Part 17 (1/2)
”All in good time. It was a nasty mess of fish. A dozen Mexicans and as many Indians had followed us all the way from the sunny side of the Gloriettas. You and Bev and Mat had got by the Mexics. Daniel Boone and 'Little Lees' were climbing the North Pole by that time. The rest of us were giving battle straight from the shoulder; and someway, I don't know how, just as we had the gang beat back behind us--you had a sniff of a bullet just then--an Indian slipped ahead in the dust. I was tendin' to mite of an arrow wound in my right calf, and I just caught him in time, aimin' at Bev; but he missed him for you. I got him, though, and clubbed his scalp a bit loose.”
Rex paused and stared at his right leg.
”How did that boy get here, Rex? Is he a friendly Indian?” I asked.
”Oh, Jondo brought him in out of the wet. Says the child was made to come along, and as soon as he could get away from the gang he had to run with up here; he came right into camp to help us against them. Fine young fellow! Jondo has it from them in authority that we can trust him lyin' or tellin' the truth. _He's all right._”
”How did he get hurt?” I inquired, still remembering in my own mind the day at Agua Fria.
”He'd got into our camp and was fightin' on our side when it happened,”
Rex replied.
”Some of them shot at him, then?” I insisted. ”No, I beat him up with the b.u.t.t of my gun for shootin' you,” Rex said, lazily.
”At me! Why don't you tell Jondo?”
”I tried to,” Rex answered, ”but I can't make him see it that way. He's got faith in that redskin and he's going to see that he gets back to New Mexico safely--after while.”
”Rex, that's the same boy that was down in Agua Fria, the one Bev laughed at. He's no good Indian,” I declared.
”You are too wise, Gail Clarenden,” Rex drawled, carelessly. ”A boy of your brains had ought to be born in Boston. Jondo and I can't agree about him. His name, he says, is Santan. There's one 'n' too many. If you knock off the last one it makes him Santa--'holy'; but if you knock out the middle it's Satan. We don't knock out the same 'n', Jondo and me.”
Just then the little child came tumbling noisily into the room.
”Look here, youngun. You can't be makin' a racket here,” Rex said.
The boy stared at him, impudently.
”I will, too,” he declared, sullenly, kicking at my cot with all his might.
Rex made no reply but, seizing the child around the waist, he carried him kicking and screaming outside.
”You stay out or I'll spank you!” Rex said, dropping him to the ground.
The boy looked up with blazing eyes, but said nothing.
”That's little Charlie Bent. His daddy runs this splendid fort. His mother is a Cheyenne squaw, and he's a grim clinger of a half-breed.
Some day he'll be a terror on these plains. It's in him, I know. But that won't interfere with us any. And you children are a lot safer here than out on the trail. Great G.o.d! I wonder we ever got you here!” Rex's face was very grave. ”Now go to sleep and wake up well. No more thinkin'
like a man. You can be a child again for a while.”
Those were happy days that followed. Safe behind the strong walls of old Fort Bent, we children had not a care; and with the stress and strain of the trail life lifted from our young minds, we rebounded into happy childhood living. Every day offered a new drama to our wonder-loving eyes. We watched the big hide-press for making buffalo robes and furs into snug bales. We climbed to the cupola of the headquarters department and saw the soldiers marching by on their way to New Mexico. We saw the Ute and the Red River Comanche come filing in on their summer expeditions from the mountains. We saw the trade lines from the far north bearing down to this wilderness crossroads with their early fall stock for barter.
Our playground was the court off which all the rooms opened. And however wild and boisterous the scenes inside those walls in that summer of 1846, in four young lives no touch of evil took root. Stronger than the six-feet width of wall, higher than the eighteen feet of adobe brick guarding us round about, was the stern strength of the young Boston man interned in the fort to protect us from within, as the strength of that structure defended us from without.
And yet he might have failed sometimes, had it not been for Aunty Boone.
n.o.body trifled with her.
”You let them children be. An give 'em the run of this shack,” she commanded of the lesser powers whose business was to domineer over the daily life there. ”The man that makes trouble wide as a needle is across is goin' to meet me an' the Judgment Day the same minute.”
”When Daniel gets on her crack-o'-doom voice, the mountains goin' to skip like rams and the little hills like lambs, an' the Army of the West won't be necessary to protect the frontier,” Rex declared. But he knew her worth to his cause, and he welcomed it.