Part 11 (1/2)
Jackson, the scout of the Missouri column, still lingered for some sort of word with Molly Wingate. Some odds and ends of brush lay about. Of the latter Molly began casting a handful on the fire and covering it against the wind with her shawl, which at times she quickly removed. As a result the confined smoke arose at more or less well defined intervals, in separate puffs or clouds.
”Ef ye want to know how to give the smoke signal right an' proper, Miss Molly,” said he at length, quietly, ”I'll larn ye how.”
The girl looked up at him.
”Well, I don't know much about it.”
”This way: Hit takes two to do hit best. You catch holt two corners o'
the shawl now. Hist it on a stick in the middle. Draw it down all over the fire. Let her simmer under some green stuff. Now! Lift her clean off, sideways, so's not ter break the smoke ball. See 'em go up? That's how.”
He looked at the girl keenly under his bushy gray brows.
”That's the Injun signal fer 'Enemy in the country.' S'pose you ever wanted to signal, say to white folks, 'Friend in the country,' you might remember--three short puffs an' one long one. That might bring up a friend. Sech a signal can be seed a long ways.”
Molly flushed to the eyes.
”What do you mean?”
”Nothin' at all, any more'n you do.”
Jackson rose and left her.
CHAPTER XIII
WILD FIRE
The afternoon wore on, much occupied with duties connected with the sad scenes of the: tragedy. No word came of Woodhull, or of two others who could not be identified as among the victims at the death camp. No word, either, came from the Missourians, and so cowed or dulled were most of the men of the caravan that they did not venture far, even to undertake trailing out after the survivors of the ma.s.sacre. In sheer indecision the great aggregation of wagons, piled up along the stream, lay apathetic, and no order came for the advance.
Jed and his cow guards were obliged to drive the cattle back into the ridges for better grazing, for the valley and adjacent country, which had not been burned over by the Indians the preceding fall, held a lower matting of heavy dry gra.s.s through which the green gra.s.s of springtime appeared only in spa.r.s.er and more smothered growth. As many of the cattle and horses even now showed evil results from injudicious driving on the trail, it was at length decided to make a full day's stop so that they might feed up.
Molly Wingate, now a.s.sured that the p.a.w.nees no longer were in the vicinity, ventured out for pasturage with her team of mules, which she had kept tethered close to her own wagon. She now rapidly was becoming a good frontierswoman and thoughtful of her locomotive power. Taking the direction of the cattle herd, she drove from camp a mile or two, resolving to hobble and watch her mules while they grazed close to the cattle guards.
She was alone. Around her, untouched by any civilization, lay a wild, free world. The ceaseless wind of the prairie swept old and new gra.s.s into a continuous undulating surface, silver crested, a wave always pa.s.sing, never past. The sky was unspeakably fresh and blue, with its light clouds, darker edged toward the far horizon of the unbounded, unbroken expanse of alternating levels and low hills. Across the broken ridges pa.s.sed the teeming bird life of the land. The Eskimo plover in vast bands circled and sought their nesting places. Came also the sweep of cinnamon wings as the giant sickle-billed curlews wheeled in vast aerial phalanx, with their eager cries, ”Curlee! Curlee! Curlee!”--the wildest cry of the old prairies. Again, from some unknown, undiscoverable place, came the liquid, baffling, mysterious note of the nesting upland plover, sweet and clean as pure white honey.
Now and again a band of antelope swept ghostlike across a ridge. A great gray wolf stood contemptuously near on a hillock, gazing speculatively at the strange new creature, the white woman, new come in his lands. It was the wilderness, rude, bold, yet sweet.
Who shall say what thoughts the flowered wilderness of spring carried to the soul of a young woman beautiful and ripe for love, her heart as sweet and melting as that of the hidden plover telling her mate of happiness? Surely a strange spell, born of youth and all this free world of things beginning, fell on the soul of Molly Wingate. She sat and dreamed, her hands idle, her arms empty, her beating pulses full, her heart full of a maid's imaginings.
How long she sat alone, miles apart, an unnoticed figure, she herself could not have said--surely the sun was past zenith--when, moved by some vague feeling of her own, she noticed the uneasiness of her feeding charges.
The mules, hobbled and side-lined as Jed had shown her, turned face to the wind, down the valley, standing for a time studious and uncertain rather than alarmed. Then, their great ears pointed, they became uneasy; stirred, stamped, came back again to their position, gazing steadily in the one direction.
The ancient desert instinct of the wild a.s.s, brought down through thwarted generations, never had been lost to them. They had foreknowledge of danger long before horses or human beings could suspect it.
Danger? What was it? Something, surely. Molly sprang to her feet. A band of antelope, running, had paused a hundred yards away, gazing back.
Danger--yes; but what?
The girl ran to the crest of the nearest hillock and looked back. Even as she did so, it seemed that she caught touch of the great wave of apprehension spreading swiftly over the land.