The Squaw Man

"Statement?" the lawyer inquired.

Jim further explained. "Something in the nature of a confession."

"Confession?"

"By Jove! he might have done that."

"His late lordship died very suddenly."

But Jim waited for no further details. "So he died without a word. He died leaving me a fugitive from justice. So they still think me – " Then quickly the real facts of the case began to straighten themselves in Jim's mind. If Henry had not spoken – had left no confession – how and why had Petrie sought him? Then he asked:

"Why have you come here?"

Petrie, who was constantly watching the effect of his every word on the man who more and more confused and interested him, slowly answered, "I am here because your cousin, Lady Kerhill – "

"Diana?" Jim softly breathed the name, but said no more.

Petrie continued: "Believes that if you will speak – if you will break the silence of years, you can return to England and assume your proper place at the head of your house, and in the world."

So it was to Diana he owed this. "Then there is one who still believes in me. God bless her!" All restraint fell from Jim as he sat himself beside the solicitor and said, simply, "I did it for her sake, Petrie." Then, as though unconscious of the other man's presence, he sat staring ahead of him.

His surmise had been right, Petrie thought. This man was not guilty. The case began to assume new interest and new complications. He must hear more. Jim roused himself. From an inside pocket of his shirt he drew a small bag which held a sheet of faded paper.

"You are familiar with the late Kerhill's writing. You are also familiar with his character and life. I have never allowed this paper to leave my body." As he spoke he handed the paper to Petrie. "But death has cancelled this agreement."

Petrie read the document. Jim sat motionless. As the sun dropped lower and lower towards the west, bolts of scarlet and purple seemed to be hurled from its blazing brilliance down on the cabin and the yard. Petrie broke the silence.

"So you took upon your shoulders his guilt?" In his tone there was no great surprise.

"Not for him, Petrie – for her. It was too late for her to find out – well, what he was." The rebellion against the dead man seemed to choke him. Then he added, "I did it for her sake, Petrie."

A restlessness took possession of Jim. All the old memories and sorrows began to lay their withering hands upon him. He crossed to the hitching-post and leaned against it as he watched with unseeing eyes the purple-and-red rays tipping the Uinta peaks.

Petrie read the document again, and as he did so he wondered how much of this Lady Elizabeth had known – how much Diana suspected. He could see now why she had decided to come with him to America. He thought of her as he had seen her a few days ago at Fort Duchesne, of her eyes as she had asked him not to fail in his search, and of her disappointment when her cousin, Sir John Applegate, who accompanied her, had protested against her riding out with Petrie on a venture which might take days, to end only in disappointment.

He went to Jim's side. "Lady Kerhill," he said, "will be more grateful than you know, for I am here as her ambassador to beg you to come back home."

Into the face of Jim came a wistful longing, so tender and yet so tragic that Petrie turned away from this glimpse into a hurt soul. He only dimly saw the man as he heard Jim's whispered words:

"Home, eh? Go back home! By Jove! what that would mean!" Then, as though a panorama were passing before him of his life on the ranch, he went on: "And I've been away all those awful years in this God-forsaken place." There was a break in the low voice and the echo of a sob as Jim turned his back on Petrie.

Again the unlovely surroundings, with their evidences of pinched means, their stamp of neglect through want, impressed the solicitor. Very quietly he said, "It does look a bit desolate, Mr. Carston."

Jim, now master of himself, turned, and as he looked at the dusty plains, the sun-baked cabin, the parched, feverish land about him, cried: "Desolate! It doesn't look much like Maudsley Towers, with its parks and turrets, and oaks that go back to William the Conqueror, does it?" Before his eyes there came a picture of the home of his youth, of the place of his manhood's joy. The word seemed to burn and tear at him with its possibilities. "Home, eh? I love old England as only an exile can – "

He forgot the West, with its disappointments, its scars, and its days of pain, when memories of the past would not be stilled. He came over to Petrie, and in a burst of almost boyish confidence poured out his inmost feelings. "I love the English ways of doing things" – laughingly he looked at Petrie, and added – "even when they're wrong. The little ceremonies – the respectful servants – the hundred little customs that pad your comfort and nurse your self-respect. Home, eh?" The word was like a minor chord that he wished to dwell upon, so lovingly did he repeat it. "Home, eh? And I love old London. I think I am even prepared to like the fogs."

