Chapter VI: Part 6

"Open that other hand--open that hand!" he screamed. Appah with a quick twist of the wrist shook himself free. "You damn cheat!" And Ladd struck him in the face.

It happened so quickly that no one had a chance to interfere. Appah had his knife out and the agent his gun drawn before the onlookers had time to interfere. Appah got to close quarters at once and they came together in a clinch. Then it became a task of some difficulty and no little risk to interfere. Appah's followers began to skirmish to get control of their chief while Cadger bent his energies to restraining the infuriated agent. It was a pretty mix-up, and much admired by an individual who had been an interested observer for some time. He was standing rifle in hand on the small cliff to the right of the cabin, and was busy directing the movements of some cowboys who were scrambling over each other down the perpendicular side of the rock. It was a soldier's trick and the man who directed it had the bearing of the soldier. The first man down after the human chain was formed went directly to the cabin and emerged with Wah-na-gi. Her weight was nothing to these sinewy men and her slender figure went up the man-ladder as if it were part of a perfected drill in a military tournament. The man with the rifle put his hand over her shoulder as the man-ladder was hoisted man by man. The last man was up.

The combatants had at last been dragged apart, frenzied and gasping, their faces distorted with hate.

"She isn't going with you," screamed Ladd at Appah.

"No, she's going with me," called down the man from the cliff.

And they disappeared in the darkness.

*CHAPTER XIV*

The morning following Chavanaugh's appearance with Wah-na-gi's message, Bill and McCloud awoke to find themselves the only persons besides the man cook left on the ranch. Hal knew how to keep his own counsel, so little was said by his two friends, each supposing that the other had been informed of the boss's plans and had received his instructions. But as day wore on and night came, and no word of Hal or his men, each looked at the other inviting confidences and each went to bed without giving or receiving any.

"Hello, Parson; you're up early."

"Wasn't sleeping very well, Bill."

It was before dawn of the following day and the stars were still blinking in the crisp air. The clergyman had had a bad night and had crawled out into the open to get the rest denied to him in bed. He leaned wearily against the support of the veranda and wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Bill had come from the stable opposite with a lantern in his hand and, seeing some one looming shadowy and ghostly in the dim light, had come over to the tired, pathetic figure and held his lantern up to the clergyman's face. It was a Rembrandt effect. The great patient eyes burning in their hollow sockets, the white face shining with the borrowed light of another world! Here, in the light of a stable lantern, was a beauty that could not be translated into flesh and blood. Here was a face that had been a battle-ground; the scene of a mighty conflict, a life-and-death struggle. It was all there--the wreckage of high hopes and ambitions, the sacrifice of blood and treasure, the sad evidences of futile charges, repulses, heroic stands, of fallen and recovered flags, of glorious scars and wounds, the ashes of spent camp-fires, and the funeral inarch to the inevitable trench. It was noble; it was pitiful; it would be horrible but for the to-morrow when "the weary are at rest."

The eyes of Big Bill were moist and he threw an almost gruff tone into his morning greeting.

"How clean the air is, Bill," said the parson, scenting the perfume of the morning. "What has become of Hal?"

"Ain't never said a word to me. Thought he must have told _you_. Perhaps he's gone over to see McShay."

"He and McShay have become great friends," said McCloud, smiling.

"Thicker'n thieves; blood-brothers, as the Injins play it."

"What will be the outcome of the asphalt fight, Bill?"

"Oh, sooner or later the boys'll have to sell out to the Trust."

"Hal's worried; very much worried. Is it about the asphalt?"

"Worried, is he? What do you suppose a feller about his age is usually worried about? A woman, Parson, just a female woman; and he's in luck if it's only one."

There was a peculiar note in the air. It wasn't a sound, but the shadow of a coming sound. Both men made a simultaneous movement, paused and listened, then looked solemnly at each other. The beat of hoofs and the advancing rush of man and horse was in the air. In a whirlwind of dust the bronchos were brought from a run to a standstill in a few short, staccato jumps, as the cattle horse is trained, and out of the dusk of the morning Hal advanced with a protecting arm about Wah-na-gi.

"Bill, pay Chavanaugh and these Indians twice the sum I promised them and let them go. I don't want to involve them in any trouble I may have with the agent or the Government, and put the ranch in trim for a scrap. Let no one on the premises without my permission and place my men so as to prevent surprise. They have my orders."

Bill started to whistle but Hal continued: "And have me a fresh horse saddled. I'll go out and take charge of the men as soon as I can explain matters here."

Bill's face was a study in lengthening shadows, but by the time Hal had finished he had got his second wind and managed to take up a hole in his mental belt and addressed the situation thus: "Well, boys, the boss is agoin' some; but he pays as he goes, so I guess you don't mind a little excitement."

"Excitement!" exclaimed Rough-house Joe. Joe had gained his sobriquet because he expressed the joy of being drunk by breaking and smashing things, not with malice, but in a buoyant spirit of playfulness. He was a long, lanky, loosely joined hulk with a solemn, cadaverous face, flanked by enormous ears that stood out from his head like ventilators on a ship. Joe was the kind of person that dies young in the cattle country. He had been unusually lucky. "Excitement?" he drawled. "A scrap with Injins? Why, it's pussy wants a corner. Why, if the boss'll say the word, and the troops'll just look the other way, we'll put Ladd and the Agency out of business before you could sing 'Blest Be the Tie that Binds,' omittin' the first and last stanzas. As fer the boss? We'll stay in the saddle with him if he rides through hell; eh, boys?"

