Part 29 (1/2)
”Well, Matthews,” was his greeting.
”Well?”
”I just wanted to be sure that you know Lancaster's got that tenth point I spoke about cinched.”
”Yes?”
”And that what I said before you went away still goes. You hear?”
”I ain't deef,” said Matthews, non-committal.
”That's all.” And Lounsbury went back to his billiards.
The interpreter continued on to the stockade, where he was more fortunate in the delivery of the true message he had brought.
”The white women were not at the winter camp,” he said, ”so they could not be sent. But your brothers promise to come to save you. Watch for signals from Medicine Mountain.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE AWAKENING
That year, in the northland, winter encroached greedily upon spring. The latter end of March, the weather did not moderate. Instead, the wide valley became a channel for winds that were weighted with numbing sleet.
Then, April returned angrily, bringing cold rains and blows to check all vegetation.
But April half gone, a tardy thaw set in. The icy covering of the river split into whirling blocks, the snow grew soft and bally, the crust rotted and picked up. Soon the tempering sun drove the drifts from south exposures. When a freshet coursed down the coulee, and the low spots on the prairie filled until they were broad ponds, around which the migrating wild-fowl alighted with joyous cries. Now eaves dripped musically; slushy wagon ruts ran like miniature Missouris, and were travelled by h.o.r.n.y frogs; prairie-c.o.c.ks made each dawning weirdly noisy, and far and near, where showed the welcome green, blue-eyed anemones sprang bravely and tossed their fuzzy heads in the sharp air.
Throughout this season, the shack had but one visitor--The Squaw. He brought fuel, and once a week a basket of supplies from ”B Troop.”
Occasionally, he came swinging a brant by the neck, or carrying a saddle of fresh venison. But though his manner was as friendly as ever, and he seemed no less grateful and devoted, he was always strangely worried and distraught. The evangelist called by once or twice, when storms or the rus.h.i.+ng icepack in the river did not prevent his crossing. As for Lounsbury, he traversed the bend often on his way to Brannon and, if he saw a face at a window, waved his hand in pleasant greeting. But he kept to the road.
Since the morning of the aurora, the little family had ceased to speak of him. That silence was neither demanded by the section-boss nor agreed upon by the three. On Lancaster's part, it grew out of the sneaking consciousness of the ingrat.i.tude he did not regret; on the part of Marylyn, it arose from two causes: a sense of girlish shame at having confessed her attachment, and a fear that her father would discover it.
With Dallas, consideration for the feelings of her sister made her shrink from mentioning Lounsbury. Yet there was another reason, and one no less delicate--she, as well, had a secret to guard.
But in the mind of the elder girl, the thought of Marylyn's happiness was the uppermost. There were dread moments when it seemed to her as if that happiness were to be shattered.
During all the past weeks, Marylyn had carefully harboured her fancies about Lounsbury. Certain of the calico-covered books on the mantel had no little part in this. Their stories of undying affection--of bold men, lorn maidens, and the cruel villains who gloried in severing them--helped her to fit her little circle into proper roles. She loved, and must crush out her pa.s.sion. Lounsbury, whom she loved, had been sent away by her father. And she lived up to the play consistently. She saw the storekeeper anguished over his banishment; saw depths of meaning in the good-natured salutes he gave the shack. With herself, she accepted loneliness as a sign of deeper suffering. She was tortured by self-pity, by the doubt she had flung at Dallas, by the firm belief that her heart was hopelessly fettered. Gazing into a piece of looking-gla.s.s that served her for a mirror, she marked with sorrowful pride her transparent skin and l.u.s.treless eye. She sighed as she watched from the windows.
Patiently, she listened for footsteps, her face half turned to the door.
And yet what she took so tragically was nothing but failing health. What was not a fact the night of her admission to Dallas, was almost come to pa.s.s. The few days of great cold and hunger in February, coupled with long confinement in the dirt-floored house, were having their effect.
She was on the verge of illness.
Lancaster, whenever he noticed her dejection, was inclined to pooh-pooh it. ”She looks as ef she'd jes' been slapped,” he declared, ”an' is expectin' another lammin' any minnit. Ef she'd cry, she'd sh.o.r.e weep lemon-juice.” Again, he reckoned that she had picked up ”some notion.”
Jealous and suspicious as he was, however, he got no nearer to the truth.
But Dallas--she was misled far more than either Marylyn or their father.
She fought away from the idea that her sister might be breaking physically, and tenderly as a mother yearned over her. Anxious-eyed, she noted the pallor of the childlike face, the melancholy expression that had come to be habitual. She fretted over the spareness of the younger girl, who ate only when she was urged. If, sated with sleep, Marylyn moved in the night, Dallas aroused on the instant and hovered beside her.