Amazed at the change in the man before him, Petrie sat spellbound as Jim jumped to his feet.

"Do you know what I'll do when I get back? I'll ride a week at a time on top of the 'buses, up and down the Strand, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street, Oxford Street. And the crowds!" Before his excited eyes came the rush, the very smell of the smoky city with its out-pouring of humanity. "How I love the crowds – the endless crowds! And, Petrie, I'll go every night to the music-halls, and what's left of the nights to the clubs – and, by Jove, I'll come into my own at last!"

Carried away with the enthusiasm that was inspiring Jim, Petrie entered into the spirit of his joy as he cried, "The king is dead – long live the king!"

"Into my own at last! And I'm still young enough to enjoy life – life —life!" Into Jim's slender figure, with its arms out-stretched to the past, which was to be his future, there leaped the fire of immortal youth. It was his moment of supreme exaltation.

Suddenly from the stable door opposite came a glad cry of "Daddy! daddy!" as Hal, attracted by the loud voice of Jim, peered from behind the door. Then the child darted across to his father, who still stood with his arms out-stretched to his dream, and clasped his knees. Frightened at the stranger's presence, Hal quickly buried his face against his father's body.

The ecstasy faded from Jim's eyes as the cry of the child brought him back from his dreams to the affairs of earth. Slowly and with infinite tenderness his eyes rested on the bent head of the child. The twilight, which is short in the Green River country, had slipped away, and the angry sun disappeared behind the mountains. Petrie noticed the chill in the air that comes at evening on the plains.

The cry of the child revealed a new phase of the situation. Silently he watched Jim, whose glance went towards the stable. He saw the figure of a beautiful Indian girl emerge, carrying a pail of milk. He saw the shudder that passed over Jim as Nat-u-ritch, unconscious that she was the central figure in a tragic moment, moved slowly before them to the cabin opposite. Her master was busy with the white man, so her eyes were lowered; she did not even call to the child to follow her. Jim's glance never left her until the door had closed. Then his eyes rested again tenderly on the little head which nestled against him, and a sigh broke from his lips. He stooped and drew the little hand in his as he turned the child towards Malcolm Petrie. The words of his glad dream seemed still filling the air as Jim said: "Petrie, you've come too late. That's what would have happened; it can never happen now."

Gently he urged the child forward as he said; "Hal, shake hands with Mr. Petrie. This is my son, Petrie."

CHAPTER XXII

The news was not so very surprising to Malcolm Petrie. In his years of practice as a solicitor many similar cases had come to his notice. He had often remonstrated at the folly of sending the younger son of a great family to these lands, and at the unwisdom of parents who found the problem of guiding a wayward boy too hard, and so let him go to the West, to be left to the mercy of its desolation and to the temptation of such entanglements. But that it would be a new difficulty he foresaw, and as he took the child's out-stretched hand he remembered the proud woman waiting at Fort Duchesne. To him, as a man of the world, the affair was understandable, but to Diana! He began to regret that she had come. There was no suggestion of these thoughts in his manner as he kindly said:

"How do you do, my little man?"

"How do you do, Mr. Petrie?" the child answered, and then ran back to his father's side.

The dark head with its faint trace of the Indian blood was extremely beautiful, but Malcolm Petrie noticed a much stronger predominance of the Wynnegate features.

With his hand on the child's head, Jim said, "You see, Petrie, we have to-day and to-morrow – but never yesterday." In the man's voice was so much despair that Petrie found it impossible to understand it.

"I don't quite follow you," he said.

Turning in the direction in which the Indian girl had disappeared, Jim answered, "That was Hal's mother."

"Indeed!" And still Petrie was puzzled at Jim's attitude.

"There isn't any place in England for Nat-u-ritch." Then, as Jim bent over the boy, he held him close and said, "Kiss me, dear, and now run in and help your mother." Jim followed the boy to the cabin door.

Malcolm Petrie said, tentatively, "And that Indian squaw – woman, I mean – is your – "

But Jim stopped the word that he felt Petrie was about to speak.

"My wife," he said. Petrie dropped his glasses and turned sharply to Jim. "My wife," Jim said again. "You don't suppose I'd let my boy come into the world branded with illegitimacy, do you?"

