The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop
"I know I could, but I won't. You know what I mean – I can't even let Miss Brisbane know that she has made me uncomfortable. She's a very instructive example of the power of environment. She has all the prejudices and a good part of the will of her father, and represents her class just as a little wild-cat represents its species. She's a beautiful girl, and yet she is to me one of the most unattractive women I ever knew."
Jennie looked puzzled. "You are a little hard on her, George. She is unsympathetic, but I think she says a lot of those shocking things just to hurt you."
"That isn't very nice, either," he said, quietly. "Well, our goods are on the way, and by Thursday we'll be independent of any one. But maybe you are right – it would excite comment if I left the mess. I will join you all at meals until we are ready to light our own kitchen fire."
Thereafter he saw very little of the artists. By borrowing a few necessaries of his head farmer he was able to camp down in the house which Sennett had so precipitately vacated. He was busy, very busy, during the day; but when his work was over and he sat beside his fire, pipe in hand, Elsie's haughty face troubled him. His life had not taken him much among women, and his love fancies had been few. His duties as an officer and his researches as a forester and map-builder had also aided to keep him a bachelor. Once or twice he had been disturbed by a fair face at the post, only to have it whisked away again into the mysterious world of happy girlhood whence it came.
And now, at thirty-four, he was obliged to confess that he was as far from marriage as ever – farther, in fact, for an Indian reservation offers but slender opportunity in way of courtship for a man of his exacting tastes.
He was not quite honest with himself, or he would have acknowledged the pleasure he took in watching Elsie's erect and graceful figure as she rode past his office window of a morning. It was pleasant to pause at the open door of her studio for a moment and say "Good-morning," though he received but a cold and formal bow in return. She was more alluring at her easel than in any other place, for she had several curious and very pretty tricks in working, and seemed like a very intent child, with her brown hair loosening over her temples, her eyes glowing with excitement, while she dabbed at the canvas with a piece of cheese-cloth or a crumb of bread. She dragged her stool into position with a quick, amusing jerk, holding her brush in her teeth meanwhile. Her blouses were marvels of odd grace and rich color.
The soldier once or twice lingered in silence at the door after she had forgotten his presence, and each time the glow of her disturbing beauty burned deeper into his heart, and he went away with drooping head.
Mrs. Wilcox took occasion one day to remonstrate with her niece. "Elsie, you were very rude to Captain Curtis again to-day. He was deeply hurt."
"Now, aunt, don't you try to convert me to a belief in that tin soldier. He gets on my nerves."
"It would serve you right if he ordered us off the reservation. Your remarks to-day before that young Mr. Streeter were very wrong and very injudicious, and will be used in a bad cause. Captain Curtis is trying to keep the peace here, and you are doing a great deal of harm by your hints of his removal."
"I don't care. I intend to have him removed. I have taken a frightful dislike to him. He is a prig and a hypocrite, and has no business to come in here in this way, setting his low-down Indians up against the settlers."
"That's just what he is trying not to do, and if you weren't so obstinate you'd see it and honor him for his good sense."
"Aunt, don't you lecture me," cried the imperious girl. "I will not allow it!"
In truth, Mrs. Wilcox's well-meant efforts at peace-making worked out wrongly. Elsie became insufferably rude to Curtis, and her letters were filled with the bitterest references to him and his work.
Lawson continued most friendly, and Curtis gladly availed himself of the wide knowledge of primitive psychology which the ethnologist had acquired. The subject of Indian education came up very naturally at a little dinner which Jennie gave to the teachers and missionaries soon after she opened house, and Lawson's remarks were very valuable to Curtis. Lawson was talking to the principal of the central school. "We should apply to the Indian problem the law of inherited aptitudes," he said, slowly. "We should follow lines of least resistance. Fifty thousand years of life proceeding in a certain way results in a certain arrangement of brain-cells which can't be changed in a day, or even in a generation. The red hunter, for example, was trained to endure hunger, cold, and prolonged exertion. When he struck a game-trail he never left it. His pertinacity was like that of a wolf. These qualities do not make a market-gardener; they might not be out of place as a herder. We must be patient while the redman makes the change from the hunter to the herdsman. It is like mulching a young crab-apple and expecting it to bear pippins."