And the crowd of Hal's retainers went off yip-yipping and yapping in the approved cowboy style in their enthusiasm for the young boss and uplifted by the consciousness of having earned a handsome addition to their month's wages.

As soon as Big Bill and the men were gone Hal turned to McCloud with a smile: "Got another boarder, John; you won't be so lonesome now."

McCloud looked past him out to the eternal hills.

Wah-na-gi went to the preacher timidly. "Please don't be angry. I sent him word. I asked him to take me away. Don't make me go back. Won't you let me stay? Won't you?"

McCloud did not look at her but gave her hand a reassuring touch. Then he said to Hal, in a tone of pity: "I thought you were a man. You're only a boy; a crazy boy."

"Don't be too hard on me, John."

He said this with a plaintive appealing smile, very hard to resist, but John McCloud did not see it. He was looking into the future with the prescience and the sternness of the prophet. He had been accustomed all his life to self-examination. He had only an acquired patience with those who act first and think afterwards. He belonged to a race that by instinct and training had learned to scrutinize desire, to stop inclination at the door, and make her tell her business. It was much easier than to turn her out of doors after she was once in.

Hal felt the need of sympathy and understanding, and he put out his hand toward the other but withdrew it. Turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "Go in, little woman; lie down and rest. You must be very tired."

He walked with her to the door with a protecting hand on her shoulder. It is difficult to altogether appreciate what this meant to her starved soul, worn out with the struggle against her pitiless environment, ready to lie down and die. This hand, so strong, so gentle! At last she could trust, and rest. She could forget the past; she could leave the present and the future in his hand, so strong, so gentle.

"Yes, I'm tired; but nothing matters _now_," she said with a smile from which every trace of care had vanished--the smile of a happy child.

He stood looking after her for a moment after she disappeared into the house--his house. He would have liked to close the door and turn to the world and say: "She's mine. Leave us alone. Forget us. Go your ways and let us be happy."

But no, the world would not do that. It never did. It was a crazy, cruel world, where everything was as wrong as it could be. He turned to find McCloud still sitting on the bench before the door, staring into space. He seemed so much older. The skin seemed to have been drawn tighter over his big bones; or was it the gray, pitiless light of dawn? Now that the stress of action was off he, too, felt weary and old as he came over and sat down beside his friend.

"I suppose you think I'm mad?" he said patiently, with the patience of physical weariness. McCloud did not look at him.

"It was a mad thing to do, Hal, my boy."

"You won't understand it, John; you couldn't."

"I thought it was agreed that you were to wait until I could determine whether the Government would let me adopt her; make her my ward, my child."

"It would have been too late. She sent me word: 'Will you come for me or must I kill myself?'"

"A momentary desperation is very far from the accomplishment of such an _act_ in a young and healthy child."

"I couldn't let it happen. I couldn't take the risk. And the thought of those claws of Appah's. Well, I couldn't see straight. I couldn't leave her to a fate like that! I couldn't!"

"You want her for yourself," said the elder man with the nearest approach to sarcasm of which he was capable.

"I don't deny it. I'm mad with love for her. That's the truth."

"You took her away by force. They'll take her back by force. It's a bad business, Hal, my boy. There is only one way you can keep her now."

"What's that?"

"Why, as your wife."

As Hal made no immediate response to this, the other turned and looked at him for the first time, as he added quietly: "You must have thought of that?"

"Yes, I've thought of it," said the boy brokenly as his hands clutched each other. Then he rose and walked away as if he would physically avoid that thought. "Yes, I've thought of it."

The clergyman's grave face grew graver. It wasn't often any one saw a stern look in those gentle eyes.

"You are not prepared to go as far as that?"

"Oh, you don't understand," groaned the boy; "I wish I could make her my wife. I wish I could!"

"And the mother of your children?"

"Yes, yes; I'd make her mine if I could--if I could!"

"Ah, I see," said the other with comprehension and with a dreary little smile.

"I have a wife in England." And the lad sank down on the remnants of a broken harrow.

McCloud looked at the bent figure sadly.

"You never told me."

"What was the use?"

McCloud shook his head over this world-old excuse of sinners. It is so much easier to let things drift, to avoid, to trust to events or the mistakes or acts of others. Hal wasn't the first to leave the unsolved problem with the vague, unexpressed, shadowy hope that he would come back to it and somehow find it solved, find the answer staring him in the face.

"And your wife?" probed the inquisitor. "What of her?"

"As to my wife, my conscience is clear, John--absolutely clear." This was said with such boyish frankness and ingenuousness as to bring an almost worldly smile to the face of John McCloud.

"Are _you_ a fair judge of that?"

"I try to be. I think I am. I married Edith because I loved the woman I thought she was. She never loved me. She married me because I was the most available man coming into a title. She was a beautiful woman. Perhaps my vanity was flattered. It was a bad beginning. I won't accuse her or excuse myself. Perhaps she would have been different, married to a different man, or to a man she loved. When I saw what a mess we'd made of it, I put up a fairly decent fight to make the best of it, but she wouldn't let me, or it wasn't possible. Anyway, our marriage ended in being degrading to us both. We were going to hell fast, both of us. I ought to have freed myself before I left England. I owed it to myself."

