Then the music stopped and two Indians appeared. One of them squatted on the floor and began beating monotonously on a small kind of a drum or tom-tom. The other Indian in full regalia began dancing slowly in a circle, stooping low as if he were hiding from his prey which he would presently pounce upon and destroy utterly. He was a barbaric and war-like figure and the girls unconsciously shrunk back as he danced by them. Gradually the dance grew wilder and the steps quicker. The Indian gave a strange bird-like cry, and for the fraction of a moment paused in front of Billie. With another cry that had a familiar sound he flashed a black glance of hatred into her face and was gone.
Again Billie thought she recognized a likeness. She turned her bewildered eyes downward, her face flushing with embarrassment. There in her lap was a long, grayish feather.
“What’s this for?” she demanded, turning to Barney McGee.
“I reckon it’s a complimentary souvenir for you, Miss Billie,” replied the ranchman. “It’s one of Hawkeseye’s jokes, a quill from a hawk’s wing.”
“Hawkeseye,” repeated Billie.
“Oh, yes, we call him that for fun. His name is Buckthorne Hawkes. He ain’t all Injun, you know. He’s really the Missus’ brother, but he can certainly fix himself up to look as much like a full-blooded Indian buck as if he had just come from the reservation.”
“Was he ever a peddler?” Billie asked.
Barney laughed.
“He’s a graduate of Carlyle University,” he answered. “He’s come out West to teach school.”
In the meantime, Elinor had been led by Tony Blackstone into the courtyard, where they sat down on a bench. Overhead the stars gleamed with incredible brilliancy, partly because the stars from a Western plain seem infinitely larger and grander than they do anywhere else, and partly because they gazed at them from the depths of a small dark courtyard.