"Breathe, Katherine—try again—now breathe." And he pressed her chest with his hand, aiding nature as best he knew, until she sighed again and again.
The girl was half damp in death, while like a burning mine the pent-up fire-damp exploded and reverberated through the veins of the young man. Oh, if he could but impart his vitality to her. Possibly he did, for presently her weakness permitted her to note that the sky was blue, that the tree-tops waved in familiar forms, that the air flooded her lungs, and that a cooling rain was falling. Again she drifted somewhere away from the earth in pleasant passage through kaleidoscopic dreams of all a girl's subconsciousness ever offers.
Her eyes spread, but soon closed in complete rest against the easy cradle. She sensed kindly caresses and warm kisses which delighted her. The long yellow hair hung about her face and kept it shadowed from the hot sun.
"Oh my! Oh my! Where am I? Is that you—How do I—" but the effort exhausted her.
"God—God—Sak-a-war-te come quick! It will be too late." He put more water on her face.
The hunt missed the wolf in the cover of the river-bottom. It doubled on the dogs, and out of sight was out of mind with the fast-running hounds.
"She gave us a run, anyhow," sang out Major Searles to Wolf-Voice.
"Yaes, d—— him; she give me a bite and two run. What good was come of eet, hey—why ain't you keel him first plass, by Gar?"
"Oh! you are a poor sport, Wolf-Voice."
"Am poor sport, hey? All right; nex' wolf she not tink dat, mabeso."
Laughing and talking, they trotted home, picking up belated ones who had strung behind the fastest horses.
"Where is Miss Searles, Major?" spoke one.
"That's so! don't know; had a slow horse; by Gad, we must look this up." And the now anxious father galloped his mount. The others followed sympathetically. Rounding the bluffs, they saw Ermine's pony quietly feeding.
"Where is Ermine?" came a hail of questions, and presently they almost ran over the girl's horse, now lying on its side, breathing heavily, and no longer trying to disengage his leg from the gopher-hole.
"The horse is in a gopher-hole," said some one; "and see here—look at the dirt; he has thrown Miss Searles; here is where she struck."
"Yes, but where is she? where is she?" ejaculated the Major, in a nervous tremor of excitement. "Where is my girl?"
Wolf-Voice had dismounted and found Ermine's trail, which he followed toward the river.
"Come!" he called. "Am show you dose girl!"
While an orderly stayed behind to shoot the horse and get the empty saddle, the group followed hard on the half-breed.
"Done you ride on de trail, you was keep behine. Dey girl was broke his neck, an' Ermine am pack him."
Stepping briskly forward, the plainsman made quick work of empty moccasin tracks and burst through the brush. A pistol-shot rang in the rear; an orderly had shot the horse. A cry of "Help, help!" responded from the river beyond the cottonwoods, and the horses ploughed their way to the sands. The people all dismounted around the limp figure and kneeling scout. Her pale face, the hat with the water in it, and the horse in the gopher-hole made everything clear.
"Here, Swan, ride to the post for an ambulance," spoke the Major, as he too knelt and took his daughter in his arms. "Ride the horse to death and tell the ambulance to come running." Some of the women brought their ministering hands to bear and with more effect.
"What happened, Katherine?" whispered her father amid the eager silence of the gathered people.
"What did I do?" she pleaded weakly.
"How was it, Ermine?"
"Her horse put his foot in a hole; he is out there now. I saw her go down. Then I tried to save her. Will she live?"
Ermine's eager interest had not departed because of the advent of so many people. He still continued to kneel and to gaze in rapture at the creature of his hopes and fears. No one saw anything in it but the natural interest of one who had been left with so much responsibility.
"If you men will retire, we will endeavor to find her injuries," spoke one of the older ladies; so the men withdrew.
Every one asked eager questions of the scout, who walked hat in hand, and had never before shown perturbation under the trying situations in which he and the soldiers had been placed.
"I knew that wolf would get away in the timber, and I wasn't going to ride my pony for the fun of seeing it, so I was behind. Miss Searles's horse was slow, and I noticed she was being left; then she went down and I didn't know what to do,"—which latter statement was true.
He had done as well under the circumstances as any man could, they all admitted. A magpie on an adjoining limb jeered at the soldiers, though he made no mention of anything further than the scout had admitted.
In due course the ambulance came bounding behind the straining mules. Mrs. Searles was on the seat with the driver, hatless, and white with fear. The young woman was placed in and taken slowly to quarters. Being the only witness, Ermine repeated his story until he grew tired of speech and wanted only silence which would enable him to think. The greatest event of his life had happened to him that morning; it had come in a curious way; it had lasted but a few moments, but it had added new fuel to his burning mind, which bade fair to consume it altogether.
Miss Searles's injuries consisted of a few bruises and a general shock from which she would soon recover, said the doctor, and the cantonment slowly regathered its composure, all except Shockley, who sat, head down, in most disordered thought, slowly punctuating events as they came to him, by beating on the floor with his scabbard.
"And she gave him her glove and she never gave me any glove—and she never gave Butler her glove that I know of; and he gave her a wolf and he was with her when this thing happened. Say, Shockley, me boy, you are too slow, you are rusty; if you saw an ancient widow woman chopping wood, you would think she was in love with the wood-pile." And thus did that worthy arrive at wrong conclusions. He would not give himself the credit of being only a man, whom God in the wisdom of His creation did not intend to understand women and thus deaden a world.
The camp was in ignorance of the points of contact between Katherine Searles and the scout; it felt none of the concern which distressed Shockley.
