The Squaw Man

"He has not been seen the entire day, save for a little while quite early, in his tent." Diana could feel the condemnation in the silence that followed.

"Mr. Chiswick, Mr. Chiswick," it was Mabel's voice calling from the open casement. "You promised to come back for the charades."

"Yes, you must both return – they will need you. And, after all," Lady Elizabeth whispered as they started for the house, "we have no doubt been anticipating difficulties that do not exist."

The voices died away, and Diana left the rose-bower. She had but one thought – she must find Jim at once. Why, oh, why, had she written the note of the morning? She stumbled across the heavy, thick sward. In the distance she could see a figure; it looked like Jim's; he was coming from the Fairies' Corner over the green to the entrance which in the morning had let her out on to the purple moor. Quickly she hurried to him, staining her gown and delicate slippers in the wet grass.

"Jim, Jim," she called, "where are you going?" As he turned she came close to him and repeated her question.

"I'm taking your advice, Diana; I'm leaving England – "

"Oh no, no," she eagerly interrupted, "I thought so, but now you must stay – stay to protect your honor. I've just heard that the Fund – oh, it's not you, I know, Jim, it's not you – not you – you couldn't be – " her despairing cry stopped. Still he made no effort to comfort her.

Finally he said – "I must go."

What did it mean? That he should go after the revelation she had made to him – she understood that; but now with his honor at stake it was different. Into her mind there flashed an unanswerable suspicion. Was there some reason why he had so eagerly acceded to her request; that even now, when she asked him to remain, he still stood mute at her entreaties?

"Whether you go or stay, Jim, I do not expect ever to see you alone again, and I'm glad of this chance to bid you good-bye – forever. I can never, never believe that you are – Jim, if your hands are clean, if you haven't robbed the soldiers' widows and orphans, you may kiss me good-bye."

Into his eyes came the desire of his love as she had seen it in the early morning in the Fairies' Corner. This time she did not move; but Jim only bent low over the out-stretched arms as he answered, "I must go," and went away from her.

The circle of his boyhood was complete. Again he went along the same lane that he had travelled ten years before; again the desolation brought by his departure from his home, his country, hurt and bruised his spirit. Instead of the dawn, it was midnight, with clouds sweeping sinisterly over the light of the heavens, and instead of a boy's optimism he carried a man's disillusions.

From the park the light of the tent fires sent out flames that illumined the roadway, the swaying and rustling of the heavy trees made whispering sounds. Once at a turning he heard a boy's voice in the camp ringing out high above the moaning of the trees:

"Oh, Tommy, Tommy Atkins, you're a good 'un, 'eart and 'and,You're a credit to your country and to all your native land."

He clutched his arms about his head to deaden the sound and hurried on out into the roadway, stumbling and half-falling over the gnarled roots of the ancient trees.

EXILE

CHAPTER XIII

Like a Tanagra figurine, Nat-u-ritch stood silhouetted against the golden light of the afternoon. She was small and slender, and her pointed face, in spite of the high cheek-bones, was delicately modelled. The eyes were long, but fuller than the usual beady eyes of the Indian woman. They seemed far too big in proportion to the tiny person whose body was swayed by the stifling breezes that swept over the plains, raising a suffocating cloud or alkali dust. The heavy, embroidered, one-piece gown clung to and slapped against the slight form, wrapping it in lines of beauty. Long, twisted ropes of blue-black hair hung dank and straight on both sides of her face and reached to her knees.

As the wind blew her gown one could see the copper-colored legs, and through the scant sleeves could catch a glimpse of the immature red-bronze arms of the young girl. In her hair a turquoise strand repeated the touch of blue that was woven and interwoven in the beading of her gown. She was standing near the trail that led to Maverick. To the left and to the right the plains stretched into an eternity of space. Nat-u-ritch shaded her eyes with straight, stiffened fingers, and from under the set hands gazed over the country. Towards the west a circular cloud, repeated at intervals, told her that horsemen were making their way to the cow town. From behind a wickyup close to her emerged an Indian chief – heavy, tall, with the sublime dignity of the red man, unimpaired even by the halting, swaying walk that told of his surrender to the white man's fire-water.

