B. M. B.
CONTENTS
THE EAGLE’S WING
CHAPTER ONE
KING, OF THE MOUNTED
On the wide south porch of the house where he had been born, Rawley King sat smoking his pipe in the dusk heavy with the scent of a thousand roses. The fragrant serenity of the great, laurel-hedged yard of the King homestead was charming after the hot, empty spaces of the desert. Even the somber west wing of the brooding old house seemed wrapped in the peace that enfolds lives moving gently through long, uneventful months and years. The smoke of his pipe billowed lazily upward in the perfumed air; incense burned by the prodigal son upon the home altar after his wanderings.
The old Indian, Johnny Buffalo, came walking straight as an arrow across the strip of grass beside the syringa bushes that banked the west wing. Rawley straightened and stared, the bowl of his pipe sagging to the palm of his hand. As far back as he could remember, none had ever crossed that space of clipped grass to hold speech with the Kings. But now Johnny Buffalo walked steadily forward and halted beside the porch.
“Your grandfather say you come,” he announced calmly and turned back to the somber west wing.
Sheer amazement held Rawley motionless for a moment. Until the Indian spoke to him he had almost forgotten the strangeness of that hidden, remote life of his grandfather. From the time he could toddle, Rawley had been taught that he must not go near the west wing of the house or approach the brooding old man in the wheel chair. As for the Indian who served his grandfather, Rawley had been too much afraid of him to attempt any friendly overtures. There had been vague hints that Grandfather King was not quite right in his mind; that a brooding melancholy held him, and that he would suffer no one but his Indian servant near him. Now, after nearly thirty years of studied aloofness, his grandfather had summoned him.
The Indian was waiting in the shadowed west porch when Rawley tardily arrived at the steps. He turned without speaking and opened the door, waiting for Rawley to pass. Still dumb with astonishment, a bit awed, Rawley crossed the threshold and for the first time in his life stood in the presence of his grandfather.
A powerful figure the old man must have been in his youth. Old age had shrunk him, had sagged his shoulders and dried the flesh upon his bones; but years could not hide the breadth of those shoulders or change the length of those arms. His eyes were piercingly blue and his lips were firm under the drooping white mustache. His snow-white hair was heavy and lay upon his shoulders in natural waves that made it seem heavier than it really was,—just so he had probably worn it in the old, old days on the frontier. His eyebrows were domineering and jet black, and the whole rugged countenance betrayed the savage strength of the spirit that dwelt back of his eyes. But the great, gaunt body stopped short at the knees, and the gray blanket smoothed over his lap could not hide the tragic mutilation; nor could the great mustache conceal the bitter lines around his mouth.