  Produced by Al Haines. [image] [image] Wah-na-gi. THE SILENT CALL BY EDWIN MILTON ROYLE AUTHOR OF "THE SQUAW-MAN," "THE STRUGGLE EVERLASTING," ILLUSTRATED GROSSET & DUNLAP Published by arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY Published May, 1910 To MY FATHER AND MOTHER WHOSE YOUNG HEARTS HAVE PRESERVED THE IDEALS OF THE AUTHOR April 12th, 1910 THE SILENT CALL CHAPTER I Not even snow is as white as these great masses of congealed foam floating in a deep blue sky, six thousand feet above the sea, and yet somewhere out of this deep cool infinity flamed a sun that searched the mesa until it blistered and cracked. The alkali plain quivered and burst into spirals of heat that were visible to the eye. A cloud of dust hung like white smoke above the fiery trail over which a band of Indian police was slowly and painfully crawling. This dust is very penetrating and very irritating. The reins hung limp on the ponies' necks and their heads swung low as though they looked for a place to sink down. As far as the eye could see you would have known that they were Indians. The uniform furnished them by the government is a dark purplish blue with a red piping down the trousers. It's a plain affair, but each Indian wears it with a difference and adds a decorative touch that is his own, and that is always pictorial and Indian. One had encircled his broad-brimmed black hat with a wide purple ribbon, lapped by a narrow pink ribbon. A yellow neckerchief rested on his green silk shirt, and about his waist was a sash braided of many colored worsteds, and, strange to say, the result was pleasing if rather brilliant. Another had a pink feather apparently plucked from the tail of the domestic duster tied loosely to his hat, which lent to the changing airs a graceful note of color. Some wore cowboy boots, yellow and elaborately stitched in fancy designs; others adhered to the ever beautiful moccasins. Most of them wore brown or drab cowboy hats, but made them their own by beautifully beaded hat-bands. Here and there gleamed gauntlets heavy with a stiff beaded deer which seemed trying to jump away from the cuffs, but couldn't because it was so obviously and eternally stiff and beaded. Some had beaded sleeve bands and all sported guns hung in holsters elaborately outlined in brass. No one wore a coat except a tall elderly man with glasses who, in spite of the torture, felt that his out-of-date captain's uniform enhanced his straight unbending dignity. The police had no prisoner in charge, nor even an air of expectancy, or remote or possible interest. Horse and man were as near sleep as it was possible to be in the quivering heat. The pack animals were loaded with surveyors' instruments, and there was evidently nothing more warlike or strenuous on foot than to creep across the table-land and reach the Agency. To the close observer even at a distance there was a difference in the figures as they straggled through the sage-brush. The man who rode behind was well set up and sat his horse like a cavalryman. He wore khaki that fitted well his close-knit and athletic figure, and he carried the suggestion of authority. He was the chief of Indian police. "Calthorpe," as he called himself, hadn't explained himself and nothing had as yet explained him. He had been from the first a mild mystery to his neighbors, in a country where neighbors were few and far between, and as he had a gift for silence, and it did not appear to be any one's business in particular to unravel him, a task which might, too, involve risk as well as trouble, he had remained a mystery. Oscar Wilde once expressed great astonishment at finding a miner in Leadville reading Darwin's "Origin of Species," but in this Western country one ought to be surprised at nothing. On closer observation, there was a certain resemblance between the leader and his men. He might have been one of them with his swarthy skin and coarse black hair, but that a startling pair of frank blue eyes flashed out from their dark surroundings. They were friendly eyes set in a strong, immobile face. He glanced at his companions, at the burning plateau, then at his companions again. "And they expect the hunter and warrior to turn farmer in a country like this," he thought. A horned toad startled by the intrusion darted across the trail from the shelter of one sage-brush to another—"In a country that raises sage-brush, horned toads, and hell," and he laughed softly to himself. "The Indian only gets the land the white man wouldn't have." Then his eyes fell on the pack mules, and again the blue eyes gleamed with amusement. "And sometimes valuable minerals are found on land the white man refused, and then he wants even the God-forsaken remnant he promised by solemn treaty never to take from the red man and his children's children." "God-forsaken" was a stock phrase for that country and Calthorpe reflected, "And it is the last word in desolation, the last word, but I like it. Yes, I like it." And he was amused with himself. He didn't understand it or try to, but something in him responded to the crimson and yellow glory of the cactus flower, the purple of the thistle, the dull red of the "Indian's paintbrush," or, as the mountain children call them, "bloody noses." He knew a secret joy when the pale greens of the sage-brush and greasewood, and the live shimmer of the scrub oak were relieved by the larkspur, wild roses, the white columbine and sago lillies, and the flashing black and white of the magpie's wing, and somehow he knew that these things were more appealing because set in wide spaces and in silence and desolation. By chance or telepathy something like this was passing through the mind of another, a man in middle life who sat in front of a tent pitched on the bank of a clear mountain stream that separated