The Watchers of the Plains: A Tale of the Western Prairies
“Can’t say. I’ve jest a notion that aways.”
The others came up, but not another word passed Seth’s lips. He walked off in the direction of the track where the engine was standing at the head of its trucks. And by the time he reached his destination he was quite weighted down, for this prize of his was no infant but a girl of some years. He laid her tenderly in the cab of the engine, and quickly discovered a nasty scalp wound on the back of her head. Just for a moment he conceived it to be the result of his own shot, then he realized that the injury was not of such recent infliction. Nevertheless it was the work of a bullet; which discovery brought forth a flow of scathing invective upon the head of the author of the outrage.
With that care which was so characteristic of this thoughtful plainsman, he fetched water from the tank of the locomotive, tore off a large portion of his own flannel shirt, and proceeded to wash the wound as tenderly as might any devoted mother. He was used to a rough treatment of wounds, and, by the time he had bandaged the pretty head, he found that his supply of shirt was nearly exhausted. But this in no way disturbed him.
With great resource he went back to the prairie and tore out great handfuls of the rank grass, and so contrived a comparatively luxurious couch for his foundling on the foot-plate of the engine.
By this time the men were returning from their search for the bodies at the ruins of the ranch. The story was quickly told. The remains had been found, as might have been expected, charred cinders of bone.
There was no more to be done here, and Somers, on his return to the track, sounded the true note of their necessity.
“We must git back. Them durned Injuns ’ll make tracks fer Beacon Crossing, or I’m a Dago.”
Then he looked into the cab where the still form of the prairie waif lay shaded by a piece of tarpaulin which Seth had found on the engine. He observed the bandage and the grass bed, and he looked at the figure bending to the task of firing.
“What are you goin’ to do with her?” he asked.
Seth worked on steadily.
“Guess I’ll hand her over to Ma Sampson,” he said, without turning.
“Maybe she has folks. Maybe ther’s the law.”
Seth turned now.
“She’s mine now,” he cried over his shoulder. Then he viciously aimed a shovelful of coal at the open furnace door.
All his years of frontier life had failed to change a naturally tender heart in Seth. Whatever he might do in the heat of swift-rising passion it had no promptings in his real nature. The life of the plains was his in all its varying moods, but there was an unchanging love for his kind under it all. However, like all such men, he hated to be surprised into a betrayal of these innermost feelings, and this is what had happened. Somers had found the vulnerable point in his armor of reserve, but, like the sensible man he was, he kept his own counsel.
At the saloon in Beacon Crossing the men were less careful. Their curiosity found vent in questionable pleasantries, and they chaffed Seth in a rough, friendly way.
On their arrival Seth handed the still unconscious child over to the wife of the hotel-keeper for an examination of her clothes. He did this at Dan Somers’ suggestion, as being the most legal course to pursue, and waited with the sheriff and several others in the bar for the result.
Good news had greeted the fighting party on their return. The troops were already on the way to suppress the sudden and unaccountable Indian rising. Eight hundred of the hard-riding United States cavalry had left the fort on receipt of the message from Beacon Crossing. The hotel-keeper imparted the news with keen appreciation; he had no desire for troublesome times. Plainsmen had a knack of quitting his execrable drink when there was fighting to be done – and Louis Roiheim was an Israelite.
A silence fell upon the bar-room on the appearance of Julie Roiheim. She saw Seth, and beckoned him over to her.
“There are initials on the little one’s clothing. M. R.,” she said. And Seth nodded.
“Any name?” he asked.
The stout old woman shook her greasy head.
“But she’s no ordinary child, Seth. Not by a lot. She belongs East, or my name’s not Julie. That child is the girl of some millionaire in Noo York, or Philadelphy. She’s got nothing on her but what is fine lawn and real lace!”
“Ah!” murmured the plainsman, without any responsive enthusiasm, while his dark eyes watched the triumphant features of the woman to whom these things were of such consequence. “And has the Doc. got around?”
“He’s fixin’ her up,” Julie Roiheim went on. “Oh, yes, you were right, she’s alive, but he can’t wake her up. He says if she’s to be moved, it had best be at once.”
