THE PLOW-WOMAN

BY

ELEANOR GATES

Author of The Biography of a Prairie Girl

NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMVI

Copyright, 1906, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, September, 1906
Copyright, 1906, by The Pearson Publishing Company

To
Robert Underwood Johnson, Esq.

CONTENTS

THE PLOW-WOMAN

CHAPTER I

IN THE FURROW

The coulée was a long, scarlet gash in the brown level of the Dakota prairie, for the sumach, dyed by the frosts of the early autumn, covered its sides like a cloth whose upper folds were thrown far over the brinks of the winding ravine and, southward, half-way to the new cottonwood shack of the Lancasters. Near it, a dark band against the flaming shrub, stretched the plowed strip, narrow, but widening with each slow circuit of the team as the virgin, grass-grown land was turned by the mould-board to prepare for the corn-planting of the coming spring.

The sun, just risen, shone coldly upon the plain, and a wind, bearing with it a hint of raw weather and whirling snow, swept down the Missouri valley from the north, marshalling in its front hosts of gabbling ducks and honking geese that were taking noisy flight from a region soon to be buried and already bleak. Yet with all the chill in the air, Ben and Betty, the mules, steamed as they toiled to and fro, and lolled out their tongues with the warmth of their work and the effort of keeping straight in the furrow; and Dallas, following in their wake with the reins about her shoulders and the horns of the plow in a steadying grasp, took off her slouch hat at the turnings to bare her damp forehead, drew the sleeve of her close-fitting jersey across her face every few moments, and, at last, to aid her in making better progress, as well as to cool her ankles, brought the bottom of her skirt through the waistband, front and back, and walked in her red flannel petticoat. As she travelled, she looked skyward occasionally with a troubled face, and, resting but seldom, urged the team forward. Clear weather and sunshine would not long continue, and the first field on the claim must be turned up and well harrowed before the opening of winter.

"Come, Ben, come," she called coaxingly to the nigh mule. "If you don't dig in now, how d' you expect to have anything to eat next winter? Betty, Betty, don't let Ben do it all; I'm talking to you, too. Come along, come along."

Ben and Betty, lean, and grey with age, bent willingly to their labour at the sound of her voice. Their harnesses creaked a monotonous complaint with their renewed efforts, the colter came whining behind them. As Dallas gently slapped the lines along their backs, now and then, to emphasise her commands, clouds of dust, which had been gathered as mud in the buffalo-wallow where they went each evening to roll, ascended and were blown away. Faithfully they pulled, not even lifting an eyelid or flapping an ear in protest when Simon, the stray yearling bull that had adopted the claim as its home and tagged Dallas everywhere, bellowed about their straining legs or loitered at their very noses and impeded their way.

Plowing was strange work to the patient mules and to the girl who was guiding them. To her, the level prairie, rank with goldenrod, pink-flowered smartweed, and purple aster, was a land of wondrous growth. For twenty years her home had been an arid mesa far to the south, where her father captained the caretakers of a spur railroad track. The most western station-house in Texas, standing amid thorny mesquite, was her birthplace and that of her sister Marylyn; the grey plateau across which the embankment led was their playground; there they grew to womanhood under the careful guidance of their frail, Northern-born mother.

And then two casualties, coming close upon each other, had suddenly changed their life. Their father was brought home one night so maimed and crushed by the wheels of a flat-car that he could never hope to take up his work again; and while he lay, bandaged and broken, fighting to keep the soul in his crippled body, their mother bravely yielded her life to a lingering illness.

Many months later, when Evan Lancaster's wounds were at last healed, Ben and Betty were unhitched from a dirt-laden scraper on the siding and put before a white-topped prairie-schooner. Then the old section-boss, with his crutches beside him and his daughters seated in the all but empty box behind, said a husky farewell to the men crowding around the wagon, and started the mules along the road that led northward beside the rails.

He gave no backward glance at the wind-battered house where he had brought an ailing bride; instead, eager to leave that plain of flying sand and scanty grasses, he drove the team rapidly forward, bound for a country where there were wells, and not water-cars, where rain fell oftener, and where food, both for man and beast, could be gotten easily from the earth. But Dallas, seated in the schooner's bed, her weeping sister held soothingly against her breast, watched, dry-eyed, as a mound by a giant mesquite faded slowly from her sight, and saw her girlhood's home give way, as a lighthouse sinks behind a speeding vessel, until only its grey-sprinkled roof showed through the scattered trees. Then, after pillowing Marylyn's head on a Navajo blanket beside the swashing water cask, she climbed forward to the driver's seat and took the reins from her father.

It was April, and when the mesa was left far to rearward, a world almost forgotten by the crippled section-boss burst in new, green loveliness upon his desert children. Towering pines and spreading oaks, lush grass strewn with blossoms, clear-running streams and gay-feathered birds replaced thirsty vegetation, salt lakes, and hovering vultures. They travelled slowly, each day bringing some fresh delight to ear and eye, until one evening in the waning Dakota summer they camped beside a great crooked split in the prairie, on a flat peninsula made by a sweeping westward bend of the muddy Missouri.

Across the river from their stopping-place, where an amber sun was going down, the horizon was near. High bluffs, like a huge wind-break, stood upon the plain, leaving at their feet only enough space for the whitewashed frame buildings of Fort Brannon. But to the east, the paralleling bluffs lay at a distance, and broke their ridge-back far up the scarlet coulée; from where, southward, stretched a wide gap—ten broad and gently undulating miles—that ended at the slough-studded base of Medicine Mountain. Evan Lancaster, as he stood bareheaded under the unclouded sky, looked about him upon acres heavy with tangled grass and weeds; and pleased with the evident richness of the untouched ground, and with the sheltered situation of the claim on the bend, swore that the white-topped schooner, with its travel-stained crew of three, had found on the yellow billows of that northern prairie its permanent moorings at last.

The felling and hewing of cottonwoods for the shack had occupied the first few weeks that followed, citizen carpenters from Brannon doing the heavy cutting and lifting. But when the little house stood, its square log room and dirt floor open to the sun, Dallas performed her part of the building, and thatched the hip-roof with coarse grass from a meadow. Next, the well was dug; and the barn built as a lean-to, for the Lancasters knew little, but had heard much, about the blizzards of the territory. Then, while the elder girl covered the slanting rafters over Ben and Betty's stall, the section-boss hauled a scanty stock of hay and provisions from Clark's, a cattle-camp and settlement to the northeast. And finally, when shack and barn were alike done, Dallas put the mules to the end of an oak beam and took up the task of plowing.

Now she was winding at a black mat that was gradually growing upon the brown carpet of the prairie. Up and down she walked, her whiplash trailing behind her like a lively snake, her hands striving to guide the cleaving share she followed, a look of deep content, despite all fear for bad weather, upon her sun-browned face.

But while, working the morning hours slowly away, she gave full attention to the nodding mules and the young bull straggling at their head, she did not stop to watch the flocks winging by above her, or to look off to where the plains fell away from the pale azure line of the sky. So she failed to see, at the middle of the long forenoon, a group of dark figures that came into sight to the eastward and moved slowly forward in the direction of the bend.

Toward noon, however, the furrows were turned less regularly. Ben and Betty were so tired that they no longer drew evenly, but wavered from side to side. Again and again the off mule jerked the share out of the sod; each time Dallas patiently circled the team and steered it back into place again, for her arms were not strong enough to swing the plow on the whiffletrees. And each time Simon caught sight of her red flannel petticoat, and, faint, half-awakened objections stirring beneath his sprouting horns, came back to challenge the goading colour and butt her crossly in the skirts.

Just before dinner-time, and half-way of the plowed strip, going east, Dallas suddenly lifted her shoulders to tighten the slack of the reins, let go the horns and brought the mules to a stand. And then, as they halted with lowered heads, she caught sight of the distant figures between her and the horizon, recognising them as men, mounted and on foot, with wagons hanging at their rear.

She stepped to the head of the team and shaded her eyes for a moment. As she did so, a part of the advancing body detached itself and approached more swiftly, only to retreat again; and the sun, climbing toward the centre of the sky, flashed back upon bright objects carried at the front of the group.

"Soldiers for Brannon, I reckon," she said aloud to Simon, who had given over his butting and was thoughtfully sniffing the air. "Still," she added, "they're coming slow for soldiers."

Simon rubbed a red shoulder against her arm confidingly and gave a defiant, sideways toss of the head.

"You know, don't you?" Dallas said, scratching the star in his curly forehead. "Well, I would, too, if I had your nose." She glanced at the mules and noted their lack of fright. "They're not Indians anyhow," she went on, "so I guess we'll do some more plowing."

When the sun was so high that Simon's shadow made but a small splotch upon the ground under him, Dallas again stopped to look toward the east. The men and horses had travelled only a short distance, and were halted for their noon rest. Close to the wagons, the smoke of burning grass-twists was curling up from under the midday meal.

"They ain't soldiers," she said decisively; "if they was, they'd go on to the ferry. And what can they be, headed this way?" She took off her hat and swung it at her father to attract his attention, then pointed toward the men and teams.

Lancaster was sitting before the shack, his crutches across his knees. Seeing her signal, he got up and hobbled hastily around the corner, from where he blinked into the gap. And, unable to make out anything but a blurred collection of moving things, he called Marylyn from her dinner-getting.

"Come an' see w'at y' c'n make out off thar on th' prairie, Mar'lyn," he cried. "Ef it's antelope, bring out th' Sharps."

Marylyn hurried to him and followed the direction of his gaze. "Why, it's men, pa," she said.

"Certainly, it's men," he agreed pettishly. "But w'at kin' o' men? Thet's w'at Ah kain't see."

Marylyn shook her head. Then, as she bent her look inquiringly toward the far-away camp, a horseman suddenly left it and started on a gallop toward them. "One's coming this way fast!" she exclaimed, and rushed back into the shack for her bonnet.

Lancaster and his younger daughter commented excitedly as the rider approached. One troop of cavalry had remained at Brannon throughout the summer to give protection to the wives and children of officers and enlisted men. The remaining troops belonging at the fort were away on Indian service. They were to return soon, and the section-boss believed he saw in the nearing traveller the herald of the home-coming force. Marylyn, however, was just as certain that Indians were about to surround them, and hastily brought out the gun. But Dallas wasted no time in conjectures. She touched up Ben and Betty and finished her round of the plowed land. Not till the stranger was close did she stop at the eastern end of the field and wait, leaning on the cross-bar.

He came forward in a sharp canter, keeping a regular tap upon the flanks of his mount with the end of a lariat. His careless seat in the saddle and the fact that he wore no spurs told Dallas that he was not a trooper, though across the lessening distance now between them his dress of blue shirt, dark breeches and high boots, crowned by a wide, soft hat, was not unlike a campaign uniform. At his approach, Ben and Betty became lazily interested and raised their long ears to the front; Simon advanced a little and took a determined stand beside Dallas, who hung her lines on the plow-handles and prepared to greet the horseman.

The instant he reached her, he halted abruptly beside the mules and bared his head. "Good-morning," he said with cheery politeness; but his swift glance over team, plow, and girl showed a surprise that was almost pity.

She saw his look, and the colour swept up under the tan of her face. "How d' y' do," she answered.

"I'm John Lounsbury from Clark's," he began. "I've been supplying that crowd back there with feed and grub for a couple of weeks." He nodded toward the distant men and horses. "May I ask—I—I didn't know any women folks had settled——"

She faced him squarely for a moment, and he met her eyes. They were grey, with tawny flecks, wide-open, clear and comprehending. "My father's Evan Lancaster," she explained.

"Lancaster—oh, he's traded at my store."

"That's him over there with Marylyn."

Lounsbury turned in his saddle and looked toward the shack. "Marylyn?" he said. "What a pretty name! Sounds like Maryland. How'd she——" He paused questioningly.

"Mother's name was Mary Lynn," she answered, her voice lowered. "So she just put it together."

"And yours?"

"Mine's Dallas. I was born in Texas."

He leaned back against his high cantle and smiled. "I could 'a' guessed that," he declared.

Again she coloured sensitively, and hastened to swing the team around until Betty stood in the furrow. "My father's coming," she said.

Instantly Lounsbury was all regret, for he saw that she had misunderstood him. "You don't look Texas," he said earnestly. "It's just the name. And—and I think Dallas is pretty, too."

The implied jest on her native State did not do away with her displeasure. She nodded gravely and, turning, put the lines about her shoulders. The mules started.

"Now I've got you down on me," he said penitently. "Honest, I didn't mean——"

She paid no heed.

He clapped on his hat, whipped his horse and followed alongside, waiting for her to look up. Opposite the shack, Lancaster and his other daughter were standing by the furrow. Here she drew rein. "This is Marylyn," she said, as the storekeeper leaned to grasp her father's hand.

Lounsbury again lifted his hat and looked down, long and admiringly, upon the younger girl. Her fair hair, framing in soft waves a pale, oval face, and her blue eyes, watching him in some confusion, were strongly in contrast with the straight, heavy braids—brown, and showing burnished tints in the light—and the unwavering eyes of her sister. Looking at her, he was reminded of girls he had seen beyond the Alleghanies—girls who knew little, or no, toil, and who jealously guarded their beauty from sun and wind. Answering Lancaster's blunt questions, that followed close upon each other, he paid her prettiness constant and wondering homage; and she, noting the attention, retreated a little and was quiet and abashed.

"Who's you' party?" the elder man demanded, indicating the distant camp with one crutch, and leaning heavily upon the other.

"Surveyors," replied Lounsbury.

"Surveyors!" There was alarm in Lancaster's tone. He suddenly recalled how, slighting Dallas' advice, he had delayed a trip to the land-office for the purpose of filing on the claim. "W'at they doin'?"

"Something right in your line, sir. They're laying out a railroad."

"A railroad? You don' say! How'll it come?"

"Why, right this way."

Lancaster caught the other by the bootstrap. "Shore?" he asked.

"Sure," repeated Lounsbury; "sure as death and taxes. It's bound to run somewhere between the coulée and Medicine Mountain, and it'll stop—at least for a few years—at the Missouri. With those sloughs in the way at the south end of the gap, it can't reach the river without coming over your land. First thing you know, you'll have stores and saloons around your house. There's going to be a town on the Bend, sir."

The elder man scanned the younger's face. Lounsbury was smiling half teasingly, yet undoubtedly he was in earnest.

"W'y, Lawd!" breathed the section-boss, realising the whole import of the news. A railroad would mean immeasurable good fortune to the trio of settlers who, like young prairie-chickens that fear to leave the side of their mother, had chosen quarter-sections near the guarding fort. And to him, penniless, with motherless girls, it meant——

"The ferrying's so good right here," went on the storekeeper. "Why, it's a ten-to-one shot the track'll end on your claim."

With one accord all looked across the level quarter, where the new green was creeping in after the late rains.

"A railroad! An' a town!" The section-boss pulled at his grizzled goatee. "They'll make this piece worth a heap!"

"They will," agreed Lounsbury. "But road or no road, seems to me you've got about the cream of this side of the river."

"You' right," said Lancaster. But the girls were silent, except that Dallas gave a sigh, deep and full of happiness.

Lounsbury glanced at her. "You like the place, don't you?" he asked; "even if——" He suddenly paused. Her palms were open and half turned upward. Across each lay a crimson stripe—the mark of the plow-handle.

For the second time she read his meaning. "Yes, I like the prairie," she answered, "if I do have to plow." And she stepped from the furrow to the unturned sod.

As she stood there, Lounsbury caught the clear outline of her firmly drawn face. Beside her, Marylyn, slight and colourless, was for the moment eclipsed. The hat of the elder girl was brushed back, displaying a forehead upon which shone the very spirit of the unshackled. Her hands, large, yet not too large for the splendid figure of which they were the instruments, were clasped upon her breast. Watching her, it seemed to Lounsbury that she must have sprung as she was from the plains one day—grave, full-grown and gallant.

Her father's voice broke in harshly. "Ah didn' want she should plow," he protested. "Ah figgered t' git someone on tick, but seems like Dallas, she——"

"We like it here," she interrupted, "because the air 's so cool, and there's lots of grass." Then after bending to gather a purple flower, she stepped back to the plow.

"You're planning to stay, then," said Lounsbury.

"Stay!" burst forth the section-boss. "Don' it look like it?"

Lounsbury made no reply, only smiled genially.

"Maybe y' reckon we-all ain't safe?" continued Lancaster. "Wal, th' nesters 'roun' Fort Sully's safe 'nough."

The storekeeper pointed across the river to where a flag was flying at the centre of the post quadrangle. "You're in sight of that," he said simply.

The other snorted. Then, stifling a retort, he searched Lounsbury's face with his milky-blue eyes. "Ah'd like t' ast w'y y' didn' tell me 'bout th' track when Ah seen y' las'," he observed suspiciously.

The storekeeper gave a hearty laugh. "And why didn't you say you had daughters?" he demanded.

Instantly a change came over the elder man. He darkened angrily. His breath shortened, as if he had been running. Visible trembling seized him, body and limbs.

Mystified, Lounsbury turned to Dallas, and saw that her eyes were fastened upon her father imploringly. "No, no, dad," he heard her whisper; "no, no."

The storekeeper hastened to speak. "Joking aside," he said, "the reason is this: The railroad company wants the right kind of people to settle on the land along the survey. It doesn't want men who'd file just to get a price. So the story hasn't leaked much."

Lancaster was fumbling at his crutches. "Ah see, Ah see," he said sulkily. Then, with an attempt at being courteous, "Come up t' th' shack, Lounsb'ry. Y' brung good news; y' got t' hev you' dinner."

"I ate back there," said Lounsbury, dismounting; "but I'll stop off for a while, just the same." As he slipped the reins over his horse's head, Marylyn remembered the meal she had abandoned and started homeward. The storekeeper, leading his mount, strode away beside her.

Dallas clucked to the mules.

"Ain't you comin'?" called her father. "W'y, my gal, you worked 'nough this mornin'."

"I'll keep at it just a little longer," she answered.

"We don' hear ev'ry day thet we live on a town site with a railroad a-comin'," Lancaster said, following her a few steps. "Better come."

Dallas did not reply. When she was some rods farther on, her father called to her again.

"Come, Dallas," he urged, "an' stop plowin' up th' streets."

She shook her head, slapped the reins along Ben and Betty's dusty backs and leaned guidingly on the handles of the plow. And as she travelled slowly riverward, Simon trotted close behind, tossing his stubby horns at the red of her underskirt and bawling wearily.

CHAPTER II

A TRIP AND TROUBLE AHEAD

Before Dallas reached the end of her furrow she knew that, for at least some days to come, her work on the plowed strip must cease. Far and wide, frontiersmen may have heard of the railroad's coming, and their first move would be, perhaps had been, a rush to the land-office to file upon quarter-sections touching the survey. And so, no hour dared be wasted before her father started on his long-deferred trip. The claim on the peninsula—the claim which the storekeeper had named as the terminus of the proposed line, as the probable site for a new town—must at once be legally theirs.

When the mules were turned eastward again, Dallas brought them up for a breathing spell and, going apart a little distance, sat down, her knees between her hands. A short space of time had made incredible changes in their plans, in the possibilities of their prairie home. Before the cutting of the last two sods, there had stretched ahead only a succession of uneventful years, whose milestones would be the growing record of beeves and bushels. But now—she could not have credited her senses had it not been for a glimpse of Lounsbury's horse, industriously cropping beside the lean-to.