Though he made some effort to avoid it, this was said with some of the bitterness of the past.

"A divorce?"

The way John McCloud said this was a trumpet call to battle, and Hal accepted the challenge. He was at his best in a fight, but it wasn't ground of his choosing, and he felt at a disadvantage with an antagonist like John McCloud, for the boy knew he had no claims to being super-man.

"A divorce? Yes. Why not? You're a big man, John McCloud. You don't believe that God has joined all those whom the alderman, has joined, all those whom ambition, or pride, or avarice, or lust, or even honest mistakes have joined. You don't believe that the words of a church service sanctify marriage? Love makes marriage a sacrament, mutual love."

John McCloud in his strenuous life had gone up into some exceeding high mountains where he had communed with his own soul and with his God, and many, very many things which to the average clergyman seem fixed and absolute, because he has never been higher than the roof of his own church or an office building, seemed to McCloud small and mutable.

"My son," he said with kindly tolerance, "marriage is the most important voluntary act of a man's life, and divorce ought to be like death--inevitable."

"I have a right to be free," and Hal's voice vibrated with passion.

"You mean you'd _like_ to be free; but your desire no longer involves yourself alone; it involves others, perhaps the unborn. You cannot trust to your own inclinations. Are you willing and are you able to take your feelings, emotions, desires to God, lay them bare before Him and ask _Him_ for the answer?"

"I don't think of God as a cruel and omnipotent _Don't_."

"That is the test, my lad."

"You're a queer man, John. Up where you are you can look into the next world, but it must be awfully cold up there. You mustn't ask me to live up to your standard. I couldn't do it. You're not like me, a man with passions."

"Oh, my boy, my dear boy," interrupted the other with amused patience; "you don't know what you are saying. I know what you are suffering. I have loved too, not so violently perhaps as you; perhaps as sincerely--at any rate with all my soul--and I ran away--ran away from happiness, because I would not inflict an invalid on the woman I loved, nor make her the mother of sickly children; and so for this world we said good-by, and I am here alone--alone--except for God."

Hal was very still. It meant a great deal to him that John McCloud had taken him behind the curtain. He realized that it was a supreme test of the other's affection, and he felt ashamed that he should have taken for granted so much that was childish in assumption and offensive in its condescension. In the presence of the other man's sorrows his own seemed dwarfed and commonplace. When his voice was steady he said: "Then you know; yes, you know." And McCloud understood what he would have liked to say but couldn't.

"Does Wah-na-gi know?" he asked relentlessly.

"No, I couldn't tell her; but I will."

Swiftly it passed through McCloud's thought: "Is this a house built upon sand? Would this lad run straight? Would he stand the test? Would he swerve under pressure? Or was he one of those infirm of purpose, who take cycles of infinity to develop into a man--God's man?"

"My boy," he said gently; "you must make a calm, relentless examination of your own soul. You must not forget that you are a white man. You have Indian blood in your veins, it is true, but you were born and bred a gentleman. Have you thought of that?"

"Gentleman?" said the boy bitterly. "I'm a half-breed. I've never been allowed to forget it."

It was the first time McCloud had ever heard him use the odious term, and the expression of his face, the tone of his voice, opened up a vision of a journey made tragic with the burden of the cross and the crown of thorns. He knew for the first time what this boy had suffered and it filled his soul with pity. But he saw in the bitter past only a sign and prophecy for the future. Here was the wound. The boy had bared it and placed in his hand the knife. He must use it.

"Then you know, no one better than you, that there is nothing more cruel in a cruel world than race prejudice."

"And nothing more cowardly," flashed back the quivering victim.

"I'm not speaking for myself. You knew that. You know I love this young woman. She is a fine soul--brave, patient, serene. To me she is a child of the living God. Theoretically we are all equal before the All-Father. Theoretically we are all His children; but we live in a world of prejudice and passion, of huge implacable ignorance of the simplest things of divine Love. Is it wise to arouse that ignorance, challenge its ferocity, live face to face with it, and force your wife and children to live face to face with it? Is it wise to subject them to commiseration and that odious sense of superiority which is one unending crucifixion? Do you want them to suffer as you have suffered?"

In his effort to hold up before this youth the eternal truth, to make him bow the stubborn neck under the yoke of duty, John McCloud was as implacable as Savonarola, and Hal lowered his head before the blast. The sick man shook off his limitations, forgot his weakness, rose up out of the trammels of the flesh and stood over the boy, the preacher, the priest, the prophet, aroused and potential, and all the pent-up passion of the saver of souls, the martyr, and fanatic, burst into flame.

