Part 25 (2/2)

”There is no answer,” said Davies, as he finished it, a smile of contempt on his lips. ”You must have known there couldn't be, did you not?”

”Well, I fancied as much. He had no friend to carry it for him unless I would, and the young idiot has gone off feeling profoundly wretched about the whole business, as he deserves to. Had I been here, as an old friend of his family, it would have been my right to warn him weeks ago, and to put a stop to his foolishness if he was not to be advised. More than that, Mr. Davies, I wish to say that ever since I met you on the train last June I felt an interest in you that would have prompted me to stand your friend in your absence whether I felt any interest in him or not. I should like to know you better and to convince you that I meant what I said when we parted there.”

And Davies at last held out a cordial hand.

This was the afternoon before his early start, and though he left the post feeling that he had gained a friend worth having, Davies did not fully realize how dangerous a thing it was to leave a community of women, none of whom he had sought to placate and some of whom he had offended. Mrs. Darling had declared war against him, and Mrs. Stone, if not Mrs. Flight, was in full sympathy with her. How dare he say they were responsible for Mrs. Davies's flirtation? How dare he insinuate that they had led her to the forbidden shades of Cresswell's? There was a tempest in a teapot among Mrs. Stone's friends and a.s.sociates over Mrs. Darling's account of his rebuke to her, for Mrs. Darling had deftly managed to include Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight in the scope of his condemnation, and very possibly old Peleg might have been wrought up to pitch of sympathetic resentment but for the fact that he was concentrating all of his shattered faculties on the mysterious robbery of the adjutant's desk.

Captain Devers, relieved at last from command of the post and overshadowed by vague sense of official condemnation, was now, in hopeful imitation of the Homeric Achilles, sulking in his tent. Invited by Colonel Stone to appear at the office and give his counsel as to the matter, Captain Devers had replied that in view of the discourtesies to which he had been subjected at the hands of the adjutant he could hardly be expected to care to visit the building except when compelled to do so, and having been relieved from command under circ.u.mstances indicative of disapproval of his methods, he should consider it indelicate on his part to say what he thought of the matter in question.

But the orderly trumpeter had told the sergeant-major that Captain Devers was on the piazza looking in the adjutant's window when the gentlemen were there examining the map, and that he entered the hall-way. The sergeant-major told Mr. Leonard, and Leonard was actually startled. He conveyed the information to Pegleg, and Pegleg sent his compliments to Captain Devers with the information that his immediate presence was desired, so Devers came, and shrewdly guessed what was the cause. Certainly, he said, he went to the office to get certain papers that he had left in the commanding officer's desk. He did look in for one instant through the adjutant's window, attracted by the unusual sight of the adjutant, the chaplain, and his own subaltern, of whose services he had been deprived, in apparent consultation. They were so absorbed in talk that they did not hear him as he entered his own office or when he left. Certainly he lit no candle; he needed none. He knew just where his papers were, got them, and came away. Did he leave before or after the others? Really, that was a matter he couldn't answer. He was absorbed in his own reflections when he came out and couldn't say whether the other gentlemen were there or not.

Pegleg asked whether he had any theory as to the disappearance of the batch of papers from Leonard's desk, and Devers said he had none whatever, he didn't know how the matter could be supposed to interest him. He did not inquire the means resorted to, but perhaps that was unnecessary, as the drawer had evidently been forced by a heavy chisel and the woodwork about the lock was crushed. Leonard glowered at him with stormy eyes during the brief interview but, true to his notions of subordination, asked no questions whatever. It was the colonel who presently gave it up as a hopeless job and dismissed the cavalryman with a brief, ”Well, that will do, captain; I see you can't help us,” and Devers left with livid, twitching face. He had no fear of Stone, weakened as he evidently was both physically and mentally by his recent shock. It was that silent, gloomy thunder-cloud of an adjutant he dreaded, and with good reason. There was an unsettled account between these men and one that Devers would have been glad indeed to drop, but Leonard was a man who never let go. ”I hate to have you leave just now,”

he said to Davies, ”for I know we shall need you presently.”

But once more there was a week of no communication with the Ogallalla agency. Three days of blizzard and three of repairs before the flimsy telegraph line could be used again. Mrs. Davies, busily occupied in putting her new house in order, was aided by Mrs. McPhail and one of the ladies from the cantonment, who, happening to be visiting the agent's wife when the storm broke, found it pleasanter to remain there than go back to the log huts across that mile of blast-swept prairie. The Indians, with the stoicism of their race, huddled in their foul, smoky tepees instead of swarming about the agency, and except Davies's detachment none of the command appeared. It was therefore a rather busy time for Mira, as there was abundant opportunity for conversation, and both Mrs. McPhail and Mrs. Plodder rejoiced in so interested a listener.

