking about +her. Molly had an instant of doubt. Then a revulsion against her easy +surrender got her to her feet and into the ring. The gauntlet was +down. She would accept the challenge. It was a duel. + +There was a moment's squabble between two self-appointed officials in +regard to precedence. It was settled, and Molly was beckoned to begin. +The fiddles started up a squeaky, lively air to which the men kept time +with hands and feet. The young girl, her cheeks burning, stepped into +the centre of the ring and struck the first graceful pose of the +_cachucha_, learned years before at the Agency from a little Mexican +serving-maid. The men recognized it in a swift quickly silenced burst. +The fiddles changed their measure to suit the dance. + +The _cachucha_ is a beautiful dance when rightly done. It is a +combination of airy half-steps, sinuous body movements, and slow +languorous and graceful weavings of the arms. It has in it all the +enchantment of the lazy South. There is not an abrupt movement in it, +but one pose melts into another as imperceptibly as night into day. +Molly did it well. Her supple figure was suited to it, and the very +refinement of her actions enhanced the charm of the dance. The men +applauded vehemently when she stopped. The other woman laughed aloud +in scorn. + +With a final sweeping curtsy the dancer turned to go. The flush of +triumph and excitement burned on her cheeks and in her eyes. Finding +the ring solidly closed so that exit was impossible, she accepted a +seat on the knee of one of those in the front rank. The man put his +arms around her and drew her close in a drunken embrace, which the girl +only half noticed. + +Bismarck Anne sprang to the centre of the ring at one bound, the sneer +still on her lips. She turned abruptly to the musicians. + +"Quit that damn stuff!" she snarled. "Play somethin'!" + +The musicians hurriedly swung into a lively air. + +Bismarck Anne's dance was not especially graceful. It consisted mainly +of high kicks and a certain athletic feat known as the split. But it +was magnificent in its abandon, and fierce in the crude animal energy +of it. Besides its mere suggestiveness and appeal to the passions, it +had too a swing, a fire, a brute-like force which could not but hit to +the hearts of men at bottom strong, crude, and savage. They went +crazy. They shouted encouraging things at her with open straining +throats. They stamped and cheered until the lights wavered. They +clapped each other delightedly on the back. And Bismarck Anne danced +ever the more furiously. She kicked with enthusiasm, with abandon, +holding her short skirts still higher to gain the greater freedom. The +tiger-lily fell from her head and was snatched up almost before it +touched the floor. Her heavy black hair came down, and hung in strands +across her face, and fell in vivid contrast upon her white shoulders +and her heaving bosom. She shook it back with a savage movement. + +And she in the corner, who was nothing but a woman, with little of the +savage in her to appeal to savage men, and, for all her independence, +little of this bold reckless spirit of the frontier in her to appeal to +pioneers, felt herself growing sick and faint as she saw these greater +forces slipping beyond her control roaringly, as would a mountain +torrent. Her rule was over, and this woman's had begun. The room +swayed before her eyes. Some one behind her handed a brimming glass of +whisky over her shoulder, and she seized it eagerly and gulped it down. + +The unaccustomed stimulant cleared her vision. The room stood still, +the different objects in it became distinct. She looked on the +whirling figure of the woman in the centre, the open-mouth +turmoil-stirred crowd in the background, with dispassionate eyes. She +was deadly cool. To her memory came Graham's words of that same +afternoon. "_Because you are too good for them!_" She remembered the +very emphasis of his tone. Well, he was right, and yet not right. She +had been too good for them, but she world show them now! With the +sudden flash of resolve, the first unnatural hardening effect of the +whisky passed, and in a whirl the exhilaration came. She laughed and +responded convulsively to the man's embrace. + +Bismarck Anne gave a final kick, and fell in some one's open arms. The +men, shouting frantically, began to stir preparatory to regaining their +feet. Then they sank back again with a fresh cheer. Into the centre +of the ring Molly tripped unsteadily, and stood for a moment looking +about her with uncertain foolishly smiling eyes. Her cheeks were a +glow of red. She glanced toward the musicians, and, with the tip of +her fingers, raised her dress to her knees, waiting for the music to +begin. + +The room was deadly still. She could see, looking at her excitedly, +all the men she had met and come to know in the last year. She saw +them dimly, as through a haze. Would the music never begin? What were +they waiting for? A draught blew cold along the floor. She felt it on +her legs. Why was it? Oh, yes, she was holding her skirts up to +dance, to show them that she was no better than this woman, Bismarck +Anne. + +And then the black cloud that had been gathering so long, the undefined +guilty feeling at nothing, broke over her. She wanted to go on--the +music had begun now--but she could not. Twice she tried. Something +held her, something real, something stronger than herself. She did not +recognize them, these ancestral voices, but they laid upon her their +commands. She dropped her skirts, and covered her eyes with her two +hands, and burst through the ring of men, and ran out through the night +to her own cabin, where she threw herself on her bed weeping bitterly. +She was ashamed. + + + + +XXXI + +LAFOND'S FIRST CARD + +Lafond, in the meantime, had left the dispensation of drinks almost +entirely to Frosty. He darted here and there in the crowd, a light of +unwonted excitement in his eye. + +"That thar Mike's shore waked up," commented Old Mizzou. "Never see +him so plumb animated. He shore looks nutty. Dance halls is mostly +too rich fer his blood, I reckon." + +But Tony Houston and Jack Snowie and a dozen others by now knew better +than to attribute this excitement to dance halls. Lafond possessed in +his pocket a copy of Knapp's dismissal, and he had told them of it. + +He told them of it mysteriously, in half-limits, pointing out +tendencies and solutions to what they already knew, leaving them to +draw deductions, sowing anxieties that there might spring up a harvest +of distrust. + +Through the woof of gayety he rapidly ran a dull thread of angry +suspicion. Men made merry, and forgot all the past and all the future. +Other men talked low-voiced in corners, and tried, from the distraction +of drink and gayety, to draw clear plan and reflection. And always +Lafond took other men aside and whispered eager little +half-confidences, and went on quickly to the next. + +His spirit was upheld by a great excitement, such as it had never +experienced before, not even in his early and adventurous days. He +seemed to himself to be mounting higher and higher on the summit of a +great wave of luck, as a swimmer is lifted by the sea. And yet, behind +it all, again for the first time in his life, he felt a portent in the +air. It was as though the wave were rearing itself, only to curl over +and break upon the shore. He laid this to nervousness, and yet it +affected him with a certain superstitious awe. + +So occupied was he, that he quite missed the girl's sudden exit, and +was drawn from his brown study only by the sudden hush that succeeded +it. In the silence a drunken voice uplifted itself loudly. + +"M' work 'sh done," it vociferated. "I wan' m' pay!" + +Everybody turned, prepared to laugh at this "comic relief!" Jack +Snowie was addressing Billy Knapp. Billy at once became conscious of +an audience, and the usual desire to appear well seized him. He smiled +with the good-humored tolerance of a drunken man. + +"I suppose you want me to take it right out of my pants pocket, eh, +Jack?" he inquired paternally. "Of co'se you wants yo' pay! Come +around in th' mornin' an' get it." He smiled again at the group that +surrounded him. It appeared to be listening to this colloquy with +unusual interest. + +"I wan' m' pay!" reiterated Snowie sullenly, but then apparently lost +the thread of his ideas and lurched away. Billy considered the +incident closed. He was mistaken. The group did not dissolve; it came +closer. The men had a strangely unfriendly look about the eyes. Billy +did not understand it. He stepped toward one side of the circle about +him. It closed the tighter to keep him in. + +"What's the joke, boys?" he asked, still smiling. + +The room was breathlessly still. Many of those within it did not +understand the trouble, but trouble was in the air. Across a wavering +line of heat could be dimly discerned the musicians, poised to start +the next dance, but uncertain whether or not to begin. They did not +begin. The silence was startled even by Peter's doggy yawn from the +far corner of the saloon proper. + +"Ain't no joke!" "That's what we want to know!" "Damned poor joke!" +"You'll find out soon enough!" cried the men angrily, and then paused +and looked at each other because of the jostle of words that meant +nothing. + +Billy flushed slowly, and his jaw settled into place. + +"I'm jest as willin' to play 'horse' as anybody," he said, trying to +find calm utterance; "and if this is a joke, I wishes some +fellow-citizen to let me in. But, damn it!" he cried in a burst, +"don't you get too funny! What the hell does you-all want me to do to +carry out this yere witticism, anyway?" + +The coolest and most determined looking man in the group made two steps +across the floor, and confronted Billy squarely. At this evidence of +earnestness, Billy lost his excitement and became deadly cool. + +"Oh, it's you, Tony Houston, is it! Do you want your pay too?" + +"Yes, I do," replied the man, "and I'm going to have it." + +"Well," said Billy, "here's a pretty-lookin' outfit! Snowie was drunk, +but this gang 's sober enough to know better, anyway. You come around +to my office in the mornin', and I pays the bunch, every damn skunk, +and don't you ever any of you show your faces there again. That's all +I got to say." + +"It ain't all _I_ got to say," retorted Houston, standing his ground +doggedly, "not by a long shot! You-all talks well, but has you got th' +money?" + +"What the----" cried Billy, choking. + +"Hol' on thar! I repeats it"--and Houston thrust his face at Billy +evilly--"has you got th' money? That's a fa'r question in business, I +reckons. Has you got th' money? No, you hasn't. You got just an +hundred and fifty-two dollars, and that's every red cent you has got." + +Billy's immediate act of homicide was checked by this astounding +knowledge of the total of his bank account. "Damn you, Tony Houston," +he said slowly, at last, "I believe you're drunk too. You come in the +mornin' and get paid, an' you'll find yore money comes along all right. +This is a hell of a gang," he went on with contempt, "a hell of a gang! +I gets you a job that lasts you all winter, and you wants your damn +money in a dance hall and raises a row because I ain't carryin' a few +thousan' dollars in each pants pocket. Don' think you makes anythin' +by it. I lays myself out from now on to see that yore little two by +four prospect holes ain't worth th' powder to blow 'em up, and I reckon +I has a little influence as superintendent of this game." + +"Superintendent?" cried Houston, and the men about laughed loudly. + +Billy was plainly even more bewildered than angry. He considered the +crowd all, as he expressed it, "plum' locoed"; but his passions, never +of the most peaceful, were rising. In another moment he would have +knocked Houston down and drawn his gun on the crowd which surrounded +him, but that Michail Lafond shoved his way through the press. Billy +caught sight of him with relief. Besides the plain bare fact of a row, +the situation was complicated by the presence of so great an audience, +before whom Billy naturally wished to conduct the affair correctly. + +"What is the trouble? Here, this won't do!" cried Black Mike, as +though in the capacity of proprietor preserving the respectability of +his establishment. + +"That's what I wants to know," cried Billy. "This (sulphurous) outfit +of ranikaboo ijits has gone plum' locoed, and they stan's around yere +howlin' for tha'r money as though I carries th' Philadelphy mint in my +clothes!" + +Lafond did not reply. He motioned the men aside, and, with the utmost +gentleness, led the wondering Billy to a far corner of the room. + +"I'm sorry that I have this to do, Billy," said Lafond. "I don't want +to. It's none of my lay-out. But these men of yours sent them to me +because I am notary public and I must do it." + +Billy did not understand, but he caught the apology in Lafond's tone. + +"That's all right, old man," he assured the latter, moistening his lips. + +Without further preamble, the half-breed drew some papers from his +breast pocket, and handed them to Billy. + +The first was a review of the work done on the Great Snake group of +claims, and a detailed analysis of it, carried out with astounding +minuteness of technical knowledge for one so ignorant of mining as +Stevens. It outlined also the work that should have been done; and it +ended with a general conclusion of incompetence. The second contained +his formal dismissal as superintendent. The third returned Billy's +shares as his portion in the Company's dissolution, said Company having +dissolved without assets. + +Billy sat very quietly and read the papers over three times, while his +fellow townsmen stood silent and watched him. The first perusal +bewildered him, and turned him sick at heart with disappointment and +recognition of the estimate in which men held him. The second brought +to his consciousness that his companions were regarding him; and that, +in turn, caused him to realize that his prestige was crumbled, his +integrity dishonored, his abilities belittled. The third impressed on +him the desperate straits in which he found himself--without money, +holding a doubtful interest in claims whose bad name was by this +established so firmly that no Eastern capital would ever take hold of +them again, the moral if not legal debtor to these men who had worked +all winter for him. The iron turned in his soul. Michail Lafond, +sitting there in the role of sympathizer, was well satisfied with his +handiwork. For the moment, Billy Knapp was a broken man. + +He arose slowly, and passed out of the door in the dead silence of +those about him. + +After his exit, the dance was forgotten and an earnest discussion +raged. It was no light matter. Eleven men had invested heavily in +powder, fuse, drills, and windlasses for the purpose of fulfilling +their contract with Knapp; and they, and twenty-two others, had put in +their time for a number of months. Many of them owed for board or +materials. Others, though out of debt, had spent nearly all their +ready cash. They all seemed desperately close to bankruptcy, for +Lafond said nothing whatever respecting his agreement to pay the +contracts himself. And then again, as has been pointed out, the +well-being of the whole camp had depended intimately on the success of +its big mine, for the success of one enterprise like the Great Snake +draws other capital to the district, rendering possible the sale of +claims; while its failure always gives a bad name to a whole section. + +So the ensuing discussion had plenty of interest for everybody. +Lafond, as the bearer of the tidings, was besieged with questions. He +was reluctant, but he answered. Besides, the facts were plain, ready +for interpretation. Nobody could help seeing that it was all Billy's +fault. After a time, poor Billy loomed large as a symbol of all the +camp's misfortune. After a little time more, when the bar had more +thoroughly done its work, a number became possessed of a desire to +abate Billy. + +They seized torches and a rope, ran up the gulch, and beat in the door +of the office, only to encounter Billy enraged to the point of frenzy. +That individual rushed them out at the muzzle of a pistol, with such a +whirl of impetuous anger that it quite carried them off their feet, +after which he planted his back against the building and stood there in +the full light of the torches, reviling them. Why he was not shot I +cannot tell. Billy was something of a dominant spirit when roused. +That was the reason why, in the old days, he had made such a good +scout. After he had called them all the names he could think of, he +slammed the door on them. They went away without knowing why they did +so. + +When they got back to town, they gathered again in the Little Nugget +saloon, drinking, swearing, shouting. The morale of the camp was +broken. It was a debauch. They cried out against Billy, and they +feared him for the moment. They made a stable-boy hide in the brush +with a bottle of whisky, to watch the works, to spy on they knew not +what. Lafond drank with them. He had never done so before. As they +became more noisy, he fell into a sullen fit, and went to sit over +behind the stove where he crooned away to himself an old _chanson_. He +stopped drinking, but the effects remained. It seemed to his befogged +mind that the wave had broken and that he was falling through the air. +Shortly he would be cast up against the beach. "A fool for luck!" he +muttered to himself, trying to rehabilitate his denuded confidence. He +took out the Company's letter to him, saying that the deeds were at +Rapid awaiting his action, and read it. Then he put a stick of wood on +the fire. He shivered and rubbed his eyes. Finally he went over to +the hotel, where he washed his head again and again in cold water. +After a time, he returned to the Little Nugget, feeling somewhat better. + +It was now daylight, although the sun was not up. The stable-boy came +in from the upper gulch to say that Billy Knapp was hitching his horses +to the buckboard. The news sobered them somewhat. Ten minutes later, +the stable-boy again returned with the news that Knapp had loaded his +buckboard, and was on the point of driving through town. A dozen men +at once ran out into the street and concealed themselves behind the +corners of buildings. + + + + +XXXII + +IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING + +Billy sat in a chair and boiled. He did not calm down until after +daylight, and then he found that his depression had vanished. He was +full of vigor. He went out and looked over the property very +carefully. The entire lay-out, he found, had weighed on his spirits, +and this last ungrateful episode had made him sick of the whole +miserable business. He ought never to be tied down. He could see his +mistake clearly enough now. If he was going to stick to gold hunting, +it ought to be as a prospector, not as a miner. A prospector enjoyed +the delight of new country, of wilderness life, of the chase, and then, +when civilization came too near, he could sell his claims to the miner +and move on to a virgin country. A miner, on the other hand, had to +settle down in one place and attend to all manner of vexatious details. +Billy felt a great impatience to shake himself free. With the thought +came a wave of anger against the men of the town. After all, what had +he to gain by staying? This outfit was a fizzle; nothing could be done +with it in the future. He might save something of the wreck by +grubbing about in the debris, but grubbing was exactly what he wanted +to get away from. + +He looked over the works again. He was astonished to find how little +of it he cared for personally. There remained not much more than the +Westerner's outfit, when it was winnowed--four good horses, the +buckboard, his saddle, clothes, his weapons, and the beautiful trotting +horse. Billy could not let that go. The camp outfit they could have +and welcome. He kicked the rubber stamper into space, scattering +potential literature about the landscape. Many things he hesitated +over, but finally discarded. The heap was not very large when all was +told. + +He began to experiment with the buckboard. Billy was a master of the +celebrated diamond hitch. After an hour's earnest work, he drew back +triumphantly to observe to himself that all he wished to take with him +was securely packed on the vehicle. Then he coupled in his grays, and +led out the beautiful trotting horse. He was glad that he had lately +paid the English groom his wages; which individual he remembered +seeing, the night before, dead drunk in a corner. Billy made himself +some coffee in the empty cookee's shack, and was ready to start. + +He did not know exactly where he would go; that was a matter of detail, +but somewhere West in all probability--somewhere in Wyoming, where Jim +Buckley was hidden up in the mountains, living a sane sort of a life, +removed from the corroding influences of civilization. He did not +realize that in this impatient shaking off of responsibility, he was +little better than a moral coward. Even Billy's worst enemies would +have denied the justice of that epithet. + +He climbed in, deliberately unwound the reins from the long brake +handle, clucked to the horses, and took his way, whistling, down the +narrow trail. The beautiful trotting horse followed gingerly, tossing +his head. At the entrance to town, Billy's whistling suddenly ceased. +The street was quite bare and silent. Not even from the Little Nugget +saloon or the new dance hall came the faintest sound of human +occupancy. A tenderfoot might have argued that this was indicative of +deep sleep after last night's festivities, but Billy knew better. At +seven o'clock in the morning, after excitement such as that of a few +hours before, the normal ensuing pow-wow would still be raging +unabated. He reached under the seat for his Winchester, the new 40-82 +model of his prosperous days, and laid it softly across his lap, and +caught the end of the long lash in his whip hand. Then he resumed his +tune exactly where it had been broken off, looking neither to right nor +left, and jogging along without the slightest appearance of haste or +uneasiness. No one could have called Billy Knapp a coward at that +moment. + +Near the first cabin the whistling broke off again. A little figure +stumbled out into the deserted street, weeping and afraid. Billy +pulled up. It was the Kid. + +"They're goin' to shoot you," he sobbed, "from behind the Little +Nugget, without givin' you a chanst! I had to tell you, an' they'll +most kill me!" he wailed. Billy's eyes began to sparkle. The Kid +tried to hold within the other's reach his little 22 calibre rifle, his +most precious possession. "Here, take this!" he begged. + +Billy laughed outright, a generous, hearty laugh with just a shade of +something serious in it. "Thank ye," said he, "I got one. And let me +tell ye right yere, you Kid. Yore a white man, you are, and yore jest +about the only white man in the place." He cast his eyes about him in +the buckboard at his feet. "Yere ye be," he said, tugging at a pair of +huge silver-ornamented Mexican spurs and leaning over to give them to +the boy; "jest remember me by them thar; they has my name in 'em; and, +look yere," he went on with a sudden inspiration, "you-all gets up +gulch to my camp and takes what grub you finds and lies low until yo' +paw an' th' rest gits over bein' mad. I don't know but what they +_does_ kill you, if you shows up afore that." And he laughed again to +see the boy's face brighten at this prospect of escaping the immediate +wrath to follow. + +The little scene had been enacted in the middle of the silent street, +so silent and so empty that the principal actors in it experienced an +uncomfortable emotion of publicity, perhaps a little like that of an +inexperienced speaker before the glare of footlights. The Kid, +followed friskily by Peter, scuttled up the gulch, Billy stood up in +his buckboard and faced the inscrutable row of houses. + +"Yo' damn coyotes!" he yelled, "thar goes the only _man_ in the whole +outfit. Shoot! yo' Siwashes, shoot!" and he brought his long whip like +a figure 8 across the flanks of all four horses at once. + +_Bang!