Whatever the faults and frailties of the Chief, they at least knew him, his humors and his moods. He had not been difficult to analyze. There had been a time to flatter, and a time to leave him alone; there had been moments on drives, in camps, and at little social affairs, when all that was left of the youth—one might say the “boy”—of him returned, when for a brief space he had ceased to be the Old Man. So they realized abruptly, forgetting petty differences, that something of affection had grown up unconsciously between them.
But why abandon a little kingdom? Why, indeed!
He had grown covetous. The pride that the Desert builds in those few who manage to command it had somehow got the better of his judgment. He had developed the astounding effrontery to think that he earned and was justified in demanding a salary of more than thirteen hundred dollars a year! Think of that—he had come to re-view the value of himself. It was not honor enough for him to have created a little centre of civilization. He actually felt that the laborer was worthy of his hire. It reminded one of a particular scene in Oliver Twist. It was stupefying. It was downright impudence in the man. Washington had never heard the like, and confessed itself painfully shocked; in fact, it became almost infuriated.
Had not a whole series of clerks, working at white heat between ball-games and vacations, checked his accounts and requested an explanation of his every action for years, just to keep him from this very state of mind—to prevent his fondly imagining that he had accomplished anything? [[96]]Think of the man who had struggled, under orders, to that forlorn station in 1908, breasting the wind and the sand and a falling thermometer, just to demonstrate scientifically how concrete is mixed in New Jersey. Why, this advising concrete genius drew only two thousand and a per-diem, a man skilled in methods known to the Atlantic seaboard, and aside from his having political influence, was ever ready, under orders, at this pitiful stipend, to place his all-embracing knowledge at the disposal of this non-comprehending desert roughneck, who—Words fail one!
As for the Indians to be affected by this change, they were inarticulate and did not count. Someone would be appointed to the vacancy, someone just as good—well, anyway, good enough for Indians.
Then came an experience such as a complacent court must suffer when an old monarch dies. It happens, no doubt, when there is a change of chiefs anywhere; but it is the more personal and grinding when one has to live next door to the chief, breakfast with him, lunch with him, dine with him, face him across a desk, or ride cheek-by-jowl with him from daylight to dark; in short, to serve him loyally twenty-four hours the day. Comparisons are not odious; they are hellish. Those so situated as to be thus dependent on one another for duty and society must have some bond of sympathy, something of confidence and regard, respect if nothing more, like unto that which takes the curse off marriage. The living conditions, the lack of society and amusement, the introspection that the Desert invites, these things make the casual word to be an insult and a chance sentence to produce tragedy. Unless it be aboard ship, I know of no relative situation in which one man can become so terrible a burden to others as at an isolated desert-station. [[97]]
Suffice to relate that the period of reconstruction and change brought many disputes, all of them crushed and smothered by the turgid heaviness of forty years’ experience. The new Chief was different, and aged, and sick, a misery to himself and to everyone else. As is invariably the case, the most valuable of the employees began to prepare to quit the ship. I have seen a great deal of loyalty in the West, and the man who is fair may count on men until they drop; but these same men speak their minds freely, and it is hard for them to change czars. Old traditions were restored; the cook quit in a flame of anger, leaving as his vengeance a last meal garnished with a defunct mouse. The pot boiled fifteen hours the day.
When the thing had become a trifle too thick for me, like a flash from the blue came an unsought, unexpected telegram:—“WILL YOU ACCEPT APPOINTMENT SUPERINTENDENT MOQUI SALARY EIGHTEEN HUNDRED BOND THIRTY THOUSAND WIRE.”
A courteous expression that is now rare: “Will you accept.” The mere transposition of a word makes all the difference. “You will accept” is the tone of recent orders—a reaction of the great war against Prussianism on those who reject with an unctuous civilian horror all idea of militarism.
And yet there is a certain fine discipline and training in the military atmosphere, even a copy of it, as practised at the properly conducted schools and agencies of the farther deserts. One learns to obey in unpleasant things, and feels something of duty and loyalty in acceding. Where there is nothing of civilization for one hundred miles in any direction, not even a telegraph wire, one comes to revere that refreshing bit of bravery, the Flag, whipping above trees, a symbol of authority and [[98]]order; one thrills at the music of the band; and bugle-calls, in the wine of seven thousand feet above the sea, add a character-forming stimulation: reveille, mess, retreat, or at the end of a long day’s drive homeward in the dark, cramped and cold from fifty miles, to hear the solemn notes of “taps.”