"Race prejudice? It's the curse of the world," he cried. "In all ages men have been busy inventing reasons for being better than their fellow men. The Jews called themselves the 'Chosen People' in order to exterminate the un-chosen, and now the Russians persecute and murder the Jews. The Turks massacre the Armenians. The Germans would '_eliminate_' the Poles. The Anglo-Saxon is a mongrel who thinks his pure blood gives him the right to make the rest of the world buy the goods he can't sell at home. The amiable and enlightened Dr. Johnson once said of us: 'I am willing to love all mankind except _Americans_--I would burn and destroy them.' And we Americans, the most mixed of mixtures! We are proud of our enlightenment, and yet we call the Italian a 'dago,' the Mexican a 'greaser,' the Chinaman a 'chink.' We excuse our treatment of the Indian by inventing the phrase: 'The only good Indian is the dead Indian.' And recently we burned twenty churches and school-houses belonging to the negroes in order to teach them respect for law and order. It is nineteen hundred years since the Son of God brought 'peace on earth and good-will to men,' and still we have the gospel of Hate."

McCloud's fine eyes flamed and two bright scarlet spots burned in his cheeks.

"Perhaps," said Hal, rising under the torrent of the other's eloquence; "perhaps I can help show the world that mankind is superior to any race."

Swift as the swoop of the eagle came back: "Then you must be willing to be a martyr. Your Indian mother was a victim of this and your own life is shadowed by it. Are you going to repeat _her_ tragedy?" And he pointed to the rock that mutely stood before them and bore its silent witness to the sorrow of the broken heart that lay beneath it.

"God forbid!" ejaculated the boy, tears springing to his eyes as the figure of his mother loomed dimly out of childhood's memories. "God forbid! Poor little mother! I think the secret of her tragedy was that my father did not love his little Indian wife. I love Wah-na-gi."

The boy's sincerity was unmistakable. McCloud hurried on that he might not be swerved from his purpose.

"You love Wah-na-gi; yes, now; but what of the future? Do you dare look into the future? You are heir to a title and estates. You will eventually take up your obligations to an honored name and a glorious civilization."

Hal straightened up and showed fight. Hitherto McCloud had called to the lover, to his chivalry, to the potential father. It was an appeal he could not ignore, that lifted him up and swept him along with it. Now it was to his own interests. It was an anticlimax. The trained controversialist had made a mistake. Titles, estates, an honored name, civilization! The Shepherd of the sheep had put on the garments of the man of the world and they didn't fit. To the youth, in the throes of a mighty passion, they sounded hollow and empty. Hal had never discussed his past, his life, with any one. How was the preacher to know that he was walking among the graves of things already buried? Titles, estates, an honored name, civilization! It probably never occurred to Samson to pause over his duties to Philistine society, and to hesitate over the beauty of the temple where he was on exhibition. Hal started to rise, to throw off this incubus sought to be put upon him, to tear it to pieces; but the hated things had done something for him, taught him restraint, the capacity to measure the other man's point of view, and so he sat down again before he spoke and struggled to keep his voice even, though it vibrated with scorn.

"I hate the whole thing! Why should I be the victim of conditions which are no part of my consent or my will? I don't want the title! I don't want a place in their silly, rotten world. I couldn't live in it or be a part of it. I'll take the ranch and make my own way, and I claim the right to do it. I want my own life and the freedom to live it. I gave the best that was in me to civilization, and civilization kicked me out, robbed me of a career, made my home a hell, and so I say--to hell with civilization."

McCloud was surprised. He was an emotional man too, and he thrilled to the sweep of this violence. He would have liked to take the boy in his arms and cry: "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" Instead, he held him away, shifted his own ground, and sought the joints of the other's harness. Hal's allusion to his home seemed to offer an opening.

"This wife in London, this unhappy home--perhaps it is an appointed barrier!"

"Barriers are surmounted--swept away!"

Hal was standing now and he looked audacious and puissant. He looked the master of his own destiny. The man who had passed through the fire, whose proud hopes and ambitions lay in broken heaps where the car of destiny had passed, looked at him in admiration.

"Yes, barriers are swept away; but only by those who humbly and patiently kneel down before them. Perhaps Infinite Wisdom stays your hand, to keep you from bringing sorrow to this helpless Indian woman whom you love, and to her children."

"Never!" was the answer, in the pride and strength of youth, in the consciousness of capacity, in the joy of a child of battle, the offspring of warriors, who had sung their triumph under torture. It was a wide gulf that separated this fierce courage from the white-faced saint who had learned in patience and humility.

"It's a feeble-minded man who keeps picking at the irrevocable," was McCloud's reply, more to himself than to the savage before him. "Suppose some day you grew tired of all this and wanted to go back and be a part of the world of convention, of fashion and culture?"

Hal had no argument to make to this, but it had no appeal, no meaning. He only made a gesture of negation and impatience.

"Oh, my boy," said McCloud helplessly; "you're a rebel."

"Well, America was made by rebels," said the other with a triumphant smile.

The minister put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked into his eyes as David might have done to his wayward son.

"Well, God bless you for a fine, glorious, dangerous rebel."

The sun was up, a new day was born, all things seemed possible as Big Bill hove into sight.

"Say, Boss," he drawled; "McShay's out here with the toughest looking gang of ruffians----"

"Let 'em in, Bill," cried Hal joyously, his eyes dancing with the excitement of his conflict with McCloud.

"Turn 'em loose on the ranch?" said the foreman doubtfully. "That outfit? Gee whiz!"

"May need 'em, Bill."

"Most worse'n Injins," grumbled the old man as he went away, doubt, hesitation, protest in the stoop and shrug of his huge bulk.