the Agency from the rest of the Reservation. He was a big framed man, stoop shouldered, with the face of a scholar and a saint. His clothes hung loosely on him, and he sat as though it would be an exertion for him to rise. Near by was the blasted trunk of a hollow tree. It had been fired by the cigarette of some careless smoker, and it was afire within and smouldering. A look at the man's pensive eyes showed that he too was afire within and smouldering. "Fine boy, strange boy," he mused. Then he caught the vibration of the thought of the young chief of police who was riding toward him on the dusty trail. "Some sins," he thought, "are magnificent. Milton's villain is superb, but"—and his eyes rested on the rather pretty cottage of the agent nestling in a grove of trees below—"small sins are really inexcusable." Rather an unusual reflection for a clergyman, who ought surely to be irreconcilable to sin in any form. But then he was unusual, the Rev. Dr. John McCloud. "We send these wild children to our great cities, and show them how hopeless it would be to resist our countless millions, but we never show them righteousness. We only make the Indian hopeless. And who of the countless millions knows or cares what happens to this bewildered anachronism, this forlorn child of a day that is gone? With really generous and noble purposes we hand him over to the spoiler, and so a great people becomes particeps criminis in petty larcenies and other pitiful and ignoble wrongs. I wish I could awaken our people to their privileges, their divine opportunities—not so much for the sake of the Indian, but for our own sakes." And he coughed and sank deeper into his camp chair. "Why should a great, mighty, enlightened people stoop to crush such obviously harmless and helpless ones? Is it because they have no votes, no lobby in Washington, are unorganized, obscure, and ignorant?" And his eyes drooped to the book open on his lap and rested on these figures: "7,000,000 families on a medium wage of $436 a year, and 5,000,000 farmers with an average income of $350 a year. Which means that 60,000,000 people must think before buying a penny newspaper, that they must save and plan for months to get a yearly holiday, that sickness means debt or charity, that things that make for comfort or beauty in a home are out of the question." "Yes, yes," he reflected, "that is it. Why should we trouble to save the Indian? We are not even troubled to save our own. At least the Red Man has the fresh air, the light, the sun," and his mind wandered back to the crowded cities, with their gaunt men, slatternly women, and pallid children. Between this middle-aged man sitting under the flap of his tent and the young man riding across the desert there had been from the first, quick, instantaneous sympathy and understanding. And now the thought of each jumped from the general to the particular. "She's a fine woman," clicked the instrument in the elder man's head. "It's very tragic, her situation. I wonder if the boy realizes its full significance? I wonder if he knows his own peril?" "She's a fine woman," was the response in the younger man's consciousness. "I must speak to the agent about her. I've given her such protection as I could, but he is the man; it is his duty. Duty isn't Ladd's strong point, but perhaps I can ram it gently down his throat. If he doesn't do it, it will lead to trouble," and he looked grim and his teeth set. He reined in his horse for a moment to take in the beauties of the view. His men had already descended from the mesa into the huge basin that opened out suddenly at their feet, disclosing a dreary waste that was beautiful and absolute, for not a dwarfed tree or a sage-brush or a twig lived there. The wind and rain had cut and carved the hills and mounds into strange and sometimes grotesque shapes, and merged and blended the colored sands, so that they presented versions of the spectrum, sand rainbows, giving brilliancy and color to this dead desolation. The Bad Lands were buttressed by a ring of sandstone battlements, twisted, tortured, pock-marked, broken away here and there in huge masses, weird and fantastic. Time had painted them the Indian colors—a dull red at the top blending into a faded yellow, then half-way to the valley the dirty drab of earth, looking as if it had been polished with sandpaper, escarped to the plain. He had crossed this trail many times, but never failed to pause on this brink to wonder and admire. It was lucky for the chief of police that just at that moment he raised his hat to wipe his dripping brow, for the report of a rifle rang out, and reverberated again and again among the hills, pockets, and gullies of the Bad Lands. Instantly every policeman sat erect, unslung his rifle from the pommel of his saddle, but with unanimity that told of unusual discipline, they turned and waited for their commander's orders. The latter made a gesture which in the sign language meant "Wait." The men deployed and waited, their eyes sweeping the broken ground before them. Calthorpe looked at his hat, and laughed as he replaced it on his head. "By Jove," he muttered; "he picked his place. What a mark I was on this sky-line! Don't know how he could have missed me!" When he had rejoined his men in the valley below, he called to his interpreter: "Chavanaugh, I think these boys savey my English pretty well by now, but you make sure; explain it again to them when I am not by. You savey Wah-na-gi?" Chavanaugh signified that he did. "Well, I want some of my men always near her, pretty close by. Good woman, Wah-na-gi. Pretty bad men all time round loose. No father, no mother, Wah-na-gi! No harm come to Wah-na-gi, savey? Bad come to Wah-na-gi? Well, you kill 'em, kill 'em; anybody; me too! I do wrong, me too. You savey me?" Chavanaugh paused