The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 54

Could there be any greater happiness than to stand by his side, helping to render a dying, captive race happier--healthier? Could her great wealth be put to better use than this of teaching two hundred thousand red people how to meet and adjust themselves to the white man's way of life? Their rags, their squalor, their ignorance were more deeply depressing to her lover than the poverty of the slums, for the Tetongs had been free and joyous hunters. Their condition was a tragic debas.e.m.e.nt. She began to feel the arguments of the Indian helpers. Their words were no longer dead things; they had become electric nodes; they moved her, set her blood aflame, and she clinched her hands and said: "I will help him do this great work!"

XXIX

ELSIE WARNS CURTIS

Brisbane was early awake, abrupt and harsh in command. "Come! we must get out o' here," he said. "I don't want to be under the slightest obligation to this young crank. I intend to break him."

She flamed into wrath--a white radiance. "When you break him you break me," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I've changed my mind. I think he's right and you are wrong."

The entrance of the sheriff prevented a full accounting at the moment, but it was merely deferred. Once in the carriage, Brisbane began to discredit her lover. "Don't tell me Curtis is disinterested; he is scheming for some fat job. His altruistic plea is too thin."

"You are ill-fitted to understand the motives of a man like Captain Curtis," Elsie replied, and every word cut. "What have you--or I--ever done that was not selfish?"

"I've given a thousand dollars to charity for every cent of his."

"Yes, and that's the spirit in which you gave--never to help, only to exalt yourself, just as I have done. Captain Curtis is giving himself.

He and his sister have made me see myself as I am, and I am not happy over it. But I wish you would not talk to me any more about them; they are my friends, and I will not listen to your abuse of them."

It was a most fatiguing ride. Brisbane complained of the heat and the dust, and of a mysterious pain in his head; and Elsie, alarmed by his flushed face, softened. "Poor papa, I'm so sorry you had to come on this long ride!" Lawson was also genuinely concerned over the Senator's growing incoherency, and privately told the driver to push hard on the reins.

When they rounded the sharp point of the Black Bear Mesa, and came in sight of the long, low, half-way house, Lawson sat up with a jerk.

"There is the mob--camped and waiting for the sheriff."

As Elsie looked at the swarming figures of the cowboys her mind forecasted tragic events. The desperadoes were waiting to lynch Cut Finger--that was plain. Curtis had said he would not surrender his prisoner to be lynched. He was coming; he would be met by this mob.

She clutched Lawson by the arm. "We must warn him!"

He merely nodded; but a look in his eyes gave her to understand that he would do his duty.

The cattlemen, seeing the wagon whirling round the mesa, mounted and ma.s.sed in stern array, believing that the carriage contained the sheriff and his prisoner. They were disappointed and a little uneasy when they recognized Brisbane, the great political boss; but with ready wit Johnson rode along in front of the gang, saying, with a wink: "Put up your guns, boys. This is a meeting in honor of Senator Brisbane." Then, as a mutter of laughter ran down the line, he took off his hat and lifted his voice:

"Boys, three cheers for Senator Brisbane--hip, hip, hurrah!"

After the cheers were given the hors.e.m.e.n closed round the carriage with cries for a speech.

Brisbane, practised orator and shrewd manipulator, rose as the carriage stopped, and removed his hat. His eyes were dim and the blood seemed about to burst through his cheeks, but he was not without self-possession.

"Gentlemen, I thank you for this demonstration, but I must ask you to wait till I have rested and refreshed myself. With your permission I will then address you."

"Right--right!"

"We can wait!" they heartily responded, and opened a way for the carriage.

Elsie shuddered as she looked into the rude and cruel faces of the leaders of this lynching party. They no longer amused her. She saw them now from the stand-point of Captain Curtis and his wards, and realized how little of mercy they would show to their enemies. On Lawson's lips lay a subtly contemptuous smile, and he uttered no word--did not lift a hand till the carriage was at the door.

Streeter helped the Senator out, and with unexpected grace presented his hand to Elsie. "I do not need help," she said, coldly, and brushed past him into the little sitting-room, which swarmed with excited, scrawny, tired, and tearful women.

"What is goin' on out there? Have the soldiers put down the pizen critters?" asked one.

"You're Miss Brisbane--we heerd you was all killed at the agency.

Weren't you scared?"

Almost contemptuously Elsie calmed their fears, and by a few questions learned that this house had been made a rallying-point for the settlers and that the women were just beginning to feel the depressing effects of being so long away from their homes without rest and proper food.

"_Do_ you think we can go home now?"

"Certainly. Captain Curtis will see that you are not harmed," she replied, and she spoke with all a wife's sense of joy and pride in her husband.

"We've been camping here for most a week, seems like, an' we're all wore out," wailed one little woman who had three small children to herd and watch over.

Brisbane, inspirited by an egg-nog and a sandwich, mounted a wash-tub on the low porch and began a speech--a suave, diplomatic utterance, wherein he counselled moderation in all things. "We can't afford at this time to do a rash thing," he said, and winked jovially at Johnson. "The election coming on is, after all, the best chance for us to get back at these fool Injun apologists. So go slow, boys--go slow!"

As these smooth words flowed from his lips Elsie burned with shame and anger. Some newly acquired inward light enabled her to read in the half-hearted dissuasion of her father's speech a subtle, heartless encouragement to violence _after_ election. While the cheers were still ringing in her ears, at the close of the address, Elsie felt a touch on her shoulder and turned to face Calvin, standing close beside her, timid and flushed.

She held out her hand with a swift rush of confidence.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Streeter?"

"I'm pretty well," he said, loudly, and added, in a low voice, "I want to see you alone." He looked about the room. The corner least crowded was occupied by a woman nursing a wailing baby. "Come this way; she's Norwegian; she can't understand us."

Elsie followed him, and when he spoke it was in a rapid, low mutter. "Is the Major goin' to come with Cut Finger?"

"I'm afraid so."

"He mustn't. You know what this gang's here for?"

"What can we do? Can't we warn him?"

"Well, I'm goin' to take a sneak and try it. It's all my neck is worth to play it on the boys; but it's got to be done, for the Major is a fighter, and if this mob meets him there will be blood on the moon. Now don't worry. I'm going to slide right out through the first gate I see and head him off; mebbe you'd like to write a word or two."

"You are a real hero," she said, as she put a little slip of paper into his hand, and pressed it there with both of hers.

"Don't do that," he said, hurriedly; "they'll think something's up. I'm doin' it for the Major; he's treated me white all the way along, and I'll be derned if I let this gang do him."

A pain shot through her heart. Putting her hand to her bosom, she said: "It means everything to me, Calvin. Good-bye. I am trusting you--it's life or death to me. Good-bye!"

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