"Patience is an unknown virtue in an Indian agent," remarked the principal of the central school – "present company excepted."
"Do you believe in the allotment?" asked Miss Colson, one of the missionaries for kindergarten work, an eager little woman, aflame with religious zeal.
"Not in its present form," replied Lawson, shortly. "Any attempt to make the Tetong conform to the isolated, dreary, lonesome life of the Western farmer will fail. The redman is a social being – he is pathetically dependent on his tribe. He has always lived a communal life, with the voices of his fellows always in his ears. He loves to sit at evening and hear the chatter of his neighbors. His games, his hunting, his toil, all went on with what our early settlers called a 'bee.' He seldom worked or played alone. His worst punishment was to be banished from the camping circle. Now the Dawes theorists think they can take this man, who has no newspaper, no books, no letters, and set him apart from his fellows in a wretched hovel on the bare plain, miles from a neighbor, there to improve his farm and become a citizen. This mechanical theory has failed in every case; nominally, the Sioux, the Piegans, are living this abhorrent life; actually, they are always visiting. The loneliness is unendurable, and so they will not cultivate gardens or keep live-stock, which would force them to keep at home. If they were allowed to settle in groups of four or five they would do better."
Miss Colson's deep seriousness of purpose was evident in the tremulous intensity of her voice. "If they had the transforming love of Christ in their hearts they would feel no loneliness."
A silence followed this speech; both men mentally shrugged their shoulders, but Jennie came to the rescue.
"Miss Colson, did you ever live on a ranch, miles from any other stove-pipe?"
"No, but I am sure that with God as my helper I could live in a dungeon."
"You should have been a nun," said Lawson. "I don't mind your living alone with Christ, but I think it cruel and unchristian to force your solitary way of life on a sociable redman. Would Christ do that? Would He insist on shutting the door on their mythology, their nature lore, their dances and ceremonies? Would He not go freely among them, glad of their joy, and condemning only what was hurtful? Is there any record that He ever condemned an innocent pleasure? How do you know but they are as near the Creator's design as the people of Ohio?"
The teacher's pretty face was strained and white, and her wide-set eyes were painful to see. She set her slim hands together. "Oh, I can't answer you now, but I know you are wrong – wickedly wrong!"
Jennie again broke the intensity of the silence by saying: "Two big men against one little woman isn't fair. I object to having the Indian problem settled over cold coffee. Mr. Lawson, stop preaching!"
"Miss Colson is abundantly able to take care of herself," said Slicer, and the other teachers, who had handed over their cause to their ablest advocate, chorused approval.
Curtis, who sat with deeply meditative eyes fixed on Miss Colson, now said: "It all depends on what we are trying to do for these people. Personally, I am not concerned about the future life of my wards. I want to make them healthy and happy, here and now."
"Time's up!" cried Jennie, and led the woman out into the safe harbor of the sitting-room.
After they had lighted their cigars, Lawson said privately to Curtis: "Now there's a girl with too much moral purpose – just as Elsie is spoiled by too little. However, I prefer a wholesome pagan to a morbid Christian."
"It's rather curious," Curtis replied. "Miss Colson is a pretty girl – a very pretty girl; but I can't quite imagine a man being in love with her. What could you do with such inexorable moral purpose? You couldn't put your arm round it, could you?"
"You'd have to hang her up by a string, like one of these toy angels the Dutch put atop their Christmas-trees. The Tetongs fairly dread to see her coming – they think she's deranged."
"I know it – the children go to her with reluctance; she doesn't seem wholesome to them, as Miss Diehl does. And yet I can't discharge her."
"Naturally not! You'd hear from the missionary world. Think of it! 'I find Miss Colson too pious, please take her away.'" Both men laughed at the absurdity of this, and Lawson went on: "I wished a dozen times during dinner that Elsie Bee Bee had been present. It would have given her a jolt to come in contact with such inartistic, unshakable convictions."
"She would have been here, only her resentment towards me is still very strong."
"She has it in for you, sure thing. I can't budge her," said Lawson, smiling. "She's going to have you removed the moment she reaches Washington."