“Good.” Just for one brief instant Seth’s thoughtful face lit up. He turned to old Louis. “Guess I’ll borrow your buckboard,” he went on. “I’ll need it to take the kiddie out.”
The hotel-keeper nodded, and just then Nevil Steyne, who at that moment had entered the bar, and had only gleaned part of the conversation, made his way over to where Seth was standing.
“Who is she?” he asked, fixing his cold blue eyes eagerly on the face of the man he was addressing.
“Don’t know,” said Seth shortly. Then as an afterthought, “Clothes marked M. R.”
The blue eyes lowered before the other’s steady gaze.
“Ah,” murmured Nevil. Then he, too, paused. “Is she alive?” he asked at last. And there was something in his tone which suggested a dry throat.
“Yes, she is,” replied Seth. “And,” he said, with unusual expansiveness, “I guess she’ll keep right on doing that same.”
Seth had again betrayed himself.
Nevil seemed half inclined to say more. But Seth gave him no chance. He had no love for this man. He turned on his heel without excuse and left the hotel to attend to the preparation of the buckboard himself.
On his way home that afternoon, and all the next day, the Indians were in his thoughts only so far as this waif he had picked up was concerned. For the most part he was thinking of the child herself, and those to whom he was taking her. He pictured the delight with which his childless foster-parents would receive her. The bright-faced little woman whom he affectionately called “Ma”; the massive old plainsman, Rube, with his gurgling chuckle, gruff voice and kindly heart. And his thoughts stirred in him an emotion he never would have admitted. He thought of the terrible lot he had saved this child from, for he knew only too well why she had been spared by the ruthless Big Wolf.
All through that long journey his watchfulness never relaxed. He looked to the comfort of his patient although she was still unconscious. He protected her face from the sun, and kept cool cloths upon her forehead, and drove only at a pace which spared the inanimate body unnecessary jolting. And it was all done with an eye upon the Reservations and horizon; with a hearing always acute on the prairie, rendered doubly so now, and with a loaded rifle across his knees.
It was dusk when he drove up to the farm. A certain relief came over him as he observed the peaceful cattle grazing adjacent to the corrals, the smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, and the great figure of Rube smoking reflectively in the kitchen doorway.
He did not stop to unhitch the horses, just hooking them to the corral fence. Then he lifted the child from the buckboard and bore her to the house.
Rube watched him curiously as he came with his burden. There was no greeting between these two. Both were usually silent men, but for different reasons. Conversation was a labor to Rube; a twinkling look of his deep-set eyes, and an expressive grunt generally contented him. Now he removed his pipe from his lips and stared in open-mouthed astonishment at the queer-looking bundle Seth was carrying.
“Gee!” he muttered. And made way for his foster son. Any questions that might have occurred to him were banished from his slow-moving thoughts.
Seth laid his charge upon the kitchen table, and Rube looked at the deathlike face, so icy, yet so beautiful. A great broad smile, not untouched with awe, spread over his bucolic features.
“Where’s Ma?” asked Seth.
Rube indicated the ceiling with the stem of his pipe.
“Ma,” cried Seth, through the doorway, up the narrow stairs which led to the rooms above. “Come right down. Guess I’ve kind o’ got a present for you.”
“That you, Seth?” called out a cheery voice from above.
“Guess so.”
A moment later a little woman, with gray hair and a face that might have belonged to a woman of thirty, bustled into the room.
“Ah, Seth,” she cried affectionately, “you jest set to it to spoil your old mother.” Then her eyes fell on the figure on the kitchen table. “La sakes, boy, what’s – what’s this?” Then as she bent over the unconscious child. “Oh, the pore – pore little beauty!”
Rube turned away with a chuckle. His practical little wife had been astonished out of her wits. And the fact amused him immensely.
“It’s a gal, Ma,” said Seth. He too was smiling.
“Gracious, boy, guess I’ve got two eyes in my head!”
There was a long pause. Ma fingered the silken curls. Then she took one of the cold hands in hers and stroked it softly.
“Where – where did you git her?” she asked at last.
“The Injuns. I shot Big Wolf yesterday. They’re on the war-path.”
“Ah.” The bright-eyed woman looked up at this tall foster son of hers.
“War-path – you shot Big Wolf?” cried Rube, now roused to unwonted speech. “Then we’d best git busy.”