for a long while, then wiped his brow with painful deliberation, and they rode on. CHAPTER II With a whoop and on the run, they dashed into the water, throwing the spray high into the air, and the weary animals buried their noses in the stream and drank so greedily that the water ran out of their nostrils, the men leaning over and drinking out of their hands, and throwing it over their heads and faces. "Hello, Calthorpe," joyously called McCloud from the bank above. "You're late." Calthorpe made no reply, but having allowed his horse another gulp, with quirt and spur drove him through the stream to the further bank. "Hold my horse, will you?" throwing him the reins. "And don't let him get back into the stream." "What in the world are you doing?" But to this the young man did not trouble to reply, but tore his clothes off as if they burnt him. "See here, you can't bathe here at this ford; some of the women might come this way." "Well, you stand there and shoo them away." The other smiled good-humoredly as Calthorpe lurched down the bank above the ford and slid into the water with complete abandon. "Oh, Lord," he sighed, "how heavenly." Standing Bear "river," except in the spring, was a "crik." The young man lay where he fell, on a beautiful clean pebbly bed, with just enough water to cover him, eyes closed, blissfully inert. "Bless the chap who invented water," he murmured feebly. "Parson, my throat's lined with alkali dust; say a few words for me to fit the occasion, won't you?" A beautiful smile lit up the pallid face of the preacher as he said simply: "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who preserveth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercy." "That's it. That's me. Thanks!—I could drink it dry, this; but I mustn't." Then he managed energy enough to spurt a mouthful into the air. "If I put this into my boiler I'd explode. I'm taking it in through the skin. See the steam? Now if I had a 'horse's neck' with cracked ice—oh, a yard long, and a soup plate full of Maillard's ice cream and the Savoy Hotel orchestra to play to me, and I could eat and drink and sleep at the same time—but it's pretty good as it is." "We've been expecting you for the last two or three days." McCloud had descended to the brink of the stream and was sitting under a willow with a towel in his hand. "Mr. Ladd's been getting nervous about you." At the mention of the agent's name the lids of the young man's eyes dropped half over his eyes in a peculiar way. "Yes? What's up?" "A powwow over the asphalt lands! all the interests are to be represented. You're just in time. The agent has been very anxious to see you before it took place." The young man sat up with a sudden accession of life. "Yes, I ought to see the agent before that. All right, I'm alive again, and as good as new," and he shook himself and clambered out on the bank, catching the towel McCloud tossed to him. "Thanks. This is luxury. One dries by evaporation in this climate." "Mr. Ladd seems to think your report of the highest importance in the settlement of this dispute." "Well, what I don't know now about the asphalt lands isn't worth knowing. If information is what is wanted, I'm dripping with it. There!" as he threw the towel aside, "I'm not clothed, but I'm in my right mind, and I am a human being once more." Offering his brawny hand to the older man—"How is the good doctor, eh?" "Oh, not complaining, my boy; not complaining." The other was quick to detect the subtle shade of over-emphasis, and immediately met it with a jocularity and buoyancy that did not altogether conceal its anxiety. "By Jove! Why, you're getting fat. I'll wager you're gaining every day!" And then realizing that his tone had not carried complete conviction with it, he hurriedly began to throw his dusty clothes on. "No, my dear fellow," said the clergyman with a plaintive smile and sinking into the camp chair before his tent. "No, I'm losing, gradually, but steadily losing every day." "Nonsense," laughed the other with a determination not to be impressed. "Nonsense. Look at me. Almost forgotten I ever had a cough. When you've been here as long as I have——" "You came in time. I'm afraid I came a little late—just a little late." And the smouldering eyes dreamed off to the snow-capped mountains in the distance. "Better grub, that's all you need, John." Calthorpe was not a demonstrative man and McCloud realized the affection that the use of his first name implied. "You're coming to live with me. I'll make a new man of you." "You?" interjected the other with some surprise. "You and Big Bill haven't enough room for yourselves, much less for——" "No, not at this exact moment, but, as you public speakers would say, we are on the verge of momentous changes, fellow citizens. Say nothing, look wise, and wait for the dinner-bell. And when my ship comes in, why you sit at the captain's table—savey? Ladd doesn't cater to you." A shade of annoyance crossed the brow of the elder man. "The agent has been exceedingly kind to me since I've been here." "I know," protested Calthorpe. "You brought letters of introduction from the Secretary of War, and——" "Who was one of my former parishioners, that's all." "That's all," mocked the impertinent youngster, "and other people of influence, social and political, and you have been ostensibly the agent's honored guest, but Ladd likes you, John; yes, he likes you, just about as much as a burglar likes dodging a search-light. The fact of the matter is that you're an infernal nuisance around here, and when I get ready I'll have no difficulty in kidnapping you and having you all to myself." And the blue eyes laughed impudently into the obvious disapproval of the grave eyes opposite. "You ought not to make me listen to reflections on my host. By the way, he has asked