Chapter VII: Part 7

As Hal walked to the house it went through his brain that this was a very quick solution of a very dangerous situation. It was obvious that it would meet the worldly views of McShay. That astute politician had just expressed the belief that the war on Ladd was bad policy. It also shot through his brain that it would not coincide with the unworldly views of McCloud. Should he call out McShay alone? It is useless to deny that he was tempted. In fact, he was on the Mount of Temptation and was to miss no phase of that ordeal.

Ladd hesitated. "Why, you're not going to--Can't this be settled between you and me?" he suggested nervously.

"You two Macs come out here," called Hal through the door.

"These men are interested with me in this fight. I can't act without them. Gentlemen," said Hal to the Irishman and the Scotchman as they came forward with an air of expectancy; "the agent has made me a proposition. Unless we agree to call off the fight against him in Washington, or I surrender Wah-na-gi, he will turn Appah and his friends loose on us and make the ranch a dust heap. That's about it."

"Now, ain't that nice?" said McShay with the air of a pleased child. "Now, Parson, you have an introduction to practical politics. Well, son," he continued, turning to Hal; "it's up to you to decide. Of course my constituents will say I was bought off, but it wouldn't be the first time they've said unpleasant things about me, and I'll see you through this either way. To me and the parson you're on the square with regards to this girl, but we're only two people and we ain't a workin' majority. Ladd's got a strangle holt on you in a way, so if you want to buy him off--well, I'll stand in."

"Thank you, Mike. What do you say, John?"

"What you have done, you have done. For the protection of this fine Indian girl, well, trust her to God. Omnipotence can care for her."

"Well, Parson," said Mike doubtfully, "just for the sake of argument; why not leave Ladd to Omnipotence? Think the agent's too many for Omnipotence?"

The clergyman ignored the irrepressible Irishman.

"You have asserted," he went on, "that Agent Ladd is unfit for his responsible position, that he has been untrue to his trust. If you go back on that you make yourselves liars and frauds, and continue this man's tyranny, and fasten it on these helpless people. There are those who are looking to you, trusting to you, who have enlisted under you in this fight. You can't betray them. You can't juggle with the right. You can't do it."

"That's the answer, Mr. Agent," said Hal quietly.

"Ain't parsons the limit?" murmured McShay to himself.

"Then of course you've decided to hand Wah-na-gi over to me," said Ladd with menace.

"I'll see you damned first," was Hal's reply.

"Then you'll be responsible for hell cut loose," and the agent started to go.

"See here; wait a minute!" cried McShay intercepting him. "I've got it, and I can fix it so as to satisfy everybody."

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a coin. "I'll match you for it--to see whether we give up the fight against you in Washington, or you throw up the sponge here. Now that's fair, Parson. That sort of puts it up to Providence, don't you see?"

"We're wasting time," snapped Ladd, now quivering with rage. "I'll give you ten minutes to produce Wah-na-gi or take the consequences."

The participants in this scene had been so intent on the business in hand that they were oblivious to the noise of horses' hoofs beating the plain and the rattle of accoutrements as a couple of troops of United States cavalry swept through the Indian lines and the cowboy outposts without stopping to say by your leave, and came to a sudden and spectacular halt just back of the grave of Nat-u-ritch.

Captain Baker dismounted and advanced to the group in front of the house.

"What is the meaning of this, gentlemen?" he asked in a clear, ringing voice that had the cut of a sabre in it. His mouth was set, his face firm and four square, determination and authority written in every angle. He looked from one to the other and waited for the answer. Meanwhile Appah, in war bonnet and war-paint, pushed his pony to the background as if determined not to be ignored in the settlement of the dispute. Big Bill followed him.

It was obvious to Hal and McShay that Baker's advent was not just what Ladd had planned.

"I didn't call on you, Captain," said the agent, "because my Indian police are quite sufficient."

"Police?" said Captain Baker, eying the other sternly. "Why, you've got the whole tribe out here. Some one sent me a wire that a fight was on at Red Butte Ranch between the settlers and the Indians."

The Irishman grinned.

"Sure, I took the liberty of invitin' you, Captain! Knew you wouldn't like to miss a little thing like that."

After the asphalt conference Baker's opinion of the agent wasn't printable, and now he looked him over with unmistakable disapproval. That Ladd hadn't appealed to him or notified him of the trouble seemed to him most suspicious.

"Well, there isn't going to be any scrap between the settlers and the Indians. I'll see to that."

Knowing that he could not move without orders, he had telegraphed to head-quarters.

"Mr. Ladd, your Indians are off the Reservation. I've instructions to put them back."

Ladd saw that he could expect no favors from the officer.

"Correct, Captain," he answered, meeting the challenge.

"And I call upon you to see to it that they go back, _all of them_."

"I'll do that fast enough."

Wah-na-gi could stand the strain no longer. She had crouched within the door of the cabin trying to follow the course of events which were to decide her fate: hearing something, missing much, trying to fill in the gaps, scanning the faces to read there the answer that meant so much to her, every nerve and muscle tense, her heart pounding like an engine carrying too heavy a load. She seemed to be suffocating in the house, and she walked out and faced them. Every eye was turned upon her. She saw the troopers cleared for action, bronzed, clean-cut figures, with no frills or gold braid, their service khaki covered with alkali dust, weather stained, sitting potential on their smoking horses, so much bigger than the Indian ponies or the cowboys' mustangs, waiting for the word of this quiet young man who eyed her sternly. What was all this fuss about? Nothing but an Indian woman! nothing but an Indian woman! That was what she seemed to feel.