_ reverberated a shot between the hills, and a bullet splashed +white against the brake bar. + +Billy dropped the reins to the floor of the buckboard, and planted his +foot on them. He steadied his knee against the seat, and threw down +and back the lever of his Winchester for a shot. The beautiful +trotting horse was pulling back in an ecstasy of terror at the end of +his long lariat, shaking his head and planting his forefeet. Billy +cursed savagely, but jerked loose the knot, and the beautiful trotting +horse, with a final snort of terror, turned tail and disappeared in the +direction of the mine. + +_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ went other shots from behind puffs of white +smoke. The hills caught up the sound and rolled it back, and then back +again, until it was quite impossible to count the discharges. + +There were perhaps a half-dozen men with rifles and a dozen or so with +six-shooters, all pumping away at it as fast as they could. The +buckboard was struck many times. One horse was hit, but only +slightly--not enough to interfere with, but rather to encourage his +speed. Billy fastened his eyes on the spot whence the first bullet had +sped. Suddenly he threw his rifle to his shoulder. + +_Crack!_ it spoke, strangely flat out there in the open against the +fuller reports of the other pieces. + +The bullets which undershot kicked up little puffs of dust, like +grasshoppers jumping, while those that passed above, ricochetted +finally from rocks and went singing away into the distance. It was a +wonder, with so large a mark, that neither the man nor the horses were +hit. It must be remembered, however, that the marksmen were more or +less drunk, and that Billy's speed was by now something tremendous. + +_Crack!_ went his Winchester again. + +At the end of the straight road was, as has perhaps been mentioned, a +turn of considerable sharpness, flanked by bold cliff-like rocks. In +the best of circumstances, this bit of road requires careful driving. +With a runaway four and a light buckboard, a smash up was inevitable. +The hidden assailants and spectators of the strange duel realized this +suddenly. In the interest of the approaching catastrophe, the +fusillade ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Billy maintained his +first attitude, one knee on the seat, the other foot braced against the +floor, keenly expectant. The silence became breathless, and one or two +men leaned forward the better to see. + +"_Crack!_" spoke Billy's rifle for the third time. The man who had +fired the first shot pitched suddenly forward from behind his +sheltering corner, and lay still. + +With one swift motion the scout dropped his Winchester in the seat, +grasped the four reins, and threw his enormous weight against the bits. +The grays had been ranch-bred. They bunched their feet, hunched their +backs, and in three heavy buck jumps had slowed down from a breakneck +run to a lumbering gallop. Billy Knapp gave vent to the wild shrill +war cry of his foster parents, the Oglallah Sioux, and jogged calmly +out of sight around the bend of the road. + +A great crowd pressed about Tony Houston, prone on the ground. They +discovered that the ball had passed through the point of the shoulder, +not a dangerous place in itself, but resulting in a serious wound +because of the smashing power of the express rifle. + +"Damn fine shooting!" they said, looking at each other with admiration. +"_Damn_ fine." + +They began to feel a little more kindly toward Billy on account of this +evidence of his skill. They set about bandaging the wounded man. + + + + +XXXIII + +FUTILITY + +And around that lower bend, half a mile beyond Durand's cabin, Billy +encountered in the person of Jim Buckley the very man he intended to +search for, and that by not so very strange a chance when all is +considered. + +After the scouting days were quite over, not long ago, by the way, Jim +Buckley had struck out for Wyoming, where he looked about him and +finally settled in the Crooked Horn district all alone. He was +prospecting. And as he was a great big leisurely sort of fellow, never +in a hurry, and quite unconvinced of the necessity for being so, it +took him a great many years to complete the prospecting to his +satisfaction. In fact it was only recently that he had fully convinced +himself and others of the value of what he had found. At first he had +worked the surface over inch by inch Then he had staked out his more +experimental claims. Then he had burrowed and grubbed and delved, +single-handed, through a network of shafts, tunnels, and drifts. It is +slow work--single-handed. In the morning you make little holes with a +hand drill, and fill them with powder. At noon you blast. In the +afternoon you cart away debris by means of an inadequate little bucket. +This takes time and patience, both of which Jim Buckley possessed. +Once a month he went to town, riding one horse and leading another, for +the purpose of buying supplies. The rest of the time he lived alone. + +That is, he lived alone except that directly opposite the window, where +the light always struck it fair, he had carefully fastened a small +colored portrait on ivory. It was the picture of a woman, delicately +tinted, young with laughing blue eyes and a mouth whose corners turned +upward in so droll a manner that you would have sworn its owner had +never known a care in her fresh young life. It was the picture of +another man's wife. She had known care, of the bitterest, blackest +kind, and in her darkest days she had been murdered, mercifully +perhaps. After he had hauled the last little bucket of broken rock up +to the surface of the ground, and had ranged all sorts of utensils in +the open fireplace for the evening meal, Jim Buckley used to light his +pipe and sit looking at this little portrait for a long time. For, you +see, he was simply made, with no complexities--a few simple purposes, a +few simple ideas, a few simple friendships, a few simple passions--but +they were the stronger and deeper and more soul-satisfying for that. +He did not need incident or sorrow or regret to round out his life. It +was well poised and sufficient. + +So he used to look upon the face of this other man's wife from under +sombre brows, but through clear eyes. No one could have guessed what +his slow deep thoughts were at such times, nor what he found, whether +of peace or unrest, in his contemplation of a portrait of the past. He +said it made him better. Perhaps it did. + +But there came a time when the windlasses over the rabbit-burrow +prospector's shafts had made their last necessary revolution. Jim +Buckley knew the cross section of that country as well as you or I know +the cross section of an apple we have just cut in two. Then, having +satisfied his purposes, he looked to his friendships. He had never had +many. Alfred, Billy Knapp, Hal Townsend, Charley Fanchild--why you +could count them on the fingers of one hand--and two of these were +dead, and another was so far away in the cattle country of Arizona that +he might as well have been so. Jim would have liked well to have +gathered this old band of comrades about him and said, "Here, boys, is +what I have. It is more than enough for me: it is more than enough for +all of us. Let us share it, just as we used to share our bacon or our +coffee in the old days, and so we can grow old together in the way that +suits us best, the way of the pioneer." As he sat in the cabin now, or +stalked the hills with his rifle, this old comradeship took more and +more shape from the mists of the past, and there grew up in his breast +a sharp craving for old times, old faces, old friends. It was a +peculiarity of his nature that his ideas possessed a sort of cumulative +force. They gathered added reasons for their carrying out as a rolling +snowball gathers snow. Toward the end of that month, he packed a +strange old valise with clothes for the journey, strapped on his best +six-shooter, put his cabin in order, and rode his horse down to Crooked +Horn. There he left the animal with Billy Powers and took the train +for Edgemont and thence to Rapid. + +He knew that Billy was somewhere in the Hills. At Rapid he learned of +that individual's new importance. His heart sank a little at the +thought that this prosperity might forfend his own scheme of +comradeship, but nevertheless he took Blair's stage for Copper Creek +and Custer. + +Near Rockerville the axle gave way. The brake was repaired at a +miner's forge with some difficulty, but the job carried on so late into +the afternoon that Blair refused to go farther that night, and the +party slept at Rockerville. The next morning they pushed on again +about daylight, in order that Blair might start back from Custer before +noon, thus reducing his delay by a few hours. A half mile below +Durand's shack the axle again gave way, this time with a sudden +violence that sent flying the baggage which had been piled on top. Jim +found his valise in the bushes. The catch had snapped when the bag hit +the ground, so that it lay half open; but fortunately its contents had +not emptied. Jim closed it with the two end-clasps, and set it by the +side of the road. He did not notice that the ivory miniature had +dropped out, and now lay face downward at the roots of a _mesquite_. + +Blair looked up from his inspection. + +"Bad break!" he said, with a string of oaths. "Copper Creek's under a +mile ahead. You'll save time by pushin' on afoot. I'll be in as soon +as I can get this sulphurated axle tied together with a strap." + +"No hurry," replied Jim; "I'll help you." + +He began to unhitch the horses while Blair went to borrow an axe of +Durand. The driver's intention was to splice the broken axle with a +bit of green wood. In a little time, he and the old man returned +together. + +So Billy found them, straining away with an impromptu crowbar. When he +and Jim saw each other, they agreed that they'd be tee-totally chawed +up! After a time the stage moved doubtfully on toward Copper Creek. +Billy and Jim went the other way in the buckboard. + +Billy explained that he was going to see Jim; and Jim explained that he +had come to get Billy. Billy elaborated on the tale of his doings +since their last meeting, and easily persuaded Jim, as well as himself, +that he was a most wronged individual. To restore his self-respect it +only needed a sympathetic listener, so that he could hear the sound of +his own voice. For the moment he had doubted himself. Now he saw +plainly that he had been misled by false pretences. If he had +understood clearly from the beginning the picayune policy expected of +him by these stingy Easterners, he would have graduated his scale of +expenditures to suit it; but certainly they had implied at least that +they intended to get up a good big mine. Served a man right for going +in with such sharpers! + +Jim merely said that he had a first-rate thing to share with Billy. + +It was a pleasant sight, the bearded solemn miner, fairly glowing with +pleasure over finding Billy unfortunate and therefore open to his own +kind offices; the eager-faced enthusiastic promoter, elated and +high-spirited because of the relief of putting quite behind him a +colossal failure; because of the privilege of starting again with a +clean slate; because of a hundred new and promising schemes for the +future. Michail Lafond's long planning had availed little, after all. +With all his shrewdness he did not see that in the personality of Billy +Knapp he was attempting to quench the essence of enthusiasm and hope +and faith--inextinguishable fires. That is the American frontiersman. + +At Rapid they took the train to Crooked Horn. At Crooked Horn they +reclaimed the horse from Billy Powers. Then they inaugurated the boom. +At this very day, December 24th, 1899, they are still living together +in the new town of Knapp City, Wyoming, wealthy and respected citizens. +And Billy recounts his Copper Creek experiences, generally with +tolerance, as an example of the deceit of his fellow-creatures. They +were the fruit of eighteen years of planning and waiting and working by +a man who thought he could shape greater destinies than his own. + + + + +XXXIV + +LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED + +After the vociferating group had made Houston comfortable with the +bandages and rough surgery of the frontier, it again took up the +discussion of ways and means. It was a tired crowd, haggard from +dissipation and want of sleep. And then, too, it was a cross crowd. + +A majority were savage. Their passions were aroused to an unreasoning +pitch, as is the manner of mobs. To them it was not a question of +discussion, but of destruction. They wanted to burn the Company's +buildings, and they were so set on it, and so impatient of even a word +of opposition, that Lafond began to be a little