Quietly Nat-u-ritch watched her father, Tabywana, mount his pinto pony, his flapping scarlet chaps gleaming against the white body of the animal. He looked neither to the right nor left, nor behind him, as Nat-u-ritch followed with her eyes his disappearing form. It was twenty-six miles into Maverick, and she knew she must follow the trail that led there, but she made no movement yet towards departure. Immovable, she stood and watched from under rigid hands an alkali whirlwind swallow up the horse and his rider.

Her brain was busy with the problem that lay before her. For two days Cash Hawkins, the bad man of the adjoining barren land, had been with her father; for two nights Tabywana had drunk from the bottle that the white man had brought to him. Not once for forty-eight hours had her father called her to him, not once had he likened her to the flower of the tree of his love – the spirit-mother. She clinched her long, narrow hands until they tore the fringes of her robe. The pleading, dumb look of her dark eyes gave way to quick defiance; they seemed to become chasms of gloom, unfathomable but determined; they showed the decision and strength of which her resolve was capable.

Her father was to sell that day a large herd of cattle to Cash Hawkins. Intuitively she knew what the two days' visit from Hawkins would mean for them – despair when her father realized the trick the white man had played on him, scarcity of food and many privations for her, then long weeks of silent suffering for both.

Still she stood staring into the winding, desolate land, the stretching heavens, the stretching plains – both flat, straight, unbroken, like two skies. A world might be above one or under the other. Could this intermediate space of ambient atmosphere lay claim to a life of fact and reality?

But no such thoughts came to Nat-u-ritch as she watched the sandy face of the country. The desert was her home. She had toddled across its burning ground, following, as far as her baby strength would permit, her father's pony. In the solitude of the waste land she had grown into womanhood. She knew that to-day's dreariness could be broken until the entire place echoed and re-echoed to the life of the men whose cattle thundered at their heels. She had heard the desert answer to the fanatical outburst of her tribes; had seen the white men drive her people farther and farther back. For her and her people it had been their refuge.

Suddenly she stretched out her delicate arms. Her figure grew erect. From the distance came the distinct beat of horse's hoofs; it passed so close within her vision that she could easily distinguish the features of the rider. He was a stranger who had recently settled there, the stranger whom she had first met at a bear-dance down at the agency.

She remembered that with the squaw's privilege of choosing her partner she had selected him. She remembered his eyes. As she did so her own turned and followed the man who, unlike the other horsemen of the prairie, rose in his stirrups, and into her sphinx-like face came a look of unutterable yearning. She watched the clouds of dust envelop him as they had swallowed up her father, but this time she no longer stood staring into the prairie. Swiftly she caught her pony, mounted him, and let him gallop across a trail that led to a short cut to Maverick.

For a long time she lay flat on her animal, the hot sun sizzling down on her clinging figure. She only drew her hair as a veil over her face, while her wistful eyes watched the stranger across the plains as she sped close on his track. She was glad that she was gaining ground, too long had she lingered after her father's departure. She soon reached the short cut, and a wise smile lighted up her face. She would be in Maverick ahead of the man riding across the plains, and she wondered whether she would see him at the Long Horn saloon. Then the smile died away; she was not going to Maverick for that purpose. First she must find and guard her father from Cash Hawkins's machinations; and then —

She tightened her hold on her pony. She gave a curious low cry to the animal. His ears stood erect in answer as Nat-u-ritch flashed across the sand track.

The man on the horse only vaguely saw Nat-u-ritch. His thoughts were busy with the wearying business of the day's shipping of cattle. It was Jim's second year at his ranch. When he left England he did not arrest his journey until he reached the Far West – that Mecca of all Englishmen. With the small sum of money that he had lifted from his bank, he had purchased a ranch near Green River, and under the name of Carston had begun forming the ties that now made up his life.

As he rode his face and body showed the beneficial results of his work in the open. The cow-boy clothes seemed to have become almost part of him. A certain neatness and precision in his mode of wearing the picturesque garments of the plains alone differentiated him from the hundreds of wearers of flapping leather chaps, flannel shirt, sombrero, and loosely knotted kerchief.

