He watched Nevada pour and sweeten a second cup of tea and did a swift mental calculation in genealogy. Jess Cramer, he knew, was a white man. The husband of Gladys, bearing the name of Grandfather King’s enemy, must be a son of the old man and of this half-breed squaw. Very well, then, old Jess Cramer’s children would be one quarter Indian—Peter, Jess and Nevada’s mother (granting that Nevada was a blood relative). Nevada’s father must have been white,—a Scotchman, by the name, and by Nevada’s clear skin and coppery hair. Well, then, Nevada was—A knife thrust of pain stabbed through his brain, and he could not think. Nevada set down the cup hastily and laid cool fingers on his temple. He lifted his right hand and held her fingers there. The throbbing agony lessened, grew fainter and fainter. After all, what did it matter—the blood in those fingers? They were cool and sweet and soothing—
He thought Nevada had lifted her hand and was gently removing the bandage from his head. But it was Uncle Peter, and Nevada was not there, and it was dark outside. In another room a clock began to strike the hour. He counted nine. It was strange; he could not remember going to sleep with her fingers pressed against the pulse beat in his temple. Yet he must have slept for hours. He closed his eyes and then opened them again, staring up with a child-like candor into the man’s bent face.
“I know. You look like Grandfather,” he said thickly. And when Peter’s eyes met his, “It’s your eyes. Grandfather had eyes exactly like yours. And there’s something about the mouth—a bitterness. Gameness, too. Grandfather had his legs off at the knees, for fifty years. Called himself a hunk of meat in a wheel chair. God, it must be awful—a thing like that, when the rest of you is big and strong—but you’re not crippled that way. Oh, Johnny! Are you awake?” He heard a grunt. “I’ve got it—what you meant at first, about seeing your sergeant. Uncle Peter looks like—”
A hand went over his mouth quite unexpectedly and effectually. He looked up into the eyes like Grandfather King’s and found them very terrible.
“Fool! Never whisper it. Am I not the son of Jess Cramer? It had better be so! Better not see that I am like his enemy—and rival.” He leaned close, his eyes boring into the eyes so like his own. “One word to any one that would slur my mother, and—” he pressed his lips together, his meaning told by his eyes. “She came to me to-day, chattering her fear. Old Jess Cramer lives with other thoughts, and his eyes are dim at close range. Never come close to him, boy. Never recall the past to him. It would mean—God knows what it would mean. My mother’s life, maybe. And then his own, for I’d kill him, of course, if he touched her.”
Rawley blinked, trying to make sense of the riddle. Then his good hand went out and rested on Peter’s arm, that was trembling under the thin shirt sleeve.
“Uncle Peter!” His lips barely moved to form the words, and afterward they smiled. “The blood of the Kings! I’m glad—”
“Are you?” Peter bent over him fiercely. “Proud of a man who went away and left my mother—”
“He had to go,” Rawley defended hastily. “He meant to come back in a month’s time. But he was shot through the legs, and in hospital for months, and then sent home a cripple. After that he lost his legs altogether. How could he come back? Johnny can tell you.”
Peter pulled himself together and redressed the long, angry gash on Rawley’s head. Johnny Buffalo, having slowly squirmed his body to a position that gave him a view of Rawley’s cot, watched them unblinkingly, his wise old eyes gravely inscrutable. When he had finished, Peter strode to the door and stood there looking out. Rawley had a queer feeling that he was looking for eavesdroppers.