She looked across at the shack, squatting on a gentle rise at the centre of the claim as if it had fled there for refuge out of the grassy sea whose dry waves lapped up to its very door. Its two small windows, looking riverward, the narrow door of warped lumber between, and the shock roof of meadow-grass held down by stones, gave it the appearance of a grotesque human head that was peering from out the plain. As Dallas, for the first time, noted the curious resemblance, the shack seemed to smile back at her—a wise, reassuring smile.

A moment later the north wind hooded the sky with clouds, putting the bend in gloom. She got to her feet and hastened toward the plow. So brief had been her meeting with the storekeeper that, immediately following it, his features had escaped her. Now she recalled them, and thought she recalled that, when he had accosted her, they had worn a mocking expression. What if her father, in his sudden excitement and concern, should tell Lounsbury that the claim was not yet filed upon! should confide in this stranger, who might then take advantage of the ignorance, age and crippled condition of the section-boss! Hurriedly, she unhitched Ben and Betty, hung their bridles on the hames, and turned the team loose to graze. Then she started homeward, with Simon close upon her heels, and as she crossed the cloud-darkened claim, she glanced again at the shack. Its windows were in shadow, its door almost obscured. There was a smirk on its twisted face.

But when, entering the house, she met Lounsbury's kind, level look, the distrust she had felt unconsciously vanished.

He was seated astride a bench to the left of the fireplace, his hat flung down in front of him, his shoulders against the wall, his booted legs thrust out restfully across the floor. Dallas, seeing him out of the saddle for the first time, was struck by his splendid length, next by his heaviness—a round, but muscular, heaviness that she had never noted in a Texan. Leaning back with folded arms, he showed, however, despite his weight and rotundity, the pliance and the litheness of the Westerner. His hair was dark and thick and worn in a careless part, his throat was bronzed above the lacings of his shirt, his face clean-shaven, somewhat square—yet full—and set with blue eyes that showed an abiding glint of merriment.

If Dallas, as she crossed the sill, formed, with the swift keenness of the plainswoman, a new and truer estimate of Lounsbury, he, saluting cordially, failed not to measure her. The dirt-floored shack, partitioned by Navajo blankets and furnished with unplaned benches, was a background totally unsuited to Marylyn's delicate beauty; but for the elder daughter of the section-boss, its very rude simplicity seemed strangely fine and fitting.

Many women had come under the storekeeper's notice during his frontier life: Roughly reared women of pure ways who toiled and bore with the patience of beasts; the women of the army, matching, in dress and habits, those he had known as a boy; and, last of all, the kind that always follows in the track of soldier, scout and gambler. Yet never before on the sundown side of the Mississippi had he seen one who possessed, along with the reserve a lonely bringing-up enjoins, the dignity and poise that are counted the fruits of civilisation.

"It's good blood," he said to himself, "and"—with a glance at the section-boss—"it's from the mother's side."

Lancaster, at that moment, was truly anything but a picture of repose. His season of delight over the morning's news had been brief, and was now succeeded by thorough disquiet. He hobbled to and fro, from the hearth, where hung a pail of fragrant coffee, to the farther front window. Lounsbury remarked his evident worry and, not understanding it, bent down inquiringly toward Marylyn.

She was seated on a buffalo robe before the fire, zealously tending the coffee. As she felt the storekeeper's look upon her, she glanced up, and, meeting his eyes, something other than the firelight swept her throat, neck and brow with crimson touch.

"There's no fretting in that quarter," was Lounsbury's mental comment. He turned on the bench to face Dallas.

She was standing quietly beside the warped door, her arms hanging tensely at her side, her chin up, her eyes gazing straight at him. And in them, as well as in her whole attitude, Lounsbury read determination and anxiety.

"What's the matter, I wonder," he thought. He leaned toward her, resting an elbow on the bench. "You're getting ready for spring seeding, Miss Lancaster," he said.

"Yes."

The section-boss giggled nervously. "Ef th' town was right here, it would n' make no difference t' Dallas. Ah'll bet she'll spen' th' winter shellin' cawn fer plantin', an' pickin' cockle outen th' wheat." He fell to tugging at his goatee.

Again there was silence. Then, with a deep breath, Dallas straightened to speak. It was borne to her of a sudden that they were in need—of one in whom they might confide, of one from whom good advice might come; she felt impelled to tell this stalwart young man, whose eyes read kindness and whose face read right, who seemed to bear them nothing but good-will, that they had not filed the claim. And then——

The fire crackled cosily, the blackened pail steamed from the cross-piece. Lounsbury spread out his hands before the blaze. "I wish I lived on a quarter, like you folks," he said. "I hate the dickering in a store. Been at it ten years. Was in the fur business, at first—bought from the Indians and the skin-hunters up and down. Well, the country got into my blood. You get the West, you know, and it's the only disease out here that you can't shake. So I've stayed, and I guess I'll keep a-staying. But sometimes I get a notion to throw my stores up and go into the cow business or farming."

Dallas sank back, checked, not by Lounsbury's words, but by her father. The section-boss, one hand behind a hairy ear, was glowering at the storekeeper. "Eh, what?" he asked suspiciously.

"I say I've a notion to take up some land," repeated Lounsbury. "Right east of you wouldn't be a bad idea. The soil's wonderful hereabouts. No stumps, no stones, and the loam's thick. Look in the coulée—you can see there how far it is to the clay. That's why she wore down so deep——"

"Thet arroyo?"

"Yes. I believe I'll just pick out a quarter near it. Could plant a store anyway, when the track comes."

"Yas, certainly," said Lancaster. He passed Dallas, giving her a helpless, apprehensive stare. "But, shucks! Ah wouldn' be in sech a tarnel hurry, ef Ah was you. Spring's plenty o' time."

Lounsbury swung round sharply. "Spring!" he exclaimed in amazement. "I hope that hasn't been your plan, sir. A man can't file too soon."

Dallas leaned toward Lounsbury again, and her lips parted. But a quick, peremptory gesture from her father interrupted. "Mar'lyn," he cried, his eyes warning the elder girl, "look out fer thet coffee; it's a-bilin' over."

And Dallas saw that her father did not trust the storekeeper—perhaps feared him—and that he did not wish his own neglect to be known.

But a hint of the state of affairs at the shack had already entered Lounsbury's mind. As Marylyn rose to pour the coffee, he quickly changed the subject. "Fort 's a quiet place, these days," he observed, accepting a cup. "Wonder when the troops'll be back."

The section-boss sipped at his saucer. "Ah don' carry on no dealin's with Yankee soldier trash," he answered curtly. "They keep they side o' th' river, an' we-all keep ourn."

Lounsbury laughed. "Well," he said, "you'll find when the redskins get nasty that the army blue looks pretty good."

The other shrugged.

The storekeeper tapped the holster hanging upon a thigh. "I carry a pop-gun regular." He set down the cup, pulled at his boot-legs and arose.

"Ah reckon Ah c'n hol' my own, sah." Lancaster's pride was touched.

"No doubt of it," assured the younger man, preparing to go. "I hope," he continued, "that you'll call on me at any time—if you need more provisions, say."

Lancaster did not misunderstand the offer of credit. "Thank y'," he replied stiffly, "but we certainly got 'nough t' las' through."

Lounsbury remembered how small—compared with the orders of other wintering settlers—was the Lancaster stock; and thought, too, how likely it was that every passerby would be fed with true Southern hospitality, thus diminishing the supply. But he refrained from making any further suggestion. He bade the family good-by, lingering a little at parting beside the younger girl.

"Miss Marylyn," he said, "before another winter you'll be the belle of the town of Lancaster."

She put her hand in his bashfully.

"And, Miss Dallas?" His voice entreated a little.

"I hope you'll be the biggest storekeeper," she said.

To Lounsbury's surprise, he saw a trace of fun lurking in her eye. "Ah! you've forgiven me!" he declared triumphantly.

But she made no answer as she turned away.

The next moment he was galloping toward the coulée crossing.

Marylyn watched him go. When, having disappeared into the ravine, he came into sight again on the farther side, he turned in his saddle and saw her. He took off his hat and waved it. She answered with a farewell signal, and stood, looking after him, until distance dwarfed horse and rider to a dot.

On the storekeeper's departure, the shack became a scene of action. Lancaster gave over walking the floor and collected bedding for a journey. Marylyn was called in to prepare a box of food for her father—potatoes from the coals of the fireplace, cured pig-meat from the souse-barrel, bread, and a jug of coffee. While Dallas caught the mules, gave them some grain and a rubbing-down with straw wisps, and greased the wagon wheels. All being made ready, the section-boss took leave of his daughters, urging them to keep within the next day when the surveyors came up, and to deny his going. Then, with Ben and Betty at a smart trot, he set off for Bismarck and the land-office.

When he was gone, the squat shack on the bend became vigilant. Ceaselessly its eyes covered the stretch of road between ferry-landing and coulée—ceaselessly, though Dallas alone kept watch for wayfarers. Not until night fell, and the cloud-masked moon disappeared behind the western bluffs, were small blankets pinned into place across the windows, and the peering shock head made sightless.

But even with the house darkened, the early supper eaten and Marylyn asleep in her bed before the hearth, the elder girl still kept on the alert. A nervousness born of loneliness had taken possession of her. If the doorlatch rattled, she raised herself, listening. If Simon rubbed himself against the warm outer stones of the fireplace, she sprang up, a startled sentinel, with wide eyes and clenched hands.

But an hour passed. The wind lulled. Simon lay down. She fell to thinking of the storekeeper. She felt surer than ever, now, that he did not covet the bend. Setting aside the fact that he had brought them good news, she was glad he had come. It gave them a neighbour. And, yes, she forgave him the smile that had provoked her resentment. After all, the name Dallas did sound Texas.

With morning, and the rising of the sun, she was up and doing the few chores about lean-to and shack. But when the surveyors arrived, making short work of their last few miles, she and Marylyn shut themselves in and escaped being seen. The engineers gone toward Clark's, Dallas again took up her watch.

Twice before night she was rewarded. The mail-sergeant passed, bringing a batch of letters to a grateful post; and, late in the afternoon, an Indian runner came into sight from up the Missouri. Scorning to use the ferry, he dropped into the river, where the coulée emptied, and swam across.

The arrival of the scout Dallas associated instinctively with the expected return of the troopers, and felt a relief that she would not have cared to confess to her father. The unusual bustle that marked the next three days at Brannon seemed to justify her belief. Below the barracks, on the level bottom-land, men were busy erecting a strange structure. Tall cottonwoods were hauled from the river and set on end in the sandy ground. As time passed, these came to form a tight, circular pen.

The night of the third day there was activity on the other bank of the Missouri. Unknown to shack and fort, the squalid line of shanty saloons that stretched itself like a waiting serpent along a high bench opposite the new stockade, sprang into sudden life. Two wagons filled with men and barrels crossed the bend and emptied themselves into the dilapidated buildings. And far into the early hours, loud laughter, the click of chips and the clink of glasses disturbed the quiet of the night. At dawn, an officer, standing, field-glass in hand, on the gallery at headquarters, saw two wagons drawn up in front of Shanty Town and called down a curse upon the heads of the sleeping revellers.

"Just see there!" he exclaimed. "Some vermin got wind of the paymaster's coming and are here to fleece the men."

A lieutenant sauntered up, putting out his hand for the glasses. "There wasn't a soul in those huts yesterday," he said.

"No, of course not," sputtered the other. "The devils stayed at Clark's till the punchers got back from Kansas City. Now, they're on hand to keep our guard-house and hospital full. By gad! if I commanded here, I'd have the whole street fired."

"Well," said the lieutenant, "the men have a way of disciplining that kind, themselves. Some day, when a favourite is cut in a brawl or cheated at cards, they'll shoot up the place. If there's anything left, it'll move on."

"It won't do any harm to keep an eye on Shanty Town, all the same," declared his companion, fiercely. "Remember the man that ran it last year? Slick, by gad! Why, the paymaster might just as well have stopped over there—he and his ilk got every cent! He wasn't a 'bad' man, mind you—not brave enough for that, but keen-nosed as a moose, conceited as an Indian——"

"What was his name?"

"Oh, Dick or Vic Something-or-other, I don't know what. He's a bragging renegade, anyway."

Unaware of a reconnoitre, the occupants of the line of shanties slumbered serenely on; and not until noon did high plumes of smoke, straight as the flag-pole on the parade-ground, announce, to the secretly delighted troopers at Brannon, their tardy rising.

Dallas, too, saw the busy chimneys. But while watching them intently from an open window, her attention was attracted, all at once, in the opposite direction. She heard, coming out of the coulée, a chorus of shrill talking, like the pow-wow of a flock of prairie-chickens. Then, a horse snorted, and there was a low rumble of wheels. Thinking that it was her father, she leaned into sight. As she did so a team came scrambling over the scarlet brink, dragging a wagon full of men and women.

As the horses gained the level prairie, their driver laid aside a huge black-snake whip with which he had been soundly whacking them, and looked about. The next moment, Dallas saw him rein in his team and spring to his feet. He was looking toward the shack, and he raised his whip-hand menacingly.

"Look at that! Look at that!" he cried wildly, his voice carrying through the clear air.

All looked where he pointed, and someone in the back of the wagon cursed.

"What d' you call that for luck?" yelled the man, shaking his mittened fist. "If Nick knew that!"

Dallas could not hear the mingled answers of his companion.

"Well, I call it damned——"

A woman reached up and pulled him into his seat. There was another shrill chorus, the man whacked the horses till they reared, and the wagon went rumbling on.

Dallas watched it until it disappeared into the cut at the landing. Then she sank upon a bench. For a long time she sat, dumb and immovable, her eyes on the floor. When, finally, she got up, she felt about her, as if overcome by blindness.

Marylyn had not seen or heard the threatening wagon-driver. Seated comfortably on the robe by the fire, she strung beads and hummed contentedly.

Dallas started toward her—stopped—then moved slowly back to the window, where she took up her watch.

Late that night she sprang from fitful, troubled sleep to hear Simon lowing and moving about restlessly. A few moments afterward, there came a mule's long bray from below the shack, followed by the voice of the section-boss, urging on the team. She found her long cloak and hastened out.

She could not wait for the wagon to stop before calling anxiously to her father. "Did you file?" she asked, walking beside Betty.

Lancaster did not answer, but scolded feebly, as if worn with his long trip. "W'y d' y' fret a man 'fore he c'n git down an' into th' house?" he demanded. "Ah'm plumb fruz t' death, an' hungry."

She helped him over the wheel and through the door. Then she went back and, in feverish haste, stabled the mules. On entering the shack, now dimly lighted by a fire, she did not need to repeat her question. She read the answer in her father's face.

"No use," Lancaster told her, raising wet, tired eyes to hers. "Th' claim was gone 'fore ever we got here—filed on las' July." He lay down, muttering in a delirium of grief and physical weariness.

The fire, made only of dry grass, began to die, the room to darken. Dallas' face shadowed with it. She was thinking of the level quarter that was to have blossomed under her eager hands; that was to have brought comfort to Marylyn and her crippled father. And now the land was gone from them, had never been theirs—they were only squatters.

Any hour, a nameless man—perhaps he who had gone by that day—might descend upon them and——

The bail of a bubbling pot slipped down the bar that held it, and the vessel clattered upon the hearth. She started as if a gun had exploded at her elbow.

CHAPTER III

DALLAS MAKES A FRIEND

"Y-a-a-as," drawled Lancaster, reflectively, gnawing the while at a fresh slab of tobacco, "we jes' nat'ally mavericked this claim."

A fortnight had passed since his return from the land-office. In that time, his fear had slowly vanished, his confidence returned. And he had begun to show streaks of the bravado that, in his stronger days, made him an efficient section-boss. Rosy dreams, even, beset his brain—dreams upon which Marylyn, despising her father's meaner structures (and kept in ignorance of what might, at any moment, raze them), piled many a rainbow palace. For, to the younger girl, certain calico-covered books on the mantel had invested the events of the fortnight just gone with a delightful tinge of romance.

Dallas, however, took a sensible view of their situation. She pointed out that the man who had made an entry for the land would, in all probability, return; and that if he did not, five years, at least, would pass before the railroad reached them. Meanwhile, the quarter-section should be properly filed upon for possession and farmed for a living. Now, as she brushed the hearth clean with the wing of a duck, she listened quietly to her father's confident boasting.

"It's this way, m' gal:" he said—he compassed a goodly quid and shifted it dexterously into the sagging pocket of a cheek—"Inside o' six months after a man files, he's got t' dig a dugout er put up a shanty. He's got t' do a leetle farm-work, an' sleep on his claim. When thet six months is up, ef he ain't done no buildin' er farmin', th' claim's abandoned, an' th' first man comin' along c'n hev it.

"In this case, th' gent in question ain't built, dug er farmed. Ef he was t' show up an' want this quarter, he could git it by payin' fer our improvements. Ah reckon we'd hev t' sell an' pull our freight. But ef he was t' show up an' not pay like a' honest man, they'd—they'd—wal, they'd likely be a leetle disagreement."

Dallas shook her head. "If he comes before his six months is up and improves, we got to go. That would be the only square thing. Ain't it so?"

"Wal—wal——" began Lancaster, lamely.

"It is," she said. "He filed on the quarter, and we had no right to settle——"

"We hev settled, an' th' lan' 's goin' t' be worth money," broke in her father.

She put up her hand. "We got to go, if he comes. But"—she arose wearily—"if he didn't offer pay for our improvements, how could we go, or get through the winter, or build again next spring? Our money's gone."

"Look a-here, Dallas," began her father, crossly, "they ain't no use t' worry th' way you do. Winter is clost. It ain't likely th' man'll come along this late. An' ef he don' show up pretty soon, he ain't got a chanst. 'Cause, when his six months is gone, Ah'll make another trip t' Bismarck, contes' his entry, hev it cancelled an' file. Then, we's safe."

She silenced him, for Marylyn was entering, and quit the shack. Outside, before the warped door, she paused.

"He's always so sure of himself. But he can't do anything. And Marylyn—Oh, I wish there was someone with us, now—someone that'd help us if anything—went wrong."

Of a sudden, looking down at her hands, her eyes fell upon the crimson stripes left across her palms by the plow. And, in fancy, a horseman was riding swiftly toward her from the east, again, while she leaned on the cross-brace and waited.

"Twenty miles," she said thoughtfully; "twenty miles." And turned the marks under.

Sun-baked, deep of rut and straight as the flight of a crow, lay the road that led northeast from the swift, shoally ford of the Missouri to the cattle-camp at Clark's. It began at the rough planking upon which the rickety ferry-boat, wheezing like some asthmatic monster, discharged its load of soldiers or citizens, and ran up through the deep cut in the steep, caving river-bank. From there, over the western end of the Lancaster quarter, across the coulée under a hub-depth of muddy backwater—at the only point where the sumach-grown sides sloped gradually—it took its level, unswerving way.

Twice only in its course did it touch the ravine curving along near by it—once, six miles from the ferry-landing, where, on the limbs of a cluster of giant cottonwoods that grew in the bottom of the gully, a score of Indian dead were lashed, their tobacco-pipes, jerked beef and guns under the blanket wrappings that hid them; and, again, at Murphy's Throat, four miles farther up, where the coulée narrowed until a man, standing in its bed with arms outstretched, could place the tips of his fingers against either rocky wall. Beyond the Throat, the crack in the plains grew wider and shallower, veered out to the eastward, and, at last, came to an abrupt end in a high meadow below the distant river-bluffs.