Miss Searles had known Butler back in the States; they were much together here on the Yellowstone, and it was pretty generally admitted that in so far as she was concerned Lieutenant Butler had the biggest pair of antlers in the garrison. That young officer was a fine soldier—one of the best products of West Point, and was well connected back East, which was no small thing in an affair of this nature. Also his fellows easily calculated that he must have more than his pay. Shockley, however, continued to study the strategy of the scout Ermine, and he saw much to fear.
CHAPTER XVII
A PROPOSAL
"OH! I say, Captain Lewis, I am all ready to start. I have Ramon, a cook, and Wolf-Voice, together with pack-animals, but I can't get your man Ermine to say when he will go."
"That's odd, Harding; I don't know of anything to detain him. But go slow; he's like all these wild men up here; when they will they will, and when they won't, they'll lay down on you. I'll go round and scout him up. What is the matter so far as you can determine?"
"I can't determine. He says he will go, but will not name any exact time; tells me to push on and that he will catch up. That is a curious proposition. He is willing to take my money—"
"Oh! whoa up, Mr. Harding! That fellow doesn't care anything about your money—make no mistake about that. Money means no more to him than to a blue jay. He wanted to go back to his own country and was willing, incidentally, to take you. I'll see; you wait here awhile;" saying which, Captain Lewis went in search of his man, whom he found whittling a stick pensively.
"Hello, my boy, you don't seem to be very busy. Suppose your heart is out in the hills chasing the elk and bear."
"No, Captain; I don't care much about the hills."
"Or the Crow squaws?"
"D—— the Crow squaws!" And Ermine emphasized this by cutting his stick through the middle.
"Want to stay here?"
"Yes, I am getting so I like this camp; like the soldiers—like the wagons—kind of like the whole outfit."
"Like to chase wolves?" interrupted the officer.
Ermine slowly turned up his head and settled his fathomless blue eyes on Lewis, but he said nothing.
"Well, Mr. Harding is all set. You said you would go with him; a soldier must keep his word."
"I will go with him."
"When?"
Again Ermine shaved some delicate slivers off the stick; suddenly he threw it away, shut up his knife, and arose. "If Mr. Harding will pull out now, Wolf-Voice will show him the way. I shall know where the Indian takes him, and in four days I will walk into his camp. The pack-ponies travel slowly, I do not care to punch pack-horses; that will do for Ramon and the cook."
"Does that go?"
"I have said it. Did I ever lie, Captain Lewis?"
"All right. Mr. Harding will go now. I will attend to that." With this Lewis left him, and in two hours the little cavalcade trotted westward, out into the hot, sunlit plains, carrying faith in Ermine's word. The scout, leaning on a log stable, saw them go.
Three days took their slow departure, and on the morrow Ermine would have to make good his word to follow the Englishmen. He would have liked to stay even if his body suffered slow fire, but excuses would not avail for his honor. A soldier's honor was something made much of in these parts; it pegged higher than the affairs of the flesh.
He had not been able to see Miss Searles, and he wondered what she would feel, or think, or say. He was a thief when he remembered the stolen kisses, and he dared not go to the Searleses' home to inquire after her. All this diffidence the public put down to apathy; he had done his duty, so why further concern himself?
After supper he strolled along the officers' row, desperately forlorn, but hoping and yearning, barely nodding his head to passers-by.
Major Searles approached him with the nervous stride habitual to a soldier, and held out his hand, saying bluffly: "Of course, I can't thank you enough for your attention to my daughter, Ermine. But for your fortunate presence there at the time of the accident, things might have been bad; how bad I fear to contemplate. Come to my quarters, my boy, and allow my daughter to thank you. She is quite recovered. She is sitting out-of-doors. She hasn't been abroad much. Such a fall would have killed an older woman."
Together they made their way to the house, and Ermine passed under the ramada with his hat off. Mrs. Searles shook his hand and said many motherly things due on such occasions.
"Please forgive me if I do not rise; it is the doctor's orders, you know." And Miss Searles extended her hand, which the scout reverently took. To have seen him one would have fancied that, after all, manners must have been made before men; which idea is, of course, absurd.
In response to their inquiries, he retold the story of the accident and of his ministrations and perplexities. He did not embellish, but left out very important details, wondering the while if they were dead to all but his memory.
"She should not ride so poor a horse," ventured Ermine.
"She should not have been left unattended." And this severity was directed at Major Searles by his wife, to which he feebly pleaded vain extenuations, without hope of their acceptance.
"No, no, my dear; you were always a careless person; one is never safe to place dependence on you in minor matters. I declare, all men are alike —leastwise soldiers are. A blanket and a haversack, and the world may wag at will, so far as they concern themselves." Rising, she adjusted her hat, saying: "I must run down to Mrs. Taylor's for a minute. Her baby is very ill, and she has sent for me. You will stay here, Major," and she swept out.
"When do you depart for your hunting with Mr. Harding, Ermine?" asked Searles.
"I must go soon. He left camp three days ago, and I have promised to follow."
"I should think you would be delighted to hunt. I know I should if I were a man," cheerfully remarked the young woman.
"I have always hunted, Miss Searles. I think I should like to do something else."
"What, pray?"
"Oh, I don't know, something with a white shirt in it."
"Isn't that foolish? There is no more fun in a white shirt than there is in a buckskin one, and there is no fun in either when it rains, I am told."
A passing officer appealed to the Major to come out; he was needed, together with other requests to follow, with reasons why haste was important.
"All right, I will be back in a moment, daughter." And the officer took himself off in complete disobedience of his wife's orders.
"Don't be gone long, father; there is no one here but Mary and the striker. You know I cannot depend on them."