frightened for his new +property. His attempts at dissuasion were everywhere met with rebuff. +Finally, on a sudden inspiration, he sprang to his own window ledge and +signed his desire to speak. + +Such men as Moroney, Kelly, Graham, and Williams, cooler heads, whose +stake in the camp's fate was still heavy, succeeded in obtaining a +momentary silence. + +"Boys," shouted Mike, "I'll pay you myself!" + +They paused in good earnest now, to see what these astounding words +might signify. + +"I'll pay you myself!" repeated Lafond. Then--for he was too shrewd to +promise a thing of such moment without giving a plausible reason for +it--he went on, "I can't afford to let this camp bust; I got too much +in it. I can afford better that I spend a little to help it along. I +don't know what it is that the Company intends; but I will find out; +and this I promise to you, if the Company does not pay you, I will make +some arrangement for the mine and I will pay you myself!" + +Even Graham and Moroney were a little deceived. Both perceived dimly +an ulterior motive, but on the surface the offer was generous and there +could be no doubt that Lafond's word was perfectly good in such a +matter. As for the men, they were more than satisfied. + +"But of course," Lafond was saying, "you must not do any injury to the +property." + +Which went without saying, as every one could see. + +Michail Lafond ate his breakfast with many long pauses. He had little +appetite. His plans had gone well, and yet in their outcome rested a +little remnant of the indecisive that annoyed him out of all +proportion. Billy had been discharged from his position as +superintendent and driven from camp, yet his exit had been +melodramatically brilliant and had somehow done much to leave his +memory in good odor. He, Lafond, had the promise of the property; but +even yet the deeds were in escrow at Rapid. It was forty-five miles to +Rapid--ten hours! Much might happen in ten hours. At the thought, +which Lafond instinctively paused to note was not in his usual +confident manner, he started up and commanded Frosty to harness his +team of bays to the buckboard. He would complete the contract before +sunset. While the animals were being harnessed, he tried to smoke a +pipe. It went out. He attempted to read a paper. He could not. +Finally he went out of doors and strode rapidly up and down. He felt +chilled, for the air of the early morning was sharp. He thrust his arm +through the open window and took down his old canvas coat from behind +the door, and put it on. In spite of its protection he shivered again. + +"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!" he growled at Frosty. He snapped the +lash of his black-snake whip, making the bays dance to the hindrance of +Frosty's task. His eye caught the new dance hall. + +"She's been worth while, if she never does another thing," he commented +to himself, and then realized that he had said it, not because he +believed it, but because he wanted to keep his courage up. What was +this dread of the intangible? He could not understand it. "Getting +too old to sit up all night," he explained it to himself. + +His thoughts went back to the night. It had left with him an +impression of being unsatisfactory. Why should it? There was +something about the girl, he did not recall exactly what. Oh yes, +Cheyenne Harry! That affair had balked. Well, it did not much matter: +that was a detail. Now that the dance hall was up, the girl could be +forced to take her place. Lafond told himself that he was a little +tired of finesse and delicate planning--too tired to undertake another +long campaign of the kind merely for the satisfaction to be found in +the process. Besides, in this case it was not necessary. He would +settle the affair now, get it off his mind. + +He strode over to the girl's shack and pushed open the door. She was +lying flat on her face, fully dressed as in her first transport of +shame, but she had now fallen into a light sleep. At the creak of the +door, however, she looked up, her eyes red with crying. + +"That was a hell of a performance last night," said Lafond brutally, +"and it don't go again." + +He had never spoken to her so before. + +She sat upright on the bed and stared at him, clasping one hand near +her throat. + +"That ain't what you're here for," continued Mike. "There'll be +another dance Saturday night, and you be on hand and stay on hand. +That's your job now--understand?" + +A slow comprehension of his meaning crept into her eyes, and she +covered them with her hands. The halfbreed stood in the doorway +coiling and uncoiling the lash of his whip. He wanted some indication +of how she was going to take it. + +"Understand?" he repeated. + +She merely shuddered. + +"Damn it! can't you answer?" he cried impatiently. "What do you think +I've raised you for anyway? You're none of my breed. Answer, +you----," and he spat out an epithet. + +She lowered her hands and looked at him again with wide-open eyes from +which all expression had faded. This stony silence irritated Lafond. + +"You've had your head long enough. Now you're going to show what +you're made for. Understand? Great God!" he cried, "you've got a +tongue, haven't you? Why don't you answer when I ask you a question?" +In one of the sudden Latin gusts of passion, which generally he held so +well in control, Lafond lashed her across the breast with his +black-snake whip. Almost before the impulse had quitted his brain he +regretted it, for her scream would bring out the camp, and Lafond could +see the awkwardness of an explanation. It was better to break her in +gradually. To his relief, she did not cry out, but merely shivered +pitifully and closed her eyes. + +"That's what you'll get if you don't toe the mark," threatened Lafond, +only too glad to avoid a scene. He slouched out of the door, climbed +into his light wagon shaking his heavy head sullenly, and drove away in +the direction of Rapid. + +After he had gone and the sound of his wheels had died away, the girl +arose staggeringly from her bed. The bright world had crumbled. For +the first time in her young existence her thoughts turned to the vague +conception of a higher Being which she had built, Heaven knows how, +from materials gathered, Heaven knows where. + +"God, God, God!" she cried, "I thought this was a happy world where +people laughed. I did not know there was so much sorrow in the world. +You did not make the world to be sorrowful, did you, God?" + +She was almost blind. She knew that she must kill herself: that alone +was clear. It was that or the dance hall. She was to be like Bismarck +Anne. And she realized in a moment that she knew Black Mike, his iron +will and his cruel heart; and she was afraid of him, deadly afraid. +She began to grope about the room. There was a dim square: that must +be the window. Her hands passed fumblingly over the table, just +missing the long sewing scissors. Nothing there. Quick, quick, he +might come back! She almost fell over the cloak, which had fallen to +the floor, and was now entangled about her feet. There was another +square of light: it must be the door. She stumbled out into a glare of +merciless sunshine that filled her brain and beat on the walls of her +understanding until she covered her eyes, and still stumbled on. She +thought she heard men shouting. She was not sure. + +From his work of sweeping out the stale saloon, Frosty had seen her. +She was a strange sight, her hair half down, her face white and drawn, +her step so uncertain. Frosty was very fond of her in his stupid +silent way. He yelled and ran toward her. + +In this day of excitement, a cry brought a dozen heads to a dozen +windows and doors. In a moment the girl was surrounded. The men were +puzzled. "Plain case of bug-juice," said one, a little sorrowfully. + +She felt someone trying gently to lead her somewhere, but she resisted, +crying "Let me go, let me go. I want to get to the big rock." + +Graham pushed his way anxiously into the group. He had not been able +to bring himself to attend the dance the evening before, but he had +been told the details, and up to now had felt rather relieved than +otherwise at the turn affairs had taken. + +"Why do you want to go to the big rock, Molly?" he asked gently. + +At the sound of his voice she began to cry a little. "It is so high up +there, so high," she said over and over. + +"Of course it's high, Molly, very high; but don't you think you'd +better wait until to-morrow?" + +The men stood about with awe-stricken faces. They saw now that there +was more in this than they had at first supposed. "Nutty," they +whispered to each other in undertones. + +"Such a long way down, a long way down," went on the girl. "I could +jump from there very easily; such a long way down!" + +Graham took her quietly by the shoulders. + +"Listen, Molly, it's I, Jack Graham." + +"Yes, Jack." + +"And I want you to do just as I say. Will you do it?" + +"Yes, Jack." + +"I want you to go with me. Do you trust me, Molly?" + +She began to sob violently, almost convulsively, dabbing uncertainly at +her eyes. + +"What is it, Jack? What am I doing here?" + +"Nothing; it's all right. Will you come with me? Ah, that's better." + +She looked about her with intelligence. + +"What is it, boys? How did I come here?" Her glance wandered past +them to the dance hall, and she turned away suddenly. "Ah! I +remember!" The strained look began to come back into her face. + +"Here, here, Molly!" cried Graham in alarm, "that won't do! Here, you +must do just exactly as I say. You must come with me now, and get +something to eat and some sleep. Don't you trust me, Molly?" + +He looked steadily into her eyes, his brow contorted with anxiety. + +"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried suddenly, "whom else could I trust but you? +You have been the only man whom I could have trusted from the very +first, the only man I should have trusted. I see that now. I have +known it all the while, but I would not acknowledge it." + +"Will you go with me then, Molly?" asked Graham again. + +This time it was she who raised her hands to his shoulders. "Jack," +said she solemnly, "a few minutes ago I was on the point of killing +myself because I saw nothing but death or that dance hall before me. I +had forgotten. I will never do so again. I will go with you now, +Jack, wherever you want me to; and I will go with you, Jack, forever, +to the end of the world." + +She leaned suddenly forward and kissed him, and then as suddenly fell +to weeping again, with great sobs that shook her slender body cruelly. + +Never was a stranger love scene; never was one more in keeping with the +wayward, capricious, yet intrinsically sterling character of Molly +Lafond. She did not understand it; but she felt to her inmost soul +that it was real; and that if she did not love Jack Graham now, at +least she respected him above all men and above herself, and that her +affection for him would never diminish, but rather increase as the time +went on. And this the event proved to be true. Nor did Graham +understand, but he too felt the sincerity of it. As for the men before +whose audience the curious drama had been enacted, they understood +still less. + +But it was very simple after all. + +In her nature, as in all other natures, two forces had struggled for +the mastery. With her they happened to be called heredity, or the +East; and education, or the West. Her training, her environment, her +mental atmosphere had powerfully affected her general conduct of life; +but in the great crisis her deeper nature had spoken, and she had +obeyed. + + + + +XXXV + +OUT OF THE PAST + +Michail Lafond drove on slowly down the valley of Copper Creek, +although, if he intended to reach Rapid before dark, there would seem +to be every reason for haste. + +He usually conducted his affairs so carefully, so shrewdly, so +calculatingly. How had he happened to give way so to an impulse? He +regretted lashing the girl with his whip, because he felt that it was +unnecessary. Doing unnecessary evil had always been against Lafond's +principles. He considered it bad luck, and somehow that spectre of bad +luck seemed to be coming very close. He had lost confidence. +Therefore he made mistakes. + +Just outside of town he encountered Blair's stage crawling along on a +mended axle. Naturally both vehicles pulled up. After explanations of +the accident, Blair remarked casually-- + +"Struck Billy down the road a piece." + +"Yes," said Mike, "he left this morning." + +"Almighty lucky happen-so for him, 'cause I had an old codger aboard +that was just on his way to visit Billy. Nice old cuss, too. Name +Buckley, or Bulkley, or something like that. Come from out Wyoming +way." + +Lafond clamped on his brake again. + +"Yes," said he, "I used to know him. He went off with Billy, you say?" + +"Yes, bag _an'_ baggage." + +"Goin' to Rapid?" + +"Near as I could make out," said Blair. "They reversed the proposition +on the spot. Place of him a visitin' of Billy, Billy he aims to visit +him. Things movin' at camp?" + +"They'll tell you up there," replied Lafond and drove on. + +What a fiendish stroke of luck! This one man in all the West who knew +of the affair at Spanish Gulch in the seventies, who would remember the +doctor's wife, who would recognize the strong resemblance of her +daughter to her, who might stir up that dust of the past which Lafond +had so carefully laid--that he should come just at this time! To be +sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to implicate him--Lafond. +But Buckley was a tenacious sort of individual; he would insist on +investigating. That would mean explanations by Lafond, a detailed +account. The details would have to be invented. And then a chill +struck his heart as he realized that he could not recall all the story +he had told the Indian agent when he had left the little girl in his +charge! + +He pulled his horses down to a walk and set himself to thinking +earnestly. He went over in sequence, as nearly as he could remember +them, every word and action, from his meeting with Durand to his +departure from the agency. It was no use. Even at the time, he had +invented the story lightly, without much thought of its importance +except as a temporary expedient. Now the matter had quite escaped him. +Jim Buckley's return West, which had before seemed merely fortunate, he +saw now had been providential. It was a narrow escape. He must visit +the agent as soon as possible, for the purpose of refreshing his memory. + +He came to Durand's cabin. The old man stood near the doorway +examining something which he held flat in the palm of his hand. At his +feet, Jacques, the little raccoon, was curled up in a bright-eyed ball +of fur, enjoying the early sun. Out behind the cabin, Isabeau, the +tasselled lynx, stepped lightly to and fro along the length of his +chain; and the great Pantalon sat drolly on his shaggy haunches +sniffing the air. Lafond stopped. He felt he must talk to some one or +give way to this incomprehensible impulse to shriek aloud. + +They exchanged greetings. At once Lafond saw something suspicious in +the old man's attitude. He was preternaturally grave. He seemed to be +thinking of something behind his actual speech. + +"I've something to show you, Lafond," he remarked after a little. +"It's very queer," and with what Lafond saw at once to be an accusing +motion he held before the latter's eyes the little ivory miniature of +Prue Welch. + +He had found it under a _mesquite_ bush. Ever since he had been +struggling vainly to place the familiarity of the features. He had not +seen enough of the girl at the camp to be able to do so definitely, but +he had succeeded in bringing his mind almost to the point of a +recognition which was continually just escaping him. + +Lafond started violently, and stared at the portrait. + +"Why, what's the matter?" cried Durand. "You look as though you'd seen +a ghost!" + +On the instant Lafond recovered his self-possession. He glanced with +side-long evil look at the old man. + +"Nothing," said he briefly. + +It was evident that the naturalist was trying to trap him. + +"Where have you seen her before?" asked the latter, returning to the +portrait. "She is old-fashioned--must have had that painted fifteen or +twenty years ago--and yet I've seen her recently." + +Lafond stiffly descended from the vehicle, both hands thrust deep into +the pockets of his canvas coat, and peered over the old man's shoulder. + +"Here, Lafond," the latter was saying, "you know more about this than I +do----" He meant that the half-breed possessed a wider circle of +acquaintances. At his words Lafond drew an ivory-handled clasp-knife +from the pocket of his canvas coat, opened it in two lightning motions +and stabbed the old man deeply in the back. The latter stumbled +forward, half turning as he fell. Lafond plunged his blade wickedly +into Durand's throat, where it stuck, twisting out of the murderer's +hands. The victim writhed twice, gasped, and died. + +Black Mike stood over the body for a moment, panting. He stooped to +recover the knife. On its ivory handle he read the words "William +Knapp," on which he remembered, and left it where it was. Then he +climbed into his wagon and insanely lashed his horses into a frantic +run. + +The little furry 'coon approached its master bristling. It dabbled its +black paws, almost human, in the blood that stood on the threshold, and +then, frothing at the muzzle, it scrambled into the house and up a high +bookshelf, where it crouched, its eyes like coals of green fire. + +On the hillside opposite a white-faced little boy rose from behind a +mesquite clasping the neck of a homely dog. He ran at once to town, +where he burst in on Moroney, crying, "Pop, pop, Black Mike's gone and +killed old Bugchaser with a knife," after which he began to cry +hysterically. It took time for the camp to arouse, to dress, to hear +the tale, to believe, to visit the scene of the deed, to believe again +after finding Billy's knife, to discuss, to decide, and finally to +saddle horses and depart, puzzled, on the trail of Lafond. It had a +rope. But it also wanted to hear more about it. Therefore its speed +was not as rapid as it might have been, had a horse thief, for +instance, been the object of pursuit. + +So Lafond, after his first impulse to get away from the scene of his +deed had spent itself, jogged along unmolested toward Rapid. His brain +was working like lightning, but always on one line. He saw himself +alone, standing opposed to this huge black Bad-luck. Everything was +against him. But they couldn't get him down. He was +Man-who-speaks-Medicine, the Sioux; he was Lafond, the half-breed; he +was Black Mike, the pioneer. Let them come on! They thought they +could corner him. He would show them. One was gone. There remained +the other two. Lafond's mind saw red; he was set on murder. No +consideration of reason, probability, or common sense obtruded itself +athwart his plan. He could perceive one fact--that three men knew his +secret, of whom one was dead and the other two were living. Why Knapp +and Buckley should have told Durand; what they expected to gain by +going to Rapid; or what benefit the naturalist imagined could accrue to +him from his insinuating the state of affairs to the half-breed, the +latter did not inquire. He only knew that he wanted to catch Knapp's +buckboard before it had left the pine belt. Ambush would then be +easier. He lashed his horses unmercifully. + +Rockerville told him the two men had passed through not half an hour +before, and wondered at the wildness of his eye. + +That was well. They could not escape him now, for their wagon was +heavily loaded, and they were travelling leisurely, having no reason +for haste. Remembering appearances, he told Rockerville that it did +not much matter, he would not try to catch up; and then drove back +toward Copper Creek, only to make a detour by a wood road into the +Rapid trail again. As he approached the foothills, he could hear +occasionally the creak of a brake below him, by which he knew that he +was drawing near. He slowed up at once, for he knew of a short cut a +mile or so ahead, which the prospectors would not attempt because of +their heavy load, but by which he could come out ahead of his victims. +Then he would lie in wait. The short cut in question dipped steeply +down into the bed of a creek, and as steeply up on the other side; +while the main stage-road made a long horseshoe curve around the head +of the canyon. Lafond decided to drive rapidly down, to leave his team +in the creek bottom, and to climb on foot to the level of the main road +on the other side. In the meantime he drew as near to the other wagon +as he could without being seen. The minutes seemed to drag. + +At last he discerned the dimly blazed trail, rocky and dangerous +enough, which dropped sheer away into the underbrush below. He locked +the brakes and turned sharply down to the right. The descent was +hazardous, bumpy, exceedingly noisy. For this reason, it was not until +he had reached the level ground at the bottom of the canyon and the +clash of iron tire against stone had ceased, that he became aware the +ravine was already occupied. A sound of voices and laughter floated up +through the thin screen of leaves. As the half-breed's vehicle pushed +out toward the creek itself, he saw that he had unwittingly stumbled on +a camp of Indians up in the Hills on one of their annual jaunts after +teepee poles. + +Once a year they make these excursions. The whole band--men, women, +children, ponies, dogs, and household goods--goes along. It is an +outing. The women fell and strip the long slender saplings. The men +loaf lazily in front of their temporary shelters or ride about the +Hills to the various camps, giving war dances for nickels and silver +pieces. The occasion is eminently peaceful. + +Of such a nature was the gathering which Michail Lafond came upon in +the level of the little canyon. The wigwams had been pitched either +side of the old overgrown road. Children had cut away the slight +underbrush to clear a round smooth park of perhaps thirty yards +diameter, in the circumference of which were crowded the persons and +household belongings of four score people. Near the centre stood the +chief's lodge distinguished by a shield and spear. The whole was a +facsimile of a plains camp, except that here the whole affair was in +miniature--little wigwams, little kettle-tripods, little space--for the +camp was but temporary. Perhaps a score of men were idling about, +dressed in blue overalls and old flannel shirts. Moccasins and no hats +left still a slight flavor of savagery. The women were clothed for the +most part in dirty calico prints. The children had on just nothing at +all. + +Lafond cursed a little excitedly as he became aware of this not +unpicturesque gathering. It was plainly out of the question to leave +his horses and wagon in the creek bottom as he had intended; and it was +now equally impossible to waylay the prospectors at the top of the +grade. A shot would bring out the entire band. The situation was much +complicated, for just beyond lay the rolling treeless foothills. More +bad luck! + +Still the half-breed remembered it was yet many miles to Rapid; and an +ambush would not be impossible in some one of the numerous gullies that +seamed the foothills. He must hurry his tired horses up the steep +slope in order to emerge on the main road ahead of Knapp and Buckley. + +"How!" said the nearest warrior, raising his hand palm outward. + +"How!" replied Lafond gravely. + +He drove on through the half-obliterated road, responding to the +conventional salutations of those on the right and on the left. Near +the further side of the little clearing, a tiny copper-colored boy rose +from the grass and scurried across in front of the horses, so near that +Lafond had to pull up sharply to keep from running over him. An old +woman, evidently its nurse, hurried to catch him. When she came to the +road, however, she stopped short, and stared at Black Mike wildly, and +began to scream out in the language of the Brule Sioux. + +"'Tis he, the Defiler! 