For decades the road had been a buffalo-trail, a foot wide and half as deep, that, in the dry season, guided the herds in single file from the caking meadow to the distant waters of the Missouri; then the travee poles of Indian tribes gave it the semblance of a wagon track, the centre of which was worn bare by the hoofs of laden ponies and the feet of trudging squaws; and, finally, the lumbering carts of traders, the Studebakers of settlers, and those heavier wagons that roll in the rear of marching men, made of the track a plain and hardened highway.

Down it, that morning, approaching to the accompaniment of loud talking, the tramping of horses, the cracking of whips and the jingling of spurs, came a long procession. Yet so absorbed was Dallas in her plowing that not until the head of its column was close upon her and there was barely time to go to the bridles of the frightened mules did she see it.

A tanned, unkempt officer led the way, with baying foxhounds running about him. On either hand rode his staff, and his scouts—Arickaree Indians, in patched breeches and dusty blankets. And behind, full-bearded, all military look gone from their boots, hats and uniforms, came the cavalry, riding two and two, and flying torn and faded guidons.

Dallas had no chance to view the front of the command, for the mules claimed all her attention by hauling back on their bits. But now they quieted a little, and she was free to watch the dozen or so musicians who came next, mounted, with their brass instruments in hand. She saw that these men were nudging one another, and directing at her glances which were bold and amused.

Something of her father's hatred of soldiers stirred her. She grew defiant; yet only for a moment. The musicians trotted by, and now Indians were passing—men, women and children, whose stolid faces disclosed no hint of grief or hatred for their captivity. The braves, twenty in number, formed the head of the band, and kept no order of march as they spurred forward their ragged, foot-sore ponies. Their Springfield rifles, knives and tomahawks had been taken from them, but they still carried their once gay lances, and shields of buffalo-hide covered with rude pictures of the chase and battle. But though on other occasions these would have betokened the free warrior, they now only emphasised by contrast the blankets that trailed ingloriously from their wearers' shoulders to the ground and the drooping feathers of the conquered chiefs.

A war-priest, whose string of bears' claws, triple feathers, charms and bag plainly betokened the medicine-man, headed the tribe. He was seated upon a gaudily decorated saddle; the nose-band, front and cheek-pieces of his horse's bridle were thickly studded with brass nails; bright pom-poms of coloured wool swung from the curb and the throat-latch; and the nag's tail was stiffly braided with strips of woolen—scarlet and yellow and blue. Close beside him rode two stately braves of high rank, their mounts as richly caparisoned, their buckskin shirts gorgeous with bead and porcupine-quill embroidery, otter-skin head-dresses upon their hair. Like their leader, the dusky faces of the two Indians and of those forming the rest of the party were hideously painted, showing that all had but recently been upon the warpath.

The other half of the redskin company was more squalid. A score of spotted, sway-backed ponies crept along, bearing and, at the same time, dragging, heavy loads. Each saddle held a squaw and one or more small children—the squaw with a cocoon-like papoose strapped to her back. And at the tail of each horse, surrounded by limping Indian dogs, came a travee laden with a wounded or aged Indian, or heaped with cooking utensils, blankets and buffalo-skins.

One woman of all the squaws rode a pony that had not a double burden. She was dressed in buckskin and bright calico, and sat upon a blanket that almost covered her horse. Her hair was braided neatly, her dark cheeks were daubed with carmine. She kept a rigid seat as she passed Dallas, and her black eyes answered the other's kindly look with one full of sullen pride. Beside her hobbled an aged hag across whose wrinkled mouth and chin was a deep and livid scar.

When the Indians were past, more troopers followed. After them trundled a half-dozen light field-pieces, the wagon-train, and ambulances filled with sick or wounded soldiers, all under the conduct of a rear-guard. Soon, the entire cavalcade was gone, and had halted on the river-bank to wait the ferry. Dallas was alone again, listening to the faint strains of the band which, from the cut, was gallantly announcing the return from the long campaign.

At the door of the shack, Lancaster and his younger daughter were watching the portage, piecemeal, of the troops. But Dallas, starting the team again, saw father and sister suddenly turn from the landing to look and point toward the coulée. Glancing that way, too, she saw the object of their interest. Over the brink into sight was toiling a strange figure, bent and almost hidden under an unwieldy load.

She moved aside in some trepidation to await the creature's advance. Upon its back, as it tottered along, was a score of pots and pans, tied together, and topped by a sack of buffalo-chips that, at each slow step, rolled first to one hand and then to the other. Yet with all the difficulty of balancing the fuel-sack and preventing its falling to the ground, the straggler did not fail to keep in place a drab face-covering.

The mules stood perfectly quiet until the figure was near. Then they became uneasy for the second time, and shied back upon the plow, tangling their harness.

The effect of this was startling. The sack of chips came tumbling off the pots and pans, spilling upon the roadway. The tin things followed with a crash. And, with a grunt, the bent figure retreated a few steps and uncovered its face.

In very amazement Dallas let go the mules. The creature facing her was young and pitifully thin. About a face dripping with perspiration fell a mop of tangled hair. Under a tattered mourning blanket, a bulging calico waist disclosed, through many rents, a lean and bony chest. And below the leather strap that belted both the sombre blanket and the waist, hung limply the shreds of a fringed buckskin petticoat. The straggler was an Indian—a male—yet, despite his sex, he wore, not a brave's dress, but the filthy, degrading garb of a squaw!

He watched Dallas with cowed, questioning eyes, strangely soft and un-Indian in their expression. After a moment, seeing that he was ill, as well as unarmed, she ceased to feel afraid of him.

"How," she said, in greeting.

He made no reply, only continued to watch her steadily.

"How," she repeated, and smiled.

His eyes instantly brightened.

"You sick?" she asked, moving her head sorrowfully in pantomime.

For answer, he shambled closer and held up first one naked foot and then the other, like a suffering hound. Dallas saw that they were sore from stone bruises and bleeding from cactus wounds.

"Oh, you're hurt!" she cried.

The Indian nodded, and at once made her a dumb appeal. Lowering himself stiffly until he was seated upon the dead grass before her, he pointed eloquently into his wide-open mouth.

Dallas understood. "Hungry," she said.

He nodded again.

She had never heard a scoffing white declare that the red man is, above all, a beggar, so she did not delay answering his mute petition. She stooped to examine again the cuts and bruises on his feet. Then, "Wait till I come back," she bade him, and his vigorous nod assured her that he understood what she said. She hurried away to the shack.

She tarried only long enough to tell her father of the straggler and to hear his objections at her "fussin'" with a "no-'count Injun." Returning, she found her charge patiently waiting for her. As she came up, he was facing the ford, where, amid cursing, shouting and trumpet blares, some troopers were trying to induce the balky ambulance mules to go aboard the boat. But when she handed him a crockery plate heaped with boiled potatoes, cold meat and pancakes, and a piece of suet wound in a soft white cloth, he became indifferent to the lively doings at the landing and began to eat as if famished.

He made such rapid headway that, before Dallas realised it, the food was gone, the plate scraped clean and the suet direly threatened. He gave her a puzzled look as she put forth a hand objectingly.

"No, no," she said. And while she tore the soft cloth into strips, she put the fat out of reach by slipping it into a skirt pocket.

The bandages ready, she knelt before him and tenderly swathed his wounds.

"There!" she said, as she finished. "Now, you'd better hurry. The soldiers are almost over, and you'll be too late to get across dry."

He scrambled up, but, ignoring her advice, put one hand through a rent in his squaw's waist and began to search for something. Presently, he brought forth a package done up in dirty muslin, and slowly unfastened it. A folded paper as soiled as its wrapper fell out. It was worn through much handling and covered with pencilled words. He handed it to Dallas.

At first, she could not decipher it. But after studying it carefully and placing together several detached bits she was able to make it out. It was written scrawlingly and in a trembling hand.

"The bearer of this [it read] the good chief, Red Moon, I commend to the gentleness and mercy of every God-fearing man and woman. Once, out of the weakness of the flesh, he wept under the tortures of a sun-dance. Since then he has been abused, starved, and spat upon. Yet, hearing from me of Christ, His suffering, and His command to forgive, he has put down his desire to revenge his wrongs in blood, and goes on his way, labouring and enduring in silence. May God be gracious to whomsoever aids this least one among us."

Here the letter ended, but underneath was the signature—so fingered, however, that Dallas could spell out only the word "David"—and a blurred postscript which said:

"I have christened him Charles, and taught him English, but since his punishment he has never——"

The remainder of the paper was illegible.

When Dallas gave it back to the Indian, he wrapped it up carefully and returned it to his bosom. Then he gathered up the scattered chips, lifted his double load to his shoulders, drew his sombre blanket close about him, and shambled slowly away.

"Poor thing!" said Dallas, in compassion.

He stopped to look back.

"Good-by," she said as he went on; "good-by."

When he reached the river-bank, he turned again. The frost-blighted cottonwoods that bordered the Missouri were behind him, gleaming as yellowly as if, during the short, hot summer, their leafy branches had caught and imprisoned all the sunshine. Against that belt of brilliant colour stood out his spare, burdened frame.

Watching, she saw his gaunt face slowly relax in a friendly grin.

CHAPTER IV

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Snow fell on the very heels of the cavalry. Scarcely were the Indians safe in the stockade and the troopers once more in barracks, when some first flakes, like down plucked by the wind from the breasts of the southward-hastening wild-fowl, came floating out of the sky. Soon the long sumach leaves on the coulée edge were drooping under a crystalline weight, the black plowed strip was blending with the unplowed prairie, and the shock head of the cottonwood shack was donning a spotless night-cap. And so heavy and ceaseless was the downfall that, at supper-time, the sweet trumpet notes of "retreat" were wafted out from Brannon across a covered plain.

When morning dawned, the heavens were cloudless, and the laggard sun, as it rose, shone with blinding glory upon peaceful miles. Nowhere was a sign of wallow, path or road, and the coulée yawned, white-lipped. Even the Missouri was not unchanged. For, away to the northwest, there had been a mighty rainstorm, and the murky river tumbled by in waves that were angry and swollen.

Since his early boyhood, the section-boss had not known snow. Before the previous day, Dallas and Marylyn had never seen it. It was with exclamations of delight, therefore, that, crowding together in the doorway, the three first caught sight of the glistening drifts.

"Pa, it's like a Christmas card," cried the younger girl. And, bareheaded, she ran out to frolic before the shack.

To Dallas, the scene had a deeper meaning. Here was what would discourage and block anyone who had put off necessary improvements! And this would last long after the expiration of that six months! "I guess there'll be no building or plowing now," she said to her father, happily.

He, fully as relieved, returned a confident assent.

A little later, Old Michael, the ferryman, drove by, breaking a track along the blotted road. His ancient corduroys, known to every river-man from Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats. Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of the hindmost box.

On the arrival of the saloon gang, the pilot had left his steamboat in the hands of his two helpers and made his way to Shanty Town. There, in a shingle hut, perched atop a whisky cask, and kicking its rotund belly complacently with his heels, he had wet a throat, long dry, from the amber depths beneath him.

With each succeeding glass, his obligations had grown apace. Nevertheless, for a lifetime of rough service had brought about an immunity that belied his Celtic blood, his brain remained clear, his step steady and his eye unbleared. Thus it happened that when, cut off from grazing, it was necessary for the Shanty Town teams to be returned at once to Clark's, Old Michael was on hand and in condition to take them, and, by so doing, wipe out his drinking-account.

As he came opposite the shack, Marylyn was still running about in the snow, while Dallas was sweeping out some long, narrow drifts that had sifted in through window-and door-cracks. Squinting across at them, he recalled, all at once, a heated conversation that had taken place at Shanty Town the afternoon of the southward departure of a Dodge City courier. And he shook his head sorrowfully.

"Ye'll have yer han's fule before long," he advised aloud, "or it's me that's not good at guessin'." And, lifting the front of his cap, he sympathetically blew the purple bump that served him for a nose till it rang through the crisp air like a throaty bugle.

Farther on, as he sat pondering deeply and letting the leaders choose their course, a horseman came cantering toward him, and drew rein beside his wheel. It was Lounsbury, buried to the ears in a buffalo coat.

"Sure, it's somethin' important, John, that's a-bringin' ye out t'-day," cried Old Michael, roguishly, his brogue disclosing his identity. "It's ayther tillegrams or l-a-a-ydies."

The storekeeper coloured under his visor. "It's nay-ther," he mocked laughingly.

"None o' yer shillyshallin'," warned the ferryman, giving the other a playful whack with his gad. "Oi kin rade ye loike a buke."

"You can't read a book," declared Lounsbury. "But I'll tell you: I'm going to the Lancasters'."

Old Michael nodded, with a sly wink through the portholes of his mask. "Oi knowed it!" he said. Then, after fishing out a tobacco-bag from under his many coats and lighting the corn-cob in the protecting bowl of his palms, "In that case, man, Oi got somethin' t' say t' ye."

He leaned over the wheel confidentially, and Lounsbury bent toward him, so that the smoke of the pipe fed the storekeeper's nostrils. They talked for a half-hour, the one relating his story, the other putting in quick questions. At the end of their conversation, Lounsbury held out his hand.

"If their letter brings him, Mike," he said, "don't you fail to let me know."

"Aye, aye," promised the pilot, earnestly.

They parted. Old Michael continued his way with an easy mind. But Lounsbury was troubled. Instead of carrying—as on his former visit—good news to the little family on the bend, he must now be the bearer of evil.

And when, having stalled his horse with Ben and Betty, he entered the cottonwood shack, his heart smote him still more. For, secretly, he had hoped that he was to tell them what they already knew. But it seemed precisely the reverse. There was nothing in the appearance and actions of the Lancasters that suggested anxiety. The section-boss, though his manner was not without a certain reserve (as if he half believed something was about to be wormed out of him), greeted Lounsbury good-naturedly enough. Marylyn hurried up in a timid flutter to take his cap and coat. While, facing him from the hearth-side, her hair coiled upon her head like a crown, her grey eyes bright, her cheeks glowing, was a new Dallas.

"Well, how've you all been?" asked Lounsbury, accepting a bench.

"Oh, spright 'nough," answered the section-boss. "But it's cold, it's cold. Keeps me tremblin' like a guilty nigger."

"You'll get over that," assured the other, rubbing the blood into his hands. "It's natural for you to be soft as chalk-rock the first winter—you've been living South."

"Ah reckon," agreed Lancaster. He sat down beside the younger man, eyeing him closely. "How d' y' come t' git away fr'm business?" he queried.

"Well, you see," Lounsbury answered, "I've got an A 1 man in my Bismarck store, and at Clark's there's nothing to do week days, hardly. So I just took some tobacco to Skinney's, where the boys could get at it, and loped down here." Then, playfully, "But I don't see much happening in these parts." He stretched toward a window. "The town of Lancaster ain't growing very fast."

Dallas, seated on a bench with Marylyn, looked across at him smilingly. "I'm glad of it," she declared. "We ain't used to towns."

"You folks've never lived in one?"

"No—we never even been in one."

He puckered his forehead. "Funny," he said. "Somehow, I always think of you two as town girls."

"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed Lancaster, scowling.

But Dallas was leaning forward, interested. "That's on account of our teachers," she said. "There was a school-house up the track, in Texas, and we went to it on the hand-car. Every year we had a different teacher, and all of 'em came from big Eastern places like New Orleans or St. Louis. So—so you see, we kinda got towny from our school-ma'ams."

"One had a gold tooth," put in Marylyn. Her eyes, wide with recollection, were fixed upon Lounsbury.

"But you passed through cities coming north," argued the storekeeper.

"N-n-no," said Dallas, slowly; "we—we skirted 'em."

"What a pity!" He turned to the section-boss.

"Pity!" echoed the latter. "Huh! You save you' pity. My gals is better off ef they don' meet no town hoodlums."

It had been "soldier trash" before; now, it was "town hoodlums." Lounsbury wondered why he had been allowed a second call. He glanced at the girls. There was a sudden shadow on each young face. He changed to the fire, and looked hard at it. How cut off they were! Where was their happiness—except in their home? And could he tell them even that was threatened?

"Not by a long shot!" he vowed. "I'll trust Old Michael."

He set himself to being agreeable, and especially toward the section-boss. He told of the Norwegian at Medicine Mountain, and of the old man who lived with wife and children at the "little bend" up the river; he admired the Navajo blankets, and explained their symbolic figures of men, animals and suns; he leaned back, clasping a knee, and branched into comical stories.

The little shack awoke to unaccustomed merriment. Lancaster warmed to the storekeeper's genial attentions, and burst into frequent guffaws; Dallas and Marylyn followed his every word, breaking in, from time to time, with little gleeful laughs.

But in the midst of it, there came from outside a startling interruption: Shouts, and a loud, pistol-like cracking, powdery swirls over the windows, a frightened lowing, and heavy thumps against the shack.

The noise without produced a change within. Incredibly agile, Lancaster got to a pane. While Dallas, springing up, screened Marylyn, and waited, as if in suspense.

Dark bulks now shot past, pursued by mounted men. And very soon the herd was gone, and all was again quiet. Then followed a moment that was full of embarrassment. Keenly, Lounsbury looked from father to daughter, the one striving to assume an easy air, the other incapable of hiding alarm. All at once, he felt certain they shared Old Michael's information. He determined to tell them that he, too, knew what and whom they feared.

"Expecting someone, Miss Dallas?" he asked tentatively.

The section-boss hastened to answer. "Expectin' nothin'," he snapped. Then, to cut short any further questioning, "Dallas, y' clean forgot them mules t'-day. Lawd help us! y' goin' t' let 'em starve?"

Lounsbury sat quiet, realising that the team was but a pretext. The elder girl found her cloak, picked up a bucket and left the room. Marylyn shrank into the dusk at the hearth-side. Lancaster was hobbling up and down, his crutch-ends digging at the packed dirt of the floor.

The storekeeper, putting aside his determination, went on as though he had not noticed the other's attitude. "The storm was hard on the stock last night. They must 'a' drifted thirty miles with it. Our loss is big, likely. The punchers'll bunch everything on four hoofs and drive 'em into the coulée. Cows'll be out of the wind there, and live on browse till the ground clears."

But as he was talking, the section-boss made himself ready for the cold; before he had finished, the elder man had disappeared.

Lounsbury was thoroughly provoked at the treatment shown him—he was hurt at the plain lack of faith. Again, he considered what course to pursue. Granted the family knew all he could tell them, what would be gained by forcing the fact of his knowledge upon them? Nothing—unless it were more suspicion against himself. And if they were in ignorance—well, it was better than premature care. As before, he decided to remain silent and depend upon the pilot.

He glanced at Marylyn. On her father's departure, she had moved out of the shadow. Now, she was sitting bolt upright, with fingers touching the bench at either side. Her lips were half parted. She was watching Lounsbury wonderingly.

The moment their eyes met, her own fell. She reached to the mantel for a beaded belt, and began work upon it precipitately.

"What is the prairie princess doing?" he asked.

"Making something." She held the belt by one hand to let it slip through the other.

He reached for it. "My! it's pretty! Wish you'd make me a watch-fob like that."

She flushed and dimpled. "I'd like to," she said.

"I'll wear it as an amulet." He gave her back the belt, and their hands touched.

She started nervously.

"Why, Miss Marylyn!" he said gently. "You afraid of me?"

"No." It was whispered.

"Well, you mustn't be." His tone was one that might have been used to a child. "Since I rode here a month ago, I've thought of you folks a lot. I'd like to do a real good turn for you. Perhaps it's because you girls seem so lonely——"

"We're not lonely," she declared. "The Fort's near, and we can hear the band. And pa says there'll be three or four steamers go by next summer."