me to preside at the conference this afternoon." "Really?" said the other seriously. "What have you to do with it?" "That is just it. Presumably a disinterested party may help along." "I'm rather sorry." "Why?" "Well, they're a rough lot, quick, passionate, not too scrupulous——" "Why, this is a peace affair, isn't it?" "Yes," dryly; "so make every son-of-a-gun disarm before he becomes a part of it." With this the young man, now dressed, flung into his saddle with an alert grace that spoke favorably of the regeneration of his bath. Perhaps the most significant thing about this interview was that neither had spoken of what was uppermost in the mind of each—Wah-na-gi! "Hello!" exclaimed the chief of police as he settled in his saddle; "here come McShay and his pals. Howdy, boys," he shouted down to the three men who had halted their horses in mid-stream. "By the way, McShay, I've just had a chat with our chairman. Perhaps you'd like a word with him before we confer this afternoon." "Sure," called back a thick-set man with a meaty face; "sure, only ain't got nuthin' to say nobody couldn't hear." "Well, so long, see you later," and Calthorpe whirled his pinto and shot off to the agency. Pinto is the local word for piebald. There is taste in horse-flesh just as much as in neckties or hose, and evidently the owner's taste was a little loud. At all events, he shared the Indian prejudice in favor of the calico horse. The Indians regard the pinto as "good medicine," good luck. "Glad to see you, Mr. McShay," said the preacher heartily as the burly figure of McShay disengaged itself from his saddle in a lumbering way. In the saddle McShay was at home, but for purposes of embarking or disembarking, his weight was badly distributed. "You know Orson Lee and 'Silent' Smith, don't you?" said the Irishman. "If we had a church over our way these two scoundrels would be deacons or whatever you call the fellers that's on the inside of the inside ring, you can bet on that. They're two of our most influential citizens. Couldn't pass your wickiup without sayin' hello." The preacher greeted the two awkward cattlemen and made them feel at ease at once. "I hope you won't ever pass by my tent. I should feel hurt if you did. I'm rather lonesome at times and it's a great pleasure to see friends. Sit down, won't you?" He got another camp stool for McShay, and Lee and Smith sat on a decaying log near by. McShay had already noted that the gaunt figure was a bit gaunter, so he said with pleased surprise, "Why, you're lookin' well, Parson—you're lookin' fine." Like most active men forced by ill-health to think too often of themselves, McCloud disliked any allusion to his condition or appearance, but he replied gently and without irritation, "Thank you, Mr. McShay, I've nothing to complain of." "That's good," said the other heartily. "Have a torch? You needn't hesitate. I smoke 'em myself," he added with a laugh, as he offered the preacher a cigar. "Wouldn't throw 'em away on them longhorns," with a jerk of his head toward Smith and Lee. "They just 's leave smoke alfalfa." "No, Mr. McShay, thank you. I used to smoke a little, very mild cigars, but had to give up even that dissipation." "Honest?" said the other, with an awkward smile, almost incredulous. McShay was built after the bulldog style of architecture, and with a physical equipment and adjustment that left such things as ill-health in the category of objective phenomena, but he had a sort of respect for it, as for a form of culture he didn't and couldn't possess. He had always been a smoker since he could remember. The only objection he had to sleep was that no one had yet discovered a method of smoking during sleep. He had sometimes felt that even this difficulty might be overcome if he had time to "go after it." McShay was a man who was in the habit of getting things he "went after." The fact that he couldn't at all measure the dimensions of the preacher's sacrifice gave him a painful impression, and he shot a covert but searching look at the other, and then he said with uneasy gentleness: "We sure got a superior brand of climate out here, parson, but you mustn't git discouraged if the improvement don't come by special delivery. Takes a little coaxin' sometimes, you know." "Oh, I'm sure I am as well here as I should be anywhere, Mr. McShay." "Sure," and the cattleman was strangely conscious of a peculiar feeling in his throat, and he coughed, spat, sat down, and became unduly busy with his cigar. "You know," he said, changing the subject, "it's some spunky of you to preside at these festivities to-day, Parson. Ladd says you're goin' to take the chair." "Why, you don't imagine there will be any trouble, do you?" said McCloud lightly. "No, don't know as there will. You bein' in the saddle will have a steadyin' and refinin' inflooence, because you're respected round here, parson, and that's sayin' a good deal for a preacher. Most of the salvation experts we've been used to has inspired practical jokes." "I'm glad the presumption is in my favor," said the preacher, greatly amused, "but I didn't suppose any of my neighbors even knew that I was here." "Oh, it gits around, Doc; amazin' how it gits around. Don't know as we're much smarter'n ordinary folks—maybe we are, but any way we're on. We got you tagged. We're not only onto your present game, but we know your record. We got it pretty straight that you had to let go your holt in Minneapolis just when the cards was a comin' fine, just when you was the acknowledged pulpit champion of the Middle West, with standin' room only at every performance. Say, it must have been tough, just when you had the Old Boy licked, just needin' an easy little punch to put him out; say, it must have been tough to have to throw up the sponge and crawl under the ropes." The preacher smiled. "It was a bit tough, Mr. McShay." Then, realizing that he might have called up painful memories, McShay hastened to add: "But you're all right, Parson; you're grit clean through. Don't suppose you could throw a lariat or pull a gun—parsons ain't supposed to be up in the useful things, are they?