It mattered nothing to him and his kind that a race of men already lived upon this land and were prepared to die in defence of it. By adroit juggling, he and his corporation put the unsuspecting settler forward to receive the first shock of the battle, and, when trouble came, loudly called upon the government to send its troops "in support of the pioneers." In this way, without danger to himself, the shrewd old Yankee had acquired mineral belts, cattle-ranges, railway rights, and many other good things, and at last, when the Territory was made a State, he became one of its senators.
Naturally, he hated the red people. They were pestilential because, first of all, they paid no railway charges, and also for the reason that they held the land away from those who would add to his unearned increment and increase the sum total of his tariff receipts. His original plan was broadly simple. "Sweep them from the earth," he snarled, when asked "What will we do with the Indians?" But his policy, modified by men with hearts and a sense of justice, had settled into a process of remorseless removal from point to point, from tillable land to grazing land, from grazing land to barren waste, and from barren waste to arid desert. He had no doubts in these matters. It was good business, and to say a thing was not good business was conclusive. The Tetong did not pay—remove him!
Elsie in her home-life, therefore, had been well schooled in race hatred. Tender-hearted where suffering in a dog or even a wolf was concerned, she remained indifferent when a tribe was reported to be starving. Nothing modified her view till, as an art student in Paris, she came into contact with men who placed high value on the redman as "material." She found herself envied because she had casually looked upon a few of these "wonderful chaps," as Newt Penrose called them, and was often asked to give her impressions of them. When she returned to New York she was deeply impressed by Maurice Stewart's enormous success in sculpturing certain types of this despised race. A little later Wilfred J. Buttes, who had been struggling along as a painter of bad portraits, suddenly purchased a house in a choice suburb on the strength of two summers' work among the mountain Utes.
Thereupon Elsie opened her eyes. Not that money was a lure to her, for it was not, but she was eager for notice—for the fame that comes quickly, and with loud trumpets and gay banners. In conversation with Lawson one day she learned that he was about to do some pen-portraits of noted Tetong chieftains, and at once sprang to her opportunity. She admired and trusted Lawson. His keen judgment, his definiteness of speech awed her a little, and with him she was noticeably less assertive than with the others of her artist acquaintances. So here now she sat, painting with rigor and immense satisfaction the picturesque rags and tinsel ornaments of the Tetongs. To her they were beggars and tramps, on a scale with the lazzaroni of Rome or Naples. That they were anything more than troublesome models had not been borne in on her mind.
She had never professed special regard for her uncle the agent—in fact, she covertly despised him for his lack of power—but, now that the issue was drawn, she naturally flew to the side of those who would destroy the small peoples of the earth. She wrote to her father a passionate letter.
"Can't you stop this?" she asked. "No doubt Uncle Henry will go direct to Washington and make complaint. This Captain Curtis is insufferable. I would leave here instantly only I am bound to do some work for Mr. Lawson. We must all go soon, for winter is coming on, but I would like to see this upstart humbled. He treats me as if I were a school-girl—'declines to argue the matter.' Oh! he is provoking. His sister is a nice little thing, but she sides with him, of course—and so does Lawson, in a sense; so you see I am all alone. The settlers are infuriated at Uncle Sennett's dismissal, and will support you and Uncle Henry."
In the days that followed she met Curtis's attempts at modifying her resentment with scornful silence, and took great credit to herself that she did not literally fly at his head when he spoke of his work or his wards. Her avoidance of him became so painful that at the end of the third day he said to his sister: "Jennie, I think I will go to the school mess after this. Miss Brisbane's hostility shows no signs of relenting, and the situation is becoming decidedly unpleasant."
"George!" said Jennie, sternly. "Don't you let that snip drive you away. Why, the thing is ridiculous! She is here on sufferance—your sufferance. You could order them all off the reservation at once."
"I know I could, but I won't. You know what I mean—I can't even let Miss Brisbane know that she has made me uncomfortable. She's a very instructive example of the power of environment. She has all the prejudices and a good part of the will of her father, and represents her class just as a little wild-cat represents its species. She's a beautiful girl, and yet she is to me one of the most unattractive women I ever knew."
Jennie looked puzzled. "You are a little hard on her, George. She is unsympathetic, but I think she says a lot of those shocking things just to hurt you."