The storekeeper mentally kicked himself. "The idea of suggesting a thing like that," he growled inwardly, "when she hadn't even thought of it! John Lounsbury, you've got about as much sense as a fool mud-hen."

"And," went on Marylyn, "there's the ladies at Fort Brannon. If pa——" She hesitated.

Lounsbury shook his head, smiling. "Well, I wouldn't count on them, if I were you," he advised, remembering certain experiences of Bismarck belles. "Those women over there are as clannish as crows."

"Yes?" plaintively. She went at her beads again.

"As I was saying," he began once more, "I've thought of you folks a lot. Seemed as if I just had to come down to-day. And I brought you something. See here!" He delved into the side pockets of his coat and pulled out two books.

"O-o-oh!" breathed Marylyn. "Books!"

"All I had, but maybe you'll like 'em. They're love stories."

The shadow beyond the firelight claimed her again.

From the lean-to came the sound of Lancaster's voice. It was shrill with anger. A great sadness came over the storekeeper. "I wish I could come down often and look after things," he said. "You need another man around."

There was a short silence. Then, "Dallas likes the work outside," she answered, very low, "and driving Ben and Betty up and down."

He nodded. "But you?"

"I like to stay in and sew."

"'Stay in and sew,'" he mused. "That takes me back to the States. My dear mother sits by the fire and sews. Ah!"—with big-brotherly tenderness—"I hope you'll never have to do anything harder."

"Dallas won't let me work outside. She says she's the man."

Dallas—the man! Somehow it stung him. And then he heard the elder girl pushing an armful of hay before the eager noses of the mules. He got up quickly. "She is tending to those beasts!" he exclaimed. "Why, if I'd 'a' thought——"

She rose also, a wavering figure in the half light.

He picked up hat and coat, then halted. If he offered his help in the lean-to, what would be his reception? He felt utterly hampered, and began twirling his thumbs like a bashful cowboy. Moreover, Lancaster had been gone a good while. Was his absence a hint for his visitor to go?

The storekeeper went up to Marylyn. "Good-by," he said. "I must be hiking along."

She put a trembling hand in his.

The latch clicked behind them, and the section-boss entered. Again the younger girl started, and consciously.

Lancaster banged the door and looked them over. "Huh!" he snorted meaningly. So—he had misled himself with the idea that Lounsbury had come to pry into the matter of the claim. And all the while, underneath, the storekeeper had had another object!

He jerked at a bench, dropped upon it and flung his crutches down.

The other saw the look and heard the sniff. He believed they arose from the fact that he was still there. "Just going, Lancaster," he said. "So long."

"S' long."

"Good-by, Miss Marylyn. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." He gave her a hearty smile.

"Good-by." She opened the door for him.

John Lounsbury passed out, regretting that he had been unwelcome; indignant that the section-boss had misjudged his interest in the ownership of the claim. But he would have been astounded if he had known the real nature of the false impression he was leaving with Evan Lancaster; or had read the thoughts of the younger girl, country-reared, unused to the little courtesies of speech and action. For there were two who had misunderstood him that day.

CHAPTER V

THE DESPISED

Squaw Charley crouched, dull-eyed, among the dogs. The dark folds of his blanket were drawn tight over his tattered waist. Close around his feet, which were shod in old and cracking moccasins, was tucked his fringed skirt. An empty grain-sack covered his head and shielded his face from the wind. As an icy gust now and then filtered in through the chinks of the stockade wall and swept him, he swayed gently back and forth; while the tailless curs snuggling against him whined in sympathy and fought for a warmer place. For the kennel roof of shingles, put up in one corner of the enclosure as a protection for the pack, had served only, during the week that followed the storm, to prevent the pale beams of the winter sun from reaching the pariah and his dumb companions.

Presently the flap of a near-by lodge was flung aside. An Indian woman emerged and threw a handful of bones toward the shelter. At once Squaw Charley awoke to action. Shedding sack and blanket, he scrambled forward with the half-starved, yelping beasts to snatch his portion.

His bone picked clean of its little, the pariah resumed his crouching seat once more; and the pack closed quietly about him, licking his face and the hands that had cuffed them as, with much turning and shivering, they settled down to sleep.

A warrior stalked proudly past, ignoring both his disgraced brother and the sentries that paced the high board walk at the wall's top. Two Indian lads approached, chattering to each other over the heart-shaped horn tops they were swinging on buckskin strings, and tarried a moment to scoff. Squaw Charley paid no heed to either brave or boys. His face was hidden, his eyes shut. He seemed, like the dogs, to be sleeping.

Of a sudden there came a shrill summons from a distant wigwam, and the pariah sprang up eagerly. Afraid-of-a-Fawn stood in the tepee opening, her evil face with its deep scar thrust forward to look about.

"Skunk!" she shrieked, as he hurried toward her, and her long, black teeth snapped together; "a fire!" Then she spat to cleanse her mouth.

Squaw Charley hastened back to the shingle roof for an armful of fuel. Returning, he entered the wigwam and knelt beneath the smoke-hole. And while he arranged the sticks carefully upon a twist of grass, the aged crone hovered, hawk-like, over him, ready with fist or foot for any lack of haste, or failure with the fire. Not until, with flint and steel, he lighted a strip of spongy wood and thrust it under the dry hay, and a flame leaped up and caught the soot on a hanging kettle, did she leave him and go on a quest for breakfast rations.

The pariah had not dared to lift his eyes from his task while the hag was watching. But now he stole a swift glance toward the back of the lodge, where the maid, Brown Mink, was reclining, and his dull eyes, like the fuel at his knees, leaped into sudden flame. But, with the deftness of a woman, he kept on putting bits of wood into the mounting blaze.

Brown Mink did not look his way. She lay on a slanting frame of saplings held together by a network of thongs. The gay blanket on which she had ridden during the march was folded under her. A buffalo-robe was spread over her bead-wrought leggins and shoes, its hairy side under, its tanned face, which was gaudily painted, uppermost. Festoonings of beads fell from her neck to the top of her richly embroidered skirt, and heavy ear-drops of gilt pushed through the purple-black masses of her hair.

Squaw Charley fed his sight gladly with her loveliness, thankful that she, who once had looked upon him kindly, did not now turn to see his squalor. The blaze was thawing his chilled limbs and fast warming him, the brass pot was singing merrily. He kept his hands gratefully near it, and as, from time to time, the girl held up her arms admiringly to let the firelight shine upon her bracelets and pinchbeck rings, he watched her furtively from half-closed eyes.

But not for long. Afraid-of-a-Fawn soon returned with meat and meal and, cursing, ordered him away.

"Off, Ojibway coward," she cried; "to the dogs. But see that there is wood for to-night's cooking and tomorrow's."

The pariah gave the fire under the kettle a last touch, and slunk out hastily into the snow. The hag pursued him, moving backward and pulling after her the partly dressed hide of a black-tailed deer.

"Make it ready for the cutting-board," she bade, and threw the piece of hard stone for the fleshing so that it split the pariah's cheek.

Squaw Charley took up the hide and dug in the snow for the stone.

A young warrior was lingering at the lodge flap, blowing spirals of kinnikinick. He burst into a laugh. "Ho! ho!" he taunted. "The squaw of a squaw drudges to-day. Ho! ho!"

The crone joined in the laugh. Then, "Standing Buffalo may enter," she said, and respectfully led the way into the wigwam.

The pariah heard, yet did not pause. But when, among the dogs again, he cleaned at the deer hide with short, swift strokes, a light once more flamed up in his dull eyes—a light unlike the one that had burned in them at Brown Mink's fireside.

He was still working diligently, the sack over his head as before, when, about the middle hour of the day, Lieutenant Fraser entered the sliding-panel of the stockade and began to go rapidly from lodge to lodge, as if in search of someone. Seeing the intruder, the dogs about Squaw Charley bounded up, hair bristling and teeth bared.

The outcast laid aside his rubbing-stone and strove to quiet them. But the sudden commotion under the roof had already attracted the young officer. Stooping, he caught a glimpse of The Squaw.

"Oh, there you are!" he exclaimed, and motioned for him to come forth.

When the Indian appeared, the deer-skin in his arms, Lieutenant Fraser pointed toward the entrance. "You come with me," he said, with a gesture in the sign language.

Squaw Charley moved slowly along with him. No one was in sight in the enclosure—no one seemed even to be looking on. But, opposite Brown Mink's lodge, the old woman dashed out, seized the hide with a scream of rage and dashed back again. The next moment, Charley passed through the sliding-panel and took up his march to headquarters.

"So this is your last wild pet, eh, Robert?" said Colonel Cummings, as they entered. He backed up to his stove and surveyed Squaw Charley good-naturedly. "Let me see, now: You've run the scale from a devil's darning-needle to a baby wolf. Next thing, I suppose, you'll be introducing us to a youngish rattlesnake."

Lieutenant Fraser rumpled his hair sheepishly. "But you ought to see the way they're treating him—banging him around as if he were a dog."

"Hm. He certainly doesn't look strong."

"They work him to death, Colonel."

The commanding officer laughed. "A redskin, working, must be a sight for sore eyes!"

"But they don't feed him, sir."

The outcast, wrapped close in his blanket, lifted his pinched face to them.

"How'd it happen I didn't notice this fellow during the march?" inquired the colonel, a trifle suspiciously.

"He was with the squaws when there was anything to do; but when we were on the move, he fell to the rear."

"Didn't try to get away?"

"No; just straggled along."

"Ah. Do you know whether or not he took part in the fight the day we captured them?"

At the question, a swift change came over Squaw Charley. He retreated a little, and bent his head until his chin rested upon his breast.

Lieutenant Fraser threw out his arm in mute reply. No feathers, no paint, no gaudy shirt or bonnet marked the Indian as a warrior.

The elder man approached the silent, shrinking figure not unkindly. "And what do you want me to do for him, Robert?" he asked.

Lieutenant Fraser sprang forward eagerly, his face shining. "He's so quiet and willing, sir—so ready to do anything he's told. I'd be grateful if you thought you could trust him outside the stockade. He could get the odds and ends from the bachelor's mess."

"I'll be hanged! Robert," cried his superior, annoyed. "Most men, just out of West Point, have an eye to killing redskins, not coddling 'em."

The other crimsoned. "I'm sorry you look at it that way, Colonel," he said. "I'm ready to punish or kill in the case of bad ones. But—you'll pardon my saying it—I don't see that it's the duty of an officer to harm a good one."

Squaw Charley raised his head, and shifted timidly from foot to foot.

"Well, Robert," replied Colonel Cummings, quietly, "you still have the Eastern view of the Indian question. However, let me ask you this: Has this man a story, and what is it? For all you know, he may deserve being 'banged around.'"

Lieutenant Fraser was shaking his head in answer, when swift came one from the pariah. He searched in his bosom, under the tattered waist, drew out the rag-wound paper and handed it to the commanding officer.

Very carefully the latter read it, his interest growing with every line. Finally, giving it over to the lieutenant, he smiled at Squaw Charley.

"That tells the tale," he said. "I knew the man that wrote that when I was with Sibley in Minnesota, the summer after the massacre. He's a man that writes the truth. He talks the truth, too, and I wish I had him here, now, so that he could interpret for me."

"Why, sir!" exclaimed the younger man, "it says this chap knows English!"

"By all the gods! Of course it does. Robert, I'll make him my interpreter." The colonel strode up and down in his excitement, pausing only to contend with the other for the paper. "Red Moon," he said at last, motioning the pariah forward, "do you know what I am saying to you?"

Squaw Charley nodded.

"Good! good! This is fortunate. Now we can have a talk with these Sioux." He addressed the Indian again. "And you speak English?" he asked.

There was a second grave nod.

"You shall be my interpreter, Red Moon. You shall have a log house near the scouts, and the Great Father at Washington will pay you. You shall have double rations for yourself and your squaw, and more, if you have papooses. What do you say to that?"

Squaw Charley had not taken his eyes from the other's face for an instant while he was talking. Now, for answer, he shook his head slowly and sadly from side to side.

"Don't want to?" cried the colonel.

"I'll tell you, sir," interposed Lieutenant Fraser, studying the paper, "I don't believe he ever speaks. You'll notice that it says here: 'but he has never.' I can't be sure, but I think the next word is 'spoken.'"

"Vow of silence?"

"Something of the kind. Captain Oliver has been telling me about these bucks that are degraded; and I don't believe that, even if this fellow spoke, the rest of the tribe would treat with us through him."

"That's probably true."

"They've made a squaw of him, sir."

Deep humiliation instantly showed in the pariah's eyes and posture. He looked at Lieutenant Fraser imploringly, and drew his blanket still more closely about him. Then, as, with a sign, he was bidden to put it off, he suddenly let it drop to the floor.

"Great Scott!" cried the colonel. "He's dressed like one!"

"His punishment, sir. And he won't be taken back as a warrior till he does some big deed."

"What does that paper say again? 'Out of the weakness of the flesh he wept under the tortures of the sun-dance.' So that's the cause of his trouble! What did they do to you, Red Moon?"

To reply, Squaw Charley quickly divested himself of the calico waist and turned about. And Colonel Cummings, uttering his horror, traced with tender finger the ragged, ghastly seams that lined the pariah's back.

"Muscles torn loose," he said. "Not old wounds, either." As Squaw Charley resumed waist and blanket, he looked on pityingly.

"I'll give him his freedom," he said, when the outcast stood ready to depart. "He can come and go in the post as he likes. Robert, see that the adjutant understands my order. Now, let him get something to eat in the kitchen."

When Squaw Charley's hunger had disappeared before the enforced, and rather nervous, generosity of Colonel Cummings' black cook, and Lieutenant Fraser had left him, he hurried away from headquarters. Making his way to the sentry line north of Brannon, he gathered firewood along the Missouri until dark.

The lantern had been out for an hour in the cottonwood shack. Father and daughters were asleep. But, at the end of that time, Dallas was suddenly awakened by the sound of loud stamping and rending in the lean-to. Ben and Betty, roused by the fear of something, were plunging and pulling back on their halter-ropes. Startled, her heart beating wildly, the elder girl crept softly to the warped door.

Her father and sister still slept, undisturbed by the noise in the stable, which now quieted as abruptly as it had begun. Dallas heard the team begin to feed again. And from outside the shack there came only a faint rustle. Was it the uncovered meadow-grass of the eaves as the wind brushed gently through it? Or the whisper of moccasins on snow?

Later, when The Squaw entered the sliding panel of the stockade, he crept noiselessly toward the shingle roof. But he was not to gain it unseen. Afraid-of-a-Fawn, who had been looking about for him, hailed him savagely as he neared.

"Wood for the morning fire," she demanded.

By the light streaming out of a near-by lodge she saw that Squaw Charley was looking at her defiantly. She set upon him, cursing and kicking, and drove him before her to the shelter.

"The pig!" she cried. "Running free since the sun was at the centre of the sky, and yet not a stick! May a thousand devils take the coward! He quakes like an aspen!"

Squaw Charley was indeed trembling, but only with the cold, and soon, under the shingle roof, the snuggling dogs would warm him. Blows and abuse counted nothing this night. He was fed; freedom was his; and he had paid a debt of gratitude.

CHAPTER VI

FROM DODGE CITY

"Dad, what's the day after to-morrow?"

Evan Lancaster pursed out his mouth and thoughtfully contemplated his elder daughter.

"Ah c'd figger it out," he declared after a puzzled silence, "ef Ah had th' almanac." He hunted about, found the pamphlet and began to study the December page. "Trouble is," he said at last, "Ah don' know no day t' figger fr'm—Ah los' track 'way back yonder at th' fore part o' th' month. 'Sides, Ah kain't say whether this is Tuesday er Wednesday er Thursday. Mar'lyn, d' you remember w'at day o' th' week it is?"

Marylyn left the farther window and walked slowly forward. As she halted beside her sister, the latter put an arm about her tenderly and drew her close. A change had recently come over the younger girl—a change that Dallas had not failed to see, yet had utterly failed to understand. Marylyn still performed her few tasks about the house, but with absent-minded carelessness. Her work done, she took up the long-neglected vigil at the windows, spending many quiet, and seemingly purposeless, hours there—all unmindful that the beaded belt lay dusty and unfinished on a shelf. Only by fits and starts was the shack enlivened by her happy chatter. At all other times, she was wistful and distrait. Now, as she answered her father, a faltering light crept into her eyes.

"The last time Mr. Lounsbury was here," she said, hesitatingly, "it was the 6th, and to-day is——"

"Ah c'n git it," the section-boss interrupted. After a moment's tallying on his fingers, he sat back and clapped his knees in excitement. "W'y, Dallas!" he cried, "th' day after t'-morrow's the end o' thet man's six months!"

Dallas released Marylyn. "Yes," she said, watching the younger girl wander back mechanically to the post she had forsaken; "and to-morrow you ought to start for Bismarck. Maybe it wouldn't matter if you waited a while before going; but as long as the weather's good, I think you ought to go right off."

"Ah reckon," he replied, but not heartily.

And so, once more preparations for a trip were made. That night, when all was ready, and Dallas and her father, having given the team a late feed, were leaving the stable together, she spoke to him of her sister.

"There's just one thing that worries me about your leaving," she said. "I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but Marylyn don't seem to be feeling good."

"Y' think mebbe she takes after her ma?" ventured the section-boss.

Dallas nodded.

"No, no," he said, "she favours me, an' they's no need t' fret. They's nothin' th' matter with her—jus' off her oats a leetle, thet's all."

The developments of the next morning swept every thought from Dallas' mind save those concerning the journey. For, when it came time to harness the mules, she found that Ben had unaccountably gone lame. Whether his mate had kicked him, or whether he had sprained a leg while exercising the previous afternoon, she did not know. But it was plain that, as far as he went, the miles between quarter-section and land-office were impossible. At once, Dallas suggested that Betty be driven single to a small pung that had been built for water-hauling when the well froze up. Accordingly, the mule was put before the sleigh. Failure resulted. Though both Dallas and her father alternately coaxed and scolded, Betty, with characteristic stubbornness, refused to budge a rod from the lean-to without Ben.

Dallas was in despair. "She won't go, she won't go," she said. "We've got to think of some other way."

"Yestiddy," observed the section-boss, as he unfastened the tugs, "y' said it wouldn' matter ef Ah didn' go now." He was somewhat complacent over the outcome of the hitch-up.

"I don't feel that way now," asserted Dallas.

"Thet ol' man up at th' leetle ben' has hosses," he volunteered when they were again within the shack.

"He took 'em to Clark's two months ago, and walked back."

"Wal, how 'bout th' Norwegian over by th' Mountain?"

"He keeps oxen. If a blizzard came up, they'd never lead you out of it." Then she was moved to make a suggestion which she felt certain, however, would only be denounced. "There are hundreds of horses and mules at Brannon. I could ask there for a team."

Instantly Lancaster's ire was roused. "Thet's all Ah want t' hear fr'm you 'bout them damned Yankees," he said hotly. "An' Ah want y' t' remember it."

"But you're wrong, dad."

"Eh?" He turned upon her in amazed disgust.

"You're wrong," she repeated gently. "We oughtn't to treat the soldiers as if they was enemies. Some day we'll be in danger here——"

"Bosh!"

"And then we'll have to take their help."

He began to hobble up and down, working himself into a white heat. "'S long as Ah live on this claim," he said, "Ah'll never go t' Brannon fer anythin', an' they'll be no trottin' back an' forth. Thet ornery trash over thar is th' same, most of it, thet fought th' South, jus' a few years ago. Ah kain't forget thet. An' not one of 'em'll ever set a foot in this house."