"You keep the wolves off, Ermine; I won't be gone a minute." And Ermine found himself alone again with Katherine.
This time she was not pale unto death, but warm and tingling. Her lover's hands and feet took better care of themselves on a horse than in a chair, but the gloom under the porch at least stayed some of the embarrassment which her eyes occasioned him. Indeed, it is well known that lovers prefer night attacks, and despite the law and the prophets, they manage better without an audience.
She gained a particularly entrancing attitude in her chair by a pussy-cat wiggle which let the point of her very small foot out of concealing draperies. One hand hung limply toward Ermine over the arm of the chair, and it seemed to scream out to him to take hold of it.
"And when do you go, Mr. Ermine?"
This seemed safe, and along the lines of his self-interest.
"I go to-morrow; I have given my word."
"Very naturally there can be nothing to delay you here," she continued; "the fighting is over, I hear."
"There is something in the world beside fighting."
"Yes?" she evaded.
"Yes, you detain me."
"I!" and the little foot went back to its nest; the extended hand rose in protest. "I detain you! My dear Mr. Ermine, I do not understand how I detain you; really, I am quite recovered from my fall."
"You may have got well, Miss Searles, but I am not. Do you remember?"
"Remember—remember—do I remember? What should I remember? I am told you were very good to me, but I was laboring under such a shock at the time that you cannot expect much of my memory."
"I was but little better off."
"And were you injured also?"
"Yes, so bad that I shall never get well unless you come to my rescue."
"I come to your rescue! What can I do?" Her sword waved in tierce and seconde.
"Be my wife; come, girl, be my wife."
He had beaten down her guard; the whole mass was in the fire. The dam had broken; he led his forlorn hope into the breach. "Come, Katherine, say you will marry me; say it and save me."
"Oh," she almost screamed, "I can't do that; why, my mother would never consent to it," she appealed in bewilderment.
He had risen and taken a step forward. "What has your mother to say? Say you will be my wife, Katherine."
"Careful, careful, Mr. Ermine; restrain yourself, or I shall call a servant. No, no, I cannot marry you. Why, what should we do if I did? We should have to live in the mule corral."
"No, come to the mountains with me. I will make you a good camp."
She almost laughed aloud at this. "But I should make a poor squaw. I fear you would have many quarrels with your dinner. Besides, my father would not let me marry you. I like you, and you have been very good to me, but I had no idea we had gotten so far as this. Don't you think you Western men cover the ground a little too fast?"
Ermine drew back. "Why did you kiss me?"
"I didn't," she snapped. Her manner grew cold and strange to him. He had never seen this mood before. It chilled him not a little, and he sat down again in the chair. His assault had been repulsed. They were now looking straight into each other's eyes. Fear had departed from Ermine's and all graciousness from hers. Divested of their seductive flashes, he saw the eyes of his photograph, and slowly reaching into the bosom of his shirt, drew out the buckskin bag and undid it. Turning to the straining light, he gazed a moment, and then said, "It is you!"
"I!—what is I?"
"Yes! it is you!" and he handed the much-soiled photograph labelled "Bogardus" to her.
She regarded it. "Why, how on earth did you come by this, Mr. John Ermine?"
"Sak-a-war-te sent it to me in the night, and he made it talk to me and he made me swear that I would seek the woman until I found her. Then she would be my wife. I have found you—I do not know—my head is burning—"
She scanned the photograph, and said in an undertone: "Taken last year in New York, and for him; yet you have it away out here in the middle of this enormous desert. He surely would not give it away to you. I do not understand." And she questioned him sharply as she returned the card.
"Who is this Sak-a-war-te?"
"He is God," said the scout.
"Oh!" she started up. The little miss had never heard God connected with affairs of this sort. An active fear of the fire which burned this extraordinary man's head began to oppress her.
"It is very strange. What has your god got to do with me,—with my—oh, you are joking, Mr. Ermine," she again appealed, a shadow of her old smile appearing.
"No, no; I am not joking. I have found you. I must believe what the spirits say to me when they take my mind from me and give it to you," returned the excited man.
"But really—I did not mean to take your mind. I haven't it anywhere about me. You have dreamed all this."
"Yes; it may be only a dream, Miss Searles, but make it come true; please make it all come true. I should like to live such a dream."
"Oh, my good man, I cannot make the dreams of casual people come true, not such serious dreams as yours."
"You say you would have to live in the corral with mules. Is that because I have so little money?"
"No, it is not money. I do not know how much you have."
"I have often taken enough gold out of the ground in a few days to last me a year."
"Yes, yes, but that is not the only thing necessary."
"What is necessary, then? Tell me what you want."
"There would have to be a great deal of love, you know. That is why any one marries. I have been flattered by the attentions of many cavaliers like yourself, Mr. Ermine, but I could not marry any one of them unless I loved him."
"And then you do not love me," this in a low, far-away voice, lopping each word off as though with an axe.
"No, I do not. I have given you no reason to think I did. I like you, and I am sorry for you, now that I know in what way you regard me. Sit down again and let me tell you." She crouched herself on the edge of her chair, and he sat in his, revolving his big hat in both hands between his knees. He was composed, and she vaguely felt that she owed him a return for his generous acts of the past. She had the light touch of mature civilization and did not desire her darts to be deadly. Now that one had laid this simple nature low, she felt a womanly impulse to nurse the wound.