Jim was wondering if his men had reached Maverick. He had sent Big Bill, his foreman, on ahead of him with a message from him cautioning them to beware of being drawn into a quarrel with Cash Hawkins, who he had learned would be there. For days the "boys'" anger had been incited by the discovery made by Jim and Big Bill that Cash Hawkins had been mixing his cattle with theirs, for Hawkins's gain. This complaint of "rustling" he found was not uncommon. Its penalty when proven was not a pleasant one; the law was not consulted – punishment was meted out by the cow-boys themselves. But for the present Jim preferred to avert a fight with Hawkins. In the future he meant to take greater precautions to protect his property.

As Jim rode he planned out many details of his new life's work. Thus often for days all other thoughts would be blotted out. It was a big game to fight and win in this barren land. It absorbed all his time and vitality, and memories of dew-drenched England were burned out in this dry, brilliant land where the tender half-light was unknown and where often his English eyes yearned in vain, when he abandoned himself to the past, for a touch of the soft gray of his own country in protest against the hard brilliance of the sun and unending sand plains.

CHAPTER XIV

The Overland Limited swayed, creaked, and then with a grunting of many chains drew to a sudden stop before the Long Horn saloon at Maverick. From the window the passengers peered at the desolate cow town and wondered how long they were to be delayed.

In their private car at the rear Diana, Henry Kerhill, and Diana's cousin, Sir John Applegate, rose from their seats to study the shipping-point for cattle, so novel in its environment, as indeed their entire journey in America had been for the past months. The death of a distant relative on Diana's side, who had left her an unexpected legacy, had enabled her to retrieve to a great extent their cramped fortunes.

Lady Elizabeth had lived only a short time to enjoy the new improved condition of affairs. She died in the year following Jim's departure and vicarious disgrace. During the months previous to her death she had grown grimmer and held herself more aloof. A stroke of paralysis one morning made her bedridden and speechless; a merciful third stroke caused her death within a month after her first attack. She never spoke, and seemed to find no consolation save in Diana's presence. The trip to America for a much-needed change was principally taken, however, on account of Henry, whose nervous condition the medical attendants declared most serious. The two years had made scarcely a perceptible change in Diana; in Sir John none at all. But in Henry an oppressive melancholy was rarely broken by the old flashes. Towards Diana he had faithfully kept his word to Jim. A truce was accepted, and he never ceased in his pathetic endeavors to try to make her happy. If neither could honestly lay claim to a real joy of life, still they had peace and dignity. As he stood near the window, the strong light showed how much thinner and lined was his face. A touch of gray was distinctly visible along his temples and was beginning perceptibly to streak his dark hair.

"My, but it's a corker!" Sir John gasped, as he put his head out of the window and the blinding heat beat down on him. There was a smile from Diana at Sir John's acquired Americanism. More British than the Union-Jack itself, yet he was keen to gain knowledge of the new country, and long conversations with the servile black Sam were enlarging his vocabulary. All three watched with curiosity the ramshackle hostelry, which they could plainly descry from one end of the car.

Diana turned to the men: "Do let us see the place. I've always longed to have a real adventure at a way-place off the beaten tourist track. I'm so tired of the sights that are arranged for one to be shocked at – at so much a head."

They moved to the door, but the intense heat of the day for a moment seemed to dampen their ardor. Then, at Henry's solicitations, Diana was persuaded to wait until he found out from an official the possible length of their stop.

Within the Long Horn saloon the afternoon's heat was apparently not felt by its inmates. It was a roughly hewn, wooden, three-cornered room with an oak beam stretching across it. Over this were thrown saddles and blankets. A bar extended along one side of the room. On the walls were grotesque and crude pictures done in chalk, while other spaces were covered with cheap, highly colored illustrations cut from the papers that reached Maverick. Tables for roulette and faro were placed at set intervals. The floor was covered with a mixture of sand and sawdust, while mounds of wood-dust were heaped near the bar, to be used by the men as cuspidors. It was clean in a certain primitive fashion. The glasses and bar fixtures were not unpleasant. The bartender, Nick, an ex-prize-fighter, took a pride in his "emporium," as he called the saloon, and lavished a loving though crude care on his possessions.

