Chapter X: Part 10

There was an old-fashioned prehistoric assumption that the basis of social intercourse was similarity of tastes, the interchange of intellectual or spiritual ideas; but when Society becomes an adjunct to politics, business, or when it becomes a formal profession, a vocation, then some strange things happen.

Things very surprising to herself were now happening to Edith. To her own huge disgust and dismay, she found herself one week-end a guest at the beautiful country-place of Solly Wirtheimer, a South African burglar-person, who was trying to jimmy his way into the polite world. Without any more interest in the horse than in the Mithraic mythology he owned a racing stable, and he was trying hard to lose enough money to the proper persons to enable him to associate with them. It really was hard work. He almost had to push it over to them. Edith naturally felt that nothing short of winning a pot of money would compensate her for the degradation of being one of Solly's house party. At the usual game of bridge, however, she lost persistently. Her game was degenerating or Solly's guests were especially clever or lucky. Eventually she became frightened at her losses. Her genial host offered to lend her any amount she required. She chose rather to accept the offer of her own partner, a friendly young American person, whom she met here for the first time and about whom she knew nothing. This loan naturally led to further acquaintance. It is a way with loans. They either lead to intimacy or estrangement. In the course of London activities her own fortune had been pretty well dissipated, and she had been more than ordinarily reckless because the future had seemed so well assured and the estates of Uxminster seemed to guarantee one against misfortune! Instead of bridge being a pastime, it must be confessed that a great many of the most refined people play it to win. Every smart house in London is a casino, and one must play well, or be very lucky, or have lots of money to lose. In the course of bridge Edith found herself again in need of a loan, and the friendly young American person seemed the most available resource. Young American persons have so much and are usually so delightfully careless with it. This was arranged over a luncheon at The Savoy grill room. At this luncheon the "American person" induced the Viscountess to talk of her husband. She took small pains to conceal her animosity. The upshot of this interview was that she achieved a remunerative occupation that promised an assured income and enabled her to gratify her supreme hate. The combination was delightful. It was understood that she was to give the American person a perusal of all Hal's papers and letters that were available, that she would exercise a supervision of all his future correspondence, and that she would induce him to leave London; that she would keep him out of the way and inaccessible so long as it suited the purposes of the young American person and his friends. This latter stipulation was the only part of the bargain that made her hesitate. She took this under advisement. One day shortly after this interview she was having her breakfast and, happening to look at the clock, she saw that it was six P.M., and after breakfast, when her mind was fairly clear, she looked into the mirror. She was frightened, thoroughly frightened. Her beauty had been her armor, her weapon, her resource, her salvation. She had always suffered. The aches, the pains, the discomfort of ill-health she could endure so long as she kept her personal appearance. Now, in the depths of the mirror, she saw walking toward her a faded, broken woman, with something in the background, something cold, inevitable, horrible, hovering near. Sir George had advised her to travel, to get away from London. London at the moment was difficult. She was under a small temporary cloud. It was very smart to go to the ends of the world in search of sport. Hal had urged it on that terrible night. He had not mentioned it since, because he had learned to conceal his desires. That he wanted to do anything, go anywhere, was sufficient to arouse her vivid opposition, and she was ingenious in making that opposition as painful as possible. He had resort therefore to the trick of advocating the exact opposite of his intent, but she was very cunning in seeing through such subterfuge. She saw, too, in their peregrinations enlarged opportunities of thwarting him. So to his intense amazement she announced her intention of giving up her own pleasures to gratify him, her willingness to go out, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." He concluded that she had become frightened about her health. His own position was deplorable. The atmosphere of the clubs where he would care to go was cold and clammy. The clubs where he would have been welcomed disgusted him. At home he wore the armor of silence and impassivity, to keep from being stung to death. Abroad he wandered here, he wandered there, without pleasure or purpose. At night he frequented the music-halls, bored, with a sneer on his lip for the bald common vulgarity of it all--the brazen women, the vicious youngsters, and the feeble slimy old men. He went to the sporting events, the races. He never missed the Sporting Club, and got some diversion from seeing one gladiator beat another into a bloody pulp. He was drinking again, and gambling too. He didn't have to look into a mirror to see the end of it all. At the suggestion that they go into the wilderness the rubber mask dropped from his face and he smiled. Dormant energy awoke in him. He suggested India. India suited the young American person too, and so it was agreed that they would go after the pigmy hog in Nepal and Sikkim, the cat-bear (_AElurus_), wild sheep and goats, and the musk-deer in the precipices of the Himalayas. It was the boy's salvation. It gave him something to think of, plan for, and at least he had the joys of imagination and anticipation all the long way to India. Of hunting he got precious little; of game almost none at all. Edith had no taste for hardship or even discomfort, and she was possessed with a satanic restlessness and capriciousness. No sooner had they determined on one course than she changed it. They were lucky to reach any destination before her whim veered. He had not the strength or the patience to fight these moods. It was easier to let her have her way. And so they drifted, drifted from day to day, from place to place, her preference always being for the cities where racing and other forms of gambling offered some diversion.