"Some terrible mistake has been made. Believe me, I am truly sorry that our relationship has not been rightly understood." Here she paused a moment to take a long breath and observe the effect of her words on the one who had so easily lost his head. "No, I simply admired you, Mr. Ermine, as I do many of the brave men about here. I was not thinking of marrying any one. As for living in the mule corral, I was only joking about that. There might be worse places. I should dearly love a gold mine, but don't you understand there would have to be something else—I should have to give you something before we thought of marrying."
"I see it; it all comes to me now," he labored. "You would have to give me something, and you won't give me yourself. Then give me back my mind—give me the peace which I always had until I saw you. Can you do that, Miss Searles? Can you make John Ermine what he was before the steamboat came here, and let him mount his pony and go away?"
It was all so strange, this quiet appeal, that she passed her hand across her forehead in despair.
"If you will not make my dreams come true; if you will not say the things which the photograph does; if you will not do what God intends,—then I must take my body away from here and leave my shadow, my mind, and my heart to be kicked about among the wagons and the dogs. And I know now that you will soon forget me. Then I will be John Ermine, riding among the hills, empty as an old buffalo carcass, moving without life, giving no thought to the sunshine, not feeling the wind nor caring how the birds fly or the animals run. If you will not marry me—"
"Stop, please stop. I cannot stand this sort of thing, my dear Mr. Ermine. There are other young women besides myself. Go about the world, back in the States; you will find whole oceans of them, and without flattery, I feel you will soon find your mind again."
"You have my mind. You have all the mind I ever had." And his voice dropped until she could distinguish only wild gutturals. He was talking to himself in the Indian language.
Springing up quickly, she flew into the house, out through it to the rear steps, where she fell upon the neck of Mary, the cook, to the utter consternation of a soldier, who, to all appearances, was there with a similar ambition so to do. This latter worthy flung himself out into the darkness. The cook held Katherine, expecting the entire Sioux tribe to come pouring through the front door on the instant, and at this belated interval Mrs. Searles entered her own porch.
"Why, Mr. Ermine, where is Katherine, and where is the Major? Why, you are all alone!" And she came up standing.
"Yes, I am all alone," said the scout, quietly, rising from the chair and putting on his sombrero. Before she could comprehend, he was gone.
CHAPTER XVIII
MAN TO MAN
THE Major sauntered in shortly and found Mrs. Searles standing over Katherine's chair, trying to dry her tears and gather the reasons for her grief. Mary's Indians not having appeared, she stood in the doorway, with her apron raised to a sort of feminine "charge bayonets."
"What in the devil is the circus?" demanded the father.
"It's nothing, father; I am nervous, that is all."
"Now, Major Searles, I want you to sit down and keep quiet. You will drive me frantic. Why did you run away when I clearly told you to stay here?" Her tones were dry with formality.
Against all manner of people and happenings the Major joyfully pitted his force and cunning. His only thought in a great crisis was his six-shooter; but he always hesitated before anything which concerned Mrs. Searles and a military order. These impelled obedience from the very nature of things. "But what has happened? What must I do?"
"You must sit down," said his wife; and he sat down. Affairs of this kind could be cleared only by women; he was conscious that he could not hurry matters.
"Now what has happened, Katherine? Will you tell me? Who did it?" pleaded the mother.
"Why, it is nothing, only that horrible scout wanted to marry me. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?" said the girl, sitting up and made defiant by the idea.
"Did he do anything?" and the Major again forgot his orders and rose truculently.
"Benjamin!" said Mrs. Searles, with asperity; and he again subsided. Like most soldiers and sailors, he was imperfectly domesticated.
"He wanted to marry you?" she continued with questioning insistence.
"Yes, he said I must marry him; that God wanted me to, and he also said he had lost his mind—"
"Well, I think he has," observed the mother, catching this idea, which was at least tangible to her. "Is that all, Katherine?"
"Is that all, mother? Why, isn't that enough?"
"I mean, he simply asked you to marry him—properly—he wasn't insulting—insistent beyond—"
"No, he did nothing else, though he went about it in a most alarming way."
"You said, No!"
"I most emphatically did, mother."
"What then?"
"Then he began mumbling Indian and scared me nearly to death. I ran to Mary."
"Dade an' she did, mum; an' I'm afther loosin' my sinses thinkin' thim rid-divils what do be ploughin' the land down be the river was devastating the cantonmint for to pass the time. An' ets only some bye afther wantin' to marry her—the swate thing."
Mrs. Searles interposed, "Mary!" and the domestic retired to the sable silences of the rear steps, to split a joke with one Private O'Shane, should he venture to return.
"The social savagery of this place is depressing. To think of my daughter living in a log-cabin, cooking bear meat for a long-haired wild man. In the future, Benjamin Searles, I trust you will not feel called upon to introduce your fantastic acquaintances to this house. You can sit on the corral fence to entertain them. That is where they belong. I suppose next, an out-and-out Indian will want to be my son-in-law."
"I certainly will see that the man does not again obtrude himself. I do not understand his nerve in this matter. Lewis thinks the boy's ridgepole is crooked; but he is harmless and has done many good and gallant deeds. As for his proposing, I simply think he doesn't know any better. For my part, I think it is about time that the engagement to Mr. Butler is announced; it will put an end to this foolishness all round," added the father. "I am going out to see Lewis about this fellow now."
"Ben Searles, I hope you are not going to do anything rash," pleaded the mother.
"Of course not, my dear; the situation doesn't call for any temperature beyond blood-heat. I only want to put a cooling lotion on the base of that scout's brain. He must stop this dreaming habit."
Having found Lewis at his quarters and seated himself, the Major began, "Now, Captain, what do you think of this Ermine of yours—is he crazy?"
"Is he crazy? Why, what has he done now?"