Realizing that the Army would cast the deciding vote, the Indians had broken their formation, and the cowboys had come in from the cover of the outbuildings and their hastily constructed intrenchments and were standing about in groups awaiting developments. There was Appah's hawk-like face, the agent's penetrating stare! Big Bill and McShay! So many cruel, hostile eyes! The air seemed filled with poisoned arrows.

She slipped without design between McCloud and Hal, like a hunted animal seeking shelter. Hal felt her fear, her craving for love and shelter, and put his hand on her arm.

The agent advanced toward the officer and pointed at her.

"Calthorpe, here, has kidnapped an Indian woman, and holds her by force against me, the agent, and against her relatives and friends."

Appah cut his pony with a quirt and pushed to the front.

"My squaw--my woman!" he said, pointing too.

So that was it. All this fuss and fury over a woman, an Indian woman at that. The captain was beginning to feel distinctly annoyed. He and his men in a forced march in the broiling sun and the choking dust! A squaw! However, as he took another good look at the Indian Helen, perhaps there were mitigating circumstances--she was pretty; she was damn pretty.

"Your woman?" he said without looking at Appah, and deciding on the spot that she was entirely too good for that copper-colored malefactor.

"Are you Appah's squaw?" he asked Wah-na-gi, but in a kinder tone than he intended and which he felt was unmistakably unofficial. He was a young man and rather careful of his dignity.

"No," she replied with decision.

"Whether she is or is not," said Ladd sharply; "she's the Government's ward--my ward. I'm responsible for her, and I demand her."

The force of this was unanswerable. The captain paused for a moment. Then he addressed Hal, whom he liked.

"I don't see, Calthorpe, on what theory you take and detain this woman, unless," and he paused again, "unless you claim that she is _your_ wife."

It was Hal's turn to feel that the air was filled with poisoned arrows. Every eye was upon him. Every one waited. It was _his_ turn to speak. There was a clergyman standing beside him who in a half-dozen words could make them man and wife. It was perfectly true he had taken her from the care of the representative of the Government for _what_? The pause was interminable. The silence was maddening. Why didn't some one say something? His position was grotesque, impossible, cowardly. If he shrank from becoming a squaw-man, why didn't he leave the Indian woman to her own life and her own people? He felt as if an armor-piercing shell had burst in his brain, leaving his mind in ruins. He couldn't speak. He hadn't two consecutive words to put together. McCloud, the only one present who knew the truth, had been so conscious of the boy's predicament and so deeply grieved with and for him that he, too, shrank back into silence. The pause was obvious therefore before the clergyman crossed to the officer and began to speak.

"Thank God some one was talking," was Hal's thought, though he did not hear what McCloud was saying.

"Captain Baker," said the clergyman, "it is common report that certain interests are trying to get the asphalt lands belonging to the Indians and that Appah is betraying his people for a price. Wah-na-gi is that price. As you know, I have lived on the Agency, and I know of my own knowledge that this woman has been persecuted by this man with the connivance of the agent, and her honor and perhaps her life threatened. In order to protect her I have made an application to the Secretary of the Interior to adopt her as my ward."

"With her consent?" asked the officer.

"Oh, yes, yes," cried Wah-na-gi.

"Where are the woman's parents?

"Dead," she replied.

"Any near relations?"

"None."

"Captain Baker!" cried the agent, seeing the drift of this; "you haven't any discretionary powers in this case. _I_ am the Indian agent and I call on you in the interests of peace to restore this woman to the Agency, to my care."

The captain paused a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and then said with obvious reluctance: "That is absolutely correct, gentlemen. I have no discretion in this matter. If the agent insists, she must go back to the Agency."

Well, that was finished. There was to be no fight and no reviewing of that ultimatum. Every one except those immediately concerned drew a sigh of relief, and Baker walked back to give some instructions to his orderly.

What was that? His quick ear detected something.

"What is it, Sergeant?" he asked of his non-commissioned officer whose gaze was fixed intently on the road by which they had come.

"Someone from the fort, sir, as I make out."

"She must go back to the Agency."

That was the final word.

So that was the end. The agent had said it. There was the Army to enforce it, and back of these troops the might of millions.

The Indian agent was an autocrat, a combination of king, judge, administrator, chief of police, doctor, engineer; in fact, it was a position requiring powers almost unlimited and corresponding responsibilities, and this impossible combination of inconceivable virtues was supposed to be tempted into the service of the Government by a salary of one thousand five hundred dollars a year or less. That these unique powers sometimes fell into incompetent or unworthy hands was inevitable, that the consequences were sometimes tragic, likewise inevitable.

"She must go back to the Agency."

Hal heard it in a numb way. Wah-na-gi heard it. Hal had a wild mad impulse to kill Ladd where he stood, and his fingers sought the handle of his gun, to feel the restraining touch of John McCloud.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and incline not to thine own understanding," whispered the calm voice of faith in his ear.

"Come on," said Ladd; "we must be moving."