The cities brought them in contact with the military class, with its painful and odious memories. She wouldn't go into the forests or the mountains with him, and she wouldn't let him go alone. So drifting here and there up and down over the earth like two lost souls, they found themselves one day at Hardwar, near the head-waters of the sacred Ganges, and Hal felt the call of the mountain, and determined to go into the Kedarnath region for game, but, game or no game, he felt that he must get away, go into the solitudes and have a "long think." He had endured the caprices, the nagging, the ingenious cruelties of her deviltry as long as it was possible. He knew she would not follow him, at least not far. She returned to Hardwar, as he knew she would, before he reached the waters of the Bhaghirati, where they camped for the night.

After the evening meal, as they were gathered about the camp-fire--the guides, interpreter, the carriers--out of the shadows of the night, into the fitful gleam of the flames, walked a religious mendicant, a holy man. Almost naked, oblivious to the intense cold, with the abstraction of the devotee, he stood in proud humility. If he came to beg for food, his purpose was at once absorbed, merged in a rhapsodical fervor. From the perfunctory murmur of what might have been a benediction or a prayer, his voice rose to a penetrating and commanding pitch, reached an intense climax, and then he went out again into the night as he had come. What he said produced a profound impression on his hearers.

Hal was conscious of being moved, thrilled, awed by it, though he had no notion of its meaning. A profound silence followed the disappearance of the fakir, a silence that finally became unbearable. Hal somehow dreaded to ask what the old man had said, but finally he started to discuss the plans for the ensuing day. The interpreter shook his head. On the following day they would go back, he informed the sahib. Go back? What for? They had scarcely started. Then it was explained to him that it would be unsafe, unwise, to go on in face of the warning they had received. This was most annoying. Hal indignantly protested against having his plans upset by the wild words of a crazy old man. He would go on. He was informed that in that event he would go alone. The natives would go no further. He fumed, raged, but saw that it was to no purpose. They would return on the morrow. Again he must submit. There was no other way. When all the others had retired he asked the interpreter what the holy man had said. He was informed that the devout man had suddenly become conscious of the presence of a stranger, for whom he brought a message. The voices of destiny cried to him to flee from the East; to go back, to retrace his steps, to find his life where he had lost it, in the far-away where the sun sets in the West. Was that all? No. The written word was following him about the world, running toward him; he must turn back to meet it. That was not all. It was difficult to get the interpreter to complete it. Under pressure he admitted that the wise and holy one had seen a serpent coiled about him, slowly crushing, strangling his soul; that he had disappeared into the night, crying to him: "Escape, escape, escape!"

The following day, on the way back to Hardwar, as they halted for the noonday meal, a native joined them and attached himself to their party without attracting the attention of the sahib who was silent, abstracted, despondent. That night as they camped again the native, having in various ways established to his own satisfaction the identity of the European gentleman, handed him an envelope containing two letters, one from John McCloud and Wah-na-gi, and the other from Walter Gifford. The native was attached to the Indian secret police. That night the sahib had a "long think." When he reached Hardwar the following night he found Edith sunk in a complete stupor. Over the writing-table were scattered letters. In looking for his own it was inevitable that he should see complete evidence of the extent to which he had been the victim of her malice. That night he wrote to John McCloud to forward his papers by registered mail to the care of Secretary Walker at Washington. He wrote to Gifford saying that he would be in Washington at the earliest possible moment, and he left a note for Edith advising her to return to London, where he promised to meet her on his return from America.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

Down from the summits of the Moquitch had swept "Winter-man" with legions upon legions of white cavalry and overrun the land. Trails, roads, trees, rocks, landmarks, fences, rivers, disappeared. Cabins and stables had to be unsnowed. Man's boasted dominion reached from the cabin to the stable and back again. The throbbing, suffering earth had gone to sleep, to dream under a white silence.

John McCloud was dying and God had said to the world, "Peace! Be still!" In the crowded haunts of men brooding sorrow does not sit down by the fireside, and stay. Even sorrow is hustled and bustled about. The butcher and baker are at the kitchen door. The telephone-bell rings. The postman brings the claims of church, hospital, school, town, county, or State. Friends put books, pictures in our hands, close the shutters, take us away, lead us where music soothes, or into strange lands, or into the playhouse where the tragedy of imaginary sins and sufferings forces us for the blessed moment to forget our own. Life, multitudinous life, goes on and sweeps us with it. In the desert sorrow sits by the fire, comes to the table, lies down beside one in the terrible night. There is no other voice except the voice of God. Wah-na-gi and John McCloud had each a noble gift for loving, a gift that had been narrowed down almost to the other. Silence, solitude, and suffering had put the eternal sign and seal upon their love. Out of the wreck of their lives this seemed to be all. It made them very tender, very thoughtful, very considerate of each other. She took elaborate pains that he should not see her anxiety, her terror, her fierce protest against the cruelty of it. She tried very hard to surround the invalid with an atmosphere of comfort, hope, and courage. At times the pretence wore a very thin disguise, and he tried so hard not to let her see him suffer, not to tax her strength, not to shadow her young life with incurable sorrow. Each made a brave show of a cheerfulness neither felt. Each was very sensitive of the smallest change in the simple elements that made up their lives. Each seized upon the smallest sign of encouragement to hand to the other, and each turned away from the grim truth. The tide ebbed and flowed, but on the morning and evening of each day both could take the measure of his drift out to the eternal sea, the measure of their parting.