"I have moments when I think I'd like to be removed," said Curtis, as he turned towards Mr. Slicer and his other guests. "Suppose we go into the library, gentlemen."
VI
CURTIS SEEKS A TRUCE
"Our artists are going to flit," remarked Jennie, one evening, as they were taking seats at luncheon.
He looked up quickly. "Are they?"
"Yes, Miss Brisbane is going back to Washington, and Mr. Lawson will follow, no doubt."
He unfolded his napkin with unmoved countenance. "Well, they are wise; we are likely to have a norther any day now."
The soldier had all the responsibilities and perplexities he could master without the addition of Elsie Brisbane's disturbing lure. The value of her good opinion was enormously enhanced by the news of her intended departure, and for a day or two Curtis went about his duties with absent-minded ineffectiveness; he even detected himself once or twice sitting with his pen in his hand creating aimless markings on his blotting-pad. Wilson, the clerk, on one occasion waited full five minutes for an answer while his chief debated with himself whether to call upon Miss Brisbane at the studio or at the house. He began to find excuses for her – "A man who is a villain in business may be a very attractive citizen in private life – and she may have been very fond of Sennett. From her point of view – anyhow, she is a lovely young girl, and it is absurd to place her among my enemies." The thought of her face set in bitter scorn against him caused his heart to contract painfully. "I've been too harsh. These people are repugnant to one so dainty and superrefined. There are excuses for her prejudice. I can't let her go away in anger." And in this humble mood he stopped at the door of her studio one morning, prepared to be very patient and very persuasive.
"Good-morning, Miss Brisbane. May I come in?"
"Certainly, if my work will interest you," she replied; "you'll excuse my going on. I want to finish this portrait of Little Peta to-day."
"By all means – I do not intend to interrupt." He took a seat to the front and a little to the left of her, and sat in silence for a few moments. Her brown hair, piled loosely on her head, brought out the exquisite fairness of her complexion, and the big, loose sleeve of her blouse made her hand seem like a child's, but it was strong and steady. She was working with her whole mind, breathing quickly as she mixed her colors, holding her breath as she put her brush against the canvas. She used the apparently aimless yet secure movement of the born painter. With half-closed eyes and head a little to one side, with small hand lifted to measure and compare, she took on a new expression, a bewitching intentness, which quite transformed her.
"I hear you are going away," said Curtis at last, speaking with some effort, uncertain of her temper.
"Yes, we break up and vacate to-morrow."
"Why break up? You will want to come back next spring. Leave the place as it is."
She gave him a quick, keen glance, and put her head again on one side to squint.
"I have no intention of returning."
"Have you exhausted Indian subjects?"
"Oh no!" she exclaimed, with sudden, artistic enthusiasm. "I have just begun to see what I want to do."
"Then why not come back?" She did not reply, and he resumed, with tender gravity: "I hope I haven't made it so unpleasant for you that you are running away to escape me?"
She turned with a sharp word on her tongue, but he was so frank and so handsome, and withal so humble, that she instantly relented. She was used to this humility in men and knew the meaning thereof, and a flush of gratified pride rose to her face. The proud soldier had become a suitor like the others.
"Oh no – you have nothing to do with it," she replied, carelessly.
"I am glad of that. I was afraid you might think me unsympathetic, but I am not. I am here this morning to offer you my cordial assistance, for I am eager to see this people put into art. So far as I know, they have never been adequately treated in painting or in sculpture."
"Thank you," she said, "I don't think I shall go very far with them. They are very pleasant on canvas, but there are too many disagreeable things connected with painting them. I don't see how you endure the thought of living here among them." She shuddered. "I hate them!"
"I don't understand that hardness in you, Miss Brisbane," he replied.
"I'm sure it isn't mysterious. I hate dirt and rags, even when painted. Now Little Peta here is quite different. She is a dear little thing. See her sigh – she gets so tired, but she's patient."
"You are making a beautiful picture of her. Your skill is marvellous." His method of approach was more adroit than he realized; she softened yet again.
"Thank you. I seem to have hit her off very well."
"Will you exhibit in Washington this winter?" he asked, with boyish eagerness.
