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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot"

Lucretius - "Of The Nature of Things"

Richard Harding Davis - "The Man Who Could Not Lose"

H. de Vere Stacpoole - "A Romance"

Good Indian

B >> B. M. Bower >> Good Indian




She waited until he had passed through and was a third of the way
to the stable where Peaceful Hart and his boys were gathered, and
then she followed him briskly, as if her mind was taken up with
her own affairs.

"It's a shame yon fellows got cheated out of a scrap," she
taunted Jack, who held her horse for her while she settled
herself in the saddle. "You were all spoiling for a fight--and
there did seem to be the makings of a beautiful row!"

Save for the fact that she kept her eyes studiously turned away
from a certain place near by, where the dust was pressed down
smoothly with the weight of a heavy body, and all around was
trampled and tracked, one could not have told that Miss Georgie
remembered anything tragic.

But Good Indian seemed to recall something, and went quickly over
to her just in time to prevent her starting.

"Was there something in particular you wanted when you came?" he
asked, laying a hand on the neck of the bay. "It just occurred
to me that there must have been."

She leaned so that the others could not hear, and her face was
grave enough now.

"Why, yes. It's old Hagar. She came to me this afternoon, and
she had that bunch of hair you cut off that was snarled in the
bush. She had your knife. She wanted me to buy them--the old
blackmailer! She made threats, Grant--about Saunders. She says
you--I came right down to tell you, because I was afraid she
might make trouble. But there was so much more on hand right
here"--she glanced involuntarily at the trampled place in the
dust. "She said she'd come back this evening, 'when the sun
goes away.' She's there now, most likely. What shall I tell her?
We can't have that story mouthed all over the country."

Good Indian twisted a wisp of mane in his fingers, and frowned
abstractedly.

"If you'll ride on slowly," he told her, at last straightening
the twisted lock, "I'll overtake you. I think I'd better see
that old Jezebel myself."

Secretly he was rather thankful for further action. He told the
boys when they fired questions at his hurried saddling that he
was going to take Miss Georgie home, and that he would be back
before long; in an hour, probably. Then he galloped down the
trail, and overtook her at the Point o' Rocks.

The sun was down, and the sky was a great, glowing mass of color.
Round the second turn of the grade they came upon Stanley,
walking with his hands thrust in his trousers pockets and
whistling softly to himself as if he were thinking deeply.
Perhaps he was glad to be let off so easily.

"Abandoning my claim," he announced, lightly as a man of his
prosaic temperament could speak upon such a subject. "Dern poor
placer mining down there, if yuh want to know!"

Good Indian scowled at him and rode on, because a woman rode
beside him. Seven others they passed farther up the hill. Those
seven gave him scowl for scowl, and did not speak a word; that
also because a woman rode beside him. And the woman understood,
and was glad that she was there.

From the Indian camp, back in the sage-inclosed hollow, rose a
sound of high-keyed wailing. The two heard it, and looked at
each other questioningly.

"Something's up over there," Good Indian said, answering her
look. "That sounds to me like the squaws howling over a death."

"Let's go and see. I'm so late now, a few minutes more won't
matter, one way or the other." Miss Georgie pulled out her
watch, looked at it, and made a little grimace. So they turned
into the winding trail, and rode into the camp.

There were confusion, and wailing, and a buzzing of squaws around
a certain wikiup. Dogs sat upon their haunches, and howled
lugubriously until someone in passing kicked them into yelping
instead. Papooses stood nakedly about, and regarded the uproar
solemnly, running to peer into the wikiup and then scamper back
to their less hardy fellows. Only the bucks stood apart in
haughty unconcern, speaking in undertones when they talked at
all. Good Indian commanded Miss Georgie to remain just outside
the camp, and himself rode in to where the bucks were gathered.
Then he saw Peppajee sitting beside his own wikiup, and went to
him instead.

"What's the matter here, Peppajee?" he asked. "Heap trouble walk
down at Hart Ranch. Trouble walk here all same, mebbyso?"

Peppajee looked at him sourly, but the news was big, and it must
be told.

"Heap much trouble come. Squaw callum Hagar make much talk. Do
much bad, mebbyso. Squaw Rachel ketchum bad heart along yo'.
Heap cry all time. No sleepum, no eatum--all time heap sad.
Ketchum bad spirit, mebbyso. Ketchum debbil. Sun go 'way,
ketchum knife, go Hagar wikiup. Killum Hagar--so." He thrust
out his arm as one who stabs. "Killum himself--so." He struck
his chest with his clenched fist. "Hagar heap dead. Rachel heap
dead. Kay bueno. Mebbyso yo' heap bad medicine. Yo' go."