All that care, ever watchful; all that prayer, silent and spoken; all that love could do to hold him back had been done, and the tide kept on its inevitable way.

As the certain separation came closer and closer each clung to the other with desperate tenderness.

Oh, if the cruel snows would go, and the warm sun would come, and the flowers, and the gentle spring, and give this brave, battling soul a chance! Finally she sent word to McShay to come. She felt that she must have help, help to face this, to do what was to be done, to meet what was to come, if nothing could be done. She cried out for help, and McShay was a strong man, the strongest man she knew, and he loved John McCloud too. He would come. Mike came, came knowing he could do nothing, but glad to come; glad to bring his silent offering. He came when he could, and with him came a storm that raged with unabated fury and made his return impossible; a storm that cut them off completely from the world, that blotted out the sky, that swept the great white plains, caught up the snow in angry swirls, throwing it into vast drifts, tearing it up again and tossing it back against the falling heavens, the turbulent air filled with blinding, stinging, suffocating flakes, while through it all the wind moaned and shrieked and called for victims.

"Beats all," said McShay. "Never will let up, I reckon. Ain't seen a storm like this since I kin remember."

He was sitting on a three-legged stool by the chimney in the living-room of the cabin of the Red Butte Ranch, smoking his pipe. The remark was addressed more to himself than to Wah-na-gi, who sat beside a couch covered with skins and Navajo blankets, which had been drawn down into the glow of the roaring fire. The light from a bracket oil lamp swung from the ceiling fell over her and the pale face resting against the black bear skin, and showed her holding the ghostly hand of all that was left of John McCloud. He was sleeping fitfully, painfully. The windows on each side of the storm-door in the back were shivering in their sockets. The cabin nestled close to the ground or the wild wind would have torn it loose. As it was, it trembled as the wind caught it in its teeth, shook it fiercely, and dropped it howling with impotent fury. As the storm-door opened vagrant hurrying flakes danced into the room and died an instant death in the glow of the great fire. With them Big Bill entered and shook the snow from his cap and clothes, and beat his big hands to get the blood flowing in them.

"Well, Bill, any news?" asked McShay quietly.

"Yes, Rough-house Joe's got in, but he's in awful bad shape, frost-bitten, starving; never will git over it, I guess."

"And the supplies? What about the supplies?"

"Lost!"

"Lost?" and Mike indulged in a low, long whistle.

"Snowslide comin' through Dead Man's Canyon. As far as he knows, Joe's the only one of the party left."

"Gee, that's tough, ain't it?" said McShay quietly.

"The stuff you brought in, Mike, is gone, and we're up against it." Bill referred to the former visit of McShay's in which he had brought a wagon-load of supplies.

"We got to git in touch with somewhere or starve."

Both men realized that help from without was unlikely as no one would know of their necessities. It would be natural to suppose that the supplies lost in Dead Man's Canyon had reached their destination. The situation was serious.

Bill got a stool and came down and sat on the other side of the fireplace and they smoked in silence for some time. Finally Mike said:

"No one will try to break through to us."

"Some of us got to git through to them," said Bill. "That's about the size of it."

"I've only been waitin' for the storm to let up a bit," said the Irishman.

"Gosh, it may keep this up for a month of Sundays. No use waitin' any longer. I think it's a dyin' down some. I'm fer a try at it."

"You?" said Mike with incredulity. "Git out. That's my job. You with your rheumatiz? You ain't any longer young, Bill. Better leave it to me."

Both Bill and McShay had reached the age when it is impossible to take advice. Each went about his preparations while the argument continued.

"You can go if you like," Bill suggested; "but I'm agoin'."

"Ain't you old fellers vain?" protested Mike. "You'll only be a nuisance to me. Better stay."

"Old fellers, eh? Say, you needn't be afraid. If I can't pull you through I won't run away from you. I'll bring you back."

"What is it, Bill?" asked Wah-na-gi, looking up and seeing their elaborate preparations.

"Well, we're clean out o' grub, Wah-na-gi, and some one's got to git through to Calamity or the fort or the Agency."

"Oh, Bill," she said; "couldn't you bring back a doctor for him?"

Bill and McShay exchanged looks and the latter bent over the clergyman and listened to his breathing for a second, and then he said very gently to her:

"It wouldn't be no use, Wah-na-gi. He's pretty nearly over the Divide, I guess. You won't be afraid to be left here alone, will you?"

"Oh, no," she answered simply.