'Tis he!" + +She was an unkempt, wild old hag, and Lafond thought her mad. Her face +was lined deeply, as only an Indian's face ever is; a few ragged wisps +of gray hair fell over her eyes; and her skinny arm showed that she was +thin almost to emaciation. + +At her scream a warrior arose before the chief's lodge and approached. +From all directions the other warriors gathered. Two of the younger +men had already taken the horses by the bits. Lafond did not +understand it, and was about to expostulate vigorously against what he +thought was intended robbery until he saw the face of the chieftain, +who now drew near. Then he turned cold to the marrow. + +The chief looked him in the face for almost a minute. + +"It is not so," he said quietly. + +The hag had ceased her cries when the two young men had grasped the +horses' bits. + +"It is so, O Lone Wolf," she replied with respect. "The form is +changed by the hand of Manitou, but the spirit is the same, and I know +it in his eyes. It is the Defiler." + +"Let Rippling Water be sought," responded the savage, still without +excitement. + +About him the old-time dignity clung as a mantle. To any one in a less +desperate situation than Michail Lafond there would have been something +strangely incongruous and a little pathetic in this contrast between +the manner of the old wild plains savage and the habit of the modern +ward of the government. Even he was cool enough to see that the once +powerful tribe had sadly shrunk in numbers and in wealth. + +After a moment the woman called by the name of Rippling Water appeared +from a distance, where she had been cutting birch bark. In the +syllables of the beautiful name Lafond had recognized that of the +second of his Indian wives; in the prematurely aged withered squaw who +now approached he recognized nothing. + +"My daughter," said Lone Wolf, "look upon this man. Have you seen him +ever?" + +She peered at him a moment through short-sighted eyes. + +"I have lain on his bosom," she answered simply. + +"It is----?" + +"It is the Defiler," she replied. + + + + +XXXVI + +UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS + +After the massacre at the battle of the Little Big Horn, a vast number +of Indian refugees fled over the borders into Canada. There they +dwelt, drawing three pounds of beef a day from arbitrary uniformed +individuals, who were strangely lacking in sympathy, and very observant +of the few rules and regulations which a mysterious White Mother over +the sea had seen fit to impose. Three pounds of meat a day is not +much. Still it is enough to get along on, and with the necessity, and +indeed, the opportunity of the chase gone, the bucks were able to wax +lazy, drunken, and generally shiftless to their hearts' content. All +this was frowned on by the uniformed individuals, but opportunities +were not far to seek. + +There has never been a nation more warlike, brave, and hardy than the +Sioux in its native environment of war and hunting. These two +furnished every point of leverage--physical, moral, intellectual--which +the savage required to lift him to the level of his greatest +efficiency. From the buffalo itself the Sioux family obtained its +supply of wigwams, robes, food, fuel, light, harness, bow-strings, +instruments of industry--in fact almost every article of necessity or +luxury appertaining to its everyday life. From the chase of the animal +the young Dacotah learned to ride, to shoot, to risk his life. And +then in his constant strife with his neighbors, the Blackfeet or the +Crows or the Pawnees, he was forced, if he would survive, to develop to +the last degree his cunning, his observation, his strategy, his +resourcefulness, his patience, his power to endure, his personal +courage. Habituated to these two, the chase and war, from his early +youth, he came at last to be the coolest, most dangerous warrior of the +plains. He could ride anything, bareback, in any position. With his +short, powerful bow he could launch a half-dozen arrows into the air +before the first reached the ground, or could drive one of his shafts +quite through the body of a buffalo. When necessity required, he was +brave to the point of recklessness; but again, when expediency advised, +he could worm his way for miles through the scantiest cover, flat on +his face, by the laborious use alone of his elbows and toes. He could +read a whole history in a trail which another might not even +distinguish. He could sit absolutely motionless for hours in the +hottest sun or the bitterest cold. And he could bear, as he was often +called upon to do, the severest physical pain without a quiver of the +eyelid. + +But when the buffalo vanished, the Sioux passed the meridian of his +powers. No other means of subsistence offered. He was forced to +plunder, or go to the reservation for Government beef. Thence came +much whisky and much loafing. The new young man had not the training +of his father. So, in a little, the Teton nation was subdued and +brought to reservations, and herded in an +overall-plug-hat-blanket-wearing multitude, even now but half-tamed, +and fiercely instinct with hereditary ferocity and resourcefulness. +Other Indians go to Carlisle, learn to plough, and become at least +partially civilized. The Sioux, fierce, hawk-eyed, wide-nostrilled, +sits in solitary dignity before his lodge, brooding. Occasionally he +has to be rounded up with a Gatling, as witness Wounded Knee. I have +never been able to envy the agents of Dakota reservations. + +When the statute of limitations ran out, or whatever mysterious +time-limit the Government puts on its displeasure against Indian +murderers, Sitting Bull and a horde of his fellow-warriors came back. +Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill's show, where he had a good time until +he began ghost-dancing and was killed in the Wounded Knee campaign. +But some, Lone Wolf's band among them, remained in Canada. They had +various reasons for doing so. + +Lone Wolf stayed because he was in hard luck. He had barely settled +down in his new home before the great Manitou had seen fit to strike +his children with the Spotted Sickness. When finally the last case had +been buried hastily, and its clothes and belongings burned under the +distant eye of the uniformed man, the formerly powerful band found +itself reduced by almost half. By dint of sitting innumerable days +naked in a circle on the prairie and beating a tom-tom until the agent +prayed for rain, the survivors managed to secure for themselves +immunity from the Spotted Sickness at least. Then some of the ponies +were stolen. Then a schism occurred in the community; and Three Knives +took with him a dozen families and established a new clan within plain +sight of the old. Lone Wolf was powerless because of the uniformed +individual, who frowned on the Indian idea of patriarchal chastisement. +A very young man of the band killed the agent, hoping thus to earn +praise, but almost before the embers were cold and before the scalp of +Three Knives had clotted dry, there appeared an astounding number of +uniforms, who promptly decimated Lone Wolf's warriors and took away all +their arms. Lone Wolf discovered that these uniformed men were in +reality nothing but soldiers--a disgusting fact which he had not before +suspected. They hung six of his young men, and that night a number of +things happened, such as the unprovoked fall of Lone Wolf's standard +from over his lodge, which showed plainly that Gitche Manitou was still +angry. + +Lone Wolf gathered his remnants about him and journeyed south to +Spotted Tail. + +There he enjoyed the discontented tranquillity of a United States +reservation, with occasional privileges if he was good. + +Lone Wolf had gone into the north country at the head of three hundred +efficient fighting men, well armed with rifles, rich in ammunition, +ponies, and the luxuries of daily existence. He came back as the +nominal chief of thirty-five warriors, with few firearms, and less +wealth. Counting in the women, children, and old men, his original +band had numbered nearly a thousand souls--a large camp even for the +old days. Now there remained barely a tenth of that number. + +Misfortunes such as these must have a reason. Gitche Manitou is stern, +but he is not unjust. Everybody knows that. And the reason Lone +Wolf's band was so afflicted, Big Thunder, the medicine man, had +discovered, lay in the fact that the defiling of the tribe's token, +after the Little Big Horn, had been done by a member of the tribe +itself. Until the culprit should be brought to justice the wrath of +Gitche Manitou would continue to be visited impartially on the entire +band. + +The recognition of Rippling Water made a profound impression on those +standing about. There flashed into Lone Wolf's eagle face a gleam of +satisfaction so intense that Black Mike started. He had not the +remotest notion that he was in any actual danger, for his dealings with +the tribe in those old times when he had been a member of it had always +been rather to its advantage than to his own. That it was unfriendly +to him because of his unceremonious desertion of it, he did not doubt. +Nor did he hope to escape a typical Indian tirade from the two old hags +who, so short a time ago, had been his not unattractive young wives. +But beyond this, and perhaps--as he glanced over the motley indications +of their poverty--the promise of gifts, he anticipated nothing more +serious in the end than a delay. A delay, however, was what he could +not at present afford. + +"Ah, well," he acknowledged in the Indian tongue, "I am he, +Man-who-speaks-Medicine. You have known me. It is I. It is many +moons that I have not seen my brothers, but I have accomplished many +things, and I have gathered gifts for my brothers which will rejoice +their hearts. I go to the lodges of the white men near Swift-water +now, and I haste; so I cannot linger to clasp my brothers' hands; but +to-morrow I return bearing the gifts." + +[Illustration: "MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED.] + +He took up his reins with all confidence, for in those days no one was +afraid of Indians--at least when they were accompanied by their women +and children. The two bucks at the horses' heads did not move, +however; and at a signal from Lone Wolf three others leaped lightly +into the wagon-body behind the half-breed and pinned his arms to his +sides. So suddenly was it done that Lafond could not even struggle. + +His captors tied his elbows together at the back and lifted him to the +ground, where a number of others hustled him into a wigwam, and after +tying his feet left him lying on the ground. In a moment he heard the +faint sound of wheels somewhere above him, by which he knew that Billy +Knapp and Buckley were passing the point of his intended ambush. He +drew a deep breath and shouted. Instantly two young Sioux ran in and +threw a blanket over his head, nearly smothering him. The sound of the +wheels died into distance. + +After perhaps two hours he heard the hoof-beats of a large party of +horsemen. They, too, died away. The men composing the party were +looking for him, Michail Lafond, but this he did not know. He tried to +distinguish from the noises just outside what was taking place in the +little camp, but he could not. + +At the end of another half-hour the two young men who had been +appointed as his guards led him out to a horse, on which, after his +feet had been untied, he was compelled to mount. He asked them +questions, to which they vouchsafed no reply. Looking about him +curiously, he saw that the camp had been struck. The long teepee +poles, bound on each side of the ponies, trailed their ends on the +ground, and on the litters thus formed, the skins of the lodges, all +the household utensils, and many of the younger children had been +placed. Squaws bestrode the little animals. The warriors, +ridiculously incongruous in their overalls and flannel shirts, sat +motionless on their mounts. Lafond recognized his own team, but could +not discover either his wagon or the harness. These had been dragged +away into the bushes and left, for very good reasons. + +The cavalcade took its way directly down the narrow, overgrown little +canyon, riding in single file. Lafond could not understand this. The +road above would have been much easier. + +After an hour's hard work in dodging obstructions, getting around +fallen trees or between standing timber, the party emerged on the +broad, rolling foothills, grass-covered and bare of trees. Here Lone +Wolf led the way south-east for several miles, and finally came to a +halt on the brow of a round hill of gentle descent. The band at once +dismounted. A number of the squaws deftly relieved the ponies of their +burdens, and the younger boys led them away to the bottom-lands for +pasture. The women then began without delay to erect the lodges in a +wide circle surrounding the brow of the hill, so arranging them that +the flaps or doorways