After more hobbling, he burst forth again. "Ah tell y', Dallas, Ah won't hev' you gals meetin' them no-'count soldiers——"

She smiled at him. "We don't want to meet any soldiers," she answered. "But there are women at the Fort—women like mother. It seems a shame we can't know them."

"Y' mother raised y' t' be's fine a lady as any of 'em over thar!"

"Maybe that's true. If it is, then they'd like us, wouldn't they? and we could have friends. I'm not thinking about myself—just about Marylyn."

"You gals got each other. Meetin' th' women at Brannon means meetin' th' men. An' Ah won't hev it!" His voice rose almost to a shout.

"I'll never speak to you about it again," she said. And her quiet acceptance mollified him.

"M' gal, y' kain't think how Ah feel about them Yanks," he went on tremulously. "An' Ah want y' t' promise me thet whether Ah'm 'live er dead, y' 'll allus keep on you' own side of th' river."

She glanced up at him quickly. "Do you mean that, daddy?" she asked, using the name he had borne in her babyhood.

"Ah do! Ah do!"

"Then I promise." Her tone was sorrowful.

"Mar'lyn?"

The younger girl faced about slowly.

"D' you promise?"

"Promise?" she repeated. "Yes,—I—I promise."

Dallas knew that the trip to the land-office was impossible unless Lounsbury should chance along—which was unlikely, some weeks having passed since his last visit. Undoubtedly were he to come, he would help them. But would her father allow her to ask the storekeeper's aid? Probably not.

"I'll tell Charley about it to-night," she said finally. "We just got to find a way."

"What c'n he do?" retorted her father. "Far's him's gitting a team's concerned, we-all might's well look fer someone t' come right outen th' sky."

Her determination to ask advice of the pariah was a natural one. The morning that succeeded the night of the mules' terror, she had awakened to find a reassuring explanation for their fear: In the growing light, as the trumpet sounded reveille from the fort, she sprang up and looked out expectantly. On the top of a drift in front of the door was a bundle of sticks! A hard crust had formed during the night; and moccasin tracks, leading up to the wood, and then pointing away again, were cast in it with frozen clearness.

"That poor Indian!" she had exclaimed, in grateful relief.

Not once after his summoning before Colonel Cummings had The Squaw forgotten daily to leave firewood at the shack. The evening of his second trip across the Missouri, Dallas had lain in wait for him, secreted under the dismantled schooner, which she had drawn into place beside the door. And as, bringing his offering, he crossed the snow softly and approached, the terrified mules again announced his coming, and she hailed him.

"Come on, come near," she had called; "I want to see you."

Eager to prove his good intent, he had hastened forward; and she, just as eager to show her thankfulness, had led him into the house. There, with the distrustful eye of the section-boss upon him, and with Marylyn watching in trepidation from a distance, he had eaten and drunk at Dallas' bidding.

At the very moment when Dallas decided to confide in him, Squaw Charley was not unmindful of her. Where the river-bluffs back of Brannon shoved their dark shoulders through the snow, the wind having swept their tops clean of the last downfall, he was working away like a muskrat. To and fro, he went, searching diligently for buffalo-chips. A sack followed him on a rope tied to his leather belt, so that he could beat his hands against his breast as he covered every square rod of dead, curly grass on the uplands. The bag crammed to the top, he took off his blanket and, despite the cold, began to fill it also. For he knew, and fully as well as they who watched the thermometer hanging just outside the entrance at headquarters, that the night would require much fuel.

As he hunted along the bare ridge, something more than the frigid gusts that whipped the skirt about his lean shanks urged him to finish his gathering and go riverward. In the little snug cabin out on the prairie a cheery welcome awaited him; before the glowing coals in the stone fireplace he could warm his shaking legs; there was good food for his empty stomach. But, better than all else, there a kindly face always smiled a greeting.

The blanket piled so high with chips that its weight balanced the grain-sack, he prepared to start riverward. But first, prompted by an old habit, he climbed to a high point of bluff near by, and, standing where lookouts had maintained a post before severe weather compelled their withdrawal, carefully scanned the white horizon. To the west, from where—the band in the stockade boasted—warriors of their tribe would come in the spring to make a rescue; to the north, on either side of the ice-bound Missouri; to the east, in the wide gap between the distant ranges of hills, he saw no creature moving. But facing southward, his hands shading his eyes carefully from the glare, he spied, on the eastern bank, and at not a great distance, the approach of a familiar milk-white horse, drawing a heavy pung.

The stooping pariah was transformed by the sight. He threw up his arms with an inarticulate cry, and sprang away down the slope to his sack and blanket. Seizing them, he made for the level ground north of the barracks, descended to the ice, swiftly crossed and dragged the fuel up to the cottonwoods. Then he started down the river, taking long leaps.

The upper part of the improvised sleigh that was tilting its way across the drifts like a skiff on angry water, was the green box of an ordinary farm-wagon, set on runners. The wheels of the vehicle lay on some hay in the rear of the box. On the broad wooden seat was a man, facing rearward to get the wind at his back. He was almost concealed by quilts, his arms being wrapped close to his body, and the milk-white horse was taking his leisurely way unguided. Above the man, and nailed so loosely to the wagon-seat that it wavered a little from side to side and kept up a squeaking, was a tall board cross, rude and unpainted.

When he came close to the sleigh, Squaw Charley caught the sound of singing, and stopped. The traveller was comforting his lonely way with a sacred hymn, the words of which, scattered by the wind, reached the Indian in broken, but martial, phrases.

"Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching ... war,
... the cross of Jesus
... on before."

Again Squaw Charley spurred himself into long leaps. And behind Shanty Town, on the open prairie, he brought the horse to a halt.

Once more he gave his wordless cry—a cry like the shrill hail of a mute. It brought the man face about. Another second, answering, he stood up, shook off the quilts to free his arms, reached down and caught the pariah to his breast.

Tall and spare, he was, and aged; over his shoulders flowed long, white hair; a beard as white fell to his waist; his sharp eyes were shaded by heavy brows; he wore a coat of coarse cloth that touched his feet, and about his head was wound a nubia; as, with face upraised, he embraced the Indian, he was a stately, venerable figure.

"God be praised!" he said over and over. Then he held Squaw Charley away from him a moment to look him up and down. "I feared some harm had come to you—that your people had behaved so cruelly to you that you had died. But you are well. Yet how thin! Ah! I am so glad to see you once more!"

He held him close again, murmuring a blessing. When he released him, it was to make room for him on the seat, and wrap him up in a thick, soft quilt. All the while the benevolent old face was shining with happiness, and tears were streaming down the wrinkled cheeks.

Squaw Charley, too, was overcome. His black eyes were no longer sad and lowered. They glowed softly, almost adoringly, as he watched his friend.

"David Bond had not forgotten you, Charles," the old man said, as he clucked to the white horse. "I was at Dodge City—that wickedest town of the plains—when news came of the capture of your village. At once I started, for I knew that my duty lay here, here with your poor people, who will not realise how foolish and puny is their warfare. I did not come alone," he added, casting a look behind; "a white man accompanied me—a man so full of evil and blasphemy that I quake for the safety of his miserable soul. He has walked most of the distance, for he is warmer walking, and there are scarce enough quilts for two."

They looked back. A mile to the rear, trailed a solitary man.

Squaw Charley made a quick, questioning sign.

"His name is Matthews," replied David Bond; "and his mission, I fear, is a bad one. All the way he has urged my poor Shadrach on and on, so that we have hardly had time to rest and eat. And all the day, as he rides or tramps, he mutters to himself. When I ask him what he is saying, he replies, 'You'll find out quick enough!' and curses more vilely than before."

The pung was now opposite the stockade. Looking across the river, David Bond got his first view of the high-walled prison with its ever-moving and wary guards.

He pulled up his horse. "Alas!" he exclaimed mournfully, "how misguided they are—white and red men alike!"

The pung slid on until the cut in the river-bank was reached. Again the old man reined. "I cannot cross the river while the ice is so smooth. Shadrach could not keep his feet. And I will not leave him behind. But where can I stop on this side?"

Glancing to the left, he saw the line of saloons. "There, Charles," he said. "I shall drive there and ask for shelter."

He turned the white horse into the cut. As they approached the shanties, a woman's voice was heard, raised in ribald song.

"God sends David Bond whither he is most needed," the old man murmured fervently.

A shingle sign was nailed over the door of the first building. On it, in bold, uneven letters, were the words: The Trooper's Delight. David Bond climbed down and knocked.

There was a moment of dead silence within; then, sounds as if several persons were moving about on tiptoe; again, silence. The old man knocked louder. After a short wait, the door was thrown wide. A thick-set man, whose eyes squinted at cross purposes over his flat, turned-up nose, filled the entrance.

"What in the devil do you want?" he demanded roughly, when he saw David Bond. But his seeming anger illy concealed his relief that it was not an officered guard, searching for recreant soldiers.

"I wish for nothing in the name of the devil," was the simple answer. "But in the name of God, I ask for a roof."

"That buck with you?" The squint-eyed man shut the door behind him as he pointed at Squaw Charley.

"No; he lives in the stockade yonder."

"Oh! He's the one that goes prowlin' 'round here day an' night, sneakin' an' stealin'!"

"He may prowl," said David Bond, stoutly, "but he does not steal. He is a good, honest Indian."

The keeper of The Trooper's Delight laughed immoderately. "Get out! Who ever heerd tell of a' honest Injun? Say!"—tauntingly—"where'd you an' your broom-tail come from, anyhow?"

"From Dodge City."

"Dodge City!" the man cried. "Then maybe you seen my brother there, or heerd if he' comin'. Nick Matthews is his name——"

David Bond lifted one hand and opened his mouth to answer. But the words stopped at his lips. For, from the top of the high bank behind the line of shanties, there came a shout. Looking up, the squint-eyed man, David Bond, and The Squaw saw a face peering down upon them.

"Hello!" came the voice again. "Hello, Babe! Hello, gran'pa! you beat me here, didn't y'? Look out! I'm a-comin'!"

And amid a little avalanche of snow, icicles, dirt and stones that frightened the milk-white horse so that he all but overturned the pung, Nick Matthews tobogganed down the bank on his overcoat and landed beside them on the shelf.

"Short cut," he said, as he got up and shook out the coat. "Well, Babe, old socks, how's things goin'? How"—he threw his thumb back over his shoulder toward the east—"how 'bout over there? What news y' got?"

Squaw Charley followed the direction of the pointing.

"You ain't come a minnit too soon," declared Babe. "Only just a day or two left of your six months, an' they——" The two moved toward the shanty, whispering together.

David Bond called to the brothers appealingly. "May I put up here?" he asked. "Have you a vacant building that I may share with Shadrach? I have hay and food of my own."

Nick Matthews came back. He had a putty-coloured face upon which his blonde eyebrows failed to show; but he summoned a look that was as near to a scowl as possible. "Look a-here, gran'pa," he said, "d' you think I'm goin' t' let you sponge offen my frien's? Not by a long shot! Hain't I come all the way fr'm Dodge City t' keep th' redskins fr'm takin' your scalp? What more d' y' want?" He gave a laugh in which there was no humour, disclosing small teeth, ranged close, and like the first set of a child's.

David Bond did not quail. "You have accepted my hospitality for a month," he said. "I ask nothing that is not justly mine."

Matthews snapped his fingers derisively. "We can't have you here t' snoop an' spy," he declared. "Git!" As he turned to enter the shanty, he came face to face with the Indian. "What's this?" Then, noting the squaw skirt, "Gran'pa, who's your lady frien'?"

Hate flashed across the pariah's face, like forked lightning on a dark sky.

"One of Sitting Bull's warriors," answered David Bond; "and a good man."

"Uncapapa, eh?" said Matthews. "I savvy their lingo." He plucked at Squaw Charley's dress. "Our warrior wears fine garments," he jeered, speaking in the Indian tongue. Then, with another laugh, he followed his brother into the shanty and banged the door.

David Bond took his horse's bridle. "We must find hospitality elsewhere, Shadrach," he said resignedly. And he headed the pung up the river. As he got back into the wagon-box, he looked round for Squaw Charley.

The pariah was standing close to the shanty, his head held forward, as if he were watching to spring, his hands opening and clenching angrily.

"Charles!" pleaded the old man, reproachfully. "Remember—do good to them that wish you evil, and love them that hate."

The Indian dropped his arm meekly and shuffled over to the pung. But when David Bond again drew him on to the seat, his lips moved silently, and until the cut was reached and Shadrach pulled them out upon the prairie once more, he continued to glower back at the line of saloons.

"It will be a terrible night," the other said, as they came to a standstill beside the cottonwoods. "It is getting late. I suppose I must try to cross the river."

The pariah was recalled from his backward glances. Rising, he extended an arm to direct David Bond's attention. And the old man, rising also, made out the squat shack of the Lancasters, almost hidden from sight by drifts. With a fervent prayer of thanksgiving, he touched up Shadrach and steered him toward it, pausing only long enough for the Indian to load the chip-sack and the filled blanket on top of the wheels and hay.

"If this lonely house will give me shelter and welcome," vowed David Bond, urging his horse on, "it will find me grateful."

Squaw Charley made no answering sign. Bundled again in the soft quilt, he sat in the wagon-box, brooding. For he had divined, with the instinct of the savage, that if the shack on the rise before them would find a faithful friend in him who sat beneath the wavering cross, it was threatened by the presence of a dangerous foe—the man just come to the shanty saloon by the river.

CHAPTER VII

OUT OF THE SKY

When four distinct raps—Squaw Charley's familiar signal—sounded upon the outer battens of the warped door, Dallas drew back the iron bolt eagerly, caught the lantern that lighted the dim room from its high nail above the hearth, and held it over her head. Then, standing in the opening, with the icy wind fluttering the wide flame till it leaped and smoked in its socket, she met, not the faltering eyes of the faithful Indian, but the piercing gaze of aged David Bond.

She fell back and let the lantern drop to her waist. There she held it, her fingers trembling despite her effort to appear calm. Many days and nights she had waited expectantly for the man who, by voice and fist, had displayed an enmity toward them; she had pictured his arrival, or that of his emissary, and planned what she would say and do. Now, certain that he had come at last—after she had long ceased to watch for him—and reading justice and fearlessness in the stern visage before her, she was dumb and helpless.

Her father's voice, rising from the hearth-side, brought her to action. "Wal! wal!" he was saying, "don' keep th' door open all night."

With a defiant step forward, and as if to bar intrusion, she spread out her arms. "You're here," she said in a low tone.

Dallas' words did not penetrate the head-covering worn by David Bond; and the fire having died down for lack of fuel, the interior of the shack was so dark that he could see only her gesture. He thought her alone and frightened.

"Have no fear, daughter," he begged. "I will go somewhere else. But the ice is so——"

His gentle address surprised and disarmed her. She advanced relentingly as her father came up behind.

"W'y—a stranger?" cried the section-boss.

She stopped him. "Yes, but we wouldn't turn a dog away to-night, dad." She motioned David Bond to enter.

As he crossed the sill, Dallas, for the first time, caught a glimpse of the white horse and the pung, and saw Squaw Charley lifting his load of chips from the wagon-box.

"You came together?" she asked.

"Charley pointed out your house to me," was the answer.

A sudden hope came to her. "Maybe I made a mistake," she said. "Tell me, who are you?"

"David Bond—an evangelist by the grace of God."

She lifted the lantern, so that he could see the others. "My father and my sister," she said. Then she put the light on the table, retired to a corner and suddenly sank down.

Squaw Charley, having brought in and emptied the sack and blanket, fed the blaze and crouched at one side of the fireplace. Evan and Marylyn were across from him, intently examining the features and dress of the traveller. It was Dallas who, eased, yet shaken, remembered to be hospitable.

"Come, Charley," she said, rising, "we'll put the horse up. No, no," as their guest would have accompanied her, "we won't need help. The mules are used to Charley, now, and Simon's pretty ugly to strangers." She started out. "Marylyn," she said, from the door, "you take Mr. Bond's coat." Then, to the evangelist, "I'm glad it's you, and not—somebody—else." A rare smile crossed her face.

The aged man, divested of his long ulster, advanced and, with fatherly tenderness, lightly touched her braids.

"'I was a stranger, and ye took me in,'" he quoted solemnly.

Dallas lingered a moment, arrested by the picture: Lancaster was leaning forward from his seat in unaccustomed silence; Marylyn sat beside him, the nubia thrown across her arm; nearer was the Indian, his copper-coloured face marvellously softened; and, before them all, stood the evangelist, priestly, patriarchal.

When Dallas and Squaw Charley were gone, the section-boss and his younger daughter were, for a space, tongue-tied through a lack of something to say. Soon, however, David Bond broke the quiet to assure Lancaster of his gratitude. And thereafter the two men talked freely.

"You need not fear any trouble with my horse," the evangelist said, as Dallas was heard bidding Simon keep to his side of the stall. "Shadrach is a gentle beast."

At the name, the section-boss cocked his head like an inquiring bird. "M-m, Shadrach," he began in important reflection; "y' call y' hoss Shadrach. Ah seem t' hev heerd thet name before."

Marylyn raised to her father a quick, warning finger. "It's in the Bible, pa," she whispered.

"Heh?"

"It's in the Bible."

"Don' y' think Ah know?" Evan poked the fire cheerfully. He was fairly started in a conversation. "Thet Shadrach was a prophet, ef Ah recall it jes' right," he said tentatively.

The evangelist shot him a sorrowful glance.

"No, pa," whispered Marylyn again. "He was put in a furnace. Remember the furnace, pa?"

"With th' lions!" cried the section-boss. "Certainly Ah do."

"Oh, pa, that isn't the story."

Evan stroked his moustache. "Ah'm kinda offen th' trail, honey, ain't Ah?" he said aside. Then, to cover his mistake and forestall any embarrassing explanation, he poked the fire again and resolutely began: "Pahson, how'd y' come t' name you' hoss Shadrach?"

"He had been christened Spooks," began the evangelist as if repeating an oft-told tale, "because his last owner mistook him, one night, for a ghost. I could not bear to call the faithful animal by that name, and, day after day, thought over all the names I had ever heard, striving to find one suitable. That summer something happened that decided for me. Spooks and I awoke to find ourselves surrounded by a prairie fire. And I, having hitched up and then gotten down into the bottom of the wagon, my good horse was forced to meet the wall of flame alone. He came out unscorched. I knew at once what his name should be. Henceforth, I called him Shadrach."

The light of returning knowledge—of blessed total recall—illumined the face of the listening section-boss. He gave the fire a glad poke that sent the burning chips to every side, thrust out his chest proudly and pinned the other with a triumphant eye. "Wal, how 'bout Meshach and Abednego?" he demanded.

David Bond studied a moment, knitting his brows until their heavy archings met in a single hoary line. "I take their place," he said at last, with dignity.

Following supper, which Dallas prepared, all gathered before the cheery blaze. There, the evangelist, anxious over the welfare of the people among whom he had preached and taught, promptly began to question Squaw Charley.

"You have not told me of your capture," he said, "or of the fight that came before it. Were you taken in the north—in the country of the White Mother—or in Dakota?"

The Indian nodded.

"Dakota?"

Swiftly, the pariah's whole aspect altered. A moment before, satisfied as to food, happy and comfortable, he had squatted down in his blanket. But, now, his shoulders bent, his chin sank to his breast, his eyes grew dull and sullen.

"Were you in the Mauvaises Terres?" queried the evangelist.

Squaw Charley shook his head.

"On the Powder?"