Afraid of what? There was nothing to be afraid of, except this grim spectre which sat on the other side of the couch and held the other hand of her foster-father.

"He may pass out to-night," said McShay, following her gaze.

"Don't see how he can play the game much longer. Gee, he's made a game fight! He was just lent to us, I guess, just to show us what a real man was like; a man who was on the level and wasn't lookin' for the best of it. In my experience I've seen men handled; I've handled 'em myself, and you can appeal to every feller's fear or his lust or his cupidity, and that about lets 'em out. I've always thought this 'love-one-another' thing, this 'turn-the-other-cheek' game, this 'bear-ye-one-another's-burden' racket was a beautiful fairy tale, a good thing for little boys and old women, but say, he makes it good. John, here, makes you believe in it. A life like his puts it up to you, the Christ story, and says: 'Say, what about it?'" Wah-na-gi was weeping. The preacher was asleep, so she could have the relief of tears.

"Don't you cry, little woman," said Mike, trying to console her. "He's had a tough job here. It can't be as hard for him farther on. Would you want to keep him here knowin' what he suffers?"

Ah, that's a hard question to ask. It's only answered by another, and not answered then.

"Don't your arm git tired holdin' it that-a'-way hour after hour?" said the Irishman, trying to divert her.

"He sleeps better that way," was all she said.

"Beats all," said Mike with undisguised admiration. "He clings to the Almighty with one hand, and a little Injin woman with the other. Suppose there's Injin angels, Bill?"

"Looks that-a'-way, don't it?" replied the foreman. "It's a sure thing there's _one_."

Bill had always kept a small supply of liquor on the ranch, hidden away with supreme cunning. Where or what his private cellar was no one ever knew, but on state occasions and in emergency Bill could be depended on to produce. The law of supply having been completely suspended, the private cellar had been reduced to a bottle containing perhaps one and a half drinks of whiskey and another containing perhaps a third of a bottle of brandy. The brandy he now divided carefully into three parts. One flask he handed to McShay, the other he put in the inside of his own storm-coat, and the rest he poured into a cup which he held out to Wah-na-gi.

"What is it, Bill?" she asked.

"It's fer him," he said, nodding toward the invalid. Wah-na-gi had to move to take the cup and, though she disengaged her hand ever so gently, the drifting man felt the anchor drag, and he woke with a little start.

"Well, boys," he said with a faint smile, seeing the two men over him; "what is it?"

"Just tellin' Wah-na-gi to make you take a little of this if you should feel faint in the night," said Bill.

"I've reformed, Bill. I'm not drinking now," said the sick man with a quizzical look playing about his eyes, tenuous and vapory. "I won't need it. Thank you just the same."

The noble voice was gone, the voice he had played upon with all the skill of a great musician, the voice that had swayed multitudes. He spoke with effort in a husky whisper.

"Bill and I are going to try to git through to Calamity or the fort, Parson," said McShay.

"In this storm?" asked the sick man.

"Oh, Bill and I don't mind a little thing like a storm."

"And the wind has died down a whole lot," added Bill cheerfully.

"May God go with you," said the clergyman, raising himself upon the couch. "I'll say good-by to you before you go."

"Oh, shucks," laughed Mike uneasily. "'Tain't good-by, Parson. We're a-comin' back."

"But I won't be here, Mike."

Each one knew what McCloud meant, and each one tried to look as if he didn't. Wah-na-gi, seeing that he wanted to sit up, had put a pillow under his shoulders, and now he stretched out an emaciated hand, to the two big brawny men, and his eyes looked from one to the other with admiration.

"You are two fine, brave, splendid men. I'm proud to have known you, to have called you my friends."

The lines about Bill's mouth twitched and all he could say was, "Same here, Parson," and he walked away to the fire.

Wah-na-gi had gone to the window, as if to look out at the storm, but really to hide her tears. McShay glanced at her and Bill furtively, then he sat down on the stool, and bent down over the sick man and spoke for his ear alone: "And say, Parson, just before comin' over this time, I--I--sold out my liquor business. Thought maybe it would please you, and somehow couldn't think of anything else that would."

A smile spread over the wan face.

"Oh, thank you, Mike. Thank you. Perhaps I haven't lived in vain."

"Anything we kin do fer you while we're gone?" asked Bill, not turning, but gazing deep into the fire. "Any letters, or telegrams, or messages you want to trust us with?"

"No, Bill, thank you. There is just one thing troubles me, and only one--this dear child." He nodded his head in the direction of the window where she was standing weeping. "She's made such a noble fight, against such frightful odds, she mustn't go back; she mustn't be allowed to give up or be forced into the old environment. She must be saved."

"Say, Parson, rest your mind easy about that," said Mike earnestly. "She ain't agoin' to want a friend while Bill or me lives. Ain't that right, Bill?"

"It sure is, Mike."

"That's all," said the sick man with a sigh of relief. "And now I'm ready to go." He meant for the long, long journey.

Bill and Mike were ready too. The wind had died down to a cruel whine and their project waited.