To this Petrie gave no answer. Under Jim almost defiant gaze he found it impossible to argue, but there must be a solution to this problem. He moved away as he almost lightly said, "An awkward situation, Mr. Carston – quite an awkward situation," but the words conveyed no idea that he felt there was a finality about the matter. His lawyer's brain would unravel the knot. Jim could still have his freedom. Then he said, "But these matters can be arranged. You will be in a position to settle an income on her which will make her comfortable for life, and some good man will eventually marry her."

Jim almost smiled. There was so much of the conventional standard in Petrie's speech.

"Wait a bit. You don't understand." He motioned Petrie to be seated again. He hesitated, then determined to tell his story. It might as well be done now; it would save further discussion.

"I first saw Nat-u-ritch at a bear-dance at the agency. The Indians reverse our custom, and the women ask the men to dance. Nat-u-ritch chose me for her partner. We met again at Maverick, where she killed a desperado to save my life." These words Jim almost whispered to Petrie, who leaned forward to catch every syllable. "The next time I saw her – Oh, well, why tell of the months that followed? One day I found myself lying in her wickyup. I had been at death's door fighting a fever. Searching for strayed cattle, I had tumbled into Jackson's Hole and had been abandoned for dead. Nat-u-ritch went in alone, on snow-shoes, and dragged me back to her village. It was a deed no man, red or white, would have attempted to do. When I grew well enough she brought me here to my own ranch, where I had a relapse. Again she nursed me back to life."

He paused. How should he tell this man of the days of blinding temptation the loneliness of his life had brought with it? Petrie waited. Jim moved a little closer to him as he went on:

"When I grew stronger, I tried my best to induce her to leave the ranch, but she would not go. She loved me with a devotion not to be reasoned with. I almost tried to ill-treat her. It made no difference." Again the despair that Petrie had noticed before crept into Jim's voice. "I was a man – a lonely man – and she loved me. The inevitable happened. You see, I cannot go back home."

No, this was not the usual case, Malcolm Petrie told himself. Even he had been impressed by Jim's recital of the story. It was this man's attitude towards the woman that gave him more cause for anxiety than the squaw's position in the case, so he said:

"Don't you think you take rather too serious a view of the case? You can explain the situation to her and she will be open to reason."

But Jim interrupted him. "I wouldn't desert a dog that had been faithful to me. That wouldn't be English, would it? The man who tries to sneak out of the consequences of his own folly – "

"Believe me," the lawyer protested, "I would advise nothing unbecoming a gentleman. But aren't you idealizing Nat-u-ritch a little?"

Jim's answer was not reassuring. "On the contrary, we never do these primitive races justice. I know the grief of the ordinary woman. It doesn't prevent her from looking into the mirror to see if her bonnet is on straight; but Nat-u-ritch would throw herself into the river out there, and I should be her murderer as much as if I pushed her in."

Then Petrie devised a new scheme to test Jim's resolution.

"Why not take her with you to England?" he asked.

"Impossible!" Jim answered. "We'd both be much happier here. Even here I am a squaw man – that means socially ostracized." A bitter laugh broke from him. "You see, we have social distinctions out here."

"How absurd!"

"Social distinctions usually are," and Jim laid his arm on Petrie's. He was growing tired of the discussion. Petrie felt that Jim wished to dismiss it, so he determined to play his trump card. This sacrifice of a splendid fellow was madness. Years from now, Jim would thank him that he had urged him to abandon this life to which he clung with his mistaken sense of right.

"I think I am justified in violating my instructions," Petrie began. "You were not to know that Lady Kerhill accompanied me to this country."

Jim's hands tightened on Petrie. "Diana here?" Furtively he looked about him, as though fearful of seeing her. "In America?" He waited to be quickly reassured that there was no danger of her coming to the ranch.

"I left them at Fort Duchesne – her ladyship and her cousin, Sir John Applegate. I was to bring you there and give you what was intended to be an agreeable surprise – but – "

"Thank God you did not bring her here."

Jim moved away, with his hands clinched behind him. Petrie followed as he urged. "She will be disappointed, deeply disappointed; she is still a young and beautiful woman."

If there was temptation in the words, Jim did not betray it. Quite simply he said, "She must be."

