As a matter of fact, Rawley’s life since he was twelve had been spent mostly away from home. First, a military academy in the suburbs of St. Louis, with the long hiking trips featured by the school through the summer vacations; after that, college,—with a special course in mineralogy. Since then, field work had claimed most of his time. Home had therefore been merely a place pleasantly tucked away in his memory, with a visit to his mother now and then between jobs.
The first twelve years of his life had thoroughly accustomed Rawley to the sight of the fierce old man with long hair and his legs cut off at his knees, who sometimes appeared in a wheel chair on a porch of the west wing, attended by an Indian who looked savage enough to scalp a little boy if he ventured too close; a ferocious Indian who scowled and wore his hair parted from forehead to neck and braided in two long braids over his shoulder, and who padded stealthily about the place in beautifully beaded moccasins and fringed buckskin leggings.
Nevertheless, there had been times, as he grew older, when Rawley had been tempted to invade the west wing and find out for himself just how bitterly his grandfather clung to the feud. It hurt him to think now of the old man’s isolation and of the interesting companionship he had cheated himself out of enjoying.
He pulled the two old books from his pocket, handling them as if they were the precious things his grandfather seemed to consider them. The Bible he opened first, undoing the old-fashioned clasp with his thumb and opening the book at the flyleaf. The inscription there was faded yet distinct on the yellowed paper. The sloping, careful handwriting of Rawley’s great-grandmother sending King, of the Mounted, forth upon his dangerous missions armed with the Word of God,—and hoping prayerfully, no doubt, that he would read and heed its precepts.
To my beloved son,
George Walter King,
from his
Affectionate Mother.
The date thrilled Rawley, aged twenty-six: 1858 was the year his great-grandmother had inscribed in the book. To Rawley it seemed almost as remote as the Stamp Act or the Mexican War. The thought that Grandfather King, away back in 1858, had been old enough to join the Missouri Mounted Volunteers—even to have been made a sergeant in his company and to make for himself a reputation as an Indian fighter—gave the old man a new dignity in the eyes of his grandson. It seemed strange that Grandfather King was still alive and could talk of those days.
The book itself was strangely contradictory in appearance. While the outside was worn and scuffed as if with much usage, the inside crackled faintly a protest against unaccustomed handling. The yellowed leaves clung together in layers which Rawley must carefully separate. Now and then a line or two showed faint penciled underscores; otherwise the book did not look as if it had been opened for many, many years. Nowhere was it thumbed and soiled by the frequent reading of a man living under canvas or the open sky.