"Well, so long, Parson," said Bill with a pretty decent show of cheer in his voice. "If we can't git through we'll have to come back. That's all."

"Now no gittin' low spirited while we're gone," called out McShay as he went to the door. "Now mind! No gittin' discouraged; no givin' up; no white-flag business! Don't you let him weaken, Wah-na-gi."

"No, no," she answered back through her tears, trying hard to catch the uplift of the big cowman.

"God sure hates a quitter, Parson; ain't that right?"

"That's right," whispered back McCloud, meeting the demand for a rally and a charge. "That's right. Mike. No one shall say I was a quitter. I'm going out with the honors of war, the flag flying and the band playing."

"Good," shouted back the Irishman from the storm-door, and they were gone.

After the paroxysm that followed their departure had passed, the sick man sank back upon the couch exhausted, and closed his eyes to rest. It had been a great strain, but somehow he felt more at peace than he had done for a long time, and he drifted into a great calm.

To Wah-na-gi, who had to watch the struggle, and whose great pity and love demanded something to do, her conscious helplessness was an ordeal. Finally she could restrain herself no longer and she cried out in the agony of her soul: "Oh, my father, why is it? Why is it? If there is a God, why does he let you suffer?"

"Every heart has faced that mystery, dear child," he said gently. "Even the Saviour had a moment when he felt forsaken. I thought once I was to do big things for humanity and God, but who knows what is great or what is little? Some careless word I may have spoken and forgotten may be blessed, or my obedience, my patience, may have touched some heart here, yours or another's, who will redeem the waste places and make the wilderness to blossom as the rose."

His spirit was unquenchable, his fervor undying. His enthusiasm rose superior to the claims of physical dissolution. She didn't try any longer to force him to husband his strength. She knew he wanted to go down with colors flying, militant. She knelt by his bed and bowed her head, so as to lose no word of those precious words which were to be his last.

"I think the great Teacher is educating us out of the physical. He puts two objects in our hands, then He shows us that if you take one object from two objects it leaves one object, and we are altogether concerned with the objects, stones, or sticks, or flowers that fade, and by and by He takes away the objects because we no longer need them. We have grasped the truth, the fixed, unalterable truth, that one from two leaves one. I saw two little street urchins once standing outside a great shop window filled with things they desired--playthings. One said 'I choose _that_.' And the other said 'I choose _that_.' Finally they chose the same object, and there was a battle, a fierce, cruel fight, for what neither of them had or could have. We are like that. And so God, little by little, takes away from us houses and lands and bodies, playthings, that we may know the truths of spirit."

Wah-na-gi raised her bowed head to look at him.

"Your face shines with a strange light," she said with an awed whisper.

"I am very close to the Hereafter, Wah-na-gi."

"I shall be very lonely when you are gone."

"Ah, my child, you are lonely now, grieving for him, for Hal, grieving, grieving."

"Yes, so it will be always."

He knew that each day as the sun crept up over the Moquitch she stood on the rock and scanned the horizon, and gazed long across the trail where he had disappeared and whence he would return, _if he returned_.

"I came between you and the man you loved," he said, putting his hand gently on her glossy hair. "Don't hold it up against me. I thought I was doing right. I loved you both. Nothing would have made me happier than to see you one. I have prayed that I might be spared to put your hand in his, to say the words that would make you man and wife, to see you happy, but happiness mustn't be stolen. It must be earned. And so I drove him away, drove him back to duty, because I loved him. When I'm gone, send him word and ask him not to hold it up against me, and God will surely bless this sacrifice. Oh, yes, God will surely bless you."

A cruel fit of coughing racked the poor remnants of a body, and she held her breath till it was over, and she could lay him back upon the soft couch.

"Talking has tired you. Sleep and rest," she said, and he fell away into the sleep of exhaustion.

Those were the last words she would hear him say, the last words he spoke--"God will surely bless you." Often and often thereafter in her life she remembered those words, his last--"God will surely bless you."

She smoothed his pillow, pulled the blankets up over his wasted form, stirred the logs into a fierce blaze. Then she went to the chest of drawers under the window to the left of the storm-door and took from it a letter and the little moccasins, and brought them down to the fire. She was still a child and needed symbols. These were the words he had written with his own hand, cruel words, that shut out the light and put a blight upon her life, but still they were his words. She had a savage instinct to thrust them into the blaze, with the crude half-formed notion that to destroy them would be to destroy the conditions which they expressed. But this was only momentary. The tokens of their love had been so few, she clung to every scrap and shred of them. It never occurred to her that Hal had trifled with her, had forgotten or deserted her. It wouldn't have mattered if he had. She accepted their fate but without regret or bitterness, and her heart eternally asked the question, full of hope, full of fear, that she had asked John McCloud the day he went away: "Will he come back?" And now that John McCloud was going away, she felt the need of Hal anew. The mystery of death was sitting in the room with her. It was hard to sit there in the silent place, to face that cruel shadow which tugged and nagged at the poor tired body, and worried it like a famished dog, and count the ticking of the clock, the strong, steady ticks, like blows, and know that it was counting out the feeble beats of the noble heart which would soon be still, forever still. It was hard to be alone in such an hour. If Hal had been with her! Mike had asked her if she would be afraid, and she was so absorbed in the human drama as to wonder why, but now, now that all was over except the flutter of the black wing of the grim enemy, she felt a cold chill at her heart. She clutched the tiny moccasins and crouched in numb terror before the nameless, the unknown. The breathing of the invalid, the sonorous clock, the explosions of the burning logs assumed unnatural proportions. The wind had died down again to a plaintive lament, a dolorous sob, and then it rose to the fretful cry of a sick child.