There was a silent assent.

"The soldiers pursued; maybe they surprised you—which?"

To answer, the Indian rose slowly. With one of Lancaster's crutches he raked out some ashes and levelled them upon the hearth-stones. Next, across them, stooping and using a finger, he drew a varying line that showed the trend of a stream. Far up toward its source, in a bend, he placed bits of bread from the table to indicate the lodges of his tribesmen. Slivers from a stick showed that the tepees had been set thickly in a grove of tall cottonwoods. White beans, from a filled pan on the floor near by him, stood for the warriors that had fought. His fingers moved more quickly as, by means of a handful of corn that Dallas had put in his leather pouch, he planted the United States troops on three sides of the Indian campground, and moved them forward to the attack.

Adroitly he manœuvred the opposing forces, with advancing here and retreating there, groans when the white men felt the fight too keenly, low whoops to picture an Indian gain, little puffs of the breath to betoken flying bullets. The onlookers saw the battle as it had raged about the tepees. And the flickering lantern, as Squaw Charley moved it in a semicircle, told them that the firing began at daybreak and continued until dark.

All at once he changed the picture. Twelve beans were rapidly counted out and laid in rows, and he mourned softly over these to show that they were slain warriors. Five kernels of corn—a line of pale-faced dead—were placed beside the bean rows. This done, he covered the lantern with the grain-sack and leaned back against the logs.

"Aye, aye," cried David Bond, sadly. "Twelve braves and five troopers perished! Seventeen souls went to their Maker to mark the greed of the white man and the yearning to harry off the red! Why do the Indians not stay in peace and quiet upon the lands set apart for them, and not go abroad stealing and slaughtering? Why do my own people not give back to their brothers the country that is rightly theirs?"

Once more Squaw Charley stooped forward and, resting his weight on one hand, traced the return march of the troopers to a crossing of the Missouri, where the command had buried its dead; from there he drew the route southward, to the ferry and Fort Brannon. Here, he stuck the splinters in a circle to picture the stockade below the barracks. At last, rising, he drew his blanket close about him, put the grain-sack over his tangled hair and, with a parting look toward Dallas and the evangelist, went slowly out.

Perfect quiet followed the pariah's going. His recital of the conflict, dumb though it was, had powerfully stirred the little audience. For, as he had proceeded with his crude mimicry, the imagination of the others had filled in the scenes he could not sketch.

The section-boss spoke first. Not incapable of feeling, yet disliking to show emotion because it might be counted a weakness, he hastened to clear the air. "Say, Dallas," he drawled, with a survey of the battle-field, "he ought t' had some red Mexican beans fer his Injuns." But the remark failed to appeal.

David Bond made a shake-down for himself beside Lancaster's bunk, using an armful of hay and the robes and quilts from his pung. However, the fact that he needed rest, or that his couch was ready, did not tempt him from the fire. Long after his host disappeared behind the swinging Navajo blankets, he sat by the hearth. And Dallas stayed with him, Marylyn's sleepy head pillowed in her lap.

The elder girl felt strangely drawn to him. He returned the interest he inspired. Like Lounsbury, he marked the unusual character of this woman of the far frontier. But he saw further than had the younger man: With her father and sister, she was all firmness and strength, as if she held herself to be the mainstay of the family; yet, now and then, unwittingly, she betrayed qualities that were distinctly opposite. Like Lounsbury, too, when he touched upon the subject of her life it was to inquire if she had spent any of its years in a town. He felt certain that she had not; at the same time, his belief was curiously contradicted by her bearing.

"I'll always live on the plains," she said, having told him of the mesa and their migration north; "if I left 'em for a while, I'd learn things I don't know now; and when I came back, maybe I wouldn't be satisfied with the shack, or with dad and Marylyn."

"Child, where did you get that thought?" he asked, astonished.

"I don't know—only my mother would 'a' been happy in Texas if she'd been born there. But she wasn't, and she wanted her old home till she died."

She wanted her old home till she died—it was only a sentence, yet the quiet pathos of it bared to him the tragedy of that mother's exile.

"Never a great city, daughter," he advised. "Stay here, menaced by Indians, among rough men and women, with storms and toil besetting you, but never go to a great city. It is close and dirty and paved, and in it no man may fill his lungs with pure air, or touch his feet to God's green earth."

"In cities," questioned Dallas, but in a low tone, as if she wished no one to overhear; "in cities, do—do the women dress like me?" She raised herself a little, though without disturbing Marylyn, so that he might see her plain, collarless waist and straight, scant skirt.

He gave her a smile—a smile as rare and transforming as her own. She had allowed him a glimpse of her suppressed girlishness. "Would that they did, my daughter," he answered.

"I mean in cities like—like—Bismarck," she said, a trifle consciously.

"Perhaps—some—eh—let me see." He was perplexed. He saw the eager light in her face; saw that, for some reason, she was striving to compare herself with the women of the settled districts—and to learn from him the very things she had feared might bring dissatisfaction with her life. He did not wish to teach discontent. He would not tell an untruth. So he created a diversion by taking up his ulster and searching in a capacious pocket.

"But they—they—don't plow."

David Bond brought forth a limp and battered Bible. "No," he said; "no, they—they don't plow."

"Ah!" She looked into the fire. Of a sudden, two memories had returned—one, of the passing musicians, with their nudging and insolent smirks; the other, of a man who had leaned back in his saddle and laughed—after all, perhaps, not at her name.

"I—I suppose they're more like Marylyn," she faltered.

The evangelist adjusted his silver-bowed spectacles and smiled down at her. "And if they are, would it worry you, daughter?"

She shook her head slowly, and looked away.

He turned his back, so that both lantern-and firelight could reach his pages, and, opening the Book at random, began to read. The chapter done, he turned round and glanced at her again. Her face was still averted.

He rose to retire. She put Marylyn gently aside and rose with him.

Then, and not till then, did Dallas think of their dilemma of the morning. The evangelist's coming and their talk together had caused her entirely to forget about the trip to the land-office. However, swift on its remembrance, came a comforting certainty in David Bond's sympathy and aid. At once she told him of the necessity of her father's going.

"Shadrach and I will start with him to-morrow," was his ready response. He put out a hand to part the Navajo blankets. But an unshaped thought made him pause. "You will be alone."

"Why, we're not afraid."

"Brave girl!" he said. Her confident answer drove away the moment's vague uneasiness without its having taken the form or the connection he might have given it.

"Good-night," she called softly.

"Good-night, daughter," he answered, and the swinging blankets met behind him.

CHAPTER VIII

BEFORE THE WARPED DOOR

The section-boss was thoroughly surprised and not altogether delighted at being roused early the following morning with the news that he could start at once for Bismarck. As Dallas' voice penetrated the partition, he returned the only reply his ice-bound moustache and goatee would permit—a muffled growl. She did not hear it, yet she knew how he felt. The previous day, though a casual observer might have been misled by his garrulous fretting over Ben's lameness, she was quick to note, and with a pang, that, secretly, he was relieved. But her pain at his laxity and indifference was not unmixed with pity. For to her crippled father, whose crutches, in the snow, hindered rather than helped him, she guessed how long and lonely and bitter cold seemed the way to the land-office.

Yet it was something more than these aspects of the journey that caused Lancaster to view it unfavourably. He knew that in another thirty-six hours, when the original applicant's half-year was up, he, and not the other, would have the clearer right to the quarter-section. Therefore, he regarded the proposed declaration of abandonment, the cancelling of the old entry and the filing of a new, as forms which need not be gone through with hurriedly (since the first claimant had undoubtedly disappeared for good and all), but which might be attended to quite as well the coming spring, when the roads would be open and the days warm. Confident of his perfect security on the peninsula, and possessed by a sneaking, but denied, abhorrence for rush and discomfort, he rejoiced at delay. So, having left his snug bed to fumble about in the dark for his clothes, and, these donned, having loosed his speech before the grateful blaze in the fireplace, he did not argue fatigue or freezing as an excuse for procrastination; he passed over these rather too briefly and enlarged upon his safe status as a settler.

"All bosh," he asserted as he watched Dallas and Marylyn busy with preparations for breakfast. "A hull regiment of soldiers couldn' put us offen this lan', t' say nothin' of a man thet ain't done a thing on it sence he took it up. Ah might jes' as well stay home."

But he found that Dallas was firm on the question of his going—"haidstrong," he termed it—and would not even pause for a discussion. She had risen early to feed the occupants of the lean-to—Shadrach in particular; next, with a promise of rest later on, she had awaked Marylyn. Formerly, the younger girl would have persisted in questioning her about the proposed journey, and in knowing its purpose. Now, however, her interest in it, like that in most things, was so small that she appeared totally indifferent, and went about her work silently. Despite the fact that this somewhat revived Dallas' anxiety over her sister, the elder girl felt freshly strengthened in spirit. In all her twenty years of life no other morning had, like this one, promised her so much happiness.

When the evangelist emerged and, after a sojourn in front of the hearth, joined the family at table, Lancaster pined to ask him what he thought of their braving the elements foolishly. Not that the section-boss esteemed his aged guest. On the contrary, Dallas' evident interest in the stranger had stirred the unnatural jealousy in her father's wizen brain. Already, he hated David Bond, and had set him down for a crank. But Dallas needed a lesson. It was all very well for her to do the outside duties as if she were a man; that did not privilege her to ride roughshod over his opinions, or to rule affairs in general with a heavy hand. However, he found no opportunity for questions. She, reading impatience and mutiny in her father's every glance, kept up throughout the meal an unwonted flow of talk.

"Dad," she said, covering his plate with a crisp hot-cake for the dozenth time, "I haven't told Mr. Bond all about the claim—all the reasons why we want him to take you to Bismarck;"—the section-boss grunted at the "we"—"so you please tell him as you're going along. And don't let your coat get unbuttoned, or your ears froze. I heated some big rocks for the bottom of the sleigh and some little ones for your pockets. You'll both weigh so much that Shadrach can't run away if he wants to, and you can't fall out into a drift."

Not a word from the others checked her cheery stream of comment. However, breakfast past, and Dallas in the lean-to, David Bond managed to make a declaration. It was when he saw Lancaster take down the Sharps from its pegs by the mantel. "That should stay behind," he said, touching the rifle. "We are leaving your helpless girls alone. At least they should have something for defence."

Lancaster instantly agreed, observing to himself that the evangelist, after all, had some common sense. "Shore," he replied, "Ah'll put th' gun back an' we'll take yourn."

But he was corrected with severity. "I carry no weapons, sir," said David Bond. "I stand for peace."

"Then th' gun goes," declared the section-boss. "The gals was alone before 'thout it. They was no snow on th' groun' then, an' a heap more chance of someone comin'. They ain't no danger. An' ef Ah take th' gun, mebbe Ah c'n git a deer on th' way back. We need th' meat."

The evangelist considered a moment. "Very well," he said; "but I would advise differently."

"Aw, shucks!" retorted the other, struggling with his coat.

A moment later, his irritation was increased. At the same time the visitor unknowingly covered himself forever with suspicion. Through the frosty air and the darkness rang out the first trumpet blast from Brannon. And, as if totally unconscious of the action, David Bond reached up and bared his head.

"I love that summons," he said; "it bids our good lads wake and do their duty."

Lancaster was not unmindful of the courtesy due a guest. But any reference to patriotism was offensive, and he had been particularly provoked. So, behind the broad shoulders of the other he disdainfully turned up his nose.

They were off at last, with Marylyn watching them from a window, and Dallas walking alongside for a few rods to say good-by and to pat Shadrach's bony, white flanks encouragingly. Morning was stealing up the dun east, yet overhead the stars were shining. And their near radiance, reflected upon the snow, coupled with the light of the slowly growing dawn, made it possible for the girls to follow the travellers' straight course for miles. But long after Marylyn left the window, the elder girl remained outside. The dun of the east was painted out with uprushing waves of pink. The stars sank back into the heavens, grew smaller and dimmer, and, one by one, disappeared. Finally, a yellow rind, haloed in mist, was thrust above the level of the prairie. As Dallas greeted it, the distant ridge of a snow-drift, rose-tinged like the sky, hid the crawling speck that was the pung.

On his arrival behind David Bond, Nick Matthews had found that full pockets were plentiful among the soldiery, and had promptly gone about emptying them. Soon after entering The Trooper's Delight, he sat down to a chip-piled table. His quarry surrounded him. And there he stayed throughout the long night, wide-awake, sharp-witted, unwearied, adding to his heap of coloured discs honestly and otherwise. Not until reveille, a clarion warning, sent his fellow-players scurrying back across the river, did he put his cards one side and throw himself down. For, though a confirmed night-hawk, he needed a short nap to prepare for some business that lay before him.

"Babe," a direct contrast to his brother, being thick-necked, stumpy and dark, had not failed to garner his share of the rich harvest. From his station behind the long counter, which was made of four heavy planks supported on barrels at either end, he had poured strange mixtures into beer mugs and exchanged them for good government coin. When he was not performing his part as bartender, he was scraping illy timed tunes upon a fiddle.

It was he who was left in charge when, shortly after noon, his brother awoke, swallowed some whisky and armed himself with a brace of pistols. Then, with no word to the few loungers in the saloon, the latter set out, following the road that led up the river to the ferry-landing. At the cut, he climbed the bank at a leisurely pace and continued his way eastward, making straight across the snow toward the squat shack of the Lancasters.

His approach was instantly marked. Marylyn was once more at her post, studying the square of landscape framed by a window. When he made a quick figure on that landscape, she saw him, and called to Dallas.

"Here's someone coming," she announced, inwardly glad at the possibility of diversion.

Dallas hurriedly joined her. "Who can it be?" she asked.

The door was unbolted, the other window not fastened. Yet so far were her thoughts from molestation that she left them so.

"Going to ask him in?" questioned Marylyn.

"Not till I find out who he is."

They fell silent, conjecturing.

When Matthews reached the drift before the shack, he halted and signalled for them to open their window. That attitude toward them—clearly he did not expect a welcome—at once roused Dallas' suspicion.

"Marylyn," she said, making as if to obey their visitor, "draw the bolt of the door."

The younger girl, quick to be alarmed, instantly did as she was told, and Dallas then shoved the sash aside. Both girls looked from the opening.

With all Matthews' hostile intent, it must be said that the moment found him disconcerted. He had learned on arriving that the section-boss had two daughters. The news did not alter his determination one whit. Had anyone suggested such a thing, he would have been moved to laughter. But now he noted the prettiness of the younger girl, and a certain conceited desire to appear chivalrous, which had earned him the title of "Lady-Killer" among his associates, made him involuntarily spruce. He smiled ingratiatingly, and prepared to launch into flowery speech when—he met Dallas' grave, steady eyes, and suddenly found himself at a loss for words.

"How d' do, Miss?" he said at last.

"How d' y' do?" she returned. In spite of herself her voice trembled.

That did not escape Matthews. He shamed his momentary embarrassment and resolutely grappled the matter that had brought him. "I want t' see your old man," he said. It was a demand.

"Dad can't see you to-day," she answered with ready caution. She thought it best to keep from him, whoever he was, the knowledge of her father's absence.

"Huh!" ejaculated Matthews, in an ugly tone. He came a few paces nearer. "I got t' see him, jus' th' same."

"But you can't."

"Ain't he t' home?"

Marylyn pressed close to her sister. "Tell him yes," she begged nervously.

Dallas hesitated. Then she answered. "He's not home. Will you please come again—some other time?"

The gambler chuckled. "My dear young lady," he said, his tone the extreme of insolence, "I can't come no other time. Th' business I got t' do has got t' be done t'-day. I might as well tell you that my name's Matthews—Nick Matthews. This claim you're on is mine, an' I mean t' have it. What's more, I mean t' have it t'-day."

"Ah!" Dallas was thinking fast. At her shoulder, aware all at once that they were in danger, was Marylyn, clinging in pitiful terror.

"Yes," added Matthews, as if that clinched the matter.

Dallas looked at him without speaking.

"I jus' come from Dodge City," he went on. "My intention is t' live on my land all winter. I'm very sorry"—this ironically—"your old man took th' trouble to build on it. He ought t' inquired about th' claim before he done that. But—long's it's all one with my plans fer improvin'—I don't see's I ought t' kick." He chuckled again, and spat.

"I know, and so does dad," said Dallas, "that a man filed upon this quarter-section in July. We didn't find it out, though, till long after we built this house. We know his six months is almost up, too. But if you're him, and even if you've got back only a few hours before it's up, I'm willing, and I think dad'll be, for you to have the claim. But you must pay for what we've done on it."

"I never ast y' t' do anything on it."

"That's so. But the law says——"

"Aw, th' law be damned! I don't pay a cent!"

"Then I know dad won't leave."

"Oh, you do."

"Yes," very quietly.

"Well, let me tell y', my dear, that you're dead wrong. You're goin' t' git your duds an' grub t'gether right now; in half a' hour, you leave this cabin."

At this, Marylyn began to sob.

"Come, get a move on," ordered Matthews, threateningly. He knew that if he wished to regain the land, there would be no time better than the present. He began to walk up and down, flinging his arms about to start the circulation.

Dallas turned to comfort Marylyn, putting an arm about her protectingly. "Hush!" she said. "Keep quiet, honey."

"Oh, let's go! let's go!" wailed the younger girl.

Matthews came forward again, and took out his watch, a large, open-faced timepiece hung to a braided buckskin chain. "Now, look a-here," he said peremptorily; "I don't want no more funny business. This claim's mine. Your old man ain't got a solitary right to it. So you got t' go. I'll give you jus' ten minutes." With this, he resumed his pacing, comforting his beat with occasional draughts from a flask.

Dallas strove hard to collect herself. "I can't do anything till dad comes," she called to him, finally. "You want us to leave. Why, we haven't got any place to go; and it's cold——"

"Guess I know that," interrupted Matthews. "I'm almost friz."

"And you've got no right to ask us to go till you've paid for this house and the well—and—and my plowing."

"I pay fer nothin' I don't see, and fer no hole in th' ground," he said. "And as far 's a place to go is concerned"—this with a leer—"there's Shanty Town. Why, the boys'd be tickled t' death t' see y'. Then there's allus room at the Fort when there's good-lookin' gals in the fambly."

Dallas understood the insult. Her grey eyes flamed in her greyer face. She slammed the window.

Matthews came near, so that his face all but touched the glass. "Oh, that don't do no good, my dear," he said, raising his voice. "When I get ready, I'll come in."

Marylyn had stilled her weeping to listen to him. Now, pallid with fear, she threw herself upon her sister and again burst forth.

Dallas put her swiftly aside. The face that had been grey was now a tense white. Her eyes were blazing. She sprang to the gun rack and put up her arms.

But the pegs were empty!

CHAPTER IX

A HAND IN THE FUN

"What under the shining sun!" exclaimed Lounsbury, spilling ground coffee into his boot-tops. He strode to the front of the store, the tin scoop in his hand still held recklessly upside down. A pung was passing the grocery—a green pung drawn by a milk-white horse. On its quilt-padded seat were two men. Above them, as they slowly proceeded, sagged a high board cross.

Lounsbury glanced inquiringly about him. His neighbours were also watching the strange sight. At the windows of the bunk-house opposite, and at the openings of other buildings near, were many faces, wide with good-natured grins. As Lounsbury turned to the travellers again his own mouth curved in a smile.

But, all at once, he sobered. The pung was now so far away that the backs of the men were presented to him; and between them, projecting at a slant over the seat, were the curved tops of a pair of crutches.