“It’s all right, father,” Seth reassured him. “The troops are on the trail.”
There was another considerable pause while all eyes were turned on the child. At last Mrs. Sampson looked up.
“Who is she?” she asked.
Seth shook his head.
“Don’t know. Maybe she’s yours – an’ mine.”
“Don’t you know wher’ she come from?”
Again Seth shook his head.
“An’ – an’ what’s her name?”
“Can’t say – leastways her initials are M. R. You see I got her from – there that’s it. I got her from the Rosebuds. That’s her name. Rosebud!”
CHAPTER V
A BIRTHDAY GIFT
Rosebud struggled through five long months of illness after her arrival at White River Farm. It was only the untiring care of Rube and his wife, and Seth, that pulled her through. The wound at the base of the skull had affected her brain as well as body, and, until the last moment when she finally awoke to consciousness, her case seemed utterly without hope.
But when at last her convalescence came it was marvelously rapid. It was not until the good old housewife began to question her patient that the full result of the cruel blow on her head was realized. Then it was found that she had no recollection of any past. She knew not who she was, her name, her age, even her nationality. She had a hazy idea of Indians, which, as she grew stronger, became more pronounced, until she declared that she must have lived among Indians all her life.
It was this last that roused Seth to a sense of what he conceived to be his duty. And with that deliberateness which always characterized him, he set about it at once. From the beginning, after his first great burst of pitying sorrow for the little waif, when he had clasped her in his arms and almost fiercely claimed her for his own, his treasure trove, he had realized that she belonged to some other world than his own. This thought stayed with him. It slumbered during the child’s long illness, but roused to active life when he discovered that she had no knowledge of herself. Therefore he set about inquiries. He must find out to whom she belonged and restore her to her people.
There was no one missing for two hundred miles round Beacon Crossing except the Jasons. It was impossible that the Indians could have gone farther afield, for they had not been out twenty-four hours when Rosebud was rescued. So his search for the child’s friends proved unavailing.
Still, from that day on he remained loyal to her. Any clue, however frail, was never too slight for him to hunt to its source. He owed it to her to restore her to her own, whatever regret it might cost him to lose her. He was not the man to shirk a painful duty, certainly not where his affections were concerned.
During the six years, while Rosebud was growing to womanhood, Seth’s hands were very full. Those wonderful violet eyes belonged to no milk and water “miss.” From the very beginning the girl proved herself spirited and wilful. Not in any vicious way. A “madcap” best describes her. She had no thought of consequences; only the delight of the moment, the excitement and risk. These were the things that plunged her into girlish scrapes from which it fell to the lot of Seth to extricate her. All her little escapades were in themselves healthy enough, but they were rarely without a smack of physical danger.
She began when she learned to ride, a matter which of course devolved upon Seth.
Once she could sit a wild, half-tamed broncho her career in the direction of accident became checkered. Once, after a day’s search for her, Seth brought her home insensible. She had been thrown from her horse, an animal as wildly wilful as herself.
A little private target practice with a revolver resulted in the laming of a cow, and the killing of a chicken, and in nearly terminating Rube’s career, when he ran out of the house to ascertain the meaning of the firing. Once she was nearly drowned in the White River, while bathing with the Indian children after service at the Mission. She was never free from the result of childish recklessness. And this feature of her character grew with her, though her achievements moderated as the years passed.
It was by these wild means that she endeared herself to the folks on the farm. Seth’s love grew apace. He made no attempt to deceive himself. He loved her as a child, and that love changed only in its nature when she became a woman. He made no attempt to check it. He knew she was not for him; never could be. He, a rough, half-educated plainsman; she, a girl who displayed, even in her most reckless moods, that indelible stamp which marked the disparity between the social worlds to which they belonged. He was convinced, without disparaging himself, that to attempt to win her would be an outrage, an imposition on her. Worse, it would be rankly dishonest.
So the man said nothing. All that lay within his heart he kept hidden far out of sight. No chance word or weak moment should reveal it. No one should ever know, least of all Rosebud.