She sat gazing into the fire under a premonitory spell. Unknown to her the storm-door had opened, and through the inner door glided the tall sinewy figure of Appah, silent and sinister. He swayed as he entered and the chest of drawers up under the window kept him from falling. It also retained a small bag of flour and a shoulder of venison which slipped from his grasp. He held himself up like a tired wrestler until the warmth of the room relaxed his stiffened limbs and his eyes had grown accustomed to the light.

When he felt that he could stand and walk, he glided noiselessly down to where she was crouching and called her name softly. Her heart gave a great leap and she started to rise, but he put his hand on her head and held her.

"No scared," he said as gently as he knew how. "Heap wayno me! Meat, flour catch 'em! maybeso you hungry. Bring 'em. Pah-sid-u-way?"

He went up and brought down the bag of flour and the venison and threw them down before her. Then he sank down on the stool by her. He was very tired.

"Thank you," she said coldly. "That's very kind of you."

Then he waited that she might have time to think it over, to understand what it was he had done and what it meant. When others were caring for themselves, their own comfort and safety, he had thought of her; there had been suffering in the lonely ranches cut off from the rest of the world; perhaps it was so with her, and he had brought all a man could carry, and had fought his way to her through the storm. It was something a woman might be glad of, proud of. Only a strong man, a big chief with a big heart, could have done it. Surely it was an achievement. Surely she would know. He must first win her admiration, the rest would follow. He had not given up his suit, but he had waited for his chance. He had held aloof. He must not appear too eager. He had not come to the ranch, but he was familiar with the known facts and had drawn his own conclusions. His gods, his medicine had freed him from the presence of his rivals. The chief of police had gone away by the fire-wagons, by the fire-boat, many sleeps. It was many moons now, and no one ever talked of when he would be back; in fact, no one talked of him any more. He had gone back to his own people, where there were many women to be loved and married. He would not come back. He had already forgotten the Indian woman and soon she would forget him. It was only natural. For a time, too, he had been freed from the rivalry of the agent, but Ladd had returned, was again in power. It was time to act.

He had had a big talk with Cadger too. The trader was a cunning old fox, who could put his nose up in the air and tell what was afoot. Cadger had told him that maybeso there were big treaties (papers, contracts), writings, at the ranch, had advised him to go over and see Wah-na-gi, that if she would come away with him, they were to bring all the big treaties (papers) to him, Cadger, and exchange them for heap ponies, plenty cattle, and the trader kept his bargains. He wasn't like Ladd, a man of two minds. Cadger, too, had made him understand that by bringing away the papers he would do a great injury to the ex-chief of police, and Appah had not forgotten what he owed Hal, and his heart burned hot within him at the prospect of getting revenge for the slights, insults, and wrongs he felt that he had suffered at the hands of the insolent young man. Perhaps it would be safe and practical before returning to the Agency to burn the barns and the cabin. It all depended on Wah-na-gi. Cadger had warned him to be sure of her before speaking of the papers. With her as an ally all would be well. If not--His mind refused to consider such an eventuality. She had cared for Calthorpe. Calthorpe was gone. Nothing stood between them now, but if there should arise-- At the suggestion, murder entered his heart. She had laughed at him, ridiculed him, flouted him, scorned him. That would never be again. He could not permit that to be. She must realize that. It was a fateful night and here he was waiting.

"Touge frejo!" he said after a long pause in which each thought very fast but in which neither spoke. "Touge frejo!" (Plenty cold.)

"Yes," she said, "it's a cold night."

"Maybeso you talk Injin talk now, eh?"

"No, never again. Never again so long as I live."

That was not promising. Again there was a long pause. What was it she had left unsaid? That she would only speak the white chief's talk, the talk of the man she loved? Then she still loved him? That was the test--her willingness to speak the tongue of her people, to be like them. He tried hard to be patient with her. Perhaps she found it hard now. She had lived among the whites and perhaps had forgotten much of her own tongue.