opened into the common centre. After this had +been done, they built in the middle of the circle a huge fire of wood +brought from the Hills, but did not light it as yet. Then all silently +disappeared to the bottom-lands, where they made little fires and set +about supper. + +Before each lodge a warrior established himself, crosslegged, and began +to smoke. When the sun dipped behind the Hills and threw their long +shadows silently out across to the Bad Lands, the chill of twilight +struck in, and so the Indians wrapped themselves closely in their +blankets. As by a stroke of enchantment, with the concealment of the +shirts and overalls, the Past returned. Against the sky of evening, +the silhouettes of the pointed wigwams and the suggestion of the +shrouded warriors smoking solemnly, silently, their pipes, all belonged +to the nomadic age before such men as Michail Lafond had "civilized" +the country. + +After a time they rose and departed silently to the bottom-land for a +while, leaving Lafond in charge of the two young men. They had gone to +eat their suppers. The half-breed had not tasted food since the early +morning, nor slept for thirty odd hours. + +The stars came out one by one, and the stillness of that great inland +sea men call the prairies fell on the world. Such occasional sounds as +rose from the creek bottom seemed but to emphasize the peace. And then +suddenly, from the shadows somewhere, without disturbance, the +blanketed figures appeared and took their places again. A squaw came +bearing a torch, and lit the fire in the centre of the circle, and +there sprang up a broad shaft of light which drew about the little +scene a great canopy of imminent blackness. From hand to hand passed a +great red-stone calumet or pipe. Each warrior puffed at it twice and +passed it to his neighbor. It was not offered to Michail Lafond, whose +bonds had now been loosened. + +After each of the seated warriors had taken his part in this ceremony, +and the pipe had completed the circle to Lone Wolf, that chief arose, +throwing back his blanket from his shoulders. + +With a sudden chill of fear, Michail Lafond saw that he was to assist +at a state council of the sort held only when the tribe is to sit in +judgment on one of its own number. + +The savage was naked to the waist. In his hair, worn loose and +unbraided after the Sioux fashion, three eagle feathers with white tips +were thrust slantwise across the back of his head; and under its heavy +mass his fierce bright eyes and hawk face gleamed impressively. About +his neck hung a fringe of bears' claws, from which depended a round +silver medal. Now as he stood there--the lithe strength of his bronze +torso revealed one arm clasping the blanket about his waist, the other +holding loosely at his side the feather-bedecked calumet of +sandstone--the stigma of sordidness and drunkenness and squalor seemed +to fall away, so that the spectator would have seen in this group of +silent men under the silent western heavens only the pomp and pride of +a great and savage people in the zenith of its power. + +Lone Wolf stood for the space of several minutes without a sign. Then +with a magnificently sweeping gesture he held the calumet aloft and +began to speak. + +At first his voice was low and monotonous, but as his speech continued +it took on more color, until at the close it responded in modulation to +every flash of his eye. He began with a recital of the tribe's ancient +glory, dwelling rather on concrete examples than on broader +generalities. He numbered its warriors, its ponies, its arms, and +lodges. He told of the beauty of its women and the greatness of its +men, whom he ran over by name. He told of its deeds in war, +enumerating the enemies it had struck, the ponies it had stolen, the +stratagems it had conceived and carried out. And then he swept his arm +and the feather-fluttering calumet abroad as he described the boundless +extent of the hunting grounds over which it had used to roam. As he +continued, the warriors' expressive eyes brightened and flashed with +pride, though they moved not one muscle of their faces or bodies. +Beyond the circle could be dimly descried another not less interested +audience of women and older children. + +"These and more were ours!" cried Lone Wolf, "these and many more. The +favor of Gitche Manitou was ours and the riches of the world. Where +are they now?" With an indescribably graceful gesture the orator +stooped to the ground and grasped a handful of the loose dry earth. +"Gone!" he said solemnly, letting the sand fall from his outstretched +suddenly opened palm. + +Then, without pause or transition, he began, in equally vivid objective +language, to detail the tribe's misery and poverty of to-day. He +recounted its disasters, just as a moment before he had recounted its +victories. He told of the Spotted Sickness, the dividing of forces, +the battle with the red coats, all the long series of oppressions great +and little which had brought them to their present condition. He +counted over by name the present members, to show how their numbers had +shrunken, and to each name he added others of those who had gone +before. So real was the picture that the orator himself faltered, +while from outside the circle rose for a single instant a long +trembling wail. The warriors had half covered their faces with the +folds of their blankets. + +"Thus our glory went and our young men are seen no longer on the war +path, but only in the white men's towns. And yet our fathers were +brave before us and we have struck well in our time. Why is this so? +Why has Gitche Manitou veiled his face from his children?" + +Leaving the question unanswered, Lone Wolf unexpectedly took up +Lafond's connection with the tribe. In the recounting of this, too, he +held to the greatest minuteness of detail, showing plainly the +half-breed's rise from despised squaw man to a person of influence in +the councils. He gave the half-breed full credit for all he did. He +even went out of his way to show that to Lafond was due much of the +power that had so distinguished the Brule Sioux among the other tribes. +He described again briefly that power, and told of the battle of the +Little Big Horn. He dwelt on that as to some extent the culmination of +the tribe's glory. It was the last and greatest of its exploits. +After it misfortune commenced. Gitche Manitou that day veiled his face. + +"And he turned his hand against the totem of the Turtle," said Lone +Wolf impressively, "because one of its children had committed a +sacrilege. The very night of that great victory, a brave from among us +arose and took the sacred totem, the great Turtle, from the lodge of +his chief, and slew Buffalo Voice, the medicine man favored of Gitche +Manitou, and defiled the totem. + +"From that time Gitche Manitou has frowned upon his children. From +that time misfortune has visited the tribe of Lone Wolf. From that +time the man who did these things has lost his old warrior name and has +been known as the Defiler." + +He paused and looked about the circle until his eye rested on Lafond. +With a sudden fierce enmity he stretched his arm toward the captive. + +"That is he," he concluded impressively; "and it has been revealed by +Big Thunder that never will Gitche Manitou smile on his children until +the Defiler dies!" + + + + +XXXVII + +ASHES + +A light night wind had arisen from the lower prairie, and occasionally +puffed a stray wisp of smoke or heat across the westernmost curve of +the circle. Hot sparks shot up in the air swiftly, paused, and floated +dying down the wind. Above, occasionally, the clear stars peeped in +through the canopy of blackness which the firelight so jealously +guarded. There was a perceptible chill in the air. As the long speech +continued and drew to a close, the half-breed, seated on the prairie +side of the fire, shivered convulsively from time to time, for he was +now almost exhausted by excitement and lack of sleep and food. At +first he had submitted to the trial, if so it might be called, +unwillingly enough, to tell the truth, but without a suspicion that it +could result in anything more serious than a fine for desertion. It +might almost be looked upon as a ransom, and this he was willing to +pay. His principal emotion had been that of frantic chafing because, +for the present, Jim Buckley and Billy Knapp were free to make trouble +for him. He had no doubt they would do so, although he did not know +exactly how they would go at it. + +As Lone Wolf so dramatically outlined the grounds of his accusation, +however, Lafond really began to see the face of fear. He gathered that +the very night he had chosen to quit the tribe, some one had killed the +tribe's medicine man and defiled the totem in a way not to be mentioned +here. This is with Indians the Unforgiveable Sin. Suspicion had +naturally coupled the sacrilege with his own coincidental +disappearance. Probably even at the time no one had doubted his guilt +or had suspected any other cause for his desertion. The real criminal +had been able easily to cover his trail; and now, so many years would +have hardened even a slight suspicion, let alone a positive certainty, +into conviction absolute. Lafond saw that his chances were desperate, +and yet so suddenly was the knowledge forced upon him that he could +hardly realize it. But a few hours before, he had held in the hollow +of his hand more power than any other one man in the territory. Now he +was in danger of his life. + +He knew well enough that his only chance lay in keeping cool. He must +not interrupt the orator with denials. He must try to make his +eloquence tell. + +Lone Wolf ceased abruptly, drew his blanket about his shoulders and sat +down. Two squaws noiselessly entered the circle, bearing wood for the +fire. After they had withdrawn, Lafond rose to his feet. + +He was at once uncomfortably conscious of the circle of snake eyes. It +was for him the predominant note in the scene. + +He began haltingly, partly because he did not know what to say, partly +because long disuse had impaired his fluency in the Indian tongue. But +in a moment, as he began to realize that he was now in the act of +making the only plea for his life which his captors would permit him, +his speech quickened until it was as rapid as that of Lone Wolf himself. + +It was a masterly effort, for Lafond had not lost the old eloquence +which had earned him the name of "Man-who-speaks-Medicine." He +reviewed, as had Lone Wolf, his services to the tribe. He did it +modestly, stating plainly the facts and leaving the savages to draw +their own conclusions. He showed further that in so bending his +efforts to the tribe's betterment, he had been actuated by no selfish +motives, in proof of which proposition he enumerated one by one the +various opportunities he had let pass of decamping enriched beyond any +one warrior's dreams of wealth; to which proposition he further pointed +out as a corollary that he had in reality departed with but his own +weapons and the clothes on his back. This made an impression. Having +thus established his disinterestedness as regards his services to the +tribe, he went on further to show that these argued, furthermore, an +intense personal interest in its welfare. He loved his people. He +challenged them to cite one of his deeds which would bear the contrary +construction. + +And then, with a boldness that almost amounted to genius, he drew +before them vividly that night on the battlefield when he had so long +contemplated the fallen white chief, and he detailed to them the +reasons he had then for believing the Indians' warlike power was from +that moment doomed to wane. + +"I saw these things," he said, "as one to whom Gitche Manitou had +spoken, and I knew they were true. But my brothers were victorious; +they saw the blue coats scattered as the dust is scattered by the wind. +My words would have been as the water that slips away or the cloud that +vanishes in the heavens. If I had told my brothers these things, they +would not have believed. You, Spotted Dog; you, Firebrand; even you, +Lone Wolf, would not have believed. Look well within your hearts and +acknowledge that I speak words of truth. Then you would have cast me +out as one with forked tongue." + +Such being the case, Lafond argued that, inasmuch as he could do +nothing for his people by sharing their