The three seemed to be getting along together famously, a fact which Davies noted with the same half-dreamy, half-amused smile. It was a relief in seeing her really interested in setting her little house to rights, but it was as evidently a relief to her that the otherwise inevitable visitors were blockaded by the storm. Davies really did not know which she dreaded most, the Cranstons or the Indians.

It was the latter who were the first to call. The gale went down with the sun one night, and the morning dawned clear and fine. Up with the sun, true to his cavalry teaching, Davies had been out superintending the grooming and feeding of his horses. He and Mira were at breakfast and Mrs. Plodder had come to help. Trooper Gaffney was the household cook for the time being, and a good one. The coffee was excellent, despite the fact that Gaffney could get no cream, and condensed milk was the only subst.i.tute obtainable. The steak was juicy and tender, as the finest of the contractor's beef was sure to go to the agency itself, and Gaffney's soda biscuits were enticing, whatsoever might be the after-effect. The two ladies were chatting in very good spirits when one considers the depths of woe from which Mira had so recently emerged, and the lieutenant was beginning to take some comfort in the outlook, when all on a sudden Mira turned a chalky white, screamed violently, and cowered almost under the table, her face hidden in her hands. Davies's instant thought was of the repeated whisper of warning that came to him regarding Red Dog, but Mrs. Plodder's merry peal of laughter rea.s.sured him, as he whirled to confront what proved to be the foe. There on the porch without, crouching low, shading their eyes with their broad brown paws, their painted faces almost flattened against the window, three Indians, a brave and two squaws,--all innocent of any violation of etiquette or decorum, but just as their kith and kin and instincts taught them,--were staring hungrily into the room. To Eastern readers it would have seemed bare, homely, plain in the last degree; to the untutored minds of these children of the prairie it spoke of wealth, luxury, and plenty. Peering over the shoulders of one of the squaws, from its perch on her toil-bowed back, was a wee pappoose, its beady little black eyes gleaming, its tiny face expressive of emotions that in later years it would speedily learn to suppress,--wonderment and interest. A thinly-clad girl of five or six clung to the mother with one hand and clutched her little blanket with the other. They all looked cold and hungry, and the big eyes wore that dumb, professionally pathetic look which these born beggars are adepts in a.s.suming.

”Go 'way! Scat!” called Mrs. Plodder, with appropriate gesticulation as she waved them aside. ”You're darkening the room.” But for answer the visitors only huddled the closer and mournfully patted and rubbed the region of their stomachs. Davies, laughing, went to the door and called them in, which signal they promptly obeyed, and came trooping smilingly after the stalking warrior, who took the lead as he would have taken anything else. Mira by this time had backed into a corner, where she cowered in terror, but Mrs. Plodder laughingly shook hands with the man as Davies pa.s.sed them in, and then blockaded him in an opposite corner where he could not lay hands on anything they might give the squaws and children. He wanted to shake hands with Mira, too, but she implored them to keep him away. Davies took the little girl by the arm and led her to his wife. ”Do look at her, dear, and see what a pretty, intelligent face she has. I want you to know how really friendly they mean to be.” And still Mira shrank and trembled. The younger woman was a Minneconjou girl, with frank, attractive, almost pretty face. She dropped her blanket from her head and let it fall about her calico-covered shoulders, smiling affably about her, but eying the breakfast things appreciatively. Davies held out a lump of sugar to the baby, which that embryo warrior grasped eagerly and thrust into his ready maw, and then b.u.t.tering one of Gaffney's biscuits and calling for a fresh supply, the lieutenant, with Mrs. Plodder lending active aid, began feeding their unbidden guests. Gaffney came in with a heaping platter of his productions and a pitcher of maple syrup. ”This is what they like, mum,”

said he to the lady of the house. ”Give that little kid a mola.s.ses sandwhich and she'll be your friend for life. Heap walk? heap hungry?”

he continued, addressing the head of the family, in sympathetic tone.