Bill's advent had brought them both back to earth, to the business in hand.

McCloud spoke first.

"If they would let you keep this woman you could not. You are too near to her. You must go away."

"Now?" said the radiant rebel; "when she has come to me? When she is mine? Mine?"

"You must go away," said the other, relentless as Fate.

"She's mine. I'll take her and hold her against the world."

"No, you'll hold her against _yourself_."

Hal sank feebly down on the bench and clasped his hands in a helpless way.

"I can't. I can't give her up! I can't."

McCloud came to him and put his hand on him.

"Hal, my son," he said affectionately; "I've sometimes wondered why I had to give up my work and come out here to die. Perhaps it was to be your living conscience. To this woman you seem divinely appointed, like the Moquitch Mountains. I've seen her soul go out of herself and stand expectant before you with outstretched arms. Her temperament, her environment, the very strength and weakness of her character put her in your hands. You know that without stopping to question or think she has laid herself at your feet. Are you going to listen to the passion that desires, that demands, that takes, or is your soul going to rise up within you crowned and glorified?"

Hal buried his face in his hands and groaned. He looked about for some way of escape, but there stood the weak sick man, inevitable and unanswerable. He felt bewildered but resentful. Why shouldn't he be happy? Why should he be expected to give up his one chance, the only chance he had ever had, would ever have?

"We'll go away into the mountains," he exclaimed, "away from your artificial rules and regulations! We'll go away."

"You can't go where obligation will not meet you."

"Why should I let _you_ decide for me what my obligations are?" he said rudely, fiercely.

"Now you're a savage, but you've got white blood in your veins, blood that has bowed the knee to duty, bowed the back to burdens, bowed the head to God. Now I thank heaven you're a half-breed. You couldn't go back to the blanket savage if you wanted to. You've got to live up to your higher self. You have assumed obligations to these two women. You can't avoid the consequences. The heart of this Indian woman has gone out to you because you are part of a social order to which she aspires, that represents to her her better self. You can't drag her down and back to the blanket Indian. She would hate you. If you are brutal I must say brutal things to you. You can't force her to apologize to her children, to tell them they have no standing before the law and before society; that they face the inevitable social order with an inevitable stain. You can't flee from obligation. No man liveth to himself nor for himself. And this other woman--you have in the past assumed obligations to her. They have become irksome. You say you have a right to be free. Well, then, you must prove it. I don't believe in divorce, but that is a matter between a man and his Maker. Happiness, permanent happiness, is worth fighting for, worth waiting for. If you stay here you will steal it and pay the penalty of the thief, a penalty that will fall heaviest upon those you love best in the world. Again I say, you couldn't keep this woman if they would let you. She must go away or you must."

McCloud looked at the lad, silent but unconvinced, and then he lifted up his heart in secret prayer that God would keep this soul unspoiled.

*CHAPTER XV*

"Howd'y, Parson! Hello, boy!"

The diversion made by the appearance of McShay was a most welcome one to the youth who felt "baffled and beaten and blown about by the winds of the wilderness of doubt." Hal felt helpless in the hands of McCloud with his metaphysical verities, so fixed, unalterable, and unanswerable, but McShay carried with him something that was tangible and workable. Shadows fled before him. Subtleties disappeared before the sun of his genial optimism, or materialized in rain or snow or ice, assumed a form that could be reckoned with. The presence of the man of action was an enormous relief to Hal. McShay's intuitions were quick and he no longer spoke to the clergyman of his health, but he swept him with a searching glance and took his hand gently in his iron grip as he would have taken the hand of a woman.

"You sent me word you needed help," he said to Hal.

"Yes."

"Things is awful dull over our way; wouldn't like to miss anything. I brought over a few of the boys. It's Wah-na-gi; ain't it?"

McShay was adaptable. It was perhaps a large part of his success in life. He could be vulgar and common with the vulgar and common, or he could follow those who went up into the mountains and looked into a far country, and whether with those who grovelled or those who stood on the heights, each kind felt he was one of them, and there was no hypocrisy in this. He understood and sympathized with both. There was nothing offensive in the way he said:

"It's Wah-na-gi."

"How did you know it was Wah-na-gi?"

"Why, son," and a broad smile spread over the cowman's face, "everybody on the range knows you're sweet on Wah-na-gi. Presumably, too, you was not unaware that the amiable Ladd had threatened to shoot you on sight, and that the gentle Appah has promised himself your scalp as a Christmas present!"

"I knew I wasn't exactly popular at the Agency just now."

"And so you just went over and took her? Well, it was a fool thing to do; but it's kind of appealin,' Parson, it's appealin'. What was that young feller's name--none of your _Eastern_ tenderfeet--the young feller that come out of the West?"

"Rode out of the West?" corrected McCloud with a twinkle in his eye. "That hero was a Scotchman, Mike."

"Couldn't be, Parson; couldn't be. The Scotchman will risk his neck for religion or a pinch of change, but not for the ladies. No, I'll bet he was on the border, and mostly on our side. But this feller here!" and he put his hand on the shoulder of the boy with unmistakable liking; "an Englishman, too! Beats all, don't it? Anyway he loves a fight. Must have a dash of the Irish in him somewhere, even if it's the damn Protestant variety; savin' your presence, Parson. Sure, I took to him when he put it all over Ladd, and when I count a man my friend, I ain't over-nice as to his failin's. Say, it's too bad he's an Englishman, ain't it? He's saved by the Injin in him, I guess. That's the truth."

