Part 13 (1/2)
”Where?” At this minute it was Fom's turn to be dangerously high, and she wriggled to the uttermost end of the plank to counterbalance her sister's weight.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”She glanced up the incline of the see-saw to the height whence Irene looked down”]
A mysterious smile overspread Irene's face. It became broadly triumphant as she rose presently on the short end of the board, her arms daringly outspread, her toes upturned in front of her, her agile body well balanced, her spirit exulting in the sense of danger without and superiority within.
”When?” asked Florence, with that amiable readiness to consider a question unasked, so becoming to the va.s.sal. ”When are you going?”
”To-night--maybe.” Her own words startled Irene. She loved to play upon Fom's fears, but she had not really intended committing herself so far.
”He may call for me to-night,” she added, with qualifying emphasis.
”Who? Not--not--”
”Yes, my father. I must be ready at any time, you know.”
Fom looked alarmed. She had heard long ago and in strict confidence about Split's lofty parentage. She had even accepted drafts upon her future, rendering services which were unusual in a Madigan f.a.g, with the understanding that when the Princess Split should come into her own, she would richly repay. But she had never before heard her speak so positively or set a time when their relations.h.i.+p must cease.
A feeling of utter loneliness came over Split's faithful ally. She saw the balance of power in the Madigan oligarchy rudely disturbed. She beheld, in a swift, dread vision, the undisputed supremacy of the party of Sissy. Dismay entered her soul and shook her body, for with the brunette of the twins emotion and action were synonymous. ”Oh, don't go, Split!” she begged, squirming unhappily at her end of the plank. ”Don't go!”
High up in the air, Split smiled superbly. There was _n.o.blesse oblige_ in that smile; also the strong teasing tincture which no Madigan could resist using, even upon her closest ally.
”Oh, Split--o-o-oh, Split!” wailed Fom, forgetting in her wriggling misery how close she already was to the end of the plank.
A crash and a b.u.mp and a squeal told it to her all at once. She had slid clear off, getting an instantaneous effect of her haughty sister unsupported at a dizzy eminence, before Split came b.u.mping down to earth, the see-saw giving that regal head a parting, stunning tap as the long end finally settled down and the short one went up to stay.
It was never in the ethics of Madigan warfare to explain the inexplicable. Florence was on her feet, flying as though for her very life, before Split, shaken down from her dreams, quite realized what had happened. And she was still sitting as she had fallen when Jim, the Indian, came for the sawbuck.
Jim limped, his eyes were sore and watery, and it took him two weeks to conquer the Madigan woodpile, which any other Piute in town could have leveled in half the time.
”Him fall, eh?” he asked, dismantling the see-saw with that careful leisureliness that accounted for the Chinaman Wong's contempt for Indians.
”Not him; _her_, Jim.”
Split possessed a pa.s.sion for imparting knowledge, of which she had little, and which was hard for her to attain.
Jim grinned.
”She no got little gal like you teach her Inglis,” he said, gently apologetic.
”Not she, Jim; _he_. How old is your little girl?” Split remembered that a genteel interest in the lower cla.s.ses is becoming to the well-born.
”He just big like you,” Jim responded mournfully, drawing the back of his brown hand across his nose. ”But he all gone.”
”Dead?” Split crossed her legs uneasily as she squatted, and lowered her voice reverently.
”He no dead,” Jim said, lifting the sawbuck and easing it on his shoulder. ”One Washoe squaw steal him--little papoose, nice little papoose. Much white--like you, missy. So white, squaw say no sure Injun.”
”Jim!”
”Take him down Tluckee valley. Take him 'way. Jim see squaw one day long time 'go--Washoe Lake--shoot ducks. Heap shoot squaw. He die, but he say white f.a.ginia man got papoose.”