Chapter VII: Behind the Scenes

The corner of the big sleeping-tent allotted to Young Eagle and his wife and baby was untidy enough, with a smell of paints and grease and buckskin on the hot, close air. Dexterously Yellow Star rolled the baby out of his heavy, beaded cradle and took him in her arms.

He was quiet, even for an Indian baby; unnaturally quiet, she thought; and there was a pinched look about the tiny, expressionless features that went straight to her heart.

The mother had gone at once to look for Young Eagle, so that for the minute she and Miss Morrison and the baby were all alone in this strange, confused place. There was no chance to sit down, even, and altogether it was queer and uncomfortable.

“They must have a doctor at once,” pronounced Miss Morrison. Then she fidgeted a little, and looked at her watch.

“What shall we do, dear?” she exclaimed. “I have only just time to catch my train if I start at once; and I _must_ get back early. Yet I don’t know how to leave you here by yourself.”

“But I am quite safe,” Stella answered, rather absently, her soft eyes on the sick baby’s apathetic face. “Young Eagle can take me to the station to meet the others.”

“Then don’t fail to get there by half-past five, and wait for them in the small waiting-room. If they get a good doctor, it will be all right. You’re sure you won’t come with me? Then good-by, dear.” And Stella was left alone.

After long minutes, during which she did what little she could for baby’s comfort, the young husband and wife appeared, he looking rather sulky and shamefaced, but nevertheless yielding to the peremptory orders, issued in crisp Dakota, of the tall, grave-faced girl in White, who had thrown off her hat and was taking full command of the situation. Blue Earth obediently washed some of the vermilion from her round cheeks, and rolled up a corner of the tent to let in the fresh air, crooning over all her troubles meanwhile to this strangely sympathetic listener, who seemed, with the unexpected demand upon her, to have grown years older in the last hour.

When the doctor came at last, it was already too late for the train; but that Yellow Star did not realize at once. To tell the truth, she had forgotten all about Laurel for the time being, and was back among the simple, lovable, swarthy folk of her earliest recollections. She listened intently to the doctor’s words, which she interpreted with care and intelligence.

“Now, Doctor,” said she, after administering the first spoonful of medicine with her own hand, and giving the docile young mother her final instructions, “if you will come with me and Young Eagle, please, we must find the man in charge and tell him that Blue Earth and the baby can not be in the show again until he is well.”

The child had entirely forgotten herself, and her Laurel friends would have been astonished to see her thus taking the lead and calmly laying down the law to strange men, both white and red.

When she returned from her interview, bringing with her the “boss’s” promise that the woman and child should not be required to appear for three days, or longer if necessary, supper was served, and she gravely accepted her share of the bread and ham and a thick cup filled with steaming coffee. They ate and drank, sitting upon upturned boxes and still talking—talking in soft elisions of home and the free winds and open skies—home and the childhood scenes that seemed already so far away.

It was dark now; eight o’clock, and the evening performance had begun. Stella learned that the last train for Laurel would leave in an hour, but she had no escort, not even to the station. Everybody was in the show-tent except Blue Earth, and she could not leave the baby. Besides, she knew even less than did our little girl of the mazes of the city streets. She must soon set out alone to inquire her way; and with the thought, for the first time that day, she felt a thrill of something like fear.

Suddenly a familiar face, atop of a tall, boyish figure, appeared around a pile of boxes. It was Ethan, who fairly beamed with relief when he caught sight of her, though he only said:

“Well, little girl, are you about ready to go home?”

“Oh, yes!” she cried, springing eagerly to her feet. “Oh, have you really been waiting for me all this time, Ethan? How kind of you!” and her puzzled eyes rested for a moment upon his mussed linen suit, and then flitted over the strong features, somewhat sharpened by worry and fatigue.

But Ethan did not explain, and Stella was slowly, very slowly, emerging from her dream. There were few words exchanged between the two, as they made their way through back streets to the railway station, after an undemonstrative farewell between the two girls who, in everything but the common heritage of race, were so very far apart.

Once Ethan asked her if she had had any supper; and again, rather anxiously, it seemed, whether she had money enough for her ticket.

“Oh, yes!” she said at once, handing him her little purse with the ticket and two or three dollars in silver.

He left her for a few minutes in the ladies’ waiting-room, and after he had seen her to the brilliantly lighted train and found her a seat, he handed back the purse.

“I took out fifteen cents, to telephone Mrs. Waring,” he carefully explained. “She will meet your train at Laurel. Now you are all right, aren’t you? You aren’t afraid to travel alone, are you? It’s less than an hour, you know.”

“But what about you, Ethan?” she wondered. “You’re coming, too, aren’t you?” and she instinctively made room for him beside her, as the train began slowly to glide out of the station.

“I can’t,” he answered, briefly. “Good night, Stella!” and next moment he had swung himself off the step and disappeared in the darkness.

It was seventeen miles through the whispering summer night to the little station where he had left his wheel. He reached it soon after the midnight freight, and found the station agent awake, mounted and rode the rest of the way home, where the first thing he did was to rummage in the pantry for the materials of a satisfactory supper, and the next, to go to bed and sleep ’round the clock.

“I couldn’t borrow from a girl, you know,” was all Ethan said, when questioned about his midnight tramp. “And besides, it was great. Such a lark!”

To himself he said: “I shall never forget the talking leaves, the wood smells, the company of the stars.”

* * * * *

Stella came fully to herself on the short ride home, and was all tender repentance and self-blame when she fell into the arms of her kind foster-mother, on the deserted platform, with the one arc-light shivering overhead.

“Oh, mother! I never thought you might be anxious. I never thought of people looking for me. I’m afraid I never thought of anything but the poor little sick baby—and Blue Earth in such trouble, among strange white people. I wanted to help.”

“Yes, darling; mother understands. And you are safe home, now, thanks to that dear, bright boy. We won’t say any more about it,” answered gentle Lucy Waring.

But, although nothing more was said—for Lucy had contrived somehow to silence even Miss Sophia—Stella seemed to everybody a good deal older, after her Wild West adventure. She was now nearly fifteen, and the eager, child-like wish _to belong_ was already partly obscured by the more womanly and deeper desire _to help_. She wrote to Blue Earth, in their own tongue, and received in the course of a week or two a soiled scrawl in reply, saying only that the baby was well now. There seemed nothing more to be done for them, or for any of her own people—not just now, at any rate—and the girl set herself in good earnest to be a real help to the kind people of her adoption.

So she rose an hour earlier every morning, and quietly took upon herself more of the burden of household duties, turning them off so dexterously that Lucy Waring, who had failed perceptibly in the past year, accepted the relief almost unconsciously, and even Miss Sophia had no open fault to find.

“If I could only please Miss Sophia,” grieved Yellow Star. “But I know I never can, for I can’t change myself into something else. She dislikes me because I am Indian,” was the unspoken thought, and it cut deep.