Told In The Hills Part 27

"And he has gone to Fort Owens?"

"Started for there, I said."

"Oh! then you haven't much faith in a tenderfoot getting through the hostiles or snow-banks?"

"How do you know he is a tenderfoot?"

He glanced up; she was looking at him with as much of a question in her eyes as her words.

"Well, I reckon I don't," he answered, picking up his hat as if to end the conversation. "I knew a man called Stuart once, but I don't know this one. Now, have you any pressing reason for loafing down here any longer? If not, I'll take my blanket and that lounge and get some sleep.

I've been thirty-six hours in the saddle."

In vain she tried to prevail on him to go upstairs and go to bed "right."

"This is right enough for me," he answered, laying his hat and gloves on a table and unfastening his spurs. "No, I won't go up to the men's room.

Good-night."

"But, Jack--look here--"

"I can't--too sleepy to look anywhere, or see if I did look;" and his revolvers and belt were laid beside the growing collection on the table.

"But Hen will scold me for not giving you better lodging."

"Then he and another man will have a shooting-match before breakfast to-morrow. Are you going?"

He was beginning to deliberately unfasten his neck-gear of scarlet and bronze. She hesitated, as if to make a final protest, but failed and fled; and as the door closed behind her, she heard another half-laughing "Klahowya!"

Early in the morning she was down-stairs, to find Aunty Luce half wild with terror at the presence of a stranger who had taken possession of the sitting-room during the night.

"Cain't see his face for the blanket, honey," she whispered shrilly, "but he's powerful big; an'--an' just peep through the door at the guns and things--it's wah times right ovah again, shueh as I'm tellen' yo', chile."

"Be quiet, Aunty, and get breakfast; it's a friend of ours."

"Hi-yi! I know all 'bout them kind o' friends, honey; same kind as comes South in wah times, a trampen' into houses o' quality folks an sleepen'

whah they liked, an' callen' theyselves friends. He's a moven'

now!--less call the folks!"

The attempted yell was silenced by Rachel clapping her hand over the full lips and holding her tightly.

"Don't be a fool!" she admonished the old woman impatiently. "I let the man in last night; it's all right. Go and get him a good breakfast."

Aunty Luce eyed the girl as if she thought her a conspirator against the safety of the house, and despite precautions, managed to slip upstairs to Tillie with a much-garbled account of thieves in the night, and wartimes, and tramps, and Miss Rache.

Much mystified, the little woman dressed quickly, and came down the stairs to find her husband shaking hands quite heartily with Genesee.

Instantly she forgot the mult.i.tudinous reasons there were for banning him from the bosom of one's family, and found herself telling him he was very welcome.

"I reckon in your country a man would wait to hear someone say that before stowing his horse in their stables, or himself in their beds," he observed.

His manner was rather quiet, but one could see that the heartiness of their greeting was a great pleasure, and, it may be, a relief.

"Do you call that a bed?" asked Tillie, with contemptuous warmth. "I do think, Mr. Genesee, you might have wakened some of us, and given us a chance to treat a guest to something better."

"I suppose, then, I am not counted in with the family," observed Rachel, meekly, from the background. "I was on hand to do the honors, but wasn't allowed to do them. I even went to the stable to receive the late-comer, and was told to skip into the house, and given a general understanding that I interfered with his making himself comfortable in the hay-mow."

"Did she go out there at night, and alone, after we were all in bed?"

And Tillie's tone indicated volumes of severity.

"Yes," answered Genesee; for Rachel, with a martyr-like manner, said nothing, and awaited her lecture; "she thought it was your man Andrews."

"Yes, and she would have gone just as quickly if it had been Indians--or--or--anybody. She keeps me nervous half the time with her erratic ways."

"I rather think she's finding fault with me for giving you that coffee and letting you sleep on the lounge," said Rachel; and through Tillie's quick disclaimer her own short-comings were forgotten, at least for the time. The little matron's caution, that always lagged woefully behind her impulse, obtruded itself on her memory several times before the breakfast was over; and thinking of the reasons why a man of such character should not be received as a friend by ladies, especially girls, she was rather glad when she heard him say he was to push on into the hills as soon as possible.

"I only stopped last night because I had to; Mowitza and I were both used up. I was trying to make MacDougall's, but when I crossed the trail to your place, I reckoned we would fasten to it--working through the snow was telling on her; but she is all right this morning."

Rachel told him of her visit to the old man, and his care of the cabin on the Tamahnous ground; of rumors picked up from the Kootenai tribe as to the chance of trouble with the Blackfeet, and many notes that were of interest to this hunter of feeling on the Indian question. He commented on her Chinook, of which she had gained considerable knowledge in the past year, and looked rather pleased when told it had been gained from Kalitan.

"You may see him again if I have to send for troops up here, and it looks that way now," he remarked, much to the terror and satisfaction of Aunty Luce, who was a house divided against itself in her terror of Indian trouble and her desire to prove herself a prophetess.

Jim was all antic.i.p.ation. After a circus or a variety show, nothing had for him the charm that was exerted by the prospect of a fight; but his hopes in that direction were cooled by the scout's statement that the troops were not coming with the expectation of war, but simply to show the northern tribes its futility, and that the Government was strengthening its guard for protection all along the line.

"Then yer only ringin' in a bluff on the hostiles!" ventured the sanguinary hopeful disgustedly. "I counted on business if the 'yaller'

turned out," meaning by the "yaller" the cavalry, upon whose accoutrements the yellow glints show.

"Never mind, sonny," said Genesee; "if we make a bluff, it won't be on an empty hand. But I must take the trail again, and make up for time lost in sleep here."

"When may we look for you back?"

It was Hardy who spoke, but something had taken the free-heartiness out of his tones; he looked just a trifle uncomfortable. Evidently Tillie had been giving him a hint of second thoughts, and while trying to adopt them they fitted his nature too clumsily not to be apparent.

His guest, however, had self-possession enough for both.

"Don't look for me," he advised, taking in the group with a comprehensive glance; "that is, don't hurt the sight of your eyes in the business; the times are uncertain, and I reckon I'm more uncertain than the times. I'm obliged to you for the sleep last night, and the cover for Mowitza. If I can ever do you as good a turn, just sing out."

Hardy held out his hand impulsively. "You did a heap more for us a year ago, for which we never had a chance to make return," he said in his natural, hearty manner.

"Oh, yes, you have had," contradicted Rachel's cool tones from the porch; "you have the chance now."

Genesee darted one quick glance at her face. Something in it was evidently a compensation, and blotted out the bitterness that had crept into his last speech, for with a freer manner he took the proffered hand.

"That's all right," he said easily. "I was right glad of the trip myself, so it wasn't any work; but at the present speaking the days are not picnic days, and I must 'git.' Good-bye, Mrs. Hardy, good-bye; boys."

Then he turned in his saddle and looked at Rachel.

"Klahowya--tillik.u.m," he said, lifting his hat in a final farewell to all.

But in the glance toward her she felt he had said "thank you" as plainly as he had in the Indian language called her "friend."

"Oh, dear!" said Tillie, turning into the house as he rode away. "I wish the man had staid away, or else that we had known more about him when we first met him. It is very awkward to change one's manner to him, and--and yet it seems the only thing to do."