"I may – I haven't quite decided," she said, quite off guard at last.
"If you do I wish you would let me know. I may be able to visit the exhibition and witness your triumph."
She began to suspect his motives. "Oh, my little row of paintings couldn't be tortured into a triumph. I've stolen the time for them from Mr. Lawson, whose illustrations I have neglected." She was again cold and repellent.
"Miss Brisbane, this whole situation has become intolerable to me." He rose and faced her, very sincere and deeply earnest. "I do not like to have you go away carrying an unpleasant impression of me. What can I do to change it? If I have been boorish or presuming in any way I sincerely beg your pardon."
She motioned to Peta. "You can go now, dear, I've done all I can to-day."
Curtis took up his hat. "I hope I have not broken up your sitting. It would be unpardonable in me."
She squinted back at the picture with professional gravity. "Oh no; I only had a few touches to put in under the chin – that luminous shadow is so hard to get. I'm quite finished."
She went behind a screen for a few moments, and when she reappeared without her brushes and her blouse she was the society young lady in tone and manner.
"Would you like to look at my sketches?" she asked. "They're jolly rubbish, the whole lot, but they represent a deal of enthusiasm."
Her tone was friendly – too friendly, considering the point at which he had paused, and he was a little hurt by it. Was she playing with him?
His tone was firm and his manner direct as he said: "Miss Brisbane, I am accustomed to deal directly with friends as well as enemies, and I like to have people equally frank with me. I know you are angry because of my action in the case of your uncle. I do not ask pardon for that; I was acting there in line of my duty. But if I have spoken harshly or without due regard to your feelings at any time I ask you to forgive me."
He made a powerful appeal to her at this moment, but she wilfully replied: "You made no effort to soften my uncle's disgrace."
"I didn't know he was your uncle at that time," he said, but his face grew grave quickly. "It would have made no difference if I had – my orders were to step between him and the records of the office. So far as my orders enlightened me, he was a man to be watched." He turned towards the door. "Is there anything I can do to help you reach the station to-morrow? My sister and I would gladly drive you down."
She was unrelenting, but very lovely as she replied: "Thank you; you are very kind, but all arrangements are made."
"Good-afternoon, Miss Brisbane."
"Good-bye, Captain Curtis."
"She is hard – hard as iron," he said, as he walked away. "Her father's daughter in every fibre."
He was ashamed to acknowledge how deeply he felt her rejection of his friendship, and the thought of not seeing her again gave him a sudden sense of weakness and loneliness.
Elsie, on her part, was surprised to find a new nerve tingling in her brain, and this tremor cut into the complete self-satisfaction she expected to feel over her refusal of the peace-pipe. Several times during the afternoon, while superintending her packing, she found herself standing in an attitude of meditation – her inward eye reverting to the fine, manly figure he made, while his grave, sweet voice vibrated in her ears. She began to see herself in an unpleasant light, and when at the dinner-table Lawson spoke of Curtis, she listened to him with more real interest than ever before.
"He is making wonderful changes here," Lawson was saying. "Everywhere you go you see Tetongs working at fence-building, bridge-making, cabin-raising, with their eagle feathers fluttering in the winds, their small hands chapped with cold. They are sawing boards and piling grain in the warehouse and daubing red paint on the roofs. They are in a frenzy of work. Every man has his rations and is happy. In some way he has persuaded the chiefs to bring in all the school-children, and the benches are full of the little shock-heads, wild as colts."
"A new broom, etc.," murmured Elsie.
"His predecessor never was a new broom," retorted Lawson, quickly. "Sennett always had a nasty slaunch to him. He never in his life cleaned the dirt from the corners, and I don't see exactly why you take such pains in defending him."
"Because he is my uncle," she replied.
"Uncle Boot-jack! That is pure fudge, Bee Bee. You didn't speak to him once a week; you privately despised him – anybody could see that. You are simply making a cudgel of him now to beat Curtis with – and, to speak plainly, I think it petty of you. More than this, you'd better hedge, for I'm not at all sure that Sennett has not been peculating."
Elsie stopped him with an angry gesture. "I'll not have you accusing him behind his back."