He would go slowly, be very sure, before proceeding to extremes. He made her a long speech in their vernacular. He saw that she had not forgotten the speech of her people, that she followed him perfectly, and he felt that he was eloquent and convincing. He was considered a great orator by his tribe. His talk recited in detail that the white chief had gone on a long trail back to his people, that he would never come again. He watched her face and saw that she had no reason to expect his return. Perhaps she was hungry? Did the white man care? No, he had forgotten. Appah hadn't forgotten. Winter-man had come. Cold-maker had come. White man was scared. Injin was scared. Appah wasn't scared. Cold! Touge frejo! Heap cold. Snow, heap snow, plenty snow, snow all time! The snow came like white wolves. They howled and showed their teeth. White foam flew from their lips. They leaped up and tried to bite, to tear at one's heart, but Appah wasn't frightened. He had big medicine. Pretty soon the snow wolves saw he was too strong for them. The wind told them. The wind told them to pikeway, to get out, here was a big chief, a big medicine man who was not afraid of them, who had a big heart and who was bringing food, gifts, to his woman, his squaw.

"You must not say that," she said promptly. "The food is good. I thank you for that; but you must not call me your squaw. I am not your squaw. I never will be."

He forgot the instructions of Cadger, forgot the papers altogether. He saw only the woman, the woman he wanted, all the more because she was unattainable. He could have had any other woman in the tribe for the asking, but nothing seemed worth while but that which was out of reach. She had flouted him again. It was hard to believe. Again there was a long pause, in which the fires of desire leaped up and threatened to consume him. Cadger had supplied him with a small flask of whiskey before he left the Agency. The fire was racing in his blood, prompting him to nameless things. He sat and smouldered. Passion and hate struggled for control. He stood up.

He told her she was a fool to wait and weep for a man who only laughed at her, who would never come back. Why had he gone away? Because he did not dare to take the woman Appah wanted. He knew Appah would kill him and so he had run away. He was afraid!

She leaped to her feet.

"He never was afraid, least of all of you. You are lying. You cannot say this to me. Take your food and go. I would not eat it. Go." She was very fine with her eyes blazing.

Go? On such a night? The snow wolves were mad, dancing a war-dance, thirsting for blood. The fire-spirits were good. He had brought her food, and she thrust him out into the wild night. He looked her over and laughed evilly. The big chief is patient; he knows how to wait. Then one day he gets crazy, mad, and then he reaches out and takes what he wants. He tried to put his hand on her. Quickly she eluded him and put the couch of the sick man between them. Yes, she could avoid, resist, but she could not escape.

She had laughed at him, scorned him again and again. Now he would possess her, break her, bend her to his will or kill her.

"Hush," she said, pointing to the sick man; "don't wake him."

Appah moved close to the couch and looked at McCloud. He had been sick a long time. There was nothing to be feared from him. Still he looked again. If there had been the slightest chance that McCloud could have interfered with his purposes he would have killed him there where he lay.

"No scared sick man," he muttered contemptuously.

She had directed his attention to McCloud for a purpose. In the short interval Appah had given to the dying man, she had backed swiftly against the chest of drawers, beneath the left-hand window. A short time before she had taken the letter and the little moccasins from this drawer, and had left it open. Now, keeping her eye on Appah, she had put her hand behind her and rummaged in the drawer until her hand felt the little automatic gun that Hal had given her. Appah glanced up and divined her purpose. Quick as a panther he leaped over the unconscious clergyman and threw himself upon the girl as she tried to bring the gun in play. Her scream awoke the dying man, and he raised himself on his elbow, though it was a perceptible interval before his mind grasped the reality of what was happening. There was a struggle which brought Appah and the girl down in front of the fire. It was a short struggle. Her frenzied strength was as nothing in his grasp. He gave her arm a twist and the gun fell from her hand. Then he stopped her breath until she was helpless, when he picked her up in his arms and bore her through the door leading to the kitchen.

McCloud tried to get up. He did in fact get to a sitting position on the low couch; then he realized for a terrible moment his helplessness. On the small stool beside him rested the cup containing brandy left there by Big Bill. He drank it quickly, drank it all. It gave him a fictitious strength, a momentary capacity. While the struggle was going on in the next room, he crawled to the spot where the little gun had fallen, picked it up, and by slow and painful stages dragged himself across the room to the open kitchen door. He could go no further. He sank down. He could not hold the little weapon without trembling. He rested his elbows on the floor, grasped it with both hands, steadied it long enough to fire. Then he collapsed and lay very still upon his face.

There was a sudden quiet in the next room, then the sound of a body falling heavily. After a few moments Wah-na-gi appeared in the kitchen door, wild-eyed, haggard. She leaned wearily against the jamb until her mind and some of her strength came back, then she saw the body of McCloud. With a cry she ran to him, turned him over, and looked into the beloved face.