But in all this Seth reckoned without his host. Such glorious eyes, such a charming face as Rosebud possessed were not likely to belong to a girl devoid of the instincts of her sex. As she grew up her perspective changed. She saw things in a different light. Seth no longer appealed to her as a sort of uncle, or even father. She saw in him a young man of medium good looks, a strong, fine figure. A man who had no idea of the meaning of the word fear; a man who had a way of saying and doing things which often made her angry, but always made her glad that he said and did them. Furthermore, she soon learned that he was only twenty-eight. Therefore, she resented many things which she had hitherto accepted as satisfactory. She made up her wilful mind that it didn’t please her to call him “Daddy” Seth any longer.
Those six years brought another change; a change in the life of the wood-cutter of White River. He still lived in his log hut, but he had taken to himself a wife, the beautiful orphaned daughter of Big Wolf, and sister of the reigning chief, Little Black Fox. Whatever may have been Nevil Steyne’s position before, he was completely ostracized by his fellows now, that is by all but the folk at White River Farm. Men no longer suggested that he had “taken the blanket”; they openly asserted it.
The reason of Nevil Steyne’s toleration by the White River Farm people was curious. It was for Rosebud’s sake; Rosebud and Wanaha, the wife of the renegade wood-cutter. The latter was different from the rest of her race. She was almost civilized, a woman of strong, honest character in spite of her upbringing. And between Rosebud and this squaw a strong friendship had sprung up. Kindly Rube and his wife could not find it in their hearts to interfere, and even Seth made no attempt to check it. He looked on and wondered without approval; and wonder with him quickly turned into keen observation.
And it is with this strange friendship that we have to deal now.
Inside the log hut on the White River, Wanaha was standing before a small iron cook-stove preparing her husband’s food. It was the strangest sight imaginable to see her cooking in European fashion. Yet she did it in no uncertain manner. She learned it all because she loved her white husband, just as she learned to speak English, and to dress after the manner of white women. She went further. With the assistance of the missionary and Rosebud she learned to read and sew, and to care for a house. And all this labor of a great love brought her the crowning glory of legitimate wifehood with a renegade white man, and the care of a dingy home that no white girl would have faced. But she was happy. Happy beyond all her wildest dreams in the smoke-begrimed tepee of her father.
Nevil Steyne had just returned from Beacon Crossing, whither he had gone to sell a load of cord-wood, and to ask for mail at the post-office. Strange as it may seem, this man still received letters from England. But to-day he had returned with only a packet of newspapers.
He entered the hut without notice or greeting for Wanaha, who, in true Indian fashion, waited by the cook-stove for her lord to speak first.
He passed over to the bedstead which occupied the far end of the room, and sat himself down to a perusal of his papers. He was undoubtedly preoccupied and not intentionally unkind to the woman.
Wanaha went steadily on with her work. For her this was quite as it should be. He would speak presently. She was satisfied.
Presently the man flung his papers aside, and the woman’s deep eyes met his as he looked across at her.
“Well, Wana,” he said, “I’ve sold the wood and got orders for six more cords. Business is booming.”
The man spoke in English. Yet he spoke Wanaha’s tongue as fluently as she did herself. Here again the curious submissive nature of the woman was exampled. He must speak his own tongue. It was not right that he should be forced to use hers.
“I am much happy,” she said simply. Then her woman’s thought rose superior to greater issues. “You will eat?” she went on.
“Yes, Wana. I’m hungry – very.”
“So.” The woman’s eyes smiled into his, and she eagerly set the food on a table made of packing cases.
Steyne began at once. He was thoughtful while he ate. But after a while he looked up, and there was a peculiar gleam in his blue eyes as they rested on the warm, rich features of his willing slave.
“Pretty poor sort of place – this,” he said. “It’s not good enough for you, my Wana.”
The woman had seated herself on a low stool near the table. It was one of her few remaining savage instincts she would not give up. It was not fitting that she should eat with him.
“How would you like a house, a big house, like – White River Farm?” he went on, as though he were thinking aloud. “And hundreds, thousands, of steers and cows? And buggies to ride in? And farm machinery? And – and plenty of fine clothes to wear, like – like Rosebud?”
The woman shook her head and indicated her humble belongings.
“This – very good. Very much good. See, you are here. I want you.”
The man flushed and laughed a little awkwardly. But he was well pleased.
“Oh, we’re happy enough. You and I, my Wana. But – we’ll see.”