But the place was stained and soiled by the marks of the tragic remnants of humanity that were housed within its walls. Around the gambling-tables on this afternoon were groups of tattered specimens of the various races. Cow-boys at certain tables gave a wholesome, virile note to the place, but the drift-wood of a broken civilization was at this hour in larger proportion than the ranchmen. Among the battered denizens from the world beyond that had strayed into the saloon life was a parson in a frayed frock-coat, who leaned in a neighborly way against the blue shirt of a Chinaman, while a large negro with a face like a black Botticelli angel grinned and gleamed his white teeth in sport with a dago from Monterey. In a chair in a farther corner a tenderfoot lay in a drunken sleep in his soiled evening clothes, which he had donned three nights before to prove to the tormenting habitués of the place, who since then had not allowed him to grow sober, that he was a gentleman.

A half-breed at a faro-table watched with tolerant amusement the antics of those in his game to outwit him. The smell of the sawdust and the human mass of unpleasantness grew stronger as the men played, changed money, and Nick's corks flew and glasses clinked. Over the entire place there hung a curious sense of respectability. Low-muttered oaths were not uncommon, but Nick, sturdy and grim, with his watch-dogs – two large six-shooters – lying on the shelf behind the bar, had a certain straightness of purpose and a crude sense of right and wrong that won respect from the heterogeneous mass of his followers.

The passing of the Limited would have caused a sufficient amount of interest, but its stopping was a momentous occasion. The rude platform outside was only a shipping-point for cattle, not a stopping-place for through or passenger trains. There was a rush of some of the inmates from the room, but to a number of them the game was at its vital point, and Pete's lazy call of "jacks up" quickly chained the attention of the more eager of the players.

But to Nick it meant new trade, and his battered and scarred face grew into one ebullient smile as McSorley, the engineer, in his jumpers, with begrimed face and hands, and Dan, the dapper Pullman conductor of the Overland Limited, entered the saloon. McSorley was mopping his sweating face.

"Say, Dan, who's the English swells in the private?" he asked, as he looked back at the luxuriously fitted car.

"The Earl of Kerhill," Dan answered, as they veered towards the bar. "Been out to the Yellowstone. The old man lets 'em have his private car. Must be the real thing, eh?"

McSorley grunted his approval of the noble freight that he was carrying. "Let's have a drink. What's yours, Dan?"

They reached the solicitous Nick.

"What 'll you have, gents?"

"A bottle of beer for me, Mac," Dan answered his companion's question. Then, with English tips still a pleasant memory, he added, "But this is on me."

Nick began opening a bottle of beer, and its foaming contents were soon filling the glasses. As he served he inquired: "What's up gents? 'Tain't often the Overland Limited honors Maverick with a call!"

"Washout down the road," was McSorley's laconic reply, as the cool liquid slid down his parched throat.

"Staying long?" Nick again asked, with visions of many strangers visiting his bar.

Dan was surveying the place with an unsympathetic eye.

"Not longer than we can help, you bet," he answered. "Expecting orders to move every minute."

But Nick was determined to be affable. "Pity; Maverick's worth seein'. Who's in the parlor-car?"

"English people – Earl of Kerhill and party," Dan replied. Then he moved down the bar with McSorley, both carrying their half-consumed beer.

A Southern cow-puncher, Pete, who had gone from ranch to ranch, finding life too hard at each, leaned back on his stool until he rested against one end of the bar. Through the windows he could see Shorty, one of Jim Carston's men, coming along in animated conversation with several other men of the Englishman's ranch.

"In my opinion the calm serenity of this here metropolis is about to be tore wide open." A nudge from Punk, the Chinaman, made him go on with the shuffling.

"How many, Parson?" Pete queried.

The cadaverous face of the Parson, with its highly colored nose, showing the cause of his cloth's disgrace, turned to him. Frayed and seedy as he was, he bore the imprint of a gentleman.

"Dearly beloved brethren, three."

Again Punk nudged the others, who were inclined to become too talkative. They began indicating the number of cards desired with their fingers while the conversation continued. Nick leaned over the bar and watched Pete's hand.

"Cash Hawkins is in town!" Pete gave the news as though it were of moment. They all knew what Cash's visits usually meant. An ominous whistle followed. They all looked at Nick.

"Bad medicine is this same Mr. Hawkins, particular when he has his gun wid him. Bedad, the kummunity could spare him a whole lot without missing him," Nick volunteered.

"If they provoke unto wrath Brother Carston's outfit, my Christian friend, there will be some useful citizens removed from our midst." The Parson approved of Jim as a remnant of his earlier days. He recognized in him one of his own class.

