Not staying to wonder at the meaning of her strange dismissal, he turned and left the room without looking back.
Only after he had helped Calvin into the wagon, and had taken his seat beside him, did the young soldier lift his eyes in search of her face at the window. She was looking down upon him, tears were on her cheeks, but she blew a kiss from her finger-tips, not caring if all the world were there to see.
XXXIV
SEED-TIME
As Lawson predicted, the very violence of this outburst of racial hatred was its cure. A reaction set in. The leaders of Brisbane's party, with loud shouts, ordered their harriers back to their lairs, while the great leader himself, oblivious to daylight or to darkness, was hurried home to Washington. The Tetongs returned to their camps and hay-making, the troops drilled peacefully each afternoon in the broiling heat, while Curtis bent to his work again with a desperate sort of energy, as if by so doing he could shorten the long, hot days, which seemed well-nigh interminable after the passing of Elsie and her friends.
In a letter announcing their safe arrival in Washington, Elsie said:
"I am going to see the President about you, as soon as he returns from the mountains. Papa is gaining, but takes no interest in anything. He is pitifully weak, but the doctor thinks he will recover if he will only rest. His brain is worn out and needs complete freedom from care. Congress has adjourned finally. I am told that your enemies expect to secure a court-martial on the charge of usurping the authority of the sheriff. Osborne says not to worry, for nothing will be done now till the President returns, and he is confident that the department will sustain you—the fact that the violence you feared did actually take place has robbed your enemies of their power."
Nevertheless, the fight against the Tetongs and himself went on with ever-increasing rancor during July and August, and each Congressional candidate was sharply interrogated as to his attitude towards the removal bill. The anti-administration papers boldly said: "If we win (and we will) we'll cut the comb of this bantam. We'll break his sabre over his back."
To this the opposition made answer: "We're no lovers of the redman, but Captain Curtis is an honorable soldier, doing his duty, and it will not be easy for you, even if victorious, to order a court-martial."