Not in the way he thought, but as he wished, John McCloud had gone out--militant.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

Hal had plenty of evidence that Ladd had robbed the Indians, that he was the representative of the Asphalt Trust, and had tried to bribe him with its valuable securities. He still had Ladd's receipt for the fifteen thousand dollars he didn't pay for them. As Doctor McCloud had said, he had offered to return the securities to the company, an offer which had been ignored. While he was chief of police at the Agency, and while he was secretly camping on the agent's trail, letters and copies of letters belonging to Ladd's correspondence had come into Hal's possession through a disgruntled clerk who had earned the enmity of the agent and been discharged. It was manifest that the interests behind Mr. Ladd were very anxious to secure or destroy these letters. They would have cheerfully sacrificed the agent, but they were forced to protect him for their own sakes. The fight therefore centred about David Ladd. The interests had won the first skirmish with a shout and a hurrah. It was made to appear that Secretary Walker had given credence to absurd accusations involving honorable business men high in the financial world, accusations which could not be substantiated; had removed a valued public servant without cause, under charges involving not only his position but his honor, etc., etc. The victory of the interests was announced with bellringing and bonfires.

The arrival of Hal in Washington was therefore an enormous relief to those who by reason of their efforts for the general welfare were now forced to fight for self-preservation and vindication. Hal's dismay on learning that Secretary Walker had not received any package or communication from Red Butte Ranch was disheartening. He had written to John McCloud to forward his papers to the care of Secretary Walker. They had not come. No word had come. No one in Washington could give him any comfort. Gifford had informed him that the winter in the Moquitch country had been the severest in the memory of living man. That was all any one knew. This would explain some of the delay, not all of it, as Hal felt. A council of war was held. It was unanimously agreed that Hal must go in person for the papers. He hesitated. No one knew why he hesitated. Did he dare go? Could he trust himself? At times his sacrifice had seemed so futile. At times it must be confessed he bitterly regretted it. He felt incapable of further immolation. Life had lost its zest, its interest. Could he see her, take her hand, look into her eyes once more, come to life again, vivid life, and then turn away and walk deliberately back into the grave? No, it wasn't possible. It wasn't fair to ask it. Strange chap, this half-breed boy, was the feeling of the serious men who watched him, who saw his hesitation. What was the matter with him now? Unstable in all their ways, these mixed breeds! Not to be depended on!

Gifford watched him narrowly. He knew more than the rest. He remarked casually that much of the country was cut off from communication and it was feared that there was great suffering at the lonely ranches--starvation perhaps.

Starvation? Had they tried to get into touch with the ranch? Yes, but without success. They had telegraphed McShay to go to their relief, but had heard nothing from him. McShay was not at Calamity. Starvation? He would go. When was the next and the fastest train? He would go by way of Fort Serene. They promised that he would be furnished with supplies at the post.

And so it came to pass that he turned his face once more to the West, and every step of the way his heart lifted, the light came back into his eye, the ring came back into his voice, the spring to his step. In spite of his anxiety for their safety, in spite of a painful knowledge of the difficulties in the way, the possibility that he might be too late, his soul sang for joy. He was going back to his own, his country, his people, the land of his desire--going back not of his own volition but in answer to the call, the silent call which could not be denied.

It seems that the examination of Hal's papers in the London house had been thorough, but with small results. It was correctly surmised that the papers of importance were at the ranch. Hal's departure from Washington was promptly telegraphed to the Standing Bear Agency and the race was on.

The nearest post-office to the ranch, as I have intimated, was the Agency, but Hal had directed his letter to McCloud to the post, as being safer and farther removed from hostile influences. He had also written a short note to Captain Baker, asking him to warn the official in charge not to deliver any mail except to some one connected with the ranch, and properly accredited. When he arrived at the Fort Hal discovered that Baker was no longer stationed at Serene. His action with regard to Ladd and Wah-na-gi had been adversely criticised, and though he was not called before a court of inquiry, he was sufficiently punished by being exiled to the Philippines. Hal's letter to him found him eventually long after the incidents of this story were ancient history. The new commandant was a stranger who knew nothing of the undercurrent of affairs in his domain, and who could be depended on to stick to routine and, if necessary, look the other way. Hal learned that Agent Ladd had been to the fort, had informed the commandant that he was about to send an Indian runner over to the Red Butte Ranch to see if they were in need, and offered to send any mail there was for the ranch people. This seemed quite all right to the soldier, both thoughtful and friendly, and he interposed no objection. It developed that considerable mail had collected for the Red Butte people and it was naturally handed over to the agent. Hal very properly drew the conclusion that Ladd now knew his papers were at the ranch and in the keeping of McCloud. He was also confident that the agent would leave no stone unturned in order to obtain them. As a matter of fact, Cadger had opened the letter to McCloud, sealed it up again, and then given it to Appah with instructions to lose it on the way over. He was for the sake of appearances to lose the entire mail. This was not hard to do. When Appah did not reappear promptly there was anxiety at the Agency. When due allowance had been made for all supposable emergencies, and still he did not return, the best runners in the tribe were sent out to learn the truth. An extraordinary story came back. It alleged that the priest of the white man and the priest of the Indian had passed into the Great Beyond together, that Appah had lost his life at the hands of John McCloud, the man of peace. That the dying clergyman had killed the powerful medicine-man seemed unbelievable. Still, it simplified matters. Ladd telegraphed the news to his friends at Washington and wired them to get for him instructions from McCloud's sister to take charge of his effects. As soon as this authorization arrived, Ladd and Cadger started for the ranch.