A VISIT IN THE NIGHT-TIME.
Yahka kelapie.
The snows had dropped a soft cloak over the Kootenai hills, and buried the valleys in great beds of crystallized down. Rachel's prophecy had proven a true one, for the clouds that day had been a visiting-card from winter.
That day was two weeks gone now; so was Stuart's leave-taking, and at the ranch life had dropped into the old lines, but with an impression of brightness lost. Miss Margaret had not yet got over the habit of turning quickly if anyone entered the room, and showing her disappointment in a frown when it was not the one looked for.
Aunty Luce declared she "nevah did see a chile so petted on one who wasn't no kin."
All of them discovered they had been somewhat "petted" on the genial nature. Again the evenings were passed with magazines or cards; during his stay they had revived the primitive custom of taking turns telling stories, and in that art Stuart had proven himself a master, sometimes recounting actual experiences of self or friends, again giving voice to some remembered gem of literature; but, whatever the theme, it was given life, through the sympathetic tendencies of the man who had so much the timber of an actor—or rather an artist—the spirit that tends to reproduce or create.
If Rachel missed him, she kept quiet about it, and ridiculed the rest if any regrets came to her ears. No one minded that much; Rachel ridiculed everyone—even herself. Sometimes she thought Fate seemed more than willing to help her. One night, two weeks after that ride from the "Place of the Tamahnous," she was struck with a new conviction of the fact.
Andrews had gone to Holland's for the mail and domestic miscellany. A little after sun-up he had started, and the darkness was three hours old, and yet no sign or sound. The rest had finally given up the idea of getting any letters that night, and had gone to bed. As usual, Rachel—the night-owl of the family—was left the last guard at the warm hearth. Upstairs she could hear Jim's voice in the "boys'" room, telling Ivans some exploit whose character was denoted by one speech that made its way through the ceiling of pine boards:
"Yes, sir; my horse left his'n half a length behind every time it hit the ground."
Ivans grunted. Evidently he had listened to recitals from the same source before, and was too tired for close attention; anyway, the remarks of this Truthful James drifted into a monologue, and finally into silence, and no sound of life was left in the house.
She had been reading a book Stuart had sent back to her by Hardy, the day he left. She wondered a little why, for he had never spoken of it to her. It was a novel, a late publication, and by an author whose name she had seen affixed to magazine work; and the charm in it was undeniable—the charm of quiet hearts and restful pictures, that proved the writer a lover of the tender, sympathetic tones of life, rather than the storms and battles of human emotions.
It held the girl with a puzzling, unusual interest—one that in spite of her would revert from the expressed thoughts on the paper to the personality of the man who had sent it to her, and she found in many instances, a mystifying likeness.
She sat there thinking drowsily over it, and filled with the conviction that it was really time to go to bed; but the big chair was so comfortable, and the little simmer of the burning wood was like a lullaby, and she felt herself succumbing, without the slightest rebellion, to the restful influence. She was aroused by the banging of a door somewhere, and decided that Andrews had at last returned; and remembering the number of things he had to bring in, concluded to go out and help him. Her impulse was founded as much on economy as generosity, for the late hour was pretty good proof that Andrews was comfortably drunk—also that breakages were likely to be in order.
It was cloudy—only the snow gave light; the air was not cold, but had in it the softness of rain. Over it she walked quickly, fully awakened by the thought of the coffee getting a bath of vinegar, or the mail mucilaged together with molasses.
"Oh, here you are at last!" she remarked, in that inane way people have when they care not whether you are here or in the other place. "You took your own time."
"Well, I didn't take any other fellow's!" returned the man from the dark corner where he was unsaddling the horse.
Andrews was usually very obsequious to Miss Rachel, and she concluded he must be pretty drunk.
"I came out to help you with the things," she remarked from her post in the door-way; "where are they?"
"I've got 'em myself," came the gruff tones again from the corner. "I reckon I'll manage without help. You'd better skip for the house—you'll catch cold likely."
"Why, it isn't cold—are you? I guess Aunty left a lunch for you. I'll go and warm the coffee."
She started, and then stopped.
"Say, did you get any letters for me?"
"No."