"We were just discussing race prejudice," said McCloud.

"Don't believe in it. Nuthin' to it," ejaculated the Irishman warmly.

"'A mon's a mon for a' that,' eh, McShay?" suggested the countryman of Burns with a smile.

"No use for narrer-minded prejudice, but the _English--excuse me_!" Mike's face and body united in a convulsion that was a three-volume exegesis of the traditional Irish point of view.

"Sure, it's a toss up," he continued. "The English rule Ireland. The Scotch rule England. The Irish rule America, and to hell with the rest of it--it ain't worth rulin'." The preacher laughed heartily. "You know, Hal, me boy," continued Mike, "the parson's human like the rest of us. He don't look like a duck as has swallowed a croquet ball just because a little language slips out now and then. For a gospel-foreman he's aces! Well, as I was sayin' when you interrupted me, we ain't come over to fight, we ain't a-looking fer a fight, but if there's goin' to be one, we'd hate to miss it. Does it look encouragin'?'

"I'm afraid there's going to be trouble over Wah-na-gi," sighed the preacher. "I have made a formal application to the Secretary of the Interior to adopt her, but----"

He did not say it, and Hal was grateful. Having expressed himself without reservation to the boy, he had the wisdom to know when to let the good seed alone. A worldly twinkle lit up McShay's eyes as he said:

"You've made formal application to the Secretary of the Interior. It's a noble move, Parson, and you'll hear from it about the time Wah-na-gi is somebody's great-grandmother, and in the meantime you don't suppose these amiable feller-citizens is goin' to sit down and twirl their thumbs."

"Any news from Washington, Mike?" asked Hal.

"Well, me boy, our fight against Ladd is goin' to precipitate the whole thing. You see, instead of communicatin' in a genteel whisper they're beginnin' to shout in Washington, and when they shout in Washington it makes the God-fearin' business man nervous and hysterical. I guess we ought to let this agitation against Ladd drop."

"Why, we can't do that," protested Hal warmly. "Why let it drop?"

"Well, son, here's the situation. We got a bill before Congress, ain't we? To make good our title if it ain't good already. Well, we're a menace to the Trust. They may queer our bill, but if they do, they got to prove the lands are Government lands, and that shuts _them_ out, except for a lease from the Injins, and that we can make cost 'em a pretty penny, maybe we can queer it altogether. If everything is quiet in Washington our bill has a good chance, because we can make terms with the Trust to _let it go through_ by agreein' to sell them our rights if it does go through. We are bound to git something! How much we can make 'em pay depends on how close we stick together. Now, if we put up a fight against Ladd in Washington, Ladd is the Trust's agent, they're goin' to stand behind him, and we've got a big fight on our hands, and if we get to screamin' at each other in Washington, why, every newsboy in America'll know all about it."

"Suppose he does?" asked the preacher, deeply interested.

"Well, the present Secretary of the Interior has intimated that he might on investigation insist on these lands being held for the benefit of the _general public_. The 'general public'! What do you think of that? Did you ever hear anything so funny in your life?"

"Why, that doesn't strike me as funny, McShay," said the preacher. "That seems to be a very just and splendid solution of the difficulty."

"And where would we come in?" yelled the Irishman.

"You're part of the general public."

"Hah!" he snorted, then turning to Hal; "ain't parsons the limit?"

"I know Secretary Walker slightly," added McCloud. "He strikes me as a strong man."

"I'll tell you how strong he is," bellowed McShay. now thoroughly aroused. "He can't hold his job. That's how much the 'general public' amounts to. He don't please anybody. He's got to resign."

"Well, you may quit the firing line, Mac," said Hal quietly. "But I promised Ladd to have his scalp, and I'd hate to break a promise I'd made to Ladd."

"You ain't practical, either," shouted McShay. "That's the Injin in you."

And the parson was in a dilemma too. He didn't know whether to praise the boy for being honest or reprove him for being vindictive.

"Boss, Curley's come in with the mail," said Bill as he came to Hal and handed him a telegram. "Nuthin' but this."

Curley completely recovered, but minus a right arm, was now one of Hal's retainers, and like all converts he was a fanatic where the owner of the Red Butte Ranch was concerned.

"I hope it's news from Washington," said Hal. "No, it's from London."

It read: "Your father ill. Come back immediately. Rundall."

"It's from my father's physician," explained Hal, handing the cable to McCloud.

"And say, Boss," said Bill, trying to keep the worst news to the last, "Ladd's out here."

"Ain't a-losin' any time, is he?" commented McShay.

"And he's got quite a few Injins with him," added Bill slowly. "In fact, they got us surrounded, I reckon." And Bill returned to his post.

"Go out and see Ladd, will you?" Hal said to his two friends. "And let me know what he has to propose? It'll give me a moment to think."

"Come on, Parson," said McShay, and he took the preacher affectionately by the arm. "By the way, would you say that Ladd was a _Scotch_ name?"

McCloud shot him a sly glance.

"I shouldn't wonder, McShay; but I don't think the yellow canine mixture is _monopolized_ by the Scotch, do you?"