Jocular opinions of the passers-by were being freely exchanged back and forth; he paid no heed to them. The scoop dropped from his hand and clattered upon the floor; he let it lay. Silent and troubled, unaware of the demands of an insistent customer, he looked after the departing sleigh.

At last, he acted. Without waiting even to put on his cap, he started at a run up the street. His race, bareheaded, increased the laughter of those who were still watching. They yelled to him boisterously: "Sic' 'em, Bud!" "Sell 'em somethin', John!" "Drag 'em back an' skin 'em!" But the storekeeper was deaf. Each yard made him more certain of the identity of one traveller; his thoughts, as he pursued, were of him. He gained rapidly on the pung. At the edge of the camp, in the trough of a drift, he stopped it.

Lancaster spoke first, for Lounsbury was too spent. "Wal? wal?" he said crabbedly.

"Excuse me," panted the other, giving, in his eagerness, only a glance at David Bond, "excuse me, but I see you're headed from home. I wondered—I thought maybe I could do a turn for the young ladies while you're gone."

For a moment the section-boss did not reply. He was still smarting over Dallas' generalship, and, if anything, was more disgusted and rebellious than when he left the shack. So, in the brief pause, he gave ready ear to the whispering of the yellow harpy. His lids lowered. His lip curled.

"You understand, I'm sure," Lounsbury hastened to say. "I thought they might be alone, that——"

"Thank y'," answered Lancaster, snapping out each word; "thank y', they is alone. An' you'll oblige me a damn sight by leavin' 'em thet way." He settled himself in his seat. "Git ap!" he said to Shadrach. The pung slipped slowly on.

Lounsbury was too taken aback either to follow or to retreat. For a while, he stayed where he was, busily coining forcible phrases for the relief of his mind. As he retraced his steps, the few who saw him were discreetly silent. For the camp knew that there were rare moments when it was best to give him a wide berth.

The interview in the trough of the drift was so brief that David Bond was shut out of it. But had it been longer—had he been given a chance to speak—the result might have been the same. The section-boss had been mute all the way to Clark's. The fact that Dallas had told him to relate the story of the claim was the strongest reason for his not doing so. David Bond, therefore, was left in ignorance, and had no means of connecting the evil companion of his journey north with the fortunes of the Lancasters. So, as they left Lounsbury behind, he even found some censure in his heart for the storekeeper.

"You were quite right," he said, flicking Shadrach gently. "That young man should pay no visit to your daughters while you are absent. Yet,"—he could not refrain from putting a reproof where it seemed due—"yet, I regret your manner of addressing him, your oath——"

Lancaster glared. "Oh, you' gran'mother's tortoise-shell cat!" he said wrathfully. For several hours thereafter he added nothing to this.

Back in his store, Lounsbury was mixing brown sugar with white, oolong tea with a green variety, and putting thread in the pickle-barrel. Simultaneously, he was torturing himself: Had the section-boss left home with no danger threatening? But—the green pung was undoubtedly bound for Bismarck. What was it that had suddenly made him see the necessity of attending to the claim? Along with this came self-arraignment: After all, he should have told Lancaster that a man who claimed the quarter-section on the peninsula had been called from Dodge City. Lounsbury had been certain that Matthews could not reach Fort Brannon before the spring. But it had never occurred to him that the section-boss would leave his girls alone! Now, he vowed that if any harm befell Dallas and Marylyn, he had only himself to blame.

He buckled on his pistol-belt and padlocked the door. "I don't care whether the old man likes it or not," he declared aloud, "I'm going down there."

As he swung through the camp on his way to the corral, he saw one of Old Michael's helpers coming toward him, picking his steps in the slush. The man motioned, and held out a white something. It was an envelope, grimy and unaddressed.

Lounsbury ripped it open and pulled out a written sheet.

"der mr lunsbery [ran the note] mathuse com las nite in a quere outfit with a krazy preecher the preecher i think is at the landcasters but the other sunuvagun is her i hav a i on him prity kold wether river sollid."

It was partly through the generous employment of his imagination that the storekeeper was able to make out the scrawl, which, though not signed, he knew to be the pilot's. That same imagination enabled him to bring up numberless disturbing—almost terrible—pictures.

The astonished helper gazed after him as he went tearing away in the direction of the horse-herd. "By jingo!" he grumbled; "twenty miles—and he didn't even say treat!"

Soon Lounsbury's favorite saddler, urged on by a quirt, was kicking up a path across the crusted drifts that Shadrach had so recently surmounted. As the storekeeper cantered swiftly forward, a new question presented itself to him: Was the "preacher" in league with Matthews, and so was carrying the section-boss out of the way? He decided negatively. He had given only a glance to Lancaster's companion, but that, together with the passing glimpse from the store, had shown him a venerable man whose piercing eyes held a pious light. He was no scoundrel confederate. He was plainly but a brave, perhaps a fanatic and foolhardy, apostle in the wilderness, and his calling had kept Matthews from confiding in him.

While Lounsbury thus alternately tortured and eased his mind, he had passed the sombre clump of cottonwoods where the Indian dead were lashed, and was fast covering the miles that lay between the burial boughs and Fort Brannon.

When the ten minutes he had allotted were past, Matthews made a great show of putting away his watch and took a last pull at the whisky flask. The bottle disposed of, he walked down the drift to the warped door and rapped a staccato. No answer was returned. Again, he rapped, and more imperatively than before. Again, no answer. He pushed back his hat and applied an ear to the hole through which had hung the lifting-string of the latch. Then he heard long, unfrequent sobs, like those of a child who, though almost asleep, is yet sorrowing. Between the sobs, punctuating them fiercely, sounded the prolonged sucking-in of breath.

"Might as well stop y' bawlin' an' squallin'," he called through the latch-hole. "Time's up!"

Getting no reply, as before, he altered his tactics. First, shading his face with his slim fingers, he looked in. He could not see the girls. Dallas was close to the door and beyond the limit of his vision. So was Marylyn, who, helpless with fright, half knelt, half lay, against her sister. What he could see was—from the south window—the gaudy Navajo blankets forming two partitions of Lancaster's bedroom, and, nearer, two partly filled sacks, some harnesses and the seat of a wagon. The other window afforded a better view. "Looks mighty comfortable," he said as he contemplated it. There was a hearth with its dying fire; in front of it were circling benches and a thick buffalo-skin rug; above was a mantel, piled with calico-covered books; a freshly scrubbed table stood in the farther corner beneath a dish-cupboard, which was made of a dry goods box; to the left of this—high up on the log wall—were a couple of pegs.

It was these that finally riveted Matthews' attention and brought him to a temporary halt. "Got th' gun down!" he exclaimed. On finding that Lancaster was gone, he had decided not to produce a weapon. Now, however, he quickly felt for one and dropped on all fours. "That biggest gal 'd no more mind pumpin' lead into me than nothin'," he declared, wagging his head wisely. "I could tell that by the shine in her eyes." He crawled around the corner.

Behind the lean-to, he came to several conclusions: It would be useless to try to get in by either window; both were high and small; the best spot for an attack was the door. Unless he was hard pressed, he must not shoot; women were concerned, and the fort or Clark's might be stirred to unreasonable retaliation in their name; for example, there was that poor devil of a cow-puncher at Dodge who had been riddled simply for slapping his wife.... Obviously, the shack must be occupied without the shedding of blood. But what of his safety? "I'll jus' have t' chance it," he said, and hunted for something to use as a battering-ram.

Not a pole, not even a piece of board, could he find. A scarcity of fuel before Squaw Charley began furnishing it had led to the burning of every odd bit of timber. Disgruntled, but not discouraged, Matthews crawled back to the front of the cabin and closely examined the door. "I thought so!" he declared joyfully when he was done. Rain and snow had swelled the thick boards of which it was built. But through the narrow cracks between these, he saw that the transverse pieces on the inside, like the four without, were only slender battens. "If I can git some of them cleats off," he said, "I can bust in."

With a horn-handle knife he pried up the end of a batten until he could get his fingers beneath it. Then he pulled, and it came away. A light strip from side to side marked where it had been. Three times more he pried and pulled, and the outer transverse pieces lay on the snow. For the rest of his job Matthews had to depend on his shoulders.

Putting his knife in his pocket, he backed to the top of the nearest drift. There he gathered himself together and, with a defiant grunt, hurled himself headlong at the door. As it bent with the force of the impact, a shriek rang out. Well satisfied, Matthews retreated and flung himself forward a second time. The door cracked ominously; the inside bolt rattled in its sockets. Anticipating a speedy entrance, Matthews warmed to his task. And each time he fell upon the barrier, a weak moan from within swelled to a cry of mortal terror.

And then—a few feet behind him, a voice interrupted—a well-modulated voice, in an amused, ironical tone. "Well," it said slowly, "I hope you're enjoying yourself."

Matthews whirled and reached for a weapon. He was too late. As he swung it forward, the single eye of a revolver held his. Beyond was Lounsbury.

A queer tremor ran around the storekeeper's mouth. His nostrils swelled, and he wrinkled his forehead. "Sorry," he said drily, "but it's my bead."

Sheer surprise, together with a lack of breath, made the other dumb.

"Drop your gun," bade Lounsbury.

Matthews' right hand loosed its hold. His revolver fell, and slid, spinning, to the bottom of the drift.

"Now I know all you want to say," said Lounsbury. "That this claim is yours, that your six months ain't up, that Lancaster's jumped it, and so on. But that won't excuse what you've tried to do—break into this house while these young women are alone. Besides, you haven't the ghost of a right to this land. So you'll oblige me by keeping off it from now on."

Matthews found his tongue. "Who in hell are you?" he demanded coolly.

"Who am I?" repeated the storekeeper, smiling down the revolver barrel. "Why, I'm St. George, and you're the dragon." He raised his voice. "Miss Lancaster!" he called. "Miss Lancaster!"

A face appeared at a window, then a second. There were more cries, but not of fear. The sash was pushed open. Dallas and Marylyn, the younger girl still clinging to the elder, looked out.

"It's all right," said the storekeeper, not taking his eyes from the enemy. "I'm here."

Dallas could not answer. But Marylyn, though exhausted, was fully alive to their rescue. Her eyes, wide and tearful, were fixed upon Lounsbury.

"Oh, we're afraid!" she cried plaintively; "pa's gone, and we're afraid!"

"You needn't be, any more," he said reassuringly.

Matthews, under his breath, was cursing the self-contained man in the saddle. Enraged at the storekeeper's interference, hot with disappointment, he saw himself stood up like a tenderfoot. But his caution prevailed. A certain expression in Lounsbury's eyes, a certain square set to his jaw—the very cues that guided the cattle-camp—made him cautious.

"Look a-here," he said to Lounsbury, assuming a conciliatory manner. "Let's talk as one gent to another. These ladies is your friends. So far, so good. But I has my rights, and I can prove that I slep' on this quarter-section three times and——"

Lounsbury's face darkened. He was lightly ironical no longer. He urged his mount forward. "Don't argue with me, you infernal blackguard," he said. "You can prove anything you want to by a lot of perjuring, thieving land-grabbers. Don't I know 'em! If you filed on this claim you were hired to do it. You hadn't an idea of settling, or building a home. You did it for speculating purposes—nothing else. And the law, I happen to know, is dead against that. You're a shark. But your game won't work. These folks are going to stay in this shack and on this Bend. And you be mighty careful you don't make 'em any trouble!"

"I'll git a Bismarck lawyer," declared Matthews.

"Yes, and we'll tar and feather the shyster. What's more, I'll head a bunch of Clark's boys, and we'll wipe Shanty Town off the face of the earth."

Matthews raised his shoulders and put his tongue in his cheek. "You're mighty interested in these ladies, seems t' me," he said insinuatingly.

The slur did not escape the storekeeper. It determined him to parley no further. "Hoist your hands!" he commanded.

Matthews obeyed. His fingers were twitching.

The next command was curt. "Mosey!"

The other moved away. When he was beyond pistol range, he produced his second revolver and waved it above his head. "You jus' wait!" he shouted. "You jus' wait! I'll fix y'!"

Lounsbury returned him a mocking salute.

CHAPTER X

AN APPEAL TO HEADQUARTERS

As Matthews ceased his threatening and strode on, a new fear came over Dallas. She leaned toward Lounsbury from the window. "What does he mean by 'fixing you'?" she asked hoarsely.

The storekeeper was still watching riverward, and he answered without turning his head. "He means it's a case of shoot on sight," he said.

"Then you mustn't go near him—you must go back to Clark's. Promise me you will! I can take care of Marylyn till dad comes. If you got hurt——"

Lounsbury threw one leg over the pommel and sat sideways for a while, buckling and unbuckling his reins. When he spoke, it was very gently, and again he did not look at her. "Hadn't you better wrap up a little?" he suggested. "It's cold."

She put a coat about Marylyn. "It ain't right for you to make our quarrel yours. You mustn't. I wouldn't have you hurt on our account for anything." Her eyes beseeched him.

He glanced at her. "It's worth a lot to know you feel that way," he said slowly. "But—I'm afraid I can't do what you want. It's your safety that counts with me."

Marylyn's face had been hidden, to shut out the dread sight of Matthews. Now she lifted it. She said nothing. But as if suddenly smitten by a painful thought, she turned from Dallas to Lounsbury, from Lounsbury to Dallas, questioningly, doubtfully. She drew to one side a few steps, and stood alone.

The movement escaped the others. The storekeeper had slipped from his saddle to pick up Matthews' revolver. And the elder girl, against whom was setting in a tide of reaction, was struggling for composure. She put out a trembling hand for the weapon.

"Got a rifle, too, haven't you?" he asked.

"No. Dad took it."

"Good Heavens! I'm glad I didn't know that coming down!"

"How'd you happen to come?"

"I saw the sleigh go by, and was sure something had scared your father about the claim. So I didn't wait to black my boots."

"Oh, it was a comfort to hear you," she said.

"Was it?" eagerly. He stepped toward her; then drew back. "Well,"—with a feeble attempt at humour—"I'd rather be a comfort than a wet blanket." He had remembered that evil eyes were watching; that his least move might subject Lancaster's daughters to the coarse comment of Shanty Town. He dared not even remain out of his saddle. He mounted.

"Oh, you're going to leave us!" exclaimed Marylyn. She began to cry helplessly.

"But I'll be on the lookout every second," he declared. "Miss Dallas,"—he urged his horse up to the window—"don't think I'm idiot enough to try to do up that saloon gang down there single-handed. If I go to Shanty Town, it'll be because I have to. I won't go alone if I can help it. First of all, I intend to see the Colonel over there, and lay this matter before him."

"But dad——" she began.

"Got to do it, whether your father likes it or not. We're dealing with a cutthroat. He knows this land's worth money."

"Yes——"

"And you can't tell what he'll do." He bent to her. "That scoundrel scared you," he said regretfully. "You're ready to drop. Oh, yes, you are! And it's my fault. I knew he might come any day—that he'd make trouble. But I didn't believe he'd get here so soon, I——"

"I'd given him up," she said.

"You! You did know, then!"

"Quite a while ago."

"Knew what?" asked Marylyn, stopping her tears. Then, certain that there was some awful secret behind it all, and that it was being kept from her, she began to cry again.

Dallas soothed her, and explained.

"Do you know when Matthews' six months is up?" Lounsbury inquired.

"To-night, at twelve."

"To-night! Well, we've got to keep him off. He may try to establish residence in a wickie-up."

"But hasn't he a right? Can't he——"

"He hasn't, and he can't. And if he comes this way after midnight, I'll fix him for trespassing!" He laughed.

"I wish you wouldn't go to the Fort, though. You've heard dad—you know how he feels."

"I wouldn't go if I didn't have to. But the temperature's falling. By sundown, they'll begin changing the sentries at Brannon every hour. No one man could stay out even half the night. And this shack has to be guarded till morning. I must get someone to relieve me."

"I suppose you're right," she said reluctantly.

He brought the horse about. "Is there anything I can do before I go?" he asked.

"No. We've got everything but wood, and Charley brings us that."

"Charley," repeated Lounsbury. "Who's Charley?"

She told him.

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——"

"Don't fret."

They parted at the flag-pole, the West Pointer going down to the river, and Lounsbury hurrying off in the opposite direction.

Colonel Cummings' entry and reception-room were crowded when the storekeeper entered. A score of officers were standing about in little groups, talking excitedly. But Lounsbury was too anxious and distraught to notice anything unusual. He hurried up to a tall, sad-faced man whose moustache, thin and coarse, drooped sheer over his mouth, giving him the look of a martyred walrus.

"Can I see the K. O., Captain Oliver?" he asked. "It's important."

"I'll find out," answered the captain. "But I don't believe you can. He's up to his ears." He disappeared into the next room.

Lounsbury bowed to several officers, though he scarcely saw them. He heard Oliver's low voice, evidently announcing him, then the colonel's.

"Yes, bring him in," cried the latter. "Maybe he'll know."

The storekeeper entered without waiting. Colonel Cummings stood in the centre of the room. It was the room known as his library, in compliment to a row of dog-eared volumes that had somehow survived many a wet bivouac and rough march. But it resembled a museum. In the corners, on the walls beneath the bulky heads of buffalo and the branching antlers of elk, there were swords, tomahawks, bows and arrows, strings of glass wampum, cartridge belts, Indian bonnets, drums and shields, and a miscellany of warlike odds and ends. To-day, the room was further littered by maps, which covered the table, the benches, and the whole length of an army cot. Over one of these hung the colonel, making imaginary journeys with the end of a dead cigar.

He turned swiftly to Lounsbury, and caught him by the shoulders. "John," he said, before the other could speak, "I need an interpreter. You've been about here for years—do you know one?"

"There's Soggy, that Phil Kearney fellow——"

The colonel gave a grunt of disgust. "In jail at Omaha," he said. "Played cards with a galoot who had some aces in his boot-tops. Plugged him."

"What's the matter with your Rees?"

"That's just it! You see, that bunch of Sioux out there"—he jerked his head toward the stockade—"helped in a bit of treachery two summers ago. Rounded up some friendly Rees at a dance and scalped 'em. So—there's poison for you! In this business on hand I couldn't trust even my head scout." He began pacing the floor. "Anyway, sign language, when there are terms to be made and kept, isn't worth a hang!"

"I wish I could suggest a man," said Lounsbury. "Fact is, Colonel, I'm terribly worried myself. I came to ask you for help in some trouble——"

The old soldier threw up his hands. "Trouble!" he cried. "Why I'm simply daft with it! Look at that!" He pointed to the farthest side of the room.

It was dimly lighted there. Lounsbury stepped forward and peered down—then recoiled, as startled as if he had happened upon something dead. On the floor was a man—a man whose back was bent rounding, and whose arms and legs were hugged up against his abdomen and chest. Torso and limbs were alike, frightfully shrunken; the hands, mere claws. Lounsbury could not see the face. But the hair was uncovered, and it was the hair that made him "goose-flesh" from head to heel. It was white—not the white of old age, with glancing tints of silver or yellow—but the dead white of an agony that had withered it to the roots. Circling it, and separating the scalp from the face and neck, ran a narrow fringe that was still brown, as if, changing in a night, it had lacked full time for completion.

Lounsbury could not take his eyes from the huddled shape. Colonel Cummings paused beside him. "This morning," he said, speaking in an undertone, "a sentry signalled from beyond the barracks. Two or three men took guns and ran out. They found this. His clothes were stiff with ice. He was almost frozen, though he had been travelling steadily. He was utterly worn out, and was crawling forward on his hands and knees." The ragged sleeves and trousers, stained darker from the wounds on elbows and knees, were mute testimony. "He couldn't see," continued the colonel. "He was snow-blind. They laid him out on a drift and rubbed him. The surgeon did the rest. He begged to see me. They brought him in, and he told his story. It's an old one—you've heard it. But it's always new, too. This is Frank Jamieson, a young——"

As he heard his name, the man stirred, straightened his legs and let fall his arms. He looked up.