"Well, by Gad, he came to my house this evening, and when I stepped out for a minute he proposed marriage to my daughter—wanted her to marry him! Now, how's that strike you? Is it just gall, or does he need a physician?"
"Well, I will be d——d; proposed marriage, hey! Looks like he ought to have an opiate," concluded Lewis. "You know, now that I think of it, I have a little mistrusted him before. He has shown signs of liking your daughter, but I never regarded the matter seriously—didn't ever credit him with being an entire fool. The boy's queer, Searles—mighty queer, but he never did anything wrong; in fact, he is a pretty good boy—a heap different from most of these double-belted, sage-bush terrors. Then, of course, he was born and raised in the wilderness, and there is a whole lot of things he don't savvy. Probably he has lost his head over your daughter and he can't see why he hasn't a chance. I will send for him, and we will make a big talk, and I'll send him away to Harding." Turning, the Captain yelled, "Orderly! Jones! Oh, Jones!"
"Yes, sir," responded Jones, as he appeared in the doorway.
"Go find the scout Ermine, if you can, and tell him to report to me immediately. If you don't find him in half an hour, let it go until to-morrow—understand?
"As I was saying, you see, Major, if this thing wasn't vinegar, it would be sugar. When I think of him proposing—say, I have to laugh. There is one thing about him which kept me guessing: it is the Indian reserve of the fellow. He goes round here like a blue-moon, and if you should hit him over the head with an axe, I don't think he would bat an eye. He never complains, he never questions, and when you are right up against it, as we were a half-dozen times last winter, he is Johnny-on-the-spot. So you see, if he fell in love, no one would hear the splash. Now that he is in love, we want to tighten the curb chain; he might—well, he might take it into his head to do something, and that something might be just what we would never think of."
Thus the two speculated until the sandpaper grating of Ermine's moccasins on the porch warned them, and looking up they beheld the scout, standing with his rifle in the hollow of his left arm. This was unusual and produced several seconds of very bad silence. Captain Lewis held up his hand in mockery of the "peace sign," and said: "I see you're fixed for war, Ermine. Sit down over there. I want to talk to you."
The scout removed his hat and sat down, but with the ominous rifle in place. He had been told by the orderly whom he was to encounter; and it had come over him that wanting to marry Katherine Searles might be some crime against the white man's law. He had seen very natural actions of men punished under those laws during his sojourn in camp.
"Ermine, I understand that during the temporary absence of her father this evening, you asked Miss Searles to marry you."
"I did, sir."
"Very well. Don't you think you took an unfair advantage of her father's absence?"
"I don't know, sir. A man doesn't speak to a woman before other men," replied Ermine, dubiously.
The Captain emitted a slight cough, for the blow had staggered him a little. He knew the law of convention, and he knew the customs of men; but they did not separate readily in his mind.
"In any event, Ermine, the young lady had given you no encouragement which would warrant you in going to the length of proposing marriage to her."
This was an assertion which Ermine did not care to discuss. His views would not coincide, and so he fumbled his hat and made no reply.
"I may state that you are not warranted in aspiring to the hand of Miss Searles for many reasons; further, that she distinctly doesn't want attention of any kind from you. To this I will add, her father and mother forbid you all association in the future—do you understand?"
This, also, failed to break the scout's silence.
"And," interpolated the father, "I may add that my daughter is already engaged to be married to Lieutenant Butler, which will end the matter."
If the evening's occurrences had set the nerves of the Searles family on edge, it had torn the scout's into shreds; but he managed his stoicism.
"Now, my boy," continued Captain Lewis, with a sense of benevolence, "we do not mean to be hard on you. We all, including Miss Searles, feel a great pity for you in this matter."
"Pity—pity—what is pity?" saying which the boy's eyes took on an unnatural glow and he rose to his feet. Lewis quickly added, "I mean that we feel for you."
"I know what you feel for me, Captain Lewis, and Major Searles," and it was evident that Ermine was aroused. "You feel that I am an uneducated man, without money, and that I do not wear a white shirt; that I tuck my pants in my leggings and that I sleep among the Indians. I know you think I am a dog. I know Miss Searles thinks I belong in the corral with the mules; but, by G——, you did not think I was a dog when the Sioux had your wagon-train surrounded and your soldiers buffaloed; you did not think I was a dog when I stood beside the Colonel, and neither did Sitting Bull. You did not think I was a dog when I kept you all from freezing to death last winter; but here among the huts and the women I am a dog. I tell you now that I do not understand such men as you are. You have two hearts: one is red and the other is blue; and you feel with the one that best suits you at the time. Your blue heart pities me. Me, a warrior and a soldier! Do you give pity with your coffee and sow-belly? Is that what you feed a soldier on? Hum-m—G——!" And the scout slapped his hat on his head.
"Steady, steady, my boy; don't you go up in the air on us," said Lewis, persuasively. "I did not mean to offend you, and we want to be friends; but you keep your feet on the ground and don't go raring and pitching, or we may forget you."
"Yes; that is it,—forget me; you may forget me. What's more, you can do it now. I am going far away, so that your eyes will not remind you."
"You are going to make your word good to Mr. Harding, are you not?" asked the chief of scouts.
"What good is a dog's word?" came the bitter reply.
The Major said little, but remained steadily studying the face of the scout; rising, he approached him with extended hand. "If you are going away, let us part friends, at least. Here is my hand, and I shall not forget you; I shall not forget your services to me or mine, and I do not think you are a dog. When you calm down you may find that you have been unjust to Captain Lewis and myself."