—but we like you. We like you, and the feller as don't has got to explain it to us or put us out of business. Personally, we ain't no better'n we ought to be, don't profess no religion. We're on the make; we're in the little game of grab along with all the rest of 'em, but we know the spiritual goods when we see 'em, and you can touch us for anything we've got—in the pocket, on the cards, or in the fryin' pan, and at any spot in the road. Now, I can't make it stronger than that, can I? I guess I've about expressed the prevailing sentiment," and he turned to his two companions for the approval of which he felt serenely certain, as befits an admitted leader. Neither Lee nor Smith had spoken up to this time, and even now neither felt called upon to pass upon the subject of the great man's remarks. That was obviously superfluous. "Say, Silent," said Lee to that sphinx, with open admiration, "ain't he a wonder? Ain't Mike got a cinch on the language? Why, when he wants a word all he's got to do is to whistle to it, and it'll come up and eat out of his hand. He's got the English language broke to single or double harness—in fact, he kin make it do tricks like a circus hoss. Say, Parson, Mike's a orator." "Oh, git out," protested McShay, obviously pleased. "You're locoed." "He sure is all right," insisted Lee. "I'm sure of that," said the clergyman heartily, glad that the centre of interest had been shifted to the other. "Oh, shucks," laughed McShay, with good-humored toleration. "When it comes to savin' the nation or plantin' a prominent citizen, I kin sprinkle a little language over the occasion, but I ain't a braggin' about it, Orson, before a feller as is a artist. I have the savin' grace to know where I come in, and it's at the back door, son. I daresay, Parson, you've heard that I keep a saloon over at 'Calamity'?" "Yes, I've heard so," said the other simply, without a trace of pharisaism even in the tone of his voice. "Well, any time you want to keep your hand in at the preachin' game, come right along, and I'll personally guarantee the character of the proceedings. They tell me that as a preacher you're a stampede." The big eyes in the pallid face glowed for a moment, then they suffused with melancholy. There was a sensible pause before he said: "Thank you, Mr. McShay; thank you. Perhaps I'll take advantage of your offer some Sunday, but at present I've had to give up preaching: it seems to exhaust my vitality." He paused for a second and then added with a shy little smile, as if he were confessing to a fault: "I like to preach, too, and, as you say, it's been 'tough' to be compelled to give it up, but, after all," suddenly alarmed at the thought that he was bidding for sympathy, "living is more important than preaching, isn't it?" McShay filled in the pause, that threatened to be too obvious, by jerking out his Waterbury. "Hello, gitting on to the time! Guess we'll be moseying along. Well, Parson, I've expressed myself pretty free, ain't I? And in something of a complimentary vein, not with a view to inflooincin' your attitude in this approachin' conference. Mind you, I ain't above doin' it if I could. I don't do it 'cause I know it wouldn't go, that's all," and he laughed generously as he hoisted himself into the saddle. McShay was a man with few illusions. He fancied he was pretty familiar with the ordinary phases of human nature, and his code of morality was a working code; it would bear comparison, he felt sure, with that of the average citizen, and it wasn't so high as to be inconvenient. He had never felt called upon to experiment with a code obviously theoretical. He wouldn't hesitate at cards or in a trade to cheat one who was engaged in trying to cheat him. In fact he looked upon it as a joyous and holy duty to skin the skinner. He was not inexperienced in the ways of the world. He knew more of Doctor McCloud than that worthy man dreamed of, for when a very young man he had been a policeman in St. Paul and during the uncomfortable times following a reform upheaval had felt obliged to leave that saintly city. Indeed, he had brought about the upheaval by his own obstinacy, for there are degrees of graft, and the young Irish-American wouldn't violate his own wholly illogical standards of what was fair or decent any more than he would accept the standards of the too-good. He had come into his own in the cattle country, opened a saloon, became a political leader, a boss, and a cattle king. He had prospered. He was loved by his friends and feared by his enemies, and he was fond of both. And when the cowboys on one of their summer round-ups found something that looked like coal or jet, and which, unlike coal or jet would light like a candle, they took it at once to McShay, who promptly, without knowing whether it had value or not, located claims for everybody and everybody's relatives and claimed everything in sight. "To those that have shall be given," he explained irreverently, and indeed that version of the text was his point of view. And when further investigation showed that the discovery was an important one and that a considerable part of the mine or the vein or series of pockets was on the Red Butte Ranch, he promptly sent Andy Openheim and Charley Short, very quietly, to London to buy the ranch or that portion of it containing minerals from the Earl of Kerhill. It was pretty well known that the ranch had not been a profitable venture to the Earl, in the days when he had been a cowboy, and it was thought