"Young!" gasped Lounsbury. "Good God!" The face was aged like the hair!

Jamieson struggled weakly to his feet, using the wall to brace him.

Colonel Cummings hastened across and lent the support of an arm. "No, no," he protested. "You mustn't talk. You're too weak."

But Jamieson did not heed. "You an interpreter?" he asked in a rasping whisper.

"You're too weak——"

"No, I ain't; no, I ain't. If he'll go with us, I'm strong enough—why, I shovelled snow on the special to Bismarck—that's how they let me ride—and skating home I didn't stop to rest——"

"Yes, yes, my boy, we know."

"I walked and walked—straps broke—I forgot to tell you—that's why I had to. But it didn't do any good—it didn't do any good! When I got there——" As if to shut out some terrible sight, he screened his eyes with one palsied hand, and sank back limply into Colonel Cummings' arms. Lounsbury swept the cot clean of maps, and they laid him there.

"His father was dead," said the commanding officer; "dead—and naked, scalped, mutilated, full of arrows and rifle balls. The house and barns were burned."

"Any women?"

"Two—gone."

Jamieson put out his arms. "My mother!" he cried imploringly. "My poor little mother!"

Lounsbury knelt beside him, feeling shaken and half sick.

"If I could only 'a' been there! But I was 'way off at St. Paul. I knew something was wrong when the letters stopped."

"But you must buck up, Jamieson," said the colonel, "so you can help us."

"I will, oh, I will."

"How'd you get down here?" asked Lounsbury.

"I didn't eat for a long time. I was crazy. The snow blinded me, and I was hungry. But I didn't leave the river—I knew enough for that—they found me."

"You think the women are alive, Colonel?" asked the storekeeper.

"Undoubtedly, and with the other half of the very band we've got here—somewhere up in the Big Horn country." He took a turn up and down the room.

"May I ask your plan?"

"We are in fine shape to talk terms to the captors. I'll send a command to them, demanding the women. If they are not surrendered, I'll hang four of the redskins I've got here, Lame Foot, the medicine-man, and Chiefs Standing Buffalo, Canada John, and Shoot-at-the-Tree—all ringleaders. Then the rest of the band will be put on a reservation. If the Jamieson women are alive, and they send 'em in, I won't hang the chiefs."

"When'll the command start?"

"Three hours after we get an interpreter. I've sent word up to Custer at Lincoln. But the delay! Think what it means to those women!"

"It was about two women that I wished to speak," said Lounsbury. He felt apologetic, however, the one danger was so trifling beside the other.

Colonel Cummings listened. "Those girls had better come here," he said, as the storekeeper finished. "Then they'd be safe enough. I remember seeing one of 'em the day we got back. She was a fine-looking young woman."

"There are two arguments against their coming, sir. For legal reasons, it's best they should not vacate the shack or leave the claim."

"I see."

"And, again, the father is—well, he's rather sore about the war."

"You don't say!"

"So, if you could give me a couple of men to take my place now and then during the night—the situation is temporary, you see, the father'll be back in a few days."

"There are very strong reasons against my acting in the matter. I'm here to keep an eye on Indians. The settlers are expected to go to the civil authorities when they have quarrels. Now, I'd like to mix up with Shanty Town, for instance. Our guard-room is jammed with men who've been drugged over there with vile whisky. Yet I can't. I can only punish my men."

"I know that's so."

"Of course, I shan't see defenceless women suffer——"

Lounsbury was piqued. "Not altogether defenceless, Colonel. But I can't stay at the shack——"

"True, true. Why not ask Mrs. Martin, Major Appleton's sister, to go over. Then you might guard from the barn, if they have one."

"That's a splendid suggestion, sir. It would solve the difficulty."

"I'd be glad to speak to Mrs. Martin about it." He thought a moment, passing a hand over his clean-shaven face. "You'd have to be relieved even then, John, I should think."

"Not at all."

"But you might. In that case——" He drew Lounsbury close, and spoke with his lips to the storekeeper's ear. "But you understand," he said aloud as he concluded, "that I know nothing about it. If I hear of it, I shall be very displeased, very."

Lounsbury was wringing his hand, and ready to bolt.

"All the same, John, I wish the civil authorities could get at the man."

"I wish so, too." He leaned over Jamieson.

"Good luck!" said Colonel Cummings, going back to his maps.

"Thank you."

And just at that moment, as Lounsbury swung round on his heel, there rang out from the river a single pistol-shot. It echoed sharply against the barracks and went dying away upon the bluffs.

CHAPTER XI

A LITTLE STRATEGY

Fraser's shot drew many eyes to the river. For, in the winter time, any occurrence, however trifling, could get the instant attention of the lonely garrison. Troopers in various stages of dress came tumbling out upon the long porch at barracks; others looked from the many windows of the big frame structure; the washer-women and their hopefuls blocked the doorways of "Clothes-Pin Row"; officers everywhere—at headquarters, at the sutler's, in their homes—and their wives and families, up and down the "Line," remarked the signal. But when Lounsbury brought up beside Fraser, and the two seemed to be occupying themselves with nothing in particular, the onlookers laid the shot to an over-venturesome water-rat, and so withdrew from their points of vantage.

"What is it?" was the storekeeper's first breathless demand.

The young officer, hands on hips, nodded straight ahead. "You see those willows just below the cut?" he asked. "Well, there's a queer, black bunch in 'em."

"Yes. Is it a man?"

"I think so."

"Moved?"

"Not yet."

"Come on, then. Maybe he's aiming for the coulée mouth, so's to sneak up to the Lancasters' from behind."

They charged away across the mile of ice.

"If it's Matthews, why didn't he wing me as I went by," panted Lounsbury.

"Look, look!" cried Fraser. "Now, he's moving!"

They stopped to loosen their revolvers, after which they started again, cautiously.

The tops of the willows were shaking. Presently, they spread outward, and the "black bunch" lengthened. Then it emerged, and was resolved into a blanketed Indian.

"Charley!" exclaimed the officer. As he spoke, the outcast, shouldering a bundle of sticks, began to climb the cut.

The two men looked at each other and burst into a laugh.

"Fraser," said Lounsbury, "did you ever hear of the fellow that stalked a deer all day and then found it was a speck on his glasses?"

"That's one on me," admitted the lieutenant, sheepishly. "I knew nobody had come out of that door—but you see we were in the stable a while."

"'Charley,'—that squaw Indian they told me about, eh? Pretty good to them."

"Yes. From what I understand, they're pretty good to him."

They followed leisurely, and took up a stand in the cottonwoods above the landing to discuss the situation. At the very outset, Lounsbury determined not to speak of the plan that included Mrs. Martin's aid, the rebuff he had suffered from the section-boss having decided him against it.

"By George!" he said regretfully, "I wish when I had Matthews covered that I'd just marched him up the coulée and on to Clark's."

"Good idea; too bad you didn't."

"But I'll tell you this: I'm not going to stay out here all night just to shoo him off. I've a good mind to happen in down there, sort him out, and do the marching act anyhow."

"Now, look here," reminded Fraser; "that wouldn't do. You don't want to kill Matthews, and you don't want to be killed. It'd be one or the other if you poked your nose in there."

"What do you advise?"

"Lie low till you see a good opportunity. I think the chap'll come out."

"But suppose he doesn't?"

"You'll have to stay here, that's all. I'll divide the watch with you."

"Oh, I don't like to ask you to do that, old man. We ought to be able to think up some kind of a scheme."

The sun was fast declining. Soon it disappeared behind the river-bluffs, when the boom of the evening-gun swelled the last note of "retreat."

Fraser sighed. The trumpet had suggested a certain dire possibility.

"I don't care for the cold," he declared, "but—but"—ruefully—"do you suppose the K. O.'ll give me more than a month in quarters for this? There's that dance at the Major's next week; I'd like awfully to go. If I'm under arrest, I can't. And who'll feed my horse and my rattlesnakes!"

"Some sassy sergeant'll shoot your fiend of a nag," said the storekeeper, "and the rattlers'll be requested to devour one another. When that's over, I'll break it gently to you (and you must be mum) that the K. O. is disciplining you simply to keep his face. He knows—suggested it himself—that I'm to be helped out by some of you fellows."

"Well, that's better!" returned Fraser, relieved. And while they walked back and forth, he launched into a defence of his pets.

"'Fiend of a nag,'" he quoted. "Why, Buckskin's a tactician; knows what the trumpet says better than I do."

Night settled swiftly. Despite Lounsbury's prophecy, the temperature was not unbearable. The wind died with the glow in the west, leaving the air so still that, to the watchers among the trees, sounds from Brannon mingled distinctly with the near laughter and talk of Shanty Town. No moon rose. Only a few stars burned their faint way through the quickly hidden rents of the sheltering cloud-covering that, knitting here, breaking there, again, overlapping in soft folds before an urgent sky breeze, swagged low above the ground.

With darkness, the two left the grove for the ledge upon which was Shanty Town, and stationed themselves where they could still see whoever went in or out of The Trooper's Delight. Matthews did not appear. Numerous men in uniform did. They made noisy exits, and went brawling along to other shanties; they skulked out of the willows, flitted across the bit of snow-crusted beach below the saloons, and scrambled up to hurry in.

When two hours or more had gone by, the storekeeper grew impatient. He walked back and halted in the inky shadow of the wall down which Nick Matthews had tobogganed. From there, he pointed to a shaft of light that was falling upon the north side of the second shanty in the street. It was from an uncurtained, south opening in the first.

"You see that?" asked Lounsbury. "Well, I'm going over there to look in. How do we know he hasn't given us the slip, someway?"

"Let's be careful," said the lieutenant. "A proper amount of caution isn't cowardice. If you're seen, the whole pack'll set on you."

"I will be careful, but I'm not going to——"

"That's all very nice, only you must consider the stripe of man you're dealing with——"

"I can roll a gun, Fraser."

"But, Jupiter! This chap isn't going to fight you in the open. He'll use Indian tactics—fact is, he was raised among 'em."

"What's that?" asked Lounsbury.

"Raised among 'em, I said—with the Sioux."

"Speaks the tongue, then?" For some reason, the storekeeper seemed strangely agitated.

"Why, yes."

At that, Lounsbury was off, making straight for the entrance of the building they had been watching.

Fraser went tearing after, and not far from the door managed to stop him.

"For Heaven's sake!" he gasped. "What's struck you?"

"Fraser," said Lounsbury, "did you hear that the Colonel wanted an interpreter?"

"Why—why—great Scott!"

"Exactly—great Scott!" The storekeeper set off again.

"Hold on." Fraser caught his arm. "Your scheme's all right, but you can't impress the man. He's got to go of his own accord."

"Hm! that's so."

"What you suppose he'll say if you rush in there and ask him to please go away on this long trip and leave your friends serenely in possession of the land?"

"I wouldn't say 'please'—but you're right. Let's take a look through that window."

Fraser assented. Shoulder to shoulder, they tiptoed forward and, keeping out of the shaft of light, viewed the scene within.

It was a busy one, and well bore out the inviting legend of the shingle sign. Along the plank bar, "the troopers" were thickly ranged, smacking their lips in "delight" over greasy glasses. Beyond them was a squint-eyed man who trotted untiringly to and fro, mixing and pouring. Nearer was the stove, its angular barrel and widespread legs giving it the appearance of some horrid, fire-belching animal.

An unbroken circle of men surrounded it, hats on, rawhide-bottomed chairs tilted back to an easy slant. From their pipes and cigars smoke rose steadily and hung, a blue mist, against the sloping rafters of the roof.

There was little talking in the circle. Two or three were asleep, their heads sagging on their necks with maudlin looseness. The others spoke infrequently, but often let down their chairs while they spat in the sand-box under the stove, or screwed about in the direction of the gaming-table. Among these was Old Michael. He sat nearest the door, a checkerboard balanced on his knees, his black stub pipe in its toothy vise. And when he was not feeding the stove's flaming maw with broken boxes, barrel-staves and green wood, his blowzy countenance was suspended over the pasteboards he was thumbing in a game of solitaire.

The two outside went under the shaft of light and peeped into the rear of the room. There was Matthews, one of five at a square table. A cigar-box partly filled with coin and chips was before him. In front of the other players were other chip-piles. About the five, hanging over them, almost pressing upon them, were a number of troopers. Two or three were idle onlookers. But the majority were following with excited interest every turn of the cards.

"Wretches being plucked of their good six months' pay," whispered Fraser.

"Looks like they're in for all night," Lounsbury returned.

But the officer was pinching him. "Sh! See there!"

A half-drunken trooper was interrupting the game. He had reeled forward to the table, and seemed to be addressing himself to Matthews, who, as he answered, glanced up indifferently. The trooper continued, emphasising his words by raising a clenched fist and striking the board a blow.

The chip-piles toppled. He turned to those about, gesticulating. A few surrounded him, evidently bent on leading him toward the door. Others appeared to be continuing the dispute with Matthews. But as the disturber was pushed out, they gradually subsided.

"I've got an idea," announced the storekeeper. And he disappeared around a corner.

When he returned he was leading the trooper and talking low to him. All three retired to the shadow of the wall.

Here there was a colloquy. First, Lounsbury held forth; next, the trooper, protestingly. When the lieutenant broke in, two phrases were frequently repeated—"to the guard-house," and "won't if you will."

At last the three went back to the window.

"Remember," cautioned the storekeeper, "we don't want all these shebangs stirred up."

"Needn't worry," said Fraser. "Just listen to that rumpus down street."

The disjointed music of a wheezy accordion was rending the night. With it sounded the regular stamp of feet.

Now, the trooper rounded the corner. A moment and, through the window, Lounsbury and the officer saw him enter the door.

He slipped down to a seat beside Old Michael. There he stayed for a while. Whenever a brother trooper looked his way, he called him up by the crooking of a finger and whispered to him. Before long a knot of men had again surrounded him. But this time their attention was all for the table at the rear of the room.

There the game was going on. Matthews' chip-pile showed where the winnings were gravitating. In the dim light there was a strained look on the faces of the players.

Deal after deal passed. Finally, one of the five, having no more disks before him, pushed back his chair and got up.

As he stood, dazed and dismayed, the trooper who had been ejected appeared at his side, clapped him upon the back and spoke. At their elbows was the knot that had gathered at the stove.

The next moment the trooper turned to the table and snatched the pack of cards from Matthews' hand. He held up one, pointing at its back; snapped it down; pointed at a second, then scattered the pack in the air.

Lounsbury and Fraser whipped round the corner and in through the door.

An uproar greeted them—"Cheat!" "Clean him out!"

"Do him like Soggy did!" Before them was a jostle of blue backs. Across these, on the farther side of the plank bar, they saw Matthews, facing the crowd. His left hand held the cigar-box against his chest, his right was up and empty.

"Hold on, boys!" It was Lounsbury.

As if he had caught a cue, the foremost trooper—he who had been the disturbing element—repeated the cry, and directed the eyes of his comrades to the door.

There was a sudden lull. The men in blue wavered. Here and there, a revolver was covertly returned to place.

Lounsbury pushed forward to the stove, Fraser beside him. "Hold on, boys," he said again, and pointed at Matthews; "hold on—I've got a message for that man."

The lull became a dead silence. To the troopers, the sight of shoulder-straps was discomfiting. For the officer at once became the personification of the guard-room, chilly, poorly bedded, and worse provisioned, of all places the one to be dreaded in raw weather. To Matthews, the interruption was welcome. His right hand slowly lowered to join its mate.

"I'm going to ask you to call your little differences with that gentleman off," continued Lounsbury.

Matthews fairly blinked. The storekeeper's voice was soft, confidential, ingratiating.

"Mr. Fraser and I have come to say that Mr. Matthews is wanted to serve as interpreter for Colonel Cummings."

"Interpreter?" queried Matthews.

A bullet-head made itself visible from behind a barrel. "Don't let him bluff y', Nick," called a voice.

The other looked round. "Shut y' fly-trap, Babe," he commanded.

"Thank you," said Lounsbury, pleasantly, "interpreter is right. Two white women are held as captives in an Uncapapa camp somewhere west of here. It's been learned that you understand and speak the tongue. So, we present Colonel Cummings' compliments. He would like very much to have a talk with you at Brannon."

It was a solution to Matthews. "Yes? Yes?" he said approvingly; then hesitated in suspicion as he measured the storekeeper.

"Oh, I guess I don't want to be no interpreter," he said.

Lounsbury smiled. "Just as you say, just as you say. Boys,"—cheerily—"sorry if I cut in at the wrong time. Don't let us stop your fun. Mr. Fraser is not here officially."

A murmur ran around. The disturbing trooper advanced toward Matthews aggressively.

Up went Matthews' hand again. "Jus' a minute," he said.

The trooper quieted.

Matthews turned to Fraser, mustering an expression of importance.

"Lieutenant," he said, "you give me your word this is so—that there ain't no put-up job about it?"

"Put-up job?" Fraser reddened, keeping a straight face with difficulty. "I give my word," he said solemnly, "that you're wanted as interpreter, and that I'll conduct you safely to headquarters."

Matthews put down the cigar-box and saluted.

"Word of an officer," he said, "is different. And if I can do anythin'—long's it's ladies——"

He reached to a shelf for his hat.

CHAPTER XII

A CONFESSION

That night, after Squaw Charley had come and gone, Dallas returned from the lean-to, where she had fed and bedded Simon and the team, to find Marylyn lying before the hearth, her face flushed and wet with tears. Instantly, all concern, the elder girl knelt beside her.

"Marylyn," she begged, smoothing the soft, unbraided hair spread out upon the robe, "Marylyn, what's the matter?"

A long sob.

"Why, dear baby, don't you fret. We're going to be all right. Dad'll soon be back, Mr. Lounsbury's watching, and we won't lose the little home."

"Oh, it ain't that, it ain't that," weeping harder than before; "I'm so unhappy!"

It was an answer that smote Dallas to the heart. Some trouble, heretofore concealed, was threatening her sister's peace of mind. And she had not discovered it in time, had not prevented it, had not shielded her as she ought.

"Marylyn, honey, tell me what's the matter."

The younger girl crept closer, screening her eyes.

Dallas lifted her into her arms. Her cheek was feverish, her hands were dry and hot.

Sudden terror seized the elder girl—the old terror that had fastened upon her through all the years of her mother's failing.

"Marylyn," she said huskily, "do you feel that—that you're not as well as you was? are you afraid you'll be sick like—mother?"

There was an answering shake of the head.

Dallas pressed her close, murmuring her thankfulness, whispering broken endearments. "Oh, Dal's so glad! She couldn't stand it if her baby sister was to suffer. Oh, honey-heart! honey-heart!"

But Marylyn was not comforted.

"Listen," bade Dallas. "In all your life have you ever asked me to do anything that I didn't do? or to give you anything that I didn't give you if I could? And now something's fretting you. I can't think what it is. But you got to tell me, and I'll help you out."

"No, no!"

"I don't care what it is, I won't blame you; if it's something wrong,—why, it couldn't be,—I'll forgive you. You know that, Marylyn."

Again, "No, no," but with less resistance.

"Tell me," said Dallas, firmly.

Marylyn looked up. "You'll hate me if I do," she faltered.

The elder girl laughed fondly. "As if I could!"