"Oh, ain't you touchy about your damned old race?"

And the two queer pals walked away arm in arm.

"Wah-na-gi, come here, please."

Hal called gently at the door. She did not hear. It was a shame to wake her. He called again and then again. When she did awaken it was with a start, her heart throbbing violently until she saw him, then she breathed evenly with an assured smile. He thought she had never looked so beautiful as she stood holding to the support of the portico, and then he noticed for the first time that she was dressed like her people, and the brave flash and glitter of the barbaric colors stirred something within him; something strange, mystical. He felt the touch of an unseen hand, heard the sound of a silent voice. He thrilled to vague impulses, to a half-remembered strain that might have been a love song or a lullaby, that had in it the note of the primeval woods and the vastness of the sky and plain. He forgot the exigency of the moment, the dangers that confronted them, and said: "Wah-na-gi, wait here for a moment. I've something I want to give you."

And he disappeared into the house leaving her wondering and alone. She, too, was conscious of some occult force to whose vibration she thrilled. When Hal woke her she was quivering with the ragged remnants of a dream. Nat-u-ritch had come to her and said: "You will be very happy. My son loves you." Then John McCloud had come and led her away to the Land of Shadows. Here were shadow streams and shadow hills, shadow wickiups, shadow horses and cattle, shadow lovers and shadow children. Then Hal had come and called her away, and she woke to see him.

This dream came back to her as she waited. There was the grave of Nat-u-ritch. She walked over to it. The gravestone was very simple like her life, a rough bowlder torn from the bed of a mountain torrent. It displayed no date of birth or death, no line of eulogy, no word of sentiment, just her name in rude lettering cut into the face of the rock, but to any one who knew her tragic story it seemed appropriate and impressive. To Wah-na-gi it made the whole dingy, desolate place sacred. Nat-u-ritch seemed very real as she stood there by her grave. She knew Nat-u-ritch's story and understood it. The resignation of the Indian woman toiling patiently through life knowing that she was unloved, finding consolation in her child; then bewildered, unable to understand why her baby should be taken from her arms and given to a strange white woman to be taken into a far country; then the tall chief bringing his dead daughter in his arms and holding her out to the white man, all that was left of the little savage who was wife and mother, with the weapon of destruction in one hand and her child's little moccasins in the other. Nat-u-ritch was very real to Wah-na-gi just then. Her spirit brooded near.

"Wah-na-gi, I want you to have these as a keepsake."

Hal held something in his hands at which he looked intently. Something glittered and gleamed like her buckskin dress. They were a tiny pair of child's moccasins.

"They were mine," he said, "when I was a little boy running around here on the ranch. Those were happy days," he added dreamily. "My father gave them to me before I left England. He took them from my dead mother's hand. When my father gave them to me I knew I had seen them before, often and often in my dreams. I used to think it was Nat-u-ritch, my little mother, holding them out to me. Then it seemed to me to be you, calling to me, calling me to leave the cities, the limits, the din, the make-believe, the murderous crowds; calling me to the desert, the naked rocks, and the far spaces, the brooding snows, the camp-fires, the songs of the pines, and the angry rapids; calling me to my own, to live my life in the open, and be a man among men."

His eye was fixed on space and he spoke like one hypnotized or in a dream. She knew it was the son of Nat-u-ritch speaking to her, speaking to his own soul.

"Perhaps--you would like them," he added. "I would like you to have them," and he held them toward her. "It's the best I have to give. They are my 'medicine,' my 'sacred bundle.'"

Tears were gathering in her eyes as she took and kissed them.

"And now John McCloud says I must go back to all that--to the land and the life where I was an idler, a drunkard, and a failure."

Her heart stood still.

"Go back! Why?"

"Because I love you, because I want you, because I can't live without you."

She was in his arms and knew the supremest joy of her life.

"And nobody is going to take you from me," he added defiantly.

He was fighting McCloud, doing battle with himself. He had forgotten the agent until McShay entered with a face graver than his wont.

"Well, what does he say, Mike?"

"He insists on talkin' things over with you in person."

"Oh, well, bring him in. Wah-na-gi," he turned to her as the Irishman disappeared, "_Ladd is here_."

*CHAPTER XVI*

Wan-na-gi shrank back, her eyes set with terror.

"Don't let him take me away. I couldn't go back there. When I sent to you I had stood all I could. Don't let that man put his hand on me. You thought he was protecting me from Appah. I didn't tell you--I was ashamed. It was because, because----"

"He wanted you for himself."

"Yes."

"He won't take you back; not if I live. Now listen and don't be afraid. My men believe in me, better still, in my luck. McShay's men want nothing better than a chance to even scores with Ladd. We have the position. Ladd isn't a soldier. He doesn't know this game. I do. He couldn't take the ranch if he had twice as many braves, except at a fearful cost----"

"My own people!" she said, as if it just occurred to her for the first time. "We shall kill our own people!" This time she included him.

"You are my people," he said passionately. "You are my country, my all. Nothing else matters. Go in, Wah-na-gi, and don't be afraid."

"We must not kill our own people. They're your people as well as mine."

"A fight's a fight, Wah-na-gi. Leave it to me."

"I didn't think of this when I called to you. I was tortured, mad, desperate, and I cried out for help. It was a mistake. I--I--yes, I will go back."