that his old herders, "Andy" and "Shorty," could buy it for a song. They had returned with a deed, but by this time these two amiable citizens had caught the prevailing spirit of enterprise and announced that they had indeed secured the prize, but that they had bought the ranch for themselves, a sample of commercial wakefulness which was denounced as several kinds of treachery, and came near to leading to the death of some eminent citizens. However, as by that time the secret was out and the lust of gain had spread from the range to the settlements and from there to the cities and the State, and indeed to the busy halls of Congress, and every one pretty much was evolving a plan to get in on the good thing, it was thought best to buy out the holders of the deed, even at the advance in price which they impudently demanded. McShay paid the price for himself and his cowboy associates, but at the conclusion of the purchase he strongly advised Shorty and Andy to leave the country, which they lost no time in doing. The fate of these two worthies will always be a stock warning to the rising generation in Calamity. Before they reached the Canadian border they had quarrelled, and when the smoke had cleared away Shorty was alive and had the money. There was profound regret at first that either should have survived, but this sorrow was mitigated later by the report that Shorty had lost every cent at a single sitting in a three-card monte game up in the North-west. Then only was the moral tone of Coyote County felt to be in the way of rehabilitation, and confidence was restored in the dispensations of Providence. It was even darkly hinted that McShay had sent out some skilful short-card men on their trail, and to that extent had assisted Providence to make plain that "transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness." Whether this was true or not, McShay never contradicted it, and it added not a little to his prestige with his constituents. As McShay turned to speak to the preacher, his more active companions, Orson Lee and "Silent" Smith, had already mounted and turned their mustangs toward the agency. As he glanced toward their retreating figures, McShay said with a twinkle in his eye: "Say, Parson, you'll like 'Silent.' He ain't much on gab, but say, he kin shoot like hell, and if the argyment is agoin' against you, 'Silent' is good company; he sure is good company." CHAPTER III After a ride through the Bad Lands, Standing Bear Agency was a gracious sight. One could see from afar the white flag-pole which marked the centre of its activities. Close by nestled the agent's cosey little cottage which peeped out from the shade of maple and cottonwood trees, backed by its well-kept barns and corrals. Opposite it sprawled the Indian-trader's store, a log-cabin affair, the relic of other days, by comparison a really beautiful bit of architecture in the surrounding ugliness. These two aristocratic buildings stood a bit apart, and had a small sense of aloofness. Between ran what had once been a trail, then a road, and now was trying to be a street; a street that had moved boldly out toward the prairie, taken one frightened look, and then shrunk back cowed, and had refused to be teased or coaxed further. It quit almost before it began and was hideous with sheet-iron and clapboard monstrosities, which here and there bulged into a pretentious bow-window, as irritating as the challenge of a flagrant hat on a particularly ugly woman. These buildings huddled together as if they felt the enveloping loneliness. Back of them was a tin-can desolation. Further along was the blacksmith shop, and near the "bench" which rose on the other side of the "crik" was the saw-mill, and off to one side the slaughter-house and its corrals. The valley was sprinkled with the huts, tepees, rude houses of the Indian farmers and the agency employees, which followed the course of the Standing Bear and the crude irrigating ditches. Beyond all, across the mesa, rose majestic peaks covered with perpetual snows. But for these noble heights, Nature hereabouts might have been accused of an undignified proceeding, but the Moquitch Mountains spoke eternally and serenely of God. In front of the trader's store was a platform littered with merchandise, buckets, rope, tubs, etc., things that slopped over from the crowded shelves within. Even on bargain-counter days, if such evidences of a high civilization ever reached this emporium, business was desultory, but the trader made up in percentage of profit what he lacked in volume of trade. It was late in the afternoon, business apparently at a standstill, "nuthin' doin." Cadger, the proprietor, was leaning casually out of the window, and, though neither looked at the other, was talking to the agent who stood on the platform just outside. The merchant must have had another name, but no one had ever heard him called anything but Cadger. His father and mother—it was difficult to believe that he had ever had a father and mother, and inconceivable that he had ever been a child, much less a baby—if, I say, he ever had parents, they probably called him something endearing or at least human, but in a country where almost no one escaped a nickname, he remained just Cadger. In appearance he suggested negation, the excluded middle. He seemed to have been plucked too soon and faded early. He had a half-hearted nose, a discouraged chin, and his faded little eyes blinked weakly. There is such a thing as carrying insignificance to excess. In personality he was so unobtrusive as to appear not to be around, unless one stepped on him. It is said, however, that any one so careless remembered it, if he lived to remember anything; for, strange to say, Cadger was supposed to be a man-killer. He wasn't at all the usual bad man type, looking