The troopers made way for the new arrival who spurred his tired horse to the side of the young commander.

"Despatches from department head-quarters, sir," he said, touching his hat. "They arrived at the post just after you left."

Few people had been privileged to see Baker hurry. He was a deliberate body. He took his time now. In fact, he took so much time that Ladd, who was nervous and irritable, finally recalled him to the situation by saying:

"We have a long, hard ride, Captain; whenever you're ready."

"Yes--y-e-s," and Baker drew out the little word until it threatened to break. "I haven't forgotten. Thank you for reminding me."

Then he read the papers all over again. By this time the air seemed to become electrical again, and the little group into which the spectators had divided were hypnotized by the soldier's preoccupation. The attention became concentric. Talking stopped. Everybody waited on the captain.

Finally he said with great deliberation:

"Mr. Ladd, you will probably find similar instructions on your return to the Agency. These are orders from General Ruggles, Department Commander at Denver, directing me to relieve you of your office, pending an investigation, and ordering me to assume your duties until further notice."

Ladd was a man of quick and violent temper, and his hand instinctively felt for his gun.

The husky cavalryman looked him in the eye and said very slowly:

"If you pull a gun on the uniform I wear, you'll go back to Washington as damaged goods. You'd better hit the trail," and he turned away.

"I'm not afraid to go to Washington," said the agent, white with anger, "and I'm not afraid of an investigation," and he walked deliberately over to Calthorpe and said: "I owe this to you, Calthorpe."

"I told you," was the affable reply, "that I'd camp on your trail until I had your official head."

"I owe a lot to you, and I've got a damned good memory." And the agent turned on his heel and disappeared.

McCloud was the first to recover from his surprise and turn the situation to account.

"So you are acting agent, Captain Baker. Then you _have_ discretionary powers _now_. This young woman is like my own daughter. I'm sure the Government will eventually let me adopt her. Will you trust her to me?"

"Dr. McCloud," said the soldier, a bit embarrassed by the strange situation, "we all know you. Everybody round here knows you. I guess I'll take a chance on you."

This disposition of the bone of contention seemed to the captain like a special providence, and he was immensely relieved.

"My squaw--my woman!"

Everybody had forgotten Appah.

"You get out of here. Savey? Go on! Get your people home."

Appah looked at the young officer for a moment. The Indian respects our soldiers. The men who fought the Indians have as a rule been just to them, have kept their promises to them when they could, and the Indian fears our soldiers and also trusts them.

"Go on or I'll have you in the guard-house."

Appah turned his horse's head and rode away, but ugly and surly.

Baker was in the saddle and his men were already on the move when he turned and said to the clergyman:

"When people get to scrappin' over a young and pretty woman, I guess it's about time for Bobby Baker to pass up the job of chaperon. You got your work cut out for you, Doctor, and by the holy smoke I'll hold you accountable."

"Thank you, Captain; thank you. I'll try to be worthy of your confidence," and Baker rode after his men.

McShay's eyes were twinkling as he gazed after the boys in khaki.

"Parson," he said, "the Lord and the little old picayune U.S.A. is a fine workin' combination, ain't it?"

And the Irishman went out to round up his desperadoes, almost consoled for missing the fight by the sight of his adopted country's flag and her fighting men. Perhaps it's an inherited impulse, but even the man of peace stirs to the sound of the bugle, the beat of the drum, and the brave glitter of a fluttering flag.

McCloud turned to see the troopers round up the Indians like a bunch of cattle and start them back to the Agency.

"Wah-na-gi," he said without turning, "after to-day I think you can look on that flag as your flag. For once at least it has stood for protection instead of oppression to the Indian. You will learn to love it too, some day."

As she did not reply he turned to see her in Hal's arms, held close in a fierce embrace, the young man murmuring incoherently: "You are safe, and you are mine--mine--mine!"

They were alone, these three. McCloud regarded the two young people for a moment with sympathy, then he advanced to the side of Hal, touched him on the elbow, and said:

"This is yours."

It was the cable from the London physician about his father's illness.

"Oh, yes," Hal said in a dazed way; "I had forgotten."

"You can't forget; you can't avoid; you can't postpone. You must choose, and you must choose now."

It was hard not to be allowed a moment in which to enjoy the fierce ecstasy of triumph, of possession. Hal's life went out of him. He sank down on the rough bench and buried his face in his hands.

McCloud continued: "I have assumed certain obligations to this child which I consider sacred. I know that I have no power over her, no influence with her, except what you may choose to give me. I leave you together to decide this for yourselves, and I pray that you may deny yourselves the present and trust God for the future," and he went within to lie down to rest, for the strain and the excitement had been a great drain on his small store of energy.

They were alone together, their fate in their own hands. Wah-na-gi came over to him and put her hand on his bowed head with a caress.

"It shall be as you wish."

"No, my girl, it cannot be as I wish. It cannot be."

The acquired powers of review, of analysis, of restraint were forever battling within him with the impulses of the savage. He didn't understand it himself, this tumult, this confusion, this irresolution.

"I'm all wrong somehow," he cried bitterly. "McCloud is right. I'm not fit to be trusted with a love like yours. I'd soil it or crush and destroy it. I want you; I want you like a madman. I hate McCloud because he stands between us. I can't wait and toil and suffer. I don't know how, and yet I know I must."