disgrace, he had left them. +"But only for a season," he explained. "You are warriors: I am a man +of craft. When your bows are broken and your arrows lost, then must I +take my weapons and strive as I can. I went forth to fight for my +brothers. Behold me; I have fought and I have won. I am rich. My +brothers are to share my riches. Now I can return to the lodges of my +brothers as one coming from a far war trail, bringing the ponies and +scalps of the enemies my hand has struck." + +Then suddenly the speaker took up the question of the crime itself. He +dilated on it with horror. He acknowledged no excuse for it. But, he +asked them, why should he have committed it? He showed them that he +could have had no motive for such a wanton insult. And, most ingenious +of all, he pointed out that if, as Lone Wolf had supposed, the tribe's +misfortunes had arisen because of Gitche Manitou's wrath over this +terrible crime, then that wrath and those misfortunes would indubitably +have been visited on him, the accused, with the rest; for he was a +member of the tribe, and according to the accusation the guiltiest of +them all. Such was not the case. On the contrary he had prospered. + +In conclusion he believed he could direct suspicion to the right +channel. From his wonderful past knowledge of inter-tribal and +individual jealousies, he rapidly constructed a plausible theory. + +His defence, as he could observe, made a profound impression. The +savages sat silent and thoughtful while the minutes slipped by, and the +wavering light from the central fire alternately illuminated and threw +into shadow the strong bronze of their faces. The argument was +sophistical enough, but for two reasons it carried conviction. In the +first place, the half-breed was pleading for his very life; in the +second place, he was in reality absolutely innocent as to the main +facts. Therefore he had faith and earnestness--two great qualities. +His only misfortune was, that the exigencies of the situation demanded +that in the web of truth one falsehood should be woven. + +Beyond the circle of light the dim forms of the women and children +showed faintly against the dimmer background of the sea-like prairie. +They had followed with great attention the deliberations before them, +but in silence and with decorum, as is proper in such cases. Now +suddenly one of them slipped forward through the circle before her +companions or the warriors between whom she passed could detain her. +Before the fire she turned and faced Lone Wolf. It was the old hag who +had first recognized Lafond. + +The warriors looked on her in cold surprise. Such a thing as a woman +intruding on a council was unheard of, unthinkable, punishable by +almost any penalty. + +"My daughter has been deceived," said Lone Wolf gravely. "This is not +a gathering of the women. She must go." + +She did not seem to hear him, but broke out panting as soon as she +could get her breath. + +"My brothers listen to forked words!" she cried, "and the spirit of +lies has blinded them, so that they cannot see the truth. They are +deceived by much lying because it is mingled with the truth, like +tobacco and willow bark. He says he has been on the long war trail and +now returns to his brothers with the ponies of his enemies. The trail +has indeed been long, for it is many moons since he took the ponies. +How long has he been rich?" she cried. "Many moons! Are the trails +closed that he could not find his brothers before, while they were +starving? Does he find them now because he calls to them from afar on +the war trail? It is lies! + +"And my brothers forget," she went on contemptuously, "the Yellow Hair +of the Hills and the little child. What was it this one demanded of my +brothers? To defile Pah-sap-pa by the slaying of his enemies. It was +for that he made us rich, for that he used his craft to bring us power. +It was _his_ power. And when he, led my brothers up into Pah-sap-pa, +the voice of Gitche Manitou spoke to them and they went away leaving +this one's enemies unharmed, and so he was angry with my brothers and +swore to do them an injury. So he killed Buffalo Voice and defiled the +totem in order that Gitche Manitou might turn his hand against us! He +speaks forked words. Why has he not brought his gifts long before, if +what I say is not true? There has been need." + +She turned as suddenly as she had come and left the circle, again empty +except for the leaping fire. In her spoke the spirit of +relentlessness, a deserted woman. She touched with unerring instinct +on the one weak spot in Lafond's defence, and thereby discredited the +rest. Her reminder of the soreness of their need, when this renegade +brother had held out no hand to help them, hardened their hearts and +brushed from their minds like cobwebs the structure of confidence which +Lafond had so laboriously spun. Without one dissenting voice they +condemned him to death. Then the sitting arose. + +The hags of the camp advanced and stripped the half-breed naked, in +spite of his frantic struggles. They were as strong as men, and they +were glad he struggled because that indicated cowardice. Lafond was +badly unnerved; his blood was partly Latin and his consciousness of +innocence was keen. When he went into a thing with his eyes open, he +was ready to take all the consequences with stoicism, should luck turn +against him; but a feeling of guiltlessness was unusual enough to +render him desperate when unjustly condemned. So he made a pitiful +spectacle of himself. + +The old hags jeered him. They told him he had a chicken's heart, and +promised themselves the pleasure of tasting it after it was torn from +his living body. They spat in his face and pinched his arms to see him +wince. When he was stripped quite naked, they staked him out to picket +pins with rawhide bands, one to each of his four limbs. + +While this was going on, the warriors, having thrown aside their +blankets, appeared in the full lithe glory of their naked bodies. To +the accompaniment of a strange minor chant, they circled slowly around +the fire and their victim, hopping rhythmically first on one foot then +on the other, stepping high, stooping low. As they passed the +prostrate man, they struck their knives deep into the ground near his +head, for the purpose of seeing him shrink. After a little, they +became sufficiently excited, and so the tortures began. + +Toward morning the squaws wrapped in a blanket the mutilated burnt +carcass, and laid it on a litter which had been preparing while the +torture was in progress. The litter was raised in the air to the +height of ten feet, bound securely to upright poles. +Man-who-speaks-Medicine had been a member of the tribe. Whatever his +sins, he must have a tribal burial. + +Then in the grayness of the dawn the little cavalcade filed away, like +muffled phantoms, toward the east. In the sky the last stars were +flickering out. On the hill top the last embers of the fire died. A +bird high in the heavens piped up clearly for a moment, and was still. +The breeze of morning rippled over the faintly distinguished, grasses, +and stirred the drying leaves of the litter that stood like a scaffold +against the sombre shadows of the Hills. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY + +GENE STRATTON-PORTER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers. + +Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern +Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes +the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and +onward. + + +LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. + +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The +story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, +but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love +affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of +Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the +neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. + + +THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. + +"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had +nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. +But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance +of the rarest idyllic quality. + + +FRECKLES. Illustrated. + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which +he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs +to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. + + +A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty +of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. + + +AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. + +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The +story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. +The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and +its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. + + +THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated. + +A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and +humor. + + + +KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy +reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a +mother's experiences. + + +SATURDAY'S CHILD. + +Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. + +Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a +quest for happiness. She passes through three stages--poverty, wealth +and service--and works out a creditable salvation. + + +THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE. + +Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock. + +The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be +swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied +interests, and has her own romance. + + +THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. + +Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert. + +How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted +herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life. + + +THE HEART OF RACHAEL. + +Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. + +Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out +these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of +fiction's most appealing characters. + + +Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +THE NOVELS OF + +STEWARD EDWARD WHITE + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE BLAZED TRAIL. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who +blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines. + + +THE CALL OF THE NORTH. Ills. with Scenes from the Play. + +The story centers about a Hudson Bay trading post, known as "The +Conjuror's House" (the original title of the book.) + + +THE RIVERMAN. Ills. by N. C. Wyeth and C. F. Underwood. + +The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between +honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the +other. + + +RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lejaren A. Killer. + +The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes +into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft," and comes into the +romance of his life. + + +GOLD. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +The gold fever of '49 is pictured with vividness. A part of the story +is laid in Panama, the route taken by the gold-seekers. + + +THE FOREST. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +The book tells of the canoe trip of the author and his companion into +the great woods. Much information about camping and outdoor life. A +splendid treatise on woodcraft. + + +THE MOUNTAINS. Illustrated by Fernand Lungren. + +An account of the adventures of a five months' camping trip in the +Sierras of California. The author has followed a true sequence of +events. + + +THE CABIN. Illustrated with photographs by the author. + +A chronicle of the building of a cabin home in a forest-girdled meadow +of the Sierras Full of nature and woodcraft, and the shrewd philosophy +of "California John." + + +THE GRAY DAWN. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. + +This book tells of the period shortly after the first mad rush for gold +in California. A young lawyer and his wife, initiated into the gay +life of San Francisco, find their ways parted through his downward +course, but succeeding events bring the "gray dawn of better things" +for both of them. + + +Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. 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