for an audience and a chance to show off. He was a plain business man, and all he had ever asked, like other business men, was just "to be let alone." There was a vague rumor that he had once been in business in the Black Hills, where he had gone into competition with the express companies in the carrying of gold, and after a more or less successful career had found it safer to retire to the slower and less exciting pursuits of a post-trader's store. At all events, he was a quiet, modest man that no one cared to investigate or annoy, and no one had successfully questioned his commercial methods. He took no pains to remedy his natural deficiencies, for he had found it useful to look like a fool. "I think we can do business with Calthorpe," said the agent, looking off into space. "Can't make him out," said Cadger in a tone as vacant as his face. Then after quite a pause which he filled with smoke from a filthy pipe. "Suppose you know all about him, but you ain't never give it away to me." The agent swung a contemptuous look in the direction of the other. "He's out here, isn't he? Along with the rest of us. No one knows the exact particulars about you before you came here." The other overlooked the obvious inference and did not trouble to reply in kind, but murmured gently, "Takin' chances." "Big Bill applied for the job for him," continued the agent. "All Bill knows about him, or all he'll tell, is that he brought a letter of introduction to him from his old boss, the earl of something or other, who used to own the Red Butte Ranch. Of course he isn't out here because he wants to be here any more than we are. A couple of years ago I read a story in one of the Sunday papers about an English lord who was ambassador to Spain and got mixed up with a Spanish dancer and raised a family by her. The son, when he got around to it, tried to prove he was legitimate. Maybe Calthorpe's story isn't any worse than that. Maybe it is. He looks like he was half Spanish. Of course he's had English bringing up, has the remnants of an accent with him, though he's trying to drop it. What do you suppose would induce a man who was an educated gentleman to come out to this damned waste and accept the wages of a chief of Indian police? Well, to my humble mind, nothing but crime, my Christian friend." "Kin you hold him?" "Well, we can't frighten him. We got to make it worth his while, that's all." "Will he stay bought?" persisted the business man. "We got to trust somebody," said Ladd impatiently. "He knows more about the country in general and the asphalt lands in particular than any man living, and when I found out he was a surveyor——" "How did you get onto that?" "Heard him talking the lingo with Bill, then asked him point-blank. It was a find for us, for his position as chief of police made it possible for him to survey these lands without arousing any suspicion. Don't think the other people know we have been at it. I wouldn't have consented to this powwow this afternoon if I hadn't thought we could have fixed things up beforehand. What in hell do you suppose is keeping him?" But Cadger's mind was still back on the first tack. "You're in too much of a sweat. You want to go awful slow when it comes to puttin' yourself" (deprecating pause) "and me into his hands." The force of this observation seemed to impress David Ladd, for he said quietly: "Well, you know the talk we had last night. The confab will be out here. I'll see to that. Cleaning a gun at that window just where you are now—why, an accident might happen. People are so careless with fire-arms, especially a plum fool like you. Why, it's easy. If you see me take off my hat and hold it in my hand, get ready: if you see me put my hat back again on my head, why get him, that's all. You're the best shot in the country, unless it's 'Silent' Smith." This as one business man to another. "Hello, here's Big Bill. Maybe he knows." And Ladd stepped down from the store to meet the cattle-boss. "Has Calthorpe come in with his men?" "Hardly think so. I'm on my way to our shack now to see." "When he arrives, tell him I want to see him at once, will you—at once!" and the agent entered his house across the way. Big Bill was bigger and a good deal slower than in the old days on the Red Butte Ranch, and his coarse hair was very gray, but it still crowned the same kindly, simple face. Bill was feeling his way to the retired list, though he didn't realize it himself, and he had kept his job because no one cared to explain to him that he was getting old. It was hoped that some day he'd tumble to it himself and resign. No one liked to contemplate what would happen then, so no one did. The agent was not a sentimental man, but he knew the working value of sentiment, and so Bill stayed on. He and Calthorpe shared their house, a little wooden box pitched in the shelter of a clump of quaking ash ("quaking asp" in the vernacular) some little distance below the Agency and on the bank of an irrigating ditch. As Bill came in sight of it he saw Calthorpe calmly sitting in the door-way. Instead of riding into the Agency the young man had deliberately avoided it. "Hello, Bill," he shouted cheerily. "Hello, son. Say, Ladd's terrible anxious to see you." To this the other replied irrelevantly: "Seen Wah-na-gi?" "No." "Seen Appah?" "No," and the smile of welcome faded from Bill's face, and he sat down on a convenient soap box, picked up a stick on the point of his pocket-knife, and began to whittle. The young man saw he was displeased and waited. "Say, son, you're kind of runnin' wild on the range, ain't ye? And ye ain't a-gittin' anywhere, or a-servin' any useful purpose 's far as I kin see. Ain't ye kind o' fergittin' what ye come out here fer? What you lingerin' round here fer any way?" "Oh, for several reasons, Bill, several