A Woman of Yesterday

by Caroline Atwater Mason

“On horseback, with two engineers and a copper expert and an Indian guide, I rode through our possessions. Miners were already at work, and had pursued the lead far enough to prove pretty distinctly that, while Jim’s part of the tract was likely to be fairly productive, the vein stopped short of mine, which was thus practically worthless.

“I rode back to our camp in a black mood. Jim, it seemed, was to succeed in everything; all that he sought was his, and for me there was nothing but failure and defeat. All the way back I brooded bitterly on the contrast between us, until I was in a still frenzy of jealousy when I reached the camp. The contrast between Cornelia, for whom I still had a wild, hopeless passion, and my wife, sickly, dull, indeed disagreeable to me already, was maddening, and had been sufficiently so before. But now, when I thought of Jim, with Cornelia for his wife and the certain prospect of large wealth to add to his elation, while I was without a penny or a prospect of any sort, the rage and fury in my mind became almost intoxicating.

“We had encountered hostile Indians on the trail as we returned, but our bold, dare-devil dash through this danger made slight impression on me. I think death would have been welcome to me that night. God knows I wish I had met it then. My heart was evil enough, but at least it had not the guilt that came later.

“I suppose, Mr. Gregory, that I am answerable for my brother’s death—not in the eye of the law, but before God. And yet—if you could tell me that I am mistaken, that I exaggerate, that other men would have done the same and held themselves guiltless—if that could be—” Ingraham broke off and fixed his eyes on Gregory’s face once more, as if in appeal for his life.

“Please go on,” was Gregory’s response, but the words were gently spoken, as the words of a physician when he is diagnosing a manifestly mortal disease.

“Very well,” said Ingraham, harshly. “Jim was at the camp, and was boy enough to parade a letter from Cornelia before me. We quarrelled fiercely, about what I cannot remember, but I could not restrain the storm of rage and jealousy in me. It had to break loose somewhere. I refused to tell Jim what I had discovered regarding the lead, and he declared he would go and find out for himself. I said he would be a fool if he did, but gave him no hint of the fact that there were hostile Indians on the way. He knew nothing of the conditions, nor the character of the people about us, having never been in the country before. It was early in the morning. We had ridden all night, and the men had gone to their tents and were sleeping off the effects of our struggle. I told Jim he could not get a guide. He merely whistled in a light-hearted, careless way he had, and started off to a neighbouring camp, in search, as I inferred, of some escort. I saw him no more, and made no attempt to govern his actions, and did not even know whether he had started. Who and what the guide was whom he obtained, I learned later.

“I slept most of that day, after Jim disappeared, exhausted in body and mind, and continued to sleep far into the night, keeping my tent door securely closed, as I wished to see and speak to no one. It was, perhaps, three o’clock of the morning following when I was roused by a strange noise at my tent door. Starting up from my bed on the ground, I saw that some one had cut open the fastenings, and that the flap was drawn back. In the opening thus formed stood the shape of an Indian rider on horseback, perfectly motionless. The moonlight, which was unusually brilliant, fell full upon the face of this man, and I recognized him at once, with a horrible chill of foreboding, as a half-witted Indian who sometimes acted as guide, but only to those who knew no better than to accept his services, which were worthless and treacherous. He was a half-breed, an odious, repulsive being, with only wit enough to be malicious, and of abnormal treachery and cruelty even for his kind. Never can I forget that face of his in the moonlight. He spoke not one word, but simply sat his horse and looked at me with his narrow, gleaming eyes, a malignant grin making his ugliness fairly fiendish. If you want to get a faint idea of his look, recall the face of Oliver—my son;” Ingraham’s voice sunk to a whisper, and he added, “I can never escape it.”

Gregory’s brows knit heavily, and his face reflected something of the tortured misery of the man before him.

“It was not,” said Ingraham, “until I had staggered to my feet that I saw that across his saddle-bow this creature carried a dead body—Jim. There was an Indian arrow in his side.”

“No matter, no matter for the rest; I understand,” said Gregory, hastily.