"A squaw just died," he told Miss Georgie curtly, when they rode
on. But her quick eyes noted a new look in his face. Before it
had been grave and stern and bitter; now it was sorrowful
instead.



CHAPTER XXVII

LIFE ADJUSTS ITSELF AGAIN TO SOME THINGS

The next day was a day of dust hanging always over the grade
because of much hurried riding up and down; a day of many strange
faces whose eyes peered curiously at the place where Baumberger
fell, and at the cold ashes of Stanley's campfire, and at the
Harts and their house, and their horses and all things pertaining
in the remotest degree to the drama which had been played grimly
there to its last, tragic "curtain." They stared up at the
rim-rock and made various estimates of the distance and argued
over the question of marksmanship, and whether it really took a
good shot to fire from the top and hit a man below.

As for the killing of Baumberger, public opinion tried--with the
aid of various plugs of tobacco and much expectoration--the case
and rendered a unanimous verdict upon it long before the coroner
arrived. "Done just right," was the verdict of Public Opinion,
and the self-constituted judges manifested their further approval
by slapping Good Indian upon the back when they had a chance, or
by solemnly shaking hands with him, or by facetiously assuring
him that they would be good. All of which Grant interpreted
correctly as sympathy and a desire to show him that they did not
look upon him as a murderer, but as a man who had the courage to
defend himself and those dear to him from a great danger.

With everything so agreeably disposed of according to the
crude--though none the less true, perhaps--ethics of the time and
the locality, it was tacitly understood that the coroner and the
inquest he held in the grove beside the house were a mere
concession to red tape. Nevertheless a general tension
manifested itself when the jury, after solemnly listening, in
their official capacity, to the evidence they had heard and
discussed freely hours before, bent heads and whispered briefly
together. There was also a corresponding atmosphere of relief
when the verdict of Public Opinion was called justifiable
homicide by the coroner and so stamped with official approval.

When that was done they carried Baumberger's gross physical shell
away up the grade to the station; and the dust of his passing
settled upon the straggling crowd that censured his misdeeds and
mourned not at all, and yet paid tribute to his dead body with
lowered voices while they spoke of him, and with awed silence
when the rough box was lowered to the station platform.

As the sky clears and grows blue and deep and unfathomably
peaceful after a storm, as trees wind-riven straighten and nod
graciously to the little cloud-boats that sail the blue above,
and wave dainty finger-tips of branches in bon voyage, so did the
Peaceful Hart ranch, when the dust had settled after the latest
departure and the whistle of the train--which bore the coroner
and that other quiet passenger--came faintly down over the
rim-rock, settle with a sigh of relief into its old, easy habits
of life.

All, that is, save Good Indian himself, and perhaps one other.

. . . . . . . . .

Peaceful cleared his white mustache and beard from a few stray
drops of coffee and let his mild blue eyes travel slowly around
the table, from one tanned young face to another.

"Now the excitement's all over and done with," he drawled in his
half-apologetic tones, "it wouldn't be a bad idea for you boys to
get to work and throw the water back where it belongs. I dunno
but what the garden's spoiled already; but the small fruit can be
saved."

"Clark and I was going up to the Injun camp," spoke up Gene. "We
wanted to see--"

"You'll have to do some riding to get there," Good Indian
informed them dryly. "They hit the trail before sunrise this
morning."

"Huh! What were YOU doing up there that time of day?" blurted
Wally, eying him sharply.

"Watching the sun rise." His lips smiled over the retort, but
his eyes did not. "I'll lower the water in your milk-house now,
Mother Hart," he promised lightly, "so you won't have to wear
rubber-boots when you go to skim the milk." He gave Evadna a
quick, sidelong glance as she came into the room, and pushed back
his chair. "I'll get at it right away," he said cheerfully,
picked up his hat, and went out whistling. Then he put his head
in at the door. "Say," he called, "does anybody know where that
long-handled shovel is?" Again he eyed Evadna without seeming to
see her at all.

"If it isn't down at the stable," said Jack soberly, "or by the
apple-cellar or somewhere around the pond or garden, look along
the ditches as far up as the big meadow. And if you don't run
across it there--" The door slammed, and Jack laughed with his
eyes fast shut and three dimples showing.