reasons," said Calthorpe pleasantly. "You found out all you want to know about the asphalt lands long ago. When you goin' to chuck this job and go over and take what belongs to you?" There was a pause while Calthorpe looked dreamily off into space. "Well," he drawled slowly, "before leaving I'd like to turn a trick or two—make the agent show his hand." The slang and the metaphor of the people about him came very easily to this alleged stranger. "Ladd?" said Bill doubtfully, with a tone and inflection that expressed volumes for the danger and uselessness of such a proceeding. "Wouldn't you like to see him put his cards on the table?" asked the boy. Bill's eyes twinkled and it was manifest that the suggestion was alluring. "Sounds good. To rope David might be a pleasin' diversion as a form of entertainment; he's a skunk all right, but that ain't a-keepin' you here, Hal, my boy." "No?" "No." There was a pause. "You ain't asked me what it is, but I'm goin' to tell you. It's Wah-na-gi." "Bill!" And the light died out of the blue eyes which glittered ominously, and Bill was sensitive to the warning in the cold even tone of the boy's pleasant voice. "That's all right," he hastened to say as he put up his guard. "You needn't git the blind staggers. Somebody's got to round you up. I was your dad's foreman before you was born. Your dad sure was a gentleman. He sure was, and as to his bein' an Englishman, why, he lived that down." "You and father were pals, I know that, Bill," said the youngster, softening. "You and me was pards too, son. I made you your first quirt; taught you how to ride. I helped to bury your little Injin mother. I ain't your kin exactly——" "You're closer than kin, Bill. I didn't mean to be ugly. Don't mind me. Say what you like." "Well," said the big fellow with an awkward air of apology, "your dad made me promise to ride herd on you. You know that, don't you?" "That's right." "Sure." He blurted, as he felt on firmer ground. "He wrote me you had been a-hittin' it up in London." "That's right, Bill; I was riding for a fall—going to hell fast." And he watched the smoke of his cigarette and saw in it those evil days. "I didn't belong and I couldn't fit in. It was all wrong. I was all wrong. I knew it, felt it, but couldn't somehow change it. It was the West in me, I fancy—in my blood." Then he turned to the big fellow and said with a smile that won the people who could inspire it: "But I've been a pretty good boy since I've been out here, haven't I, Bill?" The other looked at him with an affection that was unmistakable. "Well, say, since you been out here you've made everything that wears a hat take it off to you." "Then why in blazes are you giving me the spur?" "Wah-na-gi—that's the answer. Now wait. I got to git this out of my system. Hal, son, don't you go to makin' no such mistake as your dad made." "And don't you forget, Bill," said Hal stiffly, "that I had a mother as well as a father—a mother I have no reason to regard as a mistake." It was Bill's turn to look off into the mountains, to go back into the past. "Say," he said softly, "she was all right. Nat-u-ritch was sure all right. She didn't know anything but bein' a wife and bein' a mother, and that's pretty good, I guess. I suppose you know why she killed herself? Couldn't understand why her kid should be sent away to England. She was a thoroughbred in a way, but, son, it was an Injin way." "I fancy that was what was the matter with me in London, Bill. My way was an Indian way." "Well," said the cattle-boss, seeing that he was being diverted from his text, "Don't walk into trouble with your eyes wide open." "Don't you worry about me, old chap; I'm not in love with Wah-na-gi, but——" "You jess feel sorry fer her." Bill said this with the amiable sneer of a man who has nothing to learn about women and the world. "Yes," said Hal simply; "don't you?" The directness of this appeal caught the guileless Bill unprepared. "Sure," he admitted. "Sure, I do. She's been to school. Couldn't anything worse happen to her. Edjjication? Why, it's worse'n whiskey fer the Injin." "And don't you see," said the boy, following up his advantage, "she's alone and she needs friends, and while I'm here, while I'm chief of police, I can keep an eye on her, protect her in a way, but when I leave" (pause) "what will become of Wah-na-gi?" While Bill was groping in his slow way for an easy and pleasant and convincing way of saying that one couldn't plunge headlong into the tangled affairs of all the misfit people in this crazy world, the figure of a woman appeared in the foot-path that crossed the low ridge on the opposite side of the narrow valley. Before Bill had arranged his arguments Hal, without a change of countenance, suddenly developed initiative. "Well," he said, rising, "I thought I'd learn all the news from you, but, as usual, I'll have to find out all about it and tell it to you. And now I'm going over to see the amiable Ladd. Oh, by the by," he added casually, "how is 'Calico'—fit?" "Never better." "He hasn't been ridden to-day?" "No. Why?" "Have him fed and watered; saddled and bridled, then hitch him just behind the trader's store. Do the same for the best horse you've got." "Why? What's up? Ain't you had enough of the trail for the present?" "Don't know, Bill. Don't know what may happen. Tell you later—after it's happened." And he swung off on foot toward the Agency. Bill did not change his position for several moments; then he rose and looked affectionately after the boy, and, as he turned, the figure of a woman paused for a moment on the ridge and then disappeared in the direction of Cadger's store. "Of course," he muttered, "of course," with all the sarcasm of which he was capable. "Ain't a man a damn fool!" |
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