Wanaha made no comment; and when his meat was finished she set a dish of buckwheat cakes and syrup before him.
He devoured them hungrily, and the woman’s eyes grew soft with delight at his evident pleasure.
At last his thoughtfulness passed, and he put an abrupt question.
“Where’s your brother, now?”
“Little Black Fox is by his tepee. He goes hunting with another sun. Yes?”
“I must go and see him this afternoon.”
Steyne pushed his plate away, and proceeded to fill his pipe.
“Yes?”
The expressive eyes of the woman had changed again. His announcement seemed to give her little pleasure.
“Yes, I have things to pow-wow with him.”
“Ah. Rosebud? Always Rosebud?”
The man laughed.
“My Wana does not like Little Black Fox to think of Rosebud, eh?”
Wanaha was silent for a while. Then she spoke in a low tone.
“Little Black Fox is not wise. He is very fierce. No, I love my brother, but Rosebud must not be his squaw. I love Rosebud, too.”
The blue eyes of the man suddenly became very hard.
“Big Wolf captured Rosebud, and would have kept her for your brother. Therefore she is his by right of war. Indian war. This Seth kills your father. He says so. He takes Rosebud. Is it for him to marry her? Your brother does not think so.”
Wanaha’s face was troubled. “It was in war. You said yourself. My brother could not hold her from the white man. Then his right is gone. Besides – ”
“Besides – ?”
“A chief may not marry a white girl.”
“You married a white man.”
“It is different.”
There was silence for some time while Wanaha cleared away the plates. Presently, as she was bending over the cook-stove, she spoke again. And she kept her face turned from her husband while she spoke.
“You want Rosebud for my brother. Why?”
“I?” Nevil laughed uneasily. Wanaha had a way of putting things very directly. “I don’t care either way.”
“Yet you pow-wow with him? You say ’yes’ when he talks of Rosebud?”
It was the man’s turn to look away, and by doing so he hid a deep cunning in his eyes.
“Oh, that’s because Little Black Fox is not an easy man. He is unreasonable. It is no use arguing with him. Besides, they will see he never gets Rosebud.” He nodded in the direction of White River Farm.
“I have said he is very fierce. He has many braves. One never knows. My brother longs for the war-path. He would kill Seth. For Seth killed our father. One never knows. It is better you say to him, ‘Rosebud is white. The braves want no white squaw.’”
But the man had had enough of the discussion, and began to whistle. It was hard to understand how he had captured the loyal heart of this dusky princess. He was neither good-looking nor of a taking manner. His appearance was dirty, unkempt. His fair hair, very thin and getting gray at the crown, was long and uncombed, and his moustache was ragged and grossly stained. Yet she loved him with a devotion which had made her willing to renounce her people for him if necessary, and this means far more in a savage than it does amongst the white races.
Steyne put on his greasy slouch hat and swung out of the house. Wanaha knew that what she had said was right, Nevil Steyne encouraged Little Black Fox. She wondered, and was apprehensive. Nevertheless, she went on with her work. The royal blood of her race was strong in her. She had much of the stoicism which is, perhaps, the most pronounced feature of her people. It was no good saying more than she had said. If she saw necessity she would do, and not talk.
She was still in the midst of her work when a sound caught her ear which surely no one else could have heard. In response she went to the door. A rider, still half a mile away, was approaching. She went back to her washing-up, smiling. She had recognized the rider even at that distance. Therefore she was in nowise surprised when, a few minutes later, she heard a bright, girlish voice hailing her from without.
“Wana, Wana!” The tone was delightfully imperious. “Why don’t you have some place to tie a horse to?”
It was Rosebud. Wanaha had expected her, for it was the anniversary of her coming to White River Farm, and the day Ma Sampson had allotted for her birthday.
Wanaha went out to meet her friend. This greeting had been made a hundred times, on the occasion of every visit Rosebud made to the woman’s humble home. It was a little joke between them, for there was a large iron hook high up on the wall, just out of the girl’s reach, set there for the purpose of tying up a horse. The squaw took the girl’s reins from her hands, and hitched them to the hook.
“Welcome,” she said in her deep voice, and held out a hand to be shaken as white folk shake hands, not in the way Indians do it.