Evadna sank listlessly into her chair and regarded him and all
her little world with frank disapproval.

"Upon my WORD, I don't see how anybody can laugh, after what has
happened on this place," she said dismally, "or--WHISTLE,
after--" Her lips quivered a little. She was a distressed
Christmas angel, if ever there was one.

Wally snorted. "Want us to go CRYING around because the row's
over?" he demanded. "Think Grant ought to wear crepe, I
suppose--because he ain't on ice this morning--or in jail, which
he'd hate a lot worse. Think we ought to go around with our jaws
hanging down so you could step on 'em, because Baumberger cashed
in? Huh! All hurts MY feelings is, I didn't get a whack at the
old devil myself!" It was a long speech for Wally to make, and he
made it with deliberate malice.

"Now you're shouting!" applauded Gene, also with the intent to be
shocking.

"THAT'S the stuff," approved Clark, grinning at Evadna's
horrified eyes.

"Grant can run over me sharp-shod and I won't say a word, for
what he did day before yesterday," declared Jack, opening his
eyes and looking straight at Evadna. "You don't see any tears
rolling down MY cheeks, I hope?"

"Good Injun's the stuff, all right. He'd 'a' licked the hull
damn--"

"Now, Donny, be careful what language you use," Phoebe
admonished, and so cut short his high-pitched song of praise.

"I don't care--I think it's perfectly awful." Evadna looked
distastefully upon her breakfast. "I just can't sleep in that
room, Aunt Phoebe. I tried not to think about it, but it opens
right that way."

"Huh!" snorted Wally. "Board up the window, then, so you can't
see the fatal spot!" His gray eyes twinkled. "I could DANCE on
it myself," he said, just to horrify her--which he did. Evadna
shivered, pressed her wisp of handkerchief against her lips, and
left the table hurriedly.

"You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" Phoebe scolded
half-heartedly; for she had lived long in the wild, and had seen
much that was raw and primitive. "You must take into
consideration that Vadnie isn't used to such things. Why, great
grief! I don't suppose the child ever SAW a dead man before in
her life--unless he was laid out in church with flower-anchors
piled knee-deep all over him. And to see one shot right before
her very eyes--and by the man she expects--or did expect to
marry--why, you can't wonder at her looking at it the way she
does. It isn't Vadnie's fault. It's the way she's been raised."

"Well," observed Wally in the manner of delivering an ultimatum,
"excuse ME from any Eastern raising!"

A little later, Phoebe boldly invaded the secret chambers of Good
Indian's heart when he was readjusting the rocks which formed the
floor of the milk-house.

"Now, Grant," she began, laying her hand upon his shoulder as he
knelt before her, straining at a heavy rock, "Mother Hart is
going to give you a little piece of her mind about something
that's none of her business maybe."

"You can give me as many pieces as you like. They're always good
medicine," he assured her. But he kept his head bent so that his
hat quite hid his face from her. "What about?" he asked, a
betraying tenseness in his voice.

"About Vadnie--and you. I notice you don't speak--you haven't
that I've seen, since that day--on the porch. You don't want to
be too hard on her, Grant. Remember she isn't used to such
things. She looks at it different. She's never seen the times,
as I have, where it's kill or be killed. Be patient with her,
Grant--and don't feel hard. She'll get over it. I want," she
stopped because her voice was beginning to shake "--I want my
biggest boy to be happy." Her hand slipped around his neck and
pressed his head against her knee.

Good Indian got up and put his arms around her and held her
close. He did not say anything at all for a minute, but when he
did he spoke very quietly, stroking her hair the while.

"Mother Hart, I stood on the porch and heard what she said in the
kitchen. She accused me of killing Saunders. She said I liked
to kill people; that I shot at her and laughed at the mark I made
on her arm. She called me a savage--an Indian. My mother's
mother was the daughter of a chief. She was a good woman; my
mother was a good woman; just as good as if she had been white.

"Mother Hart, I'm a white man in everything but half my mother's
blood. I don't remember her--but I respect her memory, and I am
not ashamed because she was my mother. Do you think I could
marry a girl who thinks of my mother as something which she must
try to forgive? Do you think I could go to that girl in there
and--and take her in my arms--and love her, knowing that she
feels as she does? She can't even forgive me for killing that
beast!