"Whatever you decide will be right."

"It's that makes it impossible. You trust me."

"Of course," she said with a smile.

"You don't know that I'm a coward or a fool or both. I must live up to your belief in me, and I can't. I haven't the will to go back, to leave everything I want and go back to everything I loathe. McCloud says happiness is worth fighting for, worth waiting for, but I want to take it. How do I know if I let it slip from my grasp now that I'll ever see it again? How do I know that if I do go now I'll ever see _you_ again? Oh, Wah-na-gi, worse than all, I haven't had the courage to destroy your belief in me."

"You couldn't do that."

"You have known for a long time that I loved you. You have wondered, of course you have wondered, why I never asked you to be my wife. You saw me stand here like a helpless imbecile when I ought to have stood out and said proudly: 'She is mine. Touch her if you dare. She is my wife.' And I couldn't, I couldn't, because I am married. My wife is living in England."

Wah-na-gi drew a long breath. Then she sat down on a bench beside him.

"It's always like that," she said with the fatalism of her race. "Happiness goes out like one's breath on a frosty night."

She dropped into the figure of speech of her people.

"There sleeps Nat-u-ritch," she thought. "She, too, loved a white man, and there she lies dreaming. Did God make the Indian woman too? I wonder why?"

She always thought of him as a white man.

"The white woman is waiting for you."

"No, she cares for me less even than I care for her. If I go back it will be to be free."

McCloud appeared at the door of the cabin. He had tried to rest but he carried with him the sense of the conflict which he had left behind. He must know the result. Was it victory or defeat?

"Well, Hal, my son," he said gently; "which is it? Do you stay or do you go?"

Hal rose to his feet, pressed his hands to his head and then there was a long silence. Big Bill appeared at the entrance to the stable.

"Well, Boss," he said, awaiting instructions.

"My horse ready, Bill?"

Hal referred to the fresh horse he had ordered to be ready for the fight.

"As you ordered, sir."

"I'll catch the Overland Limited at Carbon. Send my things after me."

"Yes, sir," and Bill disappeared into the stable.

"You are going," said Wah-na-gi in a scarce audible whisper. "Where?"

"Back to London. Back home--no, not home. This is home to me."

Wah-na-gi crept to McCloud like a timid child.

"Must he go?"

"Yes, I think so."

Then she turned to Hal with a pitiful cry: "And you'll never come back."

"Oh, yes I will, Wah-na-gi; yes I will. I couldn't stay away. It's in my blood. I love this desolate land. It's my land. I love these people. They are my people. McShay is here; Bill is here; John McCloud is here; my mother is here; you are here. I couldn't stay away."

"If you do come back," said John McCloud with his eyes filled with tears, "you must bring this Indian woman clean hands and a pure heart. Promise me that."

"I'll do that or I won't come back; so help me God."

Upon the hands of the two men clasped in solemn pledge rested the small brown hand of Wah-na-gi.

John McCloud turned away to hide the emotion that was mastering him. Hal took the girl in his arms, held her long to his breast, then put her at arms' length and, looking into her eyes, said through his own tears:

"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi, dear; I'm coming back."

Bill stood by with the horse. Hal leaped into the saddle.

"Explain it to the boys," he said to McCloud simply. Once more the girl went to him as if she would drag him from the saddle. He leaned down and kissed her and whispered "I'm coming back." Then he put spurs to his horse, and was off.

No one who has not lived on a ranch or in the wilderness apart can ever know what it is--the solemn aching void left by the one who goes away. Hal turned as he reached the hill before descending into the Bad Lands and waved his sombrero to them. Wah-na-gi was standing on the rock, Nat-u-ritch's gravestone, to get the last glimpse of him. Bill and McCloud were standing below. She stood there looking, looking, long after he had disappeared. They had to lift her gently down. Still she stood looking, looking.

"He's gone, Wah-na-gi, child," said John McCloud gently.

"Will he come back?" she said.

*CHAPTER XVII*

It is a trying moment when we face the wrong answer and realize that we must go back step by step to find the mistake. There is a fascination about the unknown. The future beckons.

Marching always onward, our courage each day finds an uplift in accomplishment. We are farther ahead if only a few inches. Incredible hardships and difficulties are put to flight.

Retracing one's steps, going back, requires more bravery than to go on. Initial enthusiasm looks like a grinning skeleton. It is not the same army in retreat. Doubt, despair hang on its flanks, worry and harass it all the bleeding way.

The moment Hal had decided to go back to England the necessary intermediate processes seemed wholly inadequate. He almost killed a good horse to reach Carbon on the D.&R.G. Railroad, only to find that he had eight hours to wait in that unmitigated by-product of civilization. They were eight heavy, heavy hours. He walked about the station, he gazed at the sage-brush and the water-tank, he went in and out of the "hotel," he attempted unsuccessfully to eat its so-called food, he tried to read its magazines six months old. The only possible object of interest was a very painful object. In the shade of one corner of the veranda on a stretcher lay a coal miner who had been hurt in the company's mines. His breast was heaving as if the life within him was struggling to get out. He was being removed to the company's hospital at Pedro. He had to wait for the train too, and it looked as if his impatient life refused to wait.