Lawson threw out his hands in a gesture of despair. "All right! But make a note of it: you'll regret this taking sides with a disreputable old bummer against an officer of Captain Curtis's reputation."
"You are not my master!" she said, and her eyes were fiercely bright. "I do not wish to hear you use that tone to me again! I resent it!" and she struck the floor with her foot. "Henceforth, if we are to remain friends, you will refrain from lecturing me!" and she left the room with a feeling of having done two men a wrong by being unjust to herself, and this feeling deepened into shame as she lay in her bed that night. It was her first serious difference with Lawson and she grew unhappy over it. "But he shouldn't take sides against me like that," she said, in an attempt to justify her anger.
On the second morning thereafter Lawson came into the office and said: "Well, Captain, we leave you this morning."
Curtis looked up into his visitor's fine, sensitive face, and exclaimed, abruptly – almost violently: "I'm going to miss you, old man."
"My heart's with you," replied Lawson. "And I shall return next spring."
"Bring Miss Brisbane with you."
"I'd like to do so, but she is vastly out of key – and I doubt. Meanwhile, if I can be of any use to you in Washington let me know."
"Thank you, Lawson, I trust you perfectly," Curtis replied, with a glow of warm liking.
As he stood at the gate looking up into Elsie's face, she seemed very much softened, and he wished to reach his hand and stay her where she sat; but the last word was spoken, and the wagon rolled away with no more definite assurance of her growing friendship than was to be read in a polite smile.
Jennie was tearful as she said: "After all, they were worth while."
Curtis sighed as he said: "Sis, the realities of our position begin to make themselves felt. Play-spells will be fewer now that our artists are gone."
"They certainly broke our fall," replied Jennie, soberly. "Osborne Lawson is fine, and I don't believe Elsie Bee Bee is as ferocious as she pretends to be."
"It's her training. She has breathed the air of rapacity from childhood. I can't blame her for being her father's child."
Jennie looked at him as if he were presented from a new angle of vision. "George, there is a queer streak in you – for a soldier; you're too soft-hearted. But don't you get too much interested in Elsie Bee Bee; she's dangerous – and, besides, Mr. Lawson wears an air of command."
VII
ELSIE RELENTS A LITTLE
The feeling against the redmen, intensified throughout the State by the removal of Sennett, beat against Curtis like a flood. Delegations of citizens, headed by Streeter and Johnson, proceeded at once to Washington, laden with briefs, affidavits, and petitions, and there laid siege to Congress as soon as the members began to assemble. The twenty original homesteaders were taken as the text for most impassioned appeals by local orators, and their melancholy situation was skilfully enlarged upon. They were described as hardy and industrious patriots, hemmed in by sullen savages, with no outlet for trade and scant pasturage for their flocks – in nightly fear of the torch and the scalping-knife.
To Curtis, these settlers were by no interpretation martyrs in the cause of civilization – they were quite other. His birth, his military training, and his natural refinement tended to make him critical of them. They were to him, for the most part, "poor whites," too pitiless to be civilized, and too degenerate to have the interest of their primitive red neighbors. "The best of them," he said to Jennie, "are foolhardy pioneers who have exiled their wives and children for no good reason. The others are cattlemen who followed the cavalry in order to fatten their stock under the protection of our guidon."
The citizens of Pinon City wondered why their delegates made so little impression on the department, but Streeter was not left long in doubt.
The Secretary interrupted him in the midst of his first presentation of the matter.
"Mr. Streeter, you are a cattleman, I believe?"
Streeter looked a little set back. "I am – yes, sir, Mr. Secretary."
The Secretary took up a slip of paper. "Are you the Streeter located on the reservation itself?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you are an interested witness. How can you expect me to take your word against that of Captain Curtis? He tells me the Tetongs are peaceful, and quick to respond to fair treatment. The department has absolute confidence in Captain Curtis, and you are wasting time in the effort to discredit him. The tribe will not be removed. Is there any other question you would like to raise?"
Streeter took his dismissal hard. He hurried at once to Brisbane, his face scarlet with rage. "He turned me down," he snarled, "and he's got to suffer for it. There's a way to get at him, and you must find it."