"No, that would be horrible; I could not let you go back. We don't know what may happen, but I could not do that. Won't you leave it to me? Trust to me?"

She raised her eyes to him with a look of serene abnegation, of exalted self-surrender, that transported him, then sobered him.

He took her in his arms, kissed her as a brother might, and she went within.

"Howd'y, Calthorpe?" said Ladd easily as he entered with McShay and McCloud.

"How are you, Mr. Ladd?"

"I want to talk to Calthorpe alone, if you don't mind," said the agent to the other two.

"Certainly," said Hal; "these gentlemen will step into the house for a moment."

The Irishman drew the preacher toward the upper wing of the house, keeping his eye steadily on the agent who sauntered away. Suddenly he stopped.

"On second thought you may have him," he said _sotto voce_ to McCloud.

"Suppose we divide the responsibility," responded the preacher with a grave face, "and call him--Scotch-Irish?"

And they went within to continue the animated discussion as to the relative contributions of each country to the world's greatness.

As Ladd turned the two men faced each other.

"I understand," said Hal easily, "that you threatened to shoot me on sight. Well, I'm on sight."

"Well," said the other calmly, "it may come to that, and it may not. That's up to you."

"Sit down," and Hal motioned to a seat with a smile.

"Thanks!" and Ladd sat on the harrow and nursed his knee in a careless off-hand way. "The Indians are very mad. Abduction of women is a serious matter, isn't it? Even a mean, dispirited race will fight for its women. Well, her people think you stole Wah-na-gi."

Hal thought for a moment and then as he did not see any advantage in dodging the issue, he said:

"Yes, I took her. She's here."

"Oh, you admit it?" said the agent with elation. "Well, that's something. Then perhaps you'll be good enough to hand her over to me."

"Well, no, not exactly. You see she's claimed my protection."

"_Your_ protection?" responded Ladd with a cynical laugh. "That's rather feeble, isn't it? Well, the Indians claim my protection; protection for their women, for their homes!"

To Hal, who knew the extent of Wah-na-gi's obligations to her own people and their supreme indifference to the girl, this buncombe was peculiarly exasperating, but he did not honor it with a reply.

Ladd rose and came over to him. Hal was seated and the other bent down over him: "Now, you're no fool, Calthorpe; you know that you've done a wild, reckless, impossible thing, and you also know that you can't get away with it," and the smooth, cool, even manner gave place to the aggressive attitude of the bully who felt secure in his position. "Now, after what happened at the powwow over at the Agency, no one State is big enough for you and me."

"Yes," assented Hal complacently, "I've realized that you and I were a bit crowded."

"You're in wrong this time, Calthorpe, and I've got you where I want you," and Ladd chuckled over the prospect.

In the cold light of day and in the scrutiny of second thought and under hostile criticism, Hal had a sickening sense that his act was crazy, quixotic, indefensible, and yet what could he have done otherwise? Could he as a man have left this woman he loved to be hounded into self-destruction or dishonor? She had called to him in her desperation. Could he have turned a deaf ear to that cry? He had as usual acted on impulse. Having at very great risk effected her rescue, was he to face the ultimate and inevitable and hand her back to these wolves? It was inconceivable. One step involved another. He must go on, trusting to chance, a perilous trust.

"What is the idea?" asked Ladd with sarcastic tolerance. "The Government, the Army, and the American nation is behind me."

Hal knew that this was too true.

"I am responsible to the Government and the people for this girl. And you come over and take her away from me by force."

"Because you have betrayed your trust."

"I was in the very act of affording her protection from the man of whom she complained when you stole her. Well, what are you going to do with her now that you've got her?"

Hal did not quail under Ladd's merciless gaze, but inwardly he writhed.

What was he going to do? Oh, if he could take this wretch by the throat and say: "She's mine--my wife, my wife!"

Ladd waited, then added: "Why, if you try to keep her, we'll wipe you out of existence--you and your ranch."

"That sounds like a threat."

"We'll make it good. Now you and McShay and your crowd have been getting busy at Washington! You have been trying to get me removed, haven't you?"

"We have."

"And you haven't done it, have you?"

"Not yet, but we have hopes; we have hopes, Brother Ladd."

"It didn't take you long to discover that I had a few friends in Washington myself, did it?"

"No, we found that you were a patriot who had all his life sacrificed his own interests to the good of his country. We found it was first Washington, then Lincoln, and now Ladd."

"Your only excuse is that you're a kid. You make it hard for me to keep my temper. You make it hard for me to let you out of the hole you've put yourself in."

"Let me out?"

"Yes, I can let you out or I can drown you in it. You want this woman."

"So do you."

The two men stood eye to eye for a tense moment. Then Ladd shrugged his shoulders and returned to the business in hand.

"Cadger has decided that I cannot afford such a luxury under the circumstances, and perhaps I can't. He thinks, and perhaps he's right, that you and I could do a whole lot better than fight each other. If you think so too, I'll meet you half-way."

"What's your game, Mr. Agent?"

"Well, I can arrest Appah and take these Indians home, and--forget it. Now you call off your crowd in Washington and I'll call off mine here. What do you say?"

"Your offer takes me by surprise. I'll have to submit it to McShay."