The few people in the desolate spot were fortunately busy or they would have gone mad. So no one paid any attention to the sufferer.

"Some people are unlucky, born that way," explained the young company doctor who had the dying man in charge. "Larry's just out of the hospital, and now he's goin' back--to stay this time, I guess."

It seemed to Hal as if he, too, were carrying is maimed life back on a stretcher, but he resisted the suggestion that it was to stay.

At last the train, late as usual, arrived. It was a relief at first. At least it was in motion, and he was going, even if it was backward. He was so preoccupied that it was some time before he was conscious of his fellow-passengers; then he felt rather than saw that he was being elaborately searched, optically swept, marked and staked out; coaxed, petted, and allured. He looked across to see a formidable person of the female sex who was half-pretending to read a book under the solicitous title "Stolen Kisses." This person seemed the last word in modern fixtures. An elaborate baby face peered out from under an elaborate hat of huge dimensions, ornamented with an elaborate mixture of flowers, fruit, and fur. Her face had had elaborate treatment. She wore an elaborate gown with a wholly unnecessary wrap. She had on patent-leather shoes with white cloth tops and exaggerated French heels, and occasionally she unconsciously treated the patient observer to a glimpse of an elaborate silk stocking. Except for the hat, it looked to be a case of tight-fit. Indeed, she seemed a physical and moral protest against restrictions.

"One of the products of John McCloud's 'glorious civilization,'" commented Hal to himself as he got up and retreated to his own car. From which it may be observed that the young man was not in a mood to be altogether fair to civilization or John McCloud. He sat down at the window but he did not see the telegraph poles flying past or the varying monotony of the landscape rushing by. Each revolution of the wheels was taking him farther and farther from Red Butte Ranch. What were they doing there now--Wah-na-gi, John McCloud, Big Bill, and the others? She was no longer at the Agency and the victim of the deviltry of David Ladd and Appah. She was among friends. That was some consolation, much consolation. And the time would pass; then he would be going the other way, going back to pick up his life where he had now dropped it. He wondered at what time of day he would arrive, whether he should notify them or surprise them. Yes, the time would pass. London wouldn't keep him long. Edith would be glad to release him. He felt absolutely confident of that, and yet there was a shadow over all his thoughts. He had a curious unreasonable foreboding of ill. What could happen? Then he became aware that some one was speaking to him. Would the gentleman care to make up a bridge party?

The invitation came to him from one of his fellow-travellers and it seemed a refuge from his thoughts, so Hal was glad to play. It would force him to think of other things. He played and lost quite a tidy sum of money before it came to him that he was being exploited by unfair means.

Having virtuously resolved to do what was right and much against his will, he had a feeling that the way ought to be made smooth and easy. Civilization had never been fair to him, and his return to it was evidently not to be strewn with flowers. He began to grow morose.

He found on picking up a newspaper that he would have two days in New York before his ship sailed, and he determined to spend those days in Washington. He had Ladd on the run. He must see to it that he wasn't allowed to stop short of losing his official head. He had offered to go to Washington at any time to substantiate his charges, and now Ladd was to face an investigation. The papers he had in his possession would go far to establish the agent's connection with the Trust and other papers he possessed would convict him of malfeasance in office. These papers were high explosives and had to be handled with the greatest care, for they involved not only Ladd but officials high in Government circles, and some leaders in Congress and in both of the political parties.

Hal's train arrived at the Grand Central Station in New York at night. He took a cab and ordered the driver to drive to the Hotel Astor. The direct road to the hotel was of course through Forty-second street, which was obviously slow and difficult of negotiation, and the situation seemed to offer an inducement to go a roundabout way with the amiable intention of boosting the fare. It was a trick with which the proposed victim was familiar, and he resolved that while consenting to the extra ride he would resist any effort to collect an extra fare. It was election night, and as soon as the cab hit Broadway it was caught in a whirlpool of humanity. It could neither go on nor go back.

The great city seemed to have resolved itself into a vast lunatic asylum and to have emptied all the patients into the streets. The incoherent maniacs seemed to be enjoying themselves and to be on the whole good-natured. In its gentlest moments New York is a noisy place, but to the ordinary din of traffic, the sag and smash of trucks, the rush and roar of the elevated on its iron bed was added an indescribable cacophony that was fiendish. Election night with its liberty and license--Hooligan's holiday! It seemed to Hal that he had never seen so many unpleasant faces in such a short distance or in so short a time. The sweat-shops seemed to have emptied into the streets, and the Tenderloin, and the submerged wreckage of the Bowery. They were mauling each other, jostling, joking, babbling, hurrahing, hardly knowing for whom or what, blowing fierce blasts on tin horns, ringing clusters of cow-bells, pulling fantastic shrieks out of motor sirens, whirring gigantic rattles--all struggling to see who could make the biggest noise. Women seemed more elated with the spirit of the occasion than men, and they evoked the attentions of strangers without the ceremony of an introduction. The interchange of pleasantries was sometimes marked by freedom and abandon. To Hal just from a country where it was possible to be for days and weeks without the sight of a human being, this seething, writhing mass of humanity, rubbing up against each other, jostling, pulling at each other, handling each other, bawling into each other's faces, was supremely obnoxious. His cab caught in the slow-moving swirl was a fine temptation to horse-play. As he leaned out of one window to try to understand the unusual tumult a vivacious young woman leaned in at the other window and blew a megaphonic tin horn directly into his ear. It seemed as if it would rip the drum of the ear. A greasy-faced urchin blew an expanding and suggestive-looking toy into his face. A buxom Amazon leaned in, gave his necktie a jerk, and screamed through her nose: "Why, sweetheart! I didn't know you was back!"