The scout took the Major's hand mechanically, and also that of Lewis, which the latter offered in turn, saying:—
"In the morning I will see that you get your pay, and if you conclude to return, I will find you employment."
"Thank you, sir; I care nothing for the pay. I did not come here for money; I came here to help you fight the Sioux, and to be a man among white men." And once more the young man relapsed into the quiet of his ordinary discourse.
"You certainly have shown yourself a man among men; no one has ever questioned that," said the Major.
"Then why is it wrong for a man among men to want your daughter to be his wife?"
"It is not wrong, but you have gone about the matter wrong. I have tried to make it plain that her hand is promised to Mr. Butler."
As this was said, two horses trotted up to Captain Lewis's quarters. A man dismounted, gave his horse to the other, and Butler himself strode heavily into the room. He was quite gray with dust, with a soiled handkerchief about his neck, unshaven, booted, and armed.
"Hello, Major! Hello, Lewis! I'm just in with my troop, and if you will pardon me, I will have a word with Mr. Ermine here." His manner was strained, and knowing the situation as they all did, the two older officers were alarmed.
"Hold up there, Butler; never mind your word to-night; wait until morning."
Butler paid no attention, but addressed the scout with icy directness. "May I ask, Mr. Ermine, if you have in your possession a photograph of Miss Searles?"
"I have."
"Have you it about your person at present?"
"I have, sir."
"Then, Mr. Ermine, I have the word of Miss Searles for it, that the photograph in question was one she had taken, of which there is only one copy in the world; and which was given to me, and lost by myself, somewhere on the road between here and Fort Ellis. It must be my property. If you will let me see it, I can soon identify it. In which case I demand that you hand it over to me."
"Mr. Butler, you will only get that photograph from off my dead body. You have Miss Searles; is not that enough?"
"I will then take it by force from you!" A tremendous bang roared around the room, and the little group was lost in smoke.
Butler turned half round, his six-shooter going against the far wall with a crash. He continued to revolve until caught in the Major's arms. Lewis sprang to his desk, where his pistol lay, and as he turned, the smoke lifted, revealing Butler lying against the Major's chest, wildly waving his left arm and muttering savagely between short breaths. Ermine was gone.
"Fire on that man!" yelled Lewis to the orderly outside, taking one shot himself at the fleeing figure of the scout.
The soldier jerked his carbine and thrashed about the breech-block with a cartridge. "I can't see him, Captain!" he shouted.
"Fire at him, anyway! Fire, I tell you!" And the man discharged his rifle in the direction in which Ermine's figure had disappeared.
Simultaneously with the shots, the garrison bugles were drawling "Taps," but they left off with an expiring pop. The lights did not go out in quarters, and the guard turned out with much noise of shoe leather and rattle of guns. This body soon arrived, and Lewis spoke from the porch of his quarters.
"The scout, Ermine, has just shot Lieutenant Butler in the arm! He ran that way! Chase him! Go quickly, or he will get away. Shoot instantly if he resists; and he will, I think."
The guard shuffled off in the darkness and beat up the camp to no purpose. The soldiers stood about, speculating in low voices and gradually quieting as the word passed about on the uneasy wings of gossip that Ermine had shot Butler in the arm, wounding him badly, and that the scout had gone into the earth or up in the air, for divil the hide nor hair of him could the guard find.
When the orderly had come for Ermine and told him who wanted to see him, the scout scented trouble ahead. According to the immemorial practices of the desert at such times, he had saddled his pony, tying him in the darkest and most unlikely place he could find, which was between two six-mule wagons outside the corral. He armed himself and obeyed the summons, but he intended never to let a hand be placed on his shoulder; and he chose death rather than the military court which sat so gravely around the long table at headquarters. He fully expected to depart for the mountains on the morrow, but his hand was forced. The quick episode of Butler, ending in the shot and his flight, had precipitated matters. Shortly he found himself seated on his horse between the wagons, while the denizens of the cantonments swarmed around. A group searched the corral with lanterns, and he heard one soldier tell another what had happened, with the additional information that Butler was not seriously injured. Armed men passed close to him, and he knew that discovery meant probable death, because he would not hold up his hands. Despite the deadly danger which encompassed him, he found time for disappointment in the news that Butler was only wounded. Even now he would go to his enemy and make more sure, but that enemy was in the hospital surrounded by many friends. She, too, was probably there, weeping and hating the responsible one,—a fugitive criminal driven into the night. The silken robes of self-respect had been torn from Ermine, and he stood naked, without the law, unloved by women, and with the hand of all men turned against him. The brotherhood of the white kind, which had promised him so much, had ended by stealing the heart and mind of the poor mountain boy, and now it wanted his body to work its cold will on; but it could have that only dead. This he knew as he loosed five cartridges, putting them between his teeth and clutching his loaded rifle. Would the search never cease? The lanterns glided hither and yon; every garrison cur ran yelping; the dull shuffling of feet was coming directly to the wagons which stood apart from other objects, and a dog ran under the wagon. With their eyes on the ground, an officer and two men towered above the light of a lantern. They were coming directly to the wagons. He kicked the pony and galloped softly out. Instantly the men began calling, "Halt! halt! G—— d—— you, halt!" but the ghostly pony only answered feebly the lantern light. "Bang! bang! bang!" came the shots, which "zee-weeped" about his ears. He doubled quickly in the dark and trotted to the edge of the camp, which buzzed loudly behind him. He knew he must pass the sentries, but he took the chance. His apprehensions were quickly answered. "Halt!"—the man was very near, but it was very dark. "Bang!"—it missed, and he was away. He stopped shortly, dismounted, and ran his hand completely over the body of the pony; it was dry. "Good!" For a half-hour he walked over the herd-grounds, crossing, circling, and stopping; then back as near to the post as he dared. At last he turned and rode away. He was thoroughly familiar with the vicinity of the camp, and had no trouble so long as the post lights guided him.
