He seemed relieved. "I'll look that Indian up," he said, and raised his hand to his cap.
From the road, he looked round. Despite the distance, he could see that the girls were where he had left them, and Marylyn's head was once more pressed against her sister. The sight made him writhe in his saddle, and wish he were as old as the river-bluffs themselves, that he might go back and protect them. As he descended to the ice their two faces rose before him: One, pretty and pale, with the soft roundness of a child's, the blue eyes filled with all a child's terror and entreaty; the other, pale, too,—though upon it there still lingered the brown of the summer sun—but firm of outline, its crown a heavy coil of braids, its centre, eyes that were brave, steadfast, compelling.
The first picture blurred in remembering the second. "God bless her!" he murmured. "To think she knew all the time, and never cheeped!"
At the shack, Dallas, too, was pondering—over a strange contrariety: Their home was in danger, perhaps their very lives. Yet the day had fulfilled its promise of the morning—it was the happiest in her life!
The ramshackle ferry-boat was firmly wedged in a dry-dock of ice on the western side of the Missouri. As Lounsbury passed it, with his horse following pluckily in spread-eagle fashion, he shouted for Old Michael. But long before the river had floored, when it was edging and covering only in the least swift places, the pilot had made his final crossing, run the wheezy steamer, nose-in, against the bank, and deserted her. So the storekeeper received no answering halloo. He was disappointed. It was desirable to embroil as few as possible in the Lancaster dispute. Old Michael, already a factor, was needed to act the picket—to fire a warning signal if Matthews left Shanty Town.
A substitute was found at the stables. The storekeeper, as he rushed away after disposing of his mount, came upon Lieutenant Fraser, busily roaching his own riding-animal, a flighty buckskin cayuse that no one else cared to handle, and that was affectionately known in barracks as the "She-devil." The men had met before, around the billiard-table at the sutler's, and Lounsbury had set the young officer down for a chivalrous, but rather chicken-hearted, youngster, who had chosen his profession unwisely. So, his story told, the storekeeper was altogether surprised at Fraser's spirited enthusiasm and quick response.
"I've nothing to do, old man," he said, as they went toward the parade-ground. "I can help as well as not. So just take your time. I'll watch for you."
"I hardly think our man'll show his nose before dark. But I can't leave the way open——"