Other enthusiasts threw confetti over him.

This was civilization's welcome to him! He tried to take it good-naturedly but upon his face was a fixed look of disgust.

The cab got ahead a few feet at a time, then stopped in another block, and he went through the felicitations of these joyous citizens all over again. To his immense relief they at last reached the hotel. Here at last was a haven of refuge. How much was it, he inquired of the cabbie.

"Ten dollars!"

Hal smiled incredulously. He invited the jehu to guess again, to think it over. That worthy reminded him that it was election night, which was put forward as an argument that was in its nature unassailable. Hal patiently explained that he didn't see why he personally should pay five or six times the price because some one had been elected governor of a State which apparently stood in sore need of government. He reminded the obstinate and aggressive person that it was not over half a mile from the station to the hotel and one dollar was ample--two extravagant. He offered to compromise on two. This was received with profuse profanity of a highly inflammable character. In the interstices between expletives were interjected various allusions to the hours it had taken to go the half-mile, to the fact that the cab was scratched, that the horse's life had been endangered, and other more or less irrelevant matters. Hal thought he saw the cab-person signal to a police-person standing a little behind him. Finally the gathering waters of affliction broke and poured forth in righteous wrath. Hal stated with picturesque additions that the man was a crook and a thief.

The burly brute tried to strike the young man with the butt end of his loaded whip. Hal avoided the blow and caught the man square on the jaw, and he went down for the count.

That was all Hal knew until he came back to consciousness in a police cell. It was a very painful consciousness, associated with bandages, a head bursting with pain, and most unpleasant surroundings. Then little by little he came to a vague realization of what had happened. He was practically a stranger in New York. To whom could he turn? He was a British subject. Perhaps he could communicate with the representatives of His Majesty's Government.

In addition to having been very thoroughly beaten, he found that he had been very thoroughly robbed. It was therefore with some difficulty that he could persuade his jailer to communicate with the British Consulate. The promise of a considerable reward finally held out inducements. Fortunately for the prisoner, the British Vice-Consul, Mr. Percy Holmes Tracy, proved to be an old friend of his father's family. Mr. Tracy supplied the prisoner with immediate funds and bestirred himself in his behalf. He found that Hal was accused of being drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest, and striking an officer. Fortunately for the prisoner, Mr. Tracy found that the hotel detective had been a witness of the brutal assault. The detective told the Vice-Consul that the policemen's use of the night-stick was totally unprovoked and unnecessary, that Hal did not resist arrest, that he had no chance to do so, that the policeman and cab-driver were pals who had been suspected of "working together" before, etc., etc. Hal expressed the enthusiastic desire to "make it warm" for all concerned, to have the policeman "broke," etc., etc. All of which Mr. Tracy admitted to be a perfectly natural and justifiable feeling, but he reminded the young man that it would be a somewhat tedious and exacting undertaking. How much time was he willing to devote to it? Could he stay and give it his undivided attention? No, he could not. In fact he was due to sail at once for London. Ah, well, that was another matter, was it not? Under the circumstances it was Mr. Holmes Tracy's advice to pocket his losses, swallow his pride, smother his indignation, and set it down to valuable experience. It would have been cheaper to have paid the ten dollars. These are some of the disadvantages of a highly organized society. And so it happened that the man who had, single-handed, arrested desperadoes in a country where men carry a gun and know how to use it, was made the foolish victim of the polished machinery of "a highly organized society."

Mr. Holmes Tracy's advice was too obviously wise to be ignored. Confronted with the hotel detective the police-grafter was glad to withdraw his charge, with the understanding that no countercharges should be preferred against him. It wasn't altogether satisfying. Community life was a series of compromises; its law expediency.

The two days Hal had intended to spend in Washington had been spent in prison. Perhaps he was safer there. He and civilization had never been friends. Hal welcomed his escape from New York. He was glad to get out of her canyons and pigeon-holes into the light and air. He was glad to reach the boat. When he left London and had turned his face to the West there had seemed a conspiracy to help him on. The winds and waves had romped about him in the sunshine, and hope and joy sang in his heart. He had not felt lonely, but a great content had brooded over him. Now the elements frowned on him. Head winds blew a hurricane the whole way over. Huge waves smote the ship and shook her angrily. Now she rode them down, now shouldered them aside, now cut her way through them, then bowed her head to the blow, shook herself free, throbbing, quivering in every joint, every muscle and nerve and sinew of her crying out against the incessant wear and tear of it. And over all brooded a sky of fleeing gray and black demons. Not a ray of sunlight crept through the clouds. The voyage was a nightmare. Wind and wave were screaming to him to go back; trying to force him back. He was ill and frightfully depressed. He was as eager almost to get out of the ship as if Love's welcome waited for him; as it seemed to do for all but him. But it was scarcely better on shore. He rode up to London in a cold drenching rain. The land looked old, tired, and discouraged. And London!--this Mecca of the exiled Briton. How many hearts turn to it in far off-India, China, Australia, Canada, and the waste places of the earth! How many eager eyes look back to it or look forward to it! What memories it holds for those who know in their souls they can never see it again, and what radiant visions it offers to those who sweat and save and suffer and perhaps lie and steal that one day they may come back to it, and bring it the tribute of their blood and treasure. London is compelling like some great sad song that tells of sorrows and wrongs. But it had no message and no welcome to this returning pilgrim. Before they reached the city they rode out of the rain and into one of those fogs which creeps out of its tombs and graveyards and buried horrors, and tries to materialize itself and once more take possession of the actual life of the city.