With a grumble about her ill-luck, she started back toward the house, the late arrival following a little ways behind with something over his shoulder. Once she looked back.
"I rather think Andrews gets on dignified drunks," she soliloquized; "he is walking pretty straight, anyway."
She set the coffee-pot on the coals and glanced at the bundle he had dropped just inside the door—it was nothing but a blanket and a saddle.
"Well, upon my word!" she began, and rose to her feet; but she did not say any more, for, in turning to vent her displeasure on Andrews, she was tongue-tied by the discovery that it was not he who had followed her from the stable.
"Genesee!" she breathed, in a tone a little above a whisper. "Alah mika chahko!"
She was too utterly astonished either to move toward him or offer her hand; but the welcome in her Indian words was surely plain enough for him to understand. It was just like him, however, not to credit it, and he smiled a grim understanding of his own, and walked over to a chair.
"Yes, that's who it is," he remarked. "I am sorry, for the sake of your hopes, that it isn't the other fellow; but—here I am."
He had thrown his hat beside him and leaned back in the big chair, shutting his eyes sleepily. She had never seen him look so tired.
"Tillikum, I am glad to see you again," she said, going to him and holding out her hand. He smiled, but did not open his eyes.
"It took you a long time to strike that trail," he observed. "What brought you out to the stable?"
"I thought you were Andrews, and that you were drunk and would break things."
"Oh!"
"And I am glad to see you, Jack."
He opened his eyes then. "Thank you, little girl. That is a good thing for a man to hear, and I believe you. Come here. It was a good thing for me to get that word from Kalitan, too. I reckon you know all that, though, or you wouldn't have sent it."
She did not answer, but stooped to lift the pot of coffee back from the blaze. The action recalled him to the immediate practical things, and he said:
"Think I can stay all night here?"
"I don't know of any reason to prevent it."
"Mowitza was used up, and I wanted a roof for her; but I didn't allow to come to the house myself."
"Where would you have slept?"
"In my blanket, on the hay."
"Just as if we would let you do that on our place!"
"No one would have known it if you had kept away from the stable, and in your bed, where you ought to be."
"Shall I go there at once, or pour your coffee first?"
"A cup of coffee would be a treat; I'm dead tired."
The coffee was drank, and the lunch for Andrews was appropriated for Genesee.
"Have you come back to the Kootenai country for good?" she asked, after furnishing him with whatever she could find in the pantry without awakening the rest.
"I don't know—it may be for bad," he replied doubtfully. "I've taken the trail north to sound any tribes that are hostile, and if troops are needed they are to follow me."
"Up into this country?"
"I reckon so. Are you afraid of fighting?"
She did not answer. A new idea, a sudden remembrance, had superseded that of Indian warfare.
"How long since you left Fort Owens?" she asked.
"Fifteen days. Why?"
"A friend of MacDougall's started in that direction about two weeks ago. Davy sent a kind message by him; but you must have passed it on the way."
"Likely; I've been in the Flathead country, and that's wide of the trail to Owens. Who was the man?"
"His name is Stuart."
He set the empty cup down, and looked in the fire for a moment with a steadiness that made the girl doubt if he had either heard or noticed; but after a little he spoke.
"What was that you said?"
"That the man's name was Stuart."
"Young or old?"
"Younger than you."
"And he has gone to Fort Owens?"
"Started for there, I said."
"Oh! then you haven't much faith in a tenderfoot getting through the hostiles or snow-banks?"
"How do you know he is a tenderfoot?"
He glanced up; she was looking at him with as much of a question in her eyes as her words.
"Well, I reckon I don't," he answered, picking up his hat as if to end the conversation. "I knew a man called Stuart once, but I don't know this one. Now, have you any pressing reason for loafing down here any longer? If not, I'll take my blanket and that lounge and get some sleep. I've been thirty-six hours in the saddle."
In vain she tried to prevail on him to go upstairs and go to bed "right."
"This is right enough for me," he answered, laying his hat and gloves on a table and unfastening his spurs. "No, I won't go up to the men's room. Good-night."
"But, Jack—look here—"
"I can't—too sleepy to look anywhere, or see if I did look;" and his revolvers and belt were laid beside the growing collection on the table.
"But Hen will scold me for not giving you better lodging."