The mountain boy had brought little to the soldier camp but the qualities of mind which distinguished his remote ancestors of the north of Europe, who came out of the dark forests clad in skins, and bearing the first and final law of man, a naked sword on a knotted arm. An interval of many centuries intervened between him and his fellows; all the race had evolved, all the laws which they had made for the government of society, all the subtle customs which experience had decreed should circumscribe associates, were to him but the hermit's gossip in idle hours at the cabin. The bar sinister was on his shield; his credentials were the advice of an unreal person to fight in common with the whites. He came clad in skins on a naked horse, and could barely understand English when it was in the last adulteration; and still he had made his way without stumbling until the fatal evening. Now he was fleeing for life because he had done two of the most natural things which a man can do.
"Good-by, good-by, white men, and good-by, white woman; the frost is in your hearts, and your blood runs like the melting snow from the hills. When you smile, you only skin your fangs; and when you laugh, your eyes do not laugh with you. You say good words which mean nothing. You stroke a man's back as a boy does a dog's, and kick him later as a boy does. You, woman, you who pick men's hearts and eat them as a squaw does wild plums, I want no more of you. You, Butler, I wish were out here in the dark with me; one of us would never see the sun rise. You would force me!" and the scout vented himself in a hollow laugh which was chill with murder.
The lights were lost behind the rise of the land, and the pony trotted along. No horse or man not raised on the buffalo range could travel in that darkness; but both of them made steady progress.
"Those Indians will have to crawl on their knees a whole day to pick up my pony tracks on the herd ground. The Crows will never try to follow me; the Shoshone may when the white men offer a reward. That fool of a boy may see his chance to even up the insult which I gave before the woman. He can shake her hand now for all I would do. I will ride for two hours before the sun comes, and then let the pony feed."
Patting his horse's neck, he added: "And then, my boy, we will blind our trail in some creek. I will rub the medicine on your heels, you shall gallop until dark, and no horse in that camp will get near enough to spoil my sleep."
Keeping along the river flats, floundering occasionally and dismounting to lead through the dry washes, he kept steadily on, impelled by the fear that the Indian scouts and cavalry might not stop for his trail, but deploy out at daybreak, and ride fast to the west, in the hopes that he had not yet made a long start in the darkness. There was only the danger that his horse might lame himself in the night; but then he could go back in the hills and make a skulk on foot. Even to be brought to bay had no great terror; Ermine held his life lightly in the hollow of his hand.
He mused as he rode: "They took my hair out of the braids and let it flow in the wind; then they said I was a white man. I may be one; but I wish now I had forgotten my color and I would not be so empty-handed this night. If I had followed my Indian heart, I could have stolen that girl out from under the noses of those soldiers, and I may do it yet. When she was riding, I could have taken her away from the hunting-party, rawhided her on to her horse, and left no more sign than a bird behind us; but when she looked at me, my blood turned to water. O Sak-a-war-te, why did you not take the snake's gaze out of her eyes, and not let poor Ermine sit like a gopher to be swallowed? God, God, have you deserted me?"
CHAPTER XIX
FLIGHT
ERMINE understood the "talking wire,"—the telegraph had been made plain to him,—and he knew the soldiers were stretching one into the west. He sheered away from the white man's medicine, going up a creek where only the silent waters swirling about his horse's legs could know the story of his ride, which secret they would carry to the eternal sea.
The gallant pony's blood was rich from the grain-sacks; he had carried a rider in the strain of many war-trails, and his heart had not yet failed. In the prime of life, he was now asked to do the long, quick distance that should lose the white man; those mighty people who bought the help of mercenary men; whose inexhaustible food came in the everlasting wagons; and who spoke to each other twenty sleeps apart. His rider had violated their laws, and they would have him. Only the pony could save.
Having walked the bed of the creek as far as he deemed necessary, Ermine backed his pony out of the stream into some low bushes, where he turned him about and rode away. All day over the yellow plains and through the defiles of the hills loped the fugitive. Once having seen buffalo coming in his direction, he travelled for miles along a buffalo path which he judged they would follow. If by fortune they did, he knew it would make the scouts who came after rub their eyes and smoke many pipes in embarrassment. Not entirely satisfied with his precautions,—for he thought the Indians would cast ahead when checked,—he continued to urge the pony steadily forward. The long miles which lay before his pursuers would make their hearts weak and their ponies' forelegs wobble.
He reflected that since he was indeed going to join Mr. Harding's party at the secret place in Gap-full-of-arrow-holes,[15] why would not Lewis's scouts follow the easy trail made by their ponies and trust to finding him with them; and again, would the Englishman want his company under his altered status? This he answered by saying that no horse in the cantonment could eat up the ground with his war-pony; and as for the Englishman, he could not know of the late tragedy unless the accused chose to tell him. What of his word? Why was he keeping it? With a quick bullet from his rifle had gone his honor, along with other things more material. Still, the Gap lay in his way, so he could stop without inconvenience, at least long enough for a cup of coffee and some tobacco. The suddenness of his departure had left him no time to gather the most simple necessities, and he was living by his gun. Only once did he see Indians far away in the shimmer of the plains. He had dropped into the dry washes and sneaked away. They might be Crows, but the arrows of doubt made sad surgery in his poor brain; the spell of the white man's vengeance was over him. Their arms were long, their purses heavy; they could turn the world against him. From their strong log-towns they would conjure his undoing by the devious methods which his experience with them had taught him to dread. The strain of his thoughts made his head ache as he cast up the events which had forced him to this wolfing through the lonely desert. He had wanted to marry a pretty girl whose eyes had challenged him to come on, and when he had ventured them, like a mountain storm the whole cantonment rattled about his head and shot its bolts to kill. As the girl had fled his presence at the mere extension of his hand, in swift response to her emotions the whole combination of white humanity was hard on the heels of his flying pony.