Hal took a cab and they began to grope their way toward his father's town house. Even in his thought he didn't call it home. Oh for the land of sunshine, he thought, where one can look into the infinite sky, and beyond and beyond and still beyond. Here he felt as if he were knocking his head against it. One didn't breathe; one swallowed the air in chunks and gulps. They almost rode down a procession of the unemployed, an army with banners, but an army with none of the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war. Hal shrank back in his cab and shivered in his great-coat. Their banners were dirty, but it was evident that each soldier of despair had made some little effort with bad success to make as decent an appearance in the public eye as possible. They were a sad lot with their gaunt faces and soiled and tattered clothes. They were of all ages and states of desperation, from the young mechanic with youth and health still left, to the wretch who had been submerged, who couldn't work if it were given him to do, fit only to fertilize the soil. Hal's cabman lost his way for a moment and they got into Hyde Park. One of its orators was about to dismiss his small audience because he could scarcely see or be seen by them as they huddled close to him and to each other, and the speaker complained that the fog got into his throat and wellnigh choked him. Hal called to his driver to stop and they drew up to the curb. Hal was not unfamiliar with the Hyde Park meetings and their speakers, but never in his life before had he stopped to listen. It was an admirable safety-valve where cranks could talk to cranks. That they had or could have any message to him or for the world had never entered his mind. The unemployed had impressed him painfully. They were wandering hopelessly up and down crying in unison: "Work, work! We want work." This dull cry and their faces peering at him out of clammy shadows and yellow smears had got on his nerves. He was curious to hear what the orator of such people had to say on such a day.

"One moment and I'll close. You think I'm a layin' of it on, that I'm a makin' it up, but I 'old in my 'and a report of Lord George 'amilton, Royal Commissioner, on the condition of the English poor, and these is _'is_ words, not mine, _'is_, moind ye.

"The conditions of life in London and other large cities 'ave produced a degenerate race, morally and physically enfeebled."

Hal drove on. When he reached his father's house there was a new servant at the door and he had to explain who he was. This was the glorious civilization he was coming back to. This was its welcome to him! Oh, John McCloud! Is this your Christian civilization?

*CHAPTER XVIII*

The Earl of Kerhill's town house was plain and formal on the outside. Within, it was beautiful, but cold and stately. Even the arrangement of its contents was apparently fixed and unalterable. At any rate no one could remember when any one had had the courage to meddle with its established order. Hal remembered that he had early gained the impression that it was not a place for little boys to live in. Thou-shalt and Thou-shalt-not seemed to divide the house between them. And now amid its Boulle and Tudor tables, its Venetian carved chairs, its Chippendales, its tapestries and portraits of knights and ladies, its plate and glass, its marbles and carvings, Hal felt more of an anachronism than ever. Cold and stately and solemn! It was as if it felt superior to its tenants. "Look back," it seemed to say to any one inclined to be familiar with it; "look back and tell me where are the brave and beautiful and gallant lords and ladies who once danced here and feasted here, loved, and made merry here? Gone and forgotten! The present lord, he, too, will soon be with the others. I was before them and I will be after them. I am a house with an individuality. People come and people go, but I remain. Cold, stately, and solemn!" The library was the most livable room and even the library was stately. Perhaps there were people so lost to the eternal fitness of things, so empty and shallow that they might be flippant in it, but it required an effort, and even shallow people were not allowed to forget that Grinling Gibbons had done the carvings about the noble fire-place.

The house seemed to have forgotten Gibbons and to arrogate the carvings to itself. It was a proud house. The library at least looked inhabited. Perhaps the books gave it the human touch that linked up the past and the present and brought people and things into relations, distant relations no doubt, but still relations. It is not surprising that Nat-u-ritch's son had never liked the Earl's town house.

Lady Winifred was writing at a heavy oak table elaborately carved, the light from a jewelled lamp falling over her high-bred face and her abundant hair which had great snow patches lying gently on it. She needed that softening touch of white, for there was a mocking light in her eyes and a cynical play of the lips. Andrews had placed the coffee service and the liqueurs on a small table before a high-backed Charles II chair on the other side of the room.

"Andrews, ask the gentlemen to take their coffee here with me."

"Yes, my lady."

Back of the library was a recess from which sprang a graceful stairway to the floor above. It was lit by panels of jewelled glass. Crowning the newel post was an electric flambeau. As the butler left the room a beautiful woman entered from the main hall and stood by the stairway, looking quietly but nervously about. The light from the flambeau lit up a face so colorless, so bloodless that it seemed almost transparent. Out of the whiteness, crowned with glowing auburn hair, shone lustrous agate eyes, hard, brilliant, with sensuous lights beneath the surface. She had entered the room and looked about before Lady Winifred was aware of her presence. Then she stole down rapidly but softly to the side of the elder woman and said:

"Well, have you seen him?"

