“No. I’m young, but I have made a certain name for myself for all that. I have the name of never having been bought and never leaving a job until I have the correct data. My clients have never yet inquired into my personal affairs. They never will. They know I’m an American; that’s about all that counts, these days, so far as your blood ties go.”
“There isn’t one chance in fifty that this will ever be known, even in this district. We keep to ourselves. The old man has made it plain, ever since I can remember, that he doesn’t want his neighbors to come around the place. If you inquire amongst the miners and prospectors, you will hear that we are a tough outfit and best let alone. It is believed, as I told you, that we’re just a bunch of breeds digging out a little gold—enough to support us. Dad’s a half-crazy squaw-man, and Young Jess is mighty unpopular. Whatever business must be taken care of outside, I attend to myself. Or Nevada sometimes does it for me. She never talks with people except when it’s necessary. Whenever she goes to Nelson, or to Las Vegas, my mother goes with her.
“Nevada would not mention the matter, in any case, but I must ask you not to tell her. Mother is almost uncanny at reading faces. She’d see at once that we had told the girl. She worships Nevada. It would break her heart if she saw that Nevada knew her secret. She’s afraid of Old Jess, but that’s partly because of what it would mean to the girl. She thinks Nevada would despise her for the sin of her youth. That’s the way she put it, and there’s this about an Indian: You can’t pry an idea out of their minds, once it’s firmly planted. Poor old mother broods over these things. She feels as if Nevada is her one hope of heaven, almost. To keep that girl pure and sweet is her religion. I promised her, by everything that she called sacred, that Nevada should never know; at least, not so long as her grandmother lives. So that’s why,” he finished gently, “I’m pleased at the turn it’s taken. I don’t mind anything they may hatch up about me, if it will protect poor old mother.”
Rawley felt humbled. He remembered how old Anita had spat her contempt of the gold that could not buy her the things she had loved,—and lost. In that gross, shapeless body, who could say how fine a soul might be hidden?
“It’s all right,” he said, after a minute. “I’ll have to warn Johnny Buffalo, and then I’ll adopt you for my dad, if you like. I can see how it simplifies matters here. But I’m afraid Nevada never will forgive—”
“Oh, she’ll be proud of her new cousin, once she recovers from the shock of not being told first thing,” Peter assured him gratefully. “I’m afraid I’ve spoiled that girl.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE JOHNNY BUFFALO UPRISING
Johnny Buffalo was on the warpath. Figuratively speaking, he was brandishing the tomahawk over the tribe of Cramer. The gods he worshiped had been blasphemed, the altar upon which he laid the gifts of his soul had been defiled.
In other words, Johnny Buffalo had lain in his bed and listened while Young Jess and his father jibed at Johnny Buffalo’s two idols, in whose veins flowed the blood of his beloved sergeant. The blood of the Kings might not be made a mockery while Johnny Buffalo could lift one arm to fight. When Rawley returned to him, he was discovered out of his bed, braced against a table and trying unsuccessfully to load the old King rifle which he had first used to kill Mohaves on that day, fifty years ago, when King, of the Mounted, received the shot that changed his whole life.
The old Indian was shaking with weakness, but his eyes blazed with the war spirit of his tribe.