"Then he and another man will have a shooting-match before breakfast to-morrow. Are you going?"
He was beginning to deliberately unfasten his neck-gear of scarlet and bronze. She hesitated, as if to make a final protest, but failed and fled; and as the door closed behind her, she heard another half-laughing "Klahowya!"
Early in the morning she was down-stairs, to find Aunty Luce half wild with terror at the presence of a stranger who had taken possession of the sitting-room during the night.
"Cain't see his face for the blanket, honey," she whispered shrilly, "but he's powerful big; an'—an' just peep through the door at the guns and things—it's wah times right ovah again, shueh as I'm tellen' yo', chile."
"Be quiet, Aunty, and get breakfast; it's a friend of ours."
"Hi-yi! I know all 'bout them kind o' friends, honey; same kind as comes South in wah times, a trampen' into houses o' quality folks an sleepen' whah they liked, an' callen' theyselves friends. He's a moven' now!—less call the folks!"
The attempted yell was silenced by Rachel clapping her hand over the full lips and holding her tightly.
"Don't be a fool!" she admonished the old woman impatiently. "I let the man in last night; it's all right. Go and get him a good breakfast."
Aunty Luce eyed the girl as if she thought her a conspirator against the safety of the house, and despite precautions, managed to slip upstairs to Tillie with a much-garbled account of thieves in the night, and wartimes, and tramps, and Miss Rache.
Much mystified, the little woman dressed quickly, and came down the stairs to find her husband shaking hands quite heartily with Genesee. Instantly she forgot the multitudinous reasons there were for banning him from the bosom of one's family, and found herself telling him he was very welcome.
"I reckon in your country a man would wait to hear someone say that before stowing his horse in their stables, or himself in their beds," he observed.
His manner was rather quiet, but one could see that the heartiness of their greeting was a great pleasure, and, it may be, a relief.
"Do you call that a bed?" asked Tillie, with contemptuous warmth. "I do think, Mr. Genesee, you might have wakened some of us, and given us a chance to treat a guest to something better."
"I suppose, then, I am not counted in with the family," observed Rachel, meekly, from the background. "I was on hand to do the honors, but wasn't allowed to do them. I even went to the stable to receive the late-comer, and was told to skip into the house, and given a general understanding that I interfered with his making himself comfortable in the hay-mow."
"Did she go out there at night, and alone, after we were all in bed?" And Tillie's tone indicated volumes of severity.
"Yes," answered Genesee; for Rachel, with a martyr-like manner, said nothing, and awaited her lecture; "she thought it was your man Andrews."
"Yes, and she would have gone just as quickly if it had been Indians—or—or—anybody. She keeps me nervous half the time with her erratic ways."
"I rather think she's finding fault with me for giving you that coffee and letting you sleep on the lounge," said Rachel; and through Tillie's quick disclaimer her own short-comings were forgotten, at least for the time. The little matron's caution, that always lagged woefully behind her impulse, obtruded itself on her memory several times before the breakfast was over; and thinking of the reasons why a man of such character should not be received as a friend by ladies, especially girls, she was rather glad when she heard him say he was to push on into the hills as soon as possible.
"I only stopped last night because I had to; Mowitza and I were both used up. I was trying to make MacDougall's, but when I crossed the trail to your place, I reckoned we would fasten to it—working through the snow was telling on her; but she is all right this morning."
Rachel told him of her visit to the old man, and his care of the cabin on the Tamahnous ground; of rumors picked up from the Kootenai tribe as to the chance of trouble with the Blackfeet, and many notes that were of interest to this hunter of feeling on the Indian question. He commented on her Chinook, of which she had gained considerable knowledge in the past year, and looked rather pleased when told it had been gained from Kalitan.
"You may see him again if I have to send for troops up here, and it looks that way now," he remarked, much to the terror and satisfaction of Aunty Luce, who was a house divided against itself in her terror of Indian trouble and her desire to prove herself a prophetess.
Jim was all anticipation. After a circus or a variety show, nothing had for him the charm that was exerted by the prospect of a fight; but his hopes in that direction were cooled by the scout's statement that the troops were not coming with the expectation of war, but simply to show the northern tribes its futility, and that the Government was strengthening its guard for protection all along the line.