"Why, I thought you were dining with Lord Yester at the Carlton."

"So I was," assented the other, pulling nervously at her gloves.

"And going to the theatre afterward?"

"I couldn't sit still in the theatre. Even the thought of it upset me. You have seen him?"

"Hal? Why, of course."

"What does he say?"

"About what?"

"About me."

"He hasn't mentioned you to me as yet."

"No? Oh!" and Edith, Viscountess Effington, Hal's wife, walked slowly over to the coffee service and lit a cigarette. She watched the vagrant smoke with a retrospective air.

"I had a curious sensation at dinner," she said. "I found I wasn't hearing what Lord Yester was saying. All of a sudden I was frightened. I felt as if I were choking. Hal seemed to stand behind and over Lord Yester and I got a queer idea that he had come back to, to--Winifred, you and he have always been pals; _you_ tell him. Tell him all there is to tell, about Lord Yester and myself, so that he will be prepared, and make him understand that if ne has come back to interfere with my plans"--and her lips shut and her eyes glistened ominously--"well, don't let him think of it."

"I think he knows you do as you please."

"Why shouldn't I?" said Edith with a little reckless laugh. "Why shouldn't I? I've only one life to live and that's mine, to live my way. I'm selfish; so is everybody else. Some people get a selfish pleasure out of pretending to be unselfish. Well, let them! I'm not a hypocrite, thank God!"

Edith took from her enormous ermine muff a gold and jewelled bonbon box, extracted from it a tablet, and swallowed it with a drink of brandy which she had poured from a decanter.

"Sir George's prescription for my headaches," she explained in answer to the other's look of disapproval.

"The brandy part of the prescription, Edith?"

"Not having headaches, Winifred, you have a fine superiority to those who have." And she pulled the long opera cloak of emerald green like the breast of the humming-bird about her white shoulders, adjusted her ermine stole as if she were cold, walked slowly toward the stairs. In repose she was very soft, pliant, lambent, but, when moved, quick and violent. She turned and stiffened, threw her head up into the air, and came down swiftly to Lady Winifred's side.

"I must have this settled _now--to-night_! I can't stand this suspense. If he attempts to upset my plans----"

"You may find him quite as eager to be free as you are."

"Do you think so, Winifred? Do you really think so?" she said, rising at a bound to the extreme of elation. Then she crept softly out of the room, purring to herself: "Oh, I hope so; I hope so."

There was a slight elevation to Lady Winifred's eyebrow and the slightest tilt to one of her shoulders. It seemed to suggest that she had ceased to be impressed with the moods and tenses of the other, that it was a pity that men could not see past the surface of things feminine, that Edith's egotism had the noble simplicity of all big things.

"My dear, wasn't Cousin Hal to take his after-dinner coffee here with us?"

It was Sir Gordon Stuckley who spoke as he came into the room. Sir Gordon was known as Lady Winifred's husband. He was a retired army officer and considerably older than his handsome wife. His mind was the amiable repository of everything conventional and commonplace. He walked over to the writing-table and picked up a cigarette.

"He has gone up to say good-night to his father," said Lady Winifred, blotting and folding her finished letter.

"Well, Hal is back," said Sir Gordon sententiously, "and brings his problem with him still unsolved."

"Whose life isn't a problem--'still unsolved'?" said his wife with an enigmatical smile.

"And it's quite difficult enough to face one's own problem, to face one's own mistakes," she continued. "It's rather hard to have to answer for the mistakes of somebody else; mistakes that can't be remedied; can't in the very nature of things. Hal can't help being a half-caste, can he?"

"What is he back for?" asked her husband shortly.

"To see his father, I presume. Sir George, I believe, cabled him to come."

"The Earl is no worse than he has been or may be for some time to come. I hope, for his own sake, and for our sake Hal has no intention of staying, because you know he is quite impossible here, now isn't he?"

"I suppose so," said Lady Winifred with a note of regret, for she was fond of the boy, "and yet we pride ourselves here on being cosmopolitan, on havin' no race prejudices."

"Officially? No! Socially? Most assuredly yes! Officially we treat these Indian potentates as princes. Actually, my dear, we regard them as niggers. Well, there you are."

"Yes," she admitted. "We are fairly tolerant of aliens because there are not enough of them to annoy us. They don't crowd us off the pavement, or take our places in the tram, or lay hands on the stipends and positions we reserve for ourselves, but, as a matter of fact, we are quite the most intolerant people in the world. Still it isn't his being a half-breed that matters so much, I think. He was living that down--it's his having to leave the Army."

"Quite so; but why did he have to leave the Army? Because he didn't know how to obey; because he couldn't submit to discipline, and why couldn't he submit to discipline? Because he had in his veins the blood of the American Indian. It comes down to race at last."

"But why shouldn't a half-breed inherit the best of each type instead of the worst and so be superior to either?"

"Oh, there is only one _best_, my dear," said Gordon as he walked to the coffee with a superior smile. "There is only one best."

"And of course we assume that we are the superior type."