"She's a beautiful thing--I wanted to have her for my own. I'm a
man. I've a healthy man's hunger for a beautiful woman, but I've
a healthy man's pride as well." He patted the smooth cheek of
the only woman he had ever known as a mother, and stared at the
rough rock wall oozing moisture that drip-dripped to the pool
below.

"I did think I'd go away for awhile," he said after a minute
spent in sober thinking. "But I never dodged yet, and I never
ran. I'm going to stay and see the thing through, now. I don't
know--" he hesitated and then went on. "It may not last; I may
have to suffer after awhile, but standing out there, that day,
listening to her carrying on, kind of--oh, I can't explain it.
But I don't believe I wes half as deep in love as I thought I
was. I don't want to say anything against her; I've no right,
for she's a thousand times better than I am. But she's
different. She never would understand our ways, Mother Hart, or
look at life as we do; some people go through life looking at the
little things that don't matter, and passing by the other, bigger
things. If you keep your eye glued to a microscope long enough,
you're sure to lose the sense of proportion.

"She won't speak to me," he continued after a short silence. "I
tried to talk to her yesterday--"

"But you must remember, the poor child was hysterical that day
when--she went on so. She doesn't know anything about the
realities of life. She doesn't mean to be hard."

"Yesterday," said Grant with an odd little smile, "she was not
hysterical. It seems that--shooting--was the last little weight
that tilted the scale against me. I don't think she ever cared
two whoops for me, to tell you the truth. She's been ashamed of
my Indian blood all along; she said so. And I'm not a good
lover; I neglected her all the while this trouble lasted, and I
paid more attention to Georgie Howard than I did to her--and I
didn't satisfactorily explain about that hair and knife that
Hagar had. And--oh, it isn't the killing, altogether! I guess we
were both a good deal mistaken in our feelings."

"Well, I hope so," sighed Phoebe, wondering secretly at the
decadence of love. An emotion that could burn high and hot in a
week, flare bravely for a like space, and die out with no seared
heart to pay for the extravagance--she shook her head at it.
That was not what she had been taught to call love, and she
wondered how a man and a maid could be mistaken about so vital an
emotion.

"I suppose," she added with unusual sarcasm for her, "you'll be
falling in love with Georgie Howard, next thing anybody knows;
and maybe that will last a week or ten days before you find out
you were MISTAKEN!"

Good Indian gave her one of his quick, sidelong glances.

"She would not be eternally apologizing to herself for liking me,
anyway," he retorted acrimoniously, as if he found it very hard
to forgive Evadna her conscious superiority of race and
upbringing. "Squaw."

"Oh, I haven't a doubt of that!" Phoebe rose to the defense of
her own blood. "I don't know as it's in her to apologize for
anything. I never saw such a girl for going right ahead as if
her way is the only way! Bull-headed, I'd call her." She looked
at Good Indian afterward, studying his face with motherly
solicitude.

"I believe you're half in love with her right now and don't know
it!" she accused suddenly.

Good Indian laughed softly and bent to his work again.

"ARE you, Grant?" Phoebe laid a moist hand on his shoulder, and
felt the muscles sliding smoothly beneath his clothing while he
moved a rock. "I ain't mad because you and Vadnie fell out; I
kind of looked for it to happen. Love that grows like a mushroom
lasts about as long--only _I_ don't call it love! You might tell
me--"

"Tell you what?" But Grant did not look up. "If I don't know it,
I can't tell it." He paused in his lifting and rested his hands
upon his knees, the fingers dripping water back into the spring.
He felt that Phoebe was waiting, and he pressed his lips
together. "Must a man be in love with some woman all the time?"
He shook his fingers impatiently so that the last drops hurried
to the pool.

"She's a good girl, and a brave girl," Phoebe remarked
irrelevantly.

Good Indian felt that she was still waiting, with all the quiet
persistence of her sex when on the trail of a romance. He
reached up and caught the hand upon his shoulder, and laid it
against his cheek. He laughed surrender.

"Squaw-talk-far-off heap smart," he mimicked old Peppajee
gravely. "Heap bueno." He stood up as suddenly as he had
started his rock-lifting a few minutes before, and taking Phoebe
by the shoulders, shook her with gentle insistence. "Put don't
make me fall out of one love right into another," he protested
whimsically. "Give a fellow time to roll a cigarette, can't
you?"

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