"And who the devil is Jim Carston?" Nick asked.

"Jim Carston? Never seen Jim? Oh yes, you must have, although Jim don't frequent emporiums much. Why Jim's the English cow-boy. First he had a place about a hundred miles from here. But he's bought Bull Cowan's herd. Bull stuck him – stuck him good," Pete lazily informed the crowd.

"Sure!" said Nick. "That's why Englishmen was invented. More power to 'em."

"Amen," hiccoughed the Parson, whose drinks by this time had been numerous. "The prosperity of our beloved country would go plumb to Gehenna if an all-wise Providence did not enable us to sell an Englishman a mine or a ranch or two now and again."

"Say," Nick asked, seriously, "the Englishman ain't a-goin' up agin Cash, is he now?"

"I call you, Parson," Pete calmly commanded, and then raked in the pot. "When the smoke has cleared away I will venture an opinion as to who has gone agin who," he resumed, as he pocketed the money. "Jim and his outfit is here to ship some cattle to Chicago. I seed them all through the window, and they ain't the kind to run away much."

There was a finality about Pete's words. He might be lazy and slow, but he was anxious to open another pot, so he turned his back on Nick and began shuffling the cards. As he did so, three of Jim's boys – Andy, Shorty, and Grouchy – entered.

"Come on boys and have a drink," Shorty yelled.

Andy was a wiry, slender German with tender, romantic proclivities. Grouchy, who seldom spoke, and then only in a husky, low growl, was a massive fellow and looked like a Samoan native, but was in reality a product of a Hebrew father and an Irish mother, while Shorty gained his name from his low stature. Brave as a lion and honest, with a face from which twinkled the smallest and merriest of blue eyes, he was the live wire of any ranch.

"What's your nose-paint, gents?" Nick asked, as he greeted the new-comers.

"A little of that redeye," Shorty replied, and soon he and his comrades were clinking glasses. Several cow-punchers joined them, and the place began to resound to lively disputes concerning the rates on cattle.

Dan and McSorley had finished their beer.

"How much?" Dan said. His look plainly showed his contempt for the saloon. It was Nick's opportunity to pay back the insult that had been quietly levelled at him by the Pullman conductor's attitude for the past quarter of an hour.

"One dollar," was Nick's quick reply.

"One dollar!" Dan repeated. "For two glasses of beer?" He stepped back and his voice rose in angry protest. It attracted the attention of the others, who were only too eager for a row.

"Why," Dan continued, "it was all collar, anyway."

Nick leaned over the bar and quietly said, "I didn't charge nothin' for the collar, gent, I throwed that in." There was a laugh from the hangers-on at Nick's witticism. Nick flushed with approval and went on, "Beer's our most expensive drink – comes all the way from Cheyenne."

Dan, furious at being done, as he knew he was, struck the bar with his fist. "I won't pay it," he said.

There was a hush about the room. They didn't often see any one venture to buck against Nick's authority.

"Oh yes, you'll pay it, gent." Nick's voice was lower and calmer than Dan's. He had turned while Dan was speaking and was lovingly fingering his six-shooter. He lifted it from the shelf and laid it carefully on the bar, keeping his hand well over the trigger.

McSorley nervously edged to Dan. "Better pay it; better pay it," he whispered.

Nick heard him. "Yes," he added, "better pay it. Saves funeral expenses."

Dan knew enough of the country to know he was at Nick's mercy. He drew a silver dollar from his pocket, and slapped it down on the bar.

"Well, I'll be – !" Dan started for the door, followed by McSorley, who thought his companion's rage ill-timed. He wished he were back in his caboose. As they reached the door Nick's voice rang out in stentorian tones.

"Wait a minute!" There was no gainsaying his command. Dan halted. Nick, leaning far over the bar, held in each hand a watch-dog. "I don't allow no tenderfoot to use bad language in my emporium. We do strictly family trade and caters particular to ladies and children."

Dan and McSorley stood under the levelled guns. A shriek of mirth shook the crowd. All had stopped playing and were watching the situation. Finally, when there was no doubt as to the ridiculous position of the train officials and the laugh had subsided, Nick dropped the guns, and with a low bow turned from the bar, leaving them free to go. Dan and McSorley quickly disappeared, Dan wildly expostulating while McSorley vainly tried to calm him.