"With many admirers, it is only natural that she should marry again."

And Jim answered, fully aware of the torturing methods used by the man who wished to conquer him, "It is inevitable."

This time Petrie's quiet voice rose in an almost impatient intolerance as he questioned, "And yet you feel – "

But Jim stopped him. There was agony in his voice. "Petrie, don't tempt me. I cannot go. My decision is made and nothing on earth can change it." He walked towards the house as he felt the sudden need of comfort. He wanted to feel his boy's arms about him; that would be his solace. At the window he saw Hal, and a nod brought the child to him.

As he watched him, Petrie said, more to himself than to Jim, "The sentimental man occasions more misery in this world than your downright brutally selfish one." To Jim he put the direct question, "Your decision is final?"

"Final."

"Too bad. Too bad. You are condemning yourself to a living death."

"Oh no; I have my boy. Thank God, I have my boy."

And in those words Petrie knew that the child meant more than all the rest of life to Jim. He knew the type – a type that prevails more especially among Englishmen, perhaps, in whom the need of fatherhood is strongly dominant. Almost prophetically the lawyer laid his hand on the head of the boy, who was standing on the bench playing with his father's kerchief. "The future Earl of Kerhill."

Jim answered, defiantly, "My boy is my boy."

If Jim persisted in refusing to accept the position as the head of his house, then this child was the stake to play for, Petrie decided.

"Well, think of him – of his future. He has the right to the education of a gentleman, to the surroundings of culture and refinement."

As Petrie spoke, his glances took in the shabby little chaps, the feet in their worn moccasins, the coarse flannel shirt; and Jim saw the look and understood. He almost hurt the boy, so tight was his grasp as he lifted him down and held him in his arms.

"One moment, Mr. Petrie. I see your drift," he savagely answered. "But you sha'n't do it, sir. You sha'n't. I won't listen."

But Petrie now knew that he had touched Jim's vulnerable point, and that he was capable of making the sacrifice for the boy.

"I speak as the trusted friend of your family, as the advocate of your child." He told himself he was justified in asking what he did.

"Before you came," Jim said, "I was a ruined man – stone broke, as we say out here. I had to begin my life all over again. But I had Hal, his love and his life to live in day by day, and now you want that, too. I can't do it. I know it's selfish, but life owes me something, and that's all I ask. I can't let him go. I can't – I can't!"

But Malcolm Petrie persisted. "You're responsible for that child's future. You don't want him to grow up to blame you – to look back to his youth and his father with bitterness, perhaps hate."

Jim, as he held the boy from him and studied the tiny face, cried, "You'll never do that, will you, Hal, my boy?"

"What, daddy?"

"Think badly of your father?"

"No, daddy, no," and the child's arms were thrown about Jim's shaking body.

Petrie touched Jim's arm quietly. "You're robbing your child of his manifest destiny."

"What do you want?"

"Send the little man home with me."

With eyes almost blinded with emotion, Jim looked into Petrie's face. "Have you any children, Petrie?"

The solicitor shook his head, and in Jim's words, "I knew it – I knew it," he understood what he meant.

Like a father who sympathizes, yet must be firm in his efforts to convince his son of his wisdom, Petrie spoke.

"I am thinking of Hal's future, as the friend and adviser of your family. I am thinking coldly, perhaps, but, believe me, kindly."

Jim could not doubt his sincerity. He buried his head against the child. "You don't know what a lonely life I led until Hal was born, and how lonely I'll be when he is gone."

Gone! Could he agree to this separation? The word frightened him. "Gone! Oh, my God, no!" He could not.

Then Petrie appealed to Jim's conscience. "You know the trite old saying, 'England expects that every man this day shall do his duty.'" So simply, so seriously did Petrie quote the well-worn phrase, that its shaft went home.

Duty! Duty! Ah, one might squander control of one's own destiny, but for another, for the child whom the parent has brought into life – how answer that? It was the duty of the parent to the child – in that lay the whole definition of the word. He held the tiny face in his hands as he whispered: "Well, Hal, old chap, it's a tough proposition they've put up to your daddy, son. But what must be must be. You'll be braver than I am, I hope." He forgot that the child could not understand him. Sobs shook him as he held the boy tight against his breast. Hal sought to comfort his father with soft, loving pats.