"Then yer only ringin' in a bluff on the hostiles!" ventured the sanguinary hopeful disgustedly. "I counted on business if the 'yaller' turned out," meaning by the "yaller" the cavalry, upon whose accoutrements the yellow glints show.
"Never mind, sonny," said Genesee; "if we make a bluff, it won't be on an empty hand. But I must take the trail again, and make up for time lost in sleep here."
"When may we look for you back?"
It was Hardy who spoke, but something had taken the free-heartiness out of his tones; he looked just a trifle uncomfortable. Evidently Tillie had been giving him a hint of second thoughts, and while trying to adopt them they fitted his nature too clumsily not to be apparent.
His guest, however, had self-possession enough for both.
"Don't look for me," he advised, taking in the group with a comprehensive glance; "that is, don't hurt the sight of your eyes in the business; the times are uncertain, and I reckon I'm more uncertain than the times. I'm obliged to you for the sleep last night, and the cover for Mowitza. If I can ever do you as good a turn, just sing out."
Hardy held out his hand impulsively. "You did a heap more for us a year ago, for which we never had a chance to make return," he said in his natural, hearty manner.
"Oh, yes, you have had," contradicted Rachel's cool tones from the porch; "you have the chance now."
Genesee darted one quick glance at her face. Something in it was evidently a compensation, and blotted out the bitterness that had crept into his last speech, for with a freer manner he took the proffered hand.
"That's all right," he said easily. "I was right glad of the trip myself, so it wasn't any work; but at the present speaking the days are not picnic days, and I must 'git.' Good-bye, Mrs. Hardy, good-bye; boys."
Then he turned in his saddle and looked at Rachel. "Klahowya—tillikum," he said, lifting his hat in a final farewell to all.
But in the glance toward her she felt he had said "thank you" as plainly as he had in the Indian language called her "friend."
"Oh, dear!" said Tillie, turning into the house as he rode away. "I wish the man had staid away, or else that we had known more about him when we first met him. It is very awkward to change one's manner to him, and—and yet it seems the only thing to do."
"Certainly," agreed Rachel, with an altogether unnecessary degree of contempt, "it is the only thing for you to do."
Tillie sat down miserably under this stroke, the emphasis denoting very plainly the temper of the speaker.
"Oh, don't be ugly, Rache," she begged. "I really feel wretched about it. I thought at first all the freedom of social laws out here was so nice but it isn't. It has a terrible side to it, when the greatest scamp is of as much account as the finest gentleman, and expects to be received on the same footing. He—he had no right to come imposing on us at the first;" and with this addition to her defense, Tillie tried to ensconce herself behind the barricade of injured faith, but feeling that her protests were only weakening her argument.
"To the best of my recollection," said the girl, with a good deal of the supercilious in her manner, "he neither came near us nor advanced any desire for friendship on his own account. We hunted him up, and insisted on talking natural history and singing songs with him, and pressing on him many invitations to visit us, invitations which he avoided accepting. He was treated, not as an equal of the other gentlemen, but as a superior; and I believe it is the only time we ever did him justice."
"Yes, he did seem very nice in those days; but you see it was all false pretense. Think of the life that he had come from, and that he went back to! It's no use talking, Rachel—there is only a right way and a wrong way in this world. He has shown his choice, and self-respecting people can only keep rid of him as much as possible. I don't like to hurt his feelings, but it makes it very awkward for us that we have accepted any favors from him."
"The obligation rests rather lightly on your shoulders to cause you much fretting," said the girl bitterly; "and he thought so much of you, too—so much."
Her voice, that began so calmly, ended a little uncertainly, and she walked out of the door.
Hardy, coming in a moment later, found Tillie divided between penitence and pettishness, and fighting her way to comfort through tears.
"I know I'm right, Hen, about the whole question," she whimpered, when safely perched on the stronghold of his knee, "and that is what makes it so aggravating."
"To know you're right?"
"No; but to have Rachel, who knows she is in the wrong, take that high-handed way about the affair, and end up by making me feel ashamed. Yes, she did, Hen—just that. I felt so ashamed I cried, and yet I knew I was right all the time—now what are you laughing at?"