From the summit of the red cliffs Ermine looked down into the secret valley of his quest, and sitting there beside a huge boulder he studied the rendezvous. There were Ramon's pack-ponies—he remembered them all. There curled the smoke from the tangle of brushwood in the bottom, and finally Wolf-Voice and Ramon came out to gather in the horses for the night. He rode down toward them. Their quick ears caught the sound of the rattle of the stones loosened by his mount, and they stopped. He waved his hat, and they recognized him. He came up and dismounted from his drooping horse, stiff-hided with lather and dust, hollow-flanked, and with his belly drawn up as tight as the head of a tom-tom.
"Are you alone in the camp? Has no one been here?"
"No; what for waas any one been here?" asked and answered the half-breed. "De King George Man,[16] she waas set by dose fire an' waas ask me 'bout once a minit when waas Ermine come."
The men drove the horses in while Ermine made his way through the brush to the camp-fire.
"A-ha! Glad to see you, Mr. Ermine. Gad! but you must have put your horse through. He is barely holding together in the middle. Picket him out, and we will soon have some coffee going."
Ermine did as directed and was soon squatting before the fire with his cup and plate. To the hail of questions he made brief response, which Harding attributed to fatigue and the inclination of these half-wild men not to mix discourse with the more serious matter of eating.
"How did you leave every one at the camp?"
Ermine borrowed a pipe and interspersed his answers with puffs.
"Left them in the night—and they were all sitting up to see me off. My pony is weak, Mr. Harding. Will you give me a fresh one in the morning? We ought to start before daylight and make a long day of it."
"My dear man, before daylight? Are we in such haste? It seems that we have time enough before us."
"This is a bad country here. Indians of all tribes are coming and going. We are better off back in the range. In two or three sleeps we will be where we can lie on the robe, but not here;" saying which, Ermine rolled up in his saddle blanket, and perforce the others did likewise, in view of the short hours in store.
The last rasping, straining pack-rope had been laid while yet the ghostly light played softly with the obscurity of the morning. The ponies were forced forward, crashing through the bushes, floundering in the creek, cheered on by hoarse oaths, all strange to the ear of Harding. The sedate progression of other days was changed to a fox-trot—riding-whips and trail-ropes slapping about the close-hugged tails of the horses.
Harding congratulated himself on the unexpected energy of his guide; it would produce results later when wanted in the hunting. The ponies strung out ahead to escape the persecution of the lash, but Wolf-Voice saw something new in it all, and as he rode, his fierce little eyes gleamed steadily on Ermine. The half-breed knew the value of time when he was pushing the horses of the enemy away from their lodges, but these horses had no other masters. He turned his pony alongside of Ermine's.
"Say, John, what for you waas keep look behin'? Who you 'fraid follar dese pony? Ain't dose Canada-man pay for dese pony—sacre, what you was do back de camp dare? De Sioux, she broke hout?" And the half-breed's mischievous eye settled well on his confrère.
"Well, I did that back there which will make the high hills safer for me than any other place. Don't say anything to Mr. Harding until I feel safe. I want to think."
"You waas shoot some one, mabeso?"
"Yes—that —— —— Butler. He said he would force me to give up the paper we found in the moonlight on the soldier trail down the Yellowstone a year ago. He pulled his pistol, and I shot him."
"You kiell heem—hey?"
"No, caught him in the arm, but it will not kill him. I may go back and do that—when the soldiers forget a little."
"Den you waas run away—hey?"
"Yes; I made the grass smoke from Tongue River to here. I don't think they can follow me, but they may follow this party. That's why I look behind, Wolf-Voice, and that's why I want you to look behind."
"What for you waas come to de King George Man, anyhow?"
"I wanted coffee and tobacco and a fresh pony and more cartridges, and it will be many moons before John Ermine will dare look in a trader's store. If the white men come, I will soon leave you; and if I do, you must stay and guide Mr. Harding. He is a good man and does what is right by us."
"Ah!" hissed the half-breed, "old Broken-Shoe and White-Robe, she ain' let dose Engun follar you. You 'spose dey let dose Crow tak de ack-kisr-attah[17] to Crooked-Bear's boy? Humph, dey 'fraid of hees medecin'."
"Well, they will pile the blankets as high as a horse's back, and say to the Shoshone, 'Go get the yellow-hair, and these are your blankets.' What then?"
"Ugh! ugh!—a-nah," grunted the half-breed; "de —— —— Shoshone, we will leek de pony—come—come!"
The energy of the march, the whacking ropes, and scampering horses passed from satisfaction to downright distress in Mr. Harding's mind. He pleaded for more deliberation, but it went unheeded. The sun had gone behind the hard blue of the main range before they camped, and the good nature of the Englishman departed with it.
"Why is it necessary to break our cattle down by this tremendous scampering? It does not appeal to my sense of the situation."
"Wael, meester, wan more sun we waas en de hiell—den we have long smoke; all you waas do waas sit down smoke your pipe—get up—kiell dose grizzly bear—den sit down some more."