”Heap walk--plenty heap hungry,” was the warrior's prompt response, with appropriate pantomime and immediate lapse of dignity. Mrs. Plodder had cut off a big slice of the steak and handed it to the mother with rea.s.suring gesture, but that well-disciplined wife pa.s.sed it immediately on to her lord, and in eloquent silence pleaded with open hand and eyes for more. ”The heathens!” exclaimed Mrs. Plodder. ”We'd cure them of that notion in no time, wouldn't we, Mrs. Davies?” But Mira was watching the Minneconjou maiden, forgetful even of the adulation in the eyes of the little five-year-old girl now licking the syrup off her slab of soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face.

Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her own winsome face in a mirror that hung in a stained-wood frame opposite Mira's seat, and with no little shy giggling was revelling in the study of her charms even while busily munching the big biscuit in her slender brown hand. Here was a trait that formed a bond of sympathy, and Mira took courage. It is not the contemplation of their n.o.bler qualities, but their weaknesses, that puts us on easy terms with our fellow-men. Breakfast promised to last a long time. Gaffney, with the adaptability of the trooper of years of service on the frontier, had been worming something of their visitors'

story out of them. The average Indian never wants to tell his name, but gets a friend to give it for him. It proved, however, to be Bear-Rides-Double who, with his wife, sister, and little ones, had honored them with this early visit, and after riding double long years among his people, this young chief had come afoot long miles to see the Great Father's man and lodge a complaint. He had actually walked from the Minneconjou village, five thousand yards away down-stream. But for the chance of making a theatrical _coup_ Bear-Rides-Double could easily have borrowed a pony, even though his own were gone to pay a poker debt incurred within thirty-six hours, and when he waked up the morning after the protracted play he found that Pulls Hard and the half-breed ”squaw man” with whom he had been gambling had not only played him with cogged dice, but plied him with drugged liquor, and then gone off with his war ponies as well as the rest. He wanted the Great Father to redress his wrongs, recover his stock, and give him another show with straight cards, and then he'd show Pulls Hard and Sioux Pete a trick or two of his own. Davies had proffered chairs during this recital, which Gaffney managed between the sign language and a species of ”pidgin English,”

called ”soldier Sioux,” to interpret for him, but the family preferred to squat on the floor. Mrs. Plodder, tiring of the diplomatic features, took Miss Minneconjou into Mira's room to show her the pretty gifts the pale-face bride had brought with her, and Mira, with her five-year-old friend toddling alongside, speedily followed. Davies strove to make the double equestrian understand that he had no authority in the premises, and that McPhail was the proper person to apply to, but the warrior wished to deal only with his kind,--a heap brave chief,--the conqueror of the redoubtable Red Dog. He could get more to eat through him in any event, and in the midst of it all Gaffney came in from a brief visit to his kitchen to say that Sioux Pete, the malefactor in question, was actually in the corral at that moment trying to sell two ponies to the sergeant of the guard. Leaving Gaffney to the duty of entertaining his guests, Davies went out to investigate. Pete had come over from Red Dog's camp with some of his plunder, and had no idea the complainant had forestalled him. Pete spoke English,--that is, plains English,--but he shrank a little at sight of the tall, grave-faced young officer of whom Red Dog's people spoke with bated breath.

”You want how much for these ponies?” asked the lieutenant, as though he had heard the talk.

”Tirty dollar.”

”Where are the others?”

”No got.”

”You rode off with four ponies from the lodge of Bear-Rides-Double two nights ago. Where are the other two?”

Pete turned sickly gray. Could this white-faced soldier read visions and dreams and thoughts? Was he a medicine-man?

”No got,” he sullenly answered once more.

”You will leave these two with me for safe-keeping,” said Davies, ”and go and fetch the others at once, even if you have to take them from Pulls Hard, and get back here with them at noon without fail. No, you need not appeal to the agent, or I'll tell him that you loaded Bear with drugged liquor and marked cards and cogged dice. Off with you, Pete,” he continued, and the half-breed rode away on his Cayuse pony with scared face, and told in the camp of Red Dog that the young chief Davies was a seer, a mind-reader as well as a brave who feared not to grapple their war chief; and when he was gone, Bear-Rides-Double was summoned and bidden to ride double if he could, but to go and sin no more with cogged dice, and the Minneconjou looked with evident awe and wonderment upon the grave, reticent cavalryman, and went away homeward on one of the recovered ponies, his women-folk, laden with Mira's discarded finery and leading the other, trudging contentedly along behind him afoot.

”You'll be a heap bigger man among the Indians than the agent can ever hope to be, lieutenant,” said Gaffney, with an Irish grin.

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