“The omen says that you and I are going to get married within a week. Well within a week.” He was studying the pipe as a mystic studies the crystal. “It tells me that the hatchet is forever buried. This is the pipe of peace, and it passed from me to you. That means that you and I go through life together. Our trails never separate. It means—”
“Oh, hush!” Nevada cried sharply and struck at the pipe in his hand. “Our trails can’t lie together. We can’t marry, ever—ever! You know that as well as I do. We’re cousins.” She turned her face to the wall.
Rawley did not speak. He looked up from the pipe, straight into the eyes of Anita, sitting in a corner like a bronze Buddha disguised as a squaw.
Anita met his look with stolid obstinacy, never blinking, never a quiver in her face.
Rawley’s jaw squared a little as he continued to look at her. His body swayed forward, his eyes boring into her very soul. So had King, of the Mounted, looked when he demanded that Anita should choose between himself and Jess Cramer. Rawley did not know why he stared at her so. He only knew that the truth was there, hidden behind those unreadable eyes. He knew that the truth would give him Nevada the moment that truth was spoken. No lips but Anita’s might speak that truth; other lips were sworn to silence.
The old squaw whimpered under her breath. Her eyes flickered and could no longer look defiance into those terrible, commanding blue eyes,—the eyes of King, of the Mounted. Her hand went up to shield her face from the stare of them. She stirred uneasily in her chair. She spread her fingers, peering fearfully between them. The terrible blue eyes looked at her still. Slowly, painfully, scarce knowing that she did so, Anita pulled herself up from the chair and went forward as one goes to the bar of justice.
As a flame shoots up suddenly from dying embers, so did a flame dart out from the ashes of her youth. The stooped, gross old body straightened. Anita’s head went back. Her eyes glowed with a little of their old fire. Her voice rang clear, proud with the pride of ancestry unknown.
“Nevada,” she cried imperiously and spoke rapidly in Indian. “It is not true that you are his cousin. He is the grandson of a man I loved in my youth. He is the grandson of Sergeant George King, who was the father of Peter. I have been ashamed that you should know the truth. Now I am not ashamed, for I know that stolen love is more noble than a lie. The father of Peter, him I loved. He was a soldier and he went away. He promised to return in one month. In three months he had not come, nor sent me word. I was angry and I let the man he hated think that I loved him and not my soldier man. Then I went away, for my heart was sad. I would not follow my soldier man. I was proud. After a long time—after more than a year had passed I returned to El Dorado and I brought my child, who was Peter. I sought for news of my soldier, but there was none. He had not come, he had not sent me word. So I went to the man I hated. I told him that Peter was his son, which was a lie. I was very proud. I thought that some day my soldier would return and would see how I laughed at him and loved another. But I did not love. And Peter was not the son of the man my soldier hated. Now the young man comes and loves, and I am old. Soon I go to my soldier man. It is not right that others should have sorrow because of my lie.
“So now I speak what is true. I say that this young man is not of your blood. He is the grandson of the father of Peter, and Peter is his uncle. You are not his cousin. Now you will be his wife, and you will hate Anita for the sin of her youth.”
Nevada lay listening, gazing fixedly at her grandmother. She caught the gnarled old hand of Anita in both her own. She fondled it, kissed it, laughed softly with tears in her laughter.