Jim raised his head. "Petrie, you've nailed me to the cross. He goes back with you."

"You'll never regret this," and Petrie laid his hand on Jim's shoulder.

"Ask them to teach him that I did this for his sake; but he'll forget me – you'll see. Some one else will take my place, and he will learn to love them better than he loves me."

Petrie tried to comfort him. "No, he shall hold you in his memory always – always."

Suddenly Jim remembered. "What about his mother?"

"If you can make the sacrifice, she must. They say Indians are stoics."

"I can understand the reason for it, Petrie, man. It will seem a needless cruelty to her. She's almost as much of a child as Hal. I'll try – I'll try."

Holding Hal by the hand, he walked to the cabin and called: "Nat-u-ritch, Nat-u-ritch, come here, little woman. I want you."

CHAPTER XXIII

Nat-u-ritch, with slow impassiveness, obeyed. She came from the house with hardly a glance at the stranger. She had changed but little; still slender and childish in form, motherhood and the past five years seemed to have left no mark upon her save, perhaps, for a more marked wistfulness of expression, especially when she looked at Jim and the boy. Her life was complete; physical deprivations or disappointments mattered little to her. Taught by Jim the ways of civilization, she tried to apply them to her surroundings, but it seemed to her a waste of the golden hours when she might be following her master instead across the plains or playing with her child. It was almost piteous to see how she controlled the instincts of her savage desire for freedom, and in her primitive way cared for the little cabin so as to please Jim.

Malcolm Petrie noticed at once the difference between Nat-u-ritch and the other Indian women whom he had seen during the past days, and was impressed by it.

Hal, at sight of his mother, quickly responded to her out-stretched hand.

"Nat-u-ritch, this is my te-guin – my friend," and Jim indicated Petrie. She inclined her head to the solicitor and said, "How?" As her eyes met Petrie's shrewd glance an instinctive apprehension caused her to tighten her arm about the child.

"Te-guin – big chief from out yonder – over the big water," Jim explained, but her unflinching gaze made it difficult for him to go on. He whispered to Petrie: "I don't know how to do it – I don't know how to do it." Then he summoned all his courage, and with a forced smile said, pleasantly, as though humoring a child, "Nat-u-ritch, te-guin – big chief – come for little Hal."

She flung her arms about the sturdy little fellow, and a sharp exclamation was her only answer.

"Pretty soon make Hal big chief. Touge wayno – te-guin – good friend – take Hal long way off." A shudder ran through her. She began to grasp what the stranger's presence meant. He was of her boy's father's race, and for too long she had forgotten, what in the beginning had so often troubled her, that Jim would some day want to return to his own people. This had been her great fear, but his kindness all these years had lulled to rest that ache of the early days.

While these thoughts tormented her, she could hear Jim still explaining. "Long trail, heap long trail – over mountains, heap big mountains – Washington."

She slipped the child to the other side of her, that he might be farther away from the silent man who was bringing this woe to her, and her clutch grew tighter at the word "Washington." Jim explained to Petrie, "Washington means a lot to them." Then he came closer to Nat-u-ritch as he said, impressively:

"Big Father – send for little Hal. Say make him big chief – te-guin cross wide water – heap big boat – Hal see the rising sun. Pretty soon, some day, Hal heap wickyup – heap cattle – heap ponies – pretty soon heap big chief."

He waited the result of his words. He thought to appeal to her pride and ambition for the boy; but she only shook her head and gazed at him like an affrighted animal whose young is about to be torn from her.

Jim's fortitude began to desert him. "She doesn't understand. She can't – she can't," he almost moaned, as he turned away, while his clinched hands and the stiffening of his body showed the strain that was proving almost too great for him. "This is a hard business, Mr. Petrie," and Petrie could feel the vibrant emotion of these two victims of fate. As Jim moved a step away, Nat-u-ritch, still holding the boy, started forward and caught his arm as though to hold him back. Her mind was in a daze – she could utter no word; but Jim understood the pantomime.

"She thinks I'm going, too," he said, and hastened to explain away her anxiety.

"No, Nat-u-ritch – Jim stay here always with you." Something of her agony was relieved and she loosed her hold on him. "Always with you," Jim repeated tenderly, looking into the tragic eyes as she eagerly followed every word. "Only little Hal."