The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 63

x.x.xVI

THE HARVEST-HOME

The hay-harvest was still going on when Curtis and Jennie drove down the valley to meet Elsie and Lawson at Pinon City. "Father is much changed,"

Elsie had written. "You will hardly know him now. He has forgotten all about his campaign; he remembers you only momentarily, so that you need not feel any resentment. He will probably meet you as if he had never seen you before. Please do not show any surprise, no matter what he says."

Curtis expected to find Brisbane a poor shambling wreck of a man, morose and sorrowful to look upon, and his astonishment was correspondingly profound as the ex-Senator descended from the train. His step was vigorous, and his face was placid and of good color; thus much the young soldier took in at a glance, then he forgot all the world in the radiant face of his heart's beloved.

As she put up her lips to be kissed, Elsie's eyes were dim with tears, and she hurried to Jennie as if for relief from her emotion. When she turned, her father was shaking hands urbanely with Curtis.

"Glad to meet you, sir," he said, in the tone of the suave man of position. "I didn't catch the name."

A spasm of pain crossed Elsie's face. "This is Mr. Curtis, papa. Don't you remember Captain Curtis?"

"Ah, yes, so it is," he replied. "I remember you spoke of him once before. I am very glad to make your acquaintance--very glad indeed, sir."

To meet this calm politeness in a man who, in his right mind, would have refused to shake hands, was deeply moving to the young officer. To all outward appearance the great promoter was the same, and on all matters concerning his first campaign and first term, and especially on the events of his early life, he spoke with freedom, even with humor, but of the incidents of the later campaign he had no recollection. That he had been defeated and humbled seemed also to have left no lasting mark upon his mind.

"The fact is, my memory has grown very bad," he explained. "I can remember faces in a dim way, but anything that is said to me I forget instantly."

For a time the thought of Brisbane's mental decay threw a gloom over the party, but Elsie said: "Please don't mind him. I have reached a certain philosophic calm in the matter. I can do him no good by sorrowing. I have, therefore, determined to be as happy as I can."

Curtis cheerfully called: "We must start at once. Will your father go with us?"

"Oh no! I am afraid to have him undertake that. He will go on to Copper City with his secretary."

"Of course, that is best," replied Curtis, vastly relieved.

Brisbane parted with Elsie quite matter-of-factly, and his urbanity remained unbroken as he shook hands with Curtis. "Pleased to have met you, sir," he said, and, in spite of her resolution, the tears filled the daughter's eyes. The old warrior's smiling forgetfulness of feuds was tragic.

As they rode homeward, Curtis and Elsie sat as before on the forward seat, and he detailed what had taken place at the agency, and she listened, genuinely absorbed. She laughed and she wept a little as his story touched on the pathetic incidents of the year.

"You are like a father confessor," she said. "You hold in your hands the most intimate secrets of your people. I don't understand your patience with them. Do you feel that you have made your demonstration?"

"What I have done is written in lines of gold and green on the earth.

The sky is too bright to remember my gray days," he replied, most exultantly.

She looked at him quizzically. "You are developing new and singular powers."

"I have a new and singular teacher."

"New?" she queried.

"New to me," he answered, and in such enigmatic way they expressed their emotion while Lawson and Jennie chatted gayly and in clear prose behind.

Part of the time Elsie drove, and that gave Curtis an excuse to lay his hand on her wrist when he wished her to drive slow. At the half-way house she shuddered and made a mouth of disgust. "Let's hurry past here; I have a bad heart when I think of those horrible men."

"They are thinning out, and this ranch has 'changed hands' as they say on restaurant signs in Chicago. Here's our north line of fence," he said, as they came to a big, new gate. "I hastened to build this at once before anything happened to prevent. This keeps the stock of the white man out, and has stopped all friction."

As they came in sight of the flag-pole, Elsie cried out: "Just think!

This is the third time I have driven up this road in this way. Twice with you."

"I know it is wonderful. I don't intend you to go away without me."

She was ignoring every one of his suggestions now, but the flush of her cheek and a certain softness in her eyes encouraged him to go on.

As they alighted at the door, Jennie remained to look after her bundles, and Curtis and Elsie entered the library together. He who had waited so eagerly for this moment turned and folded her close in his arms. "I need you, sweetest! I'll never let you go again. Never!"

This was her moment to protest; but she was silent, with her face against his shoulder.

Jennie bounced into the hall with a great deal of premonitory clatter and hurried Elsie to her room to rest.

"And now you're to be my really truly sister," she said, closing the door behind her.

"I think--George," she hesitated a little, and blushed before speaking his name, "expects it--rather confidently."

"Then give me a good hug, you glorious thing!"

x.x.xVII

THE MINGLING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW

Early on the morning of the great day--before the dawn, in truth--the Tetongs came riding in over the hills from every quarter of the earth, bringing their finest clothing, their newest blankets, and their whitest tepees, all lashed on long poles between which the patient ponies walked as in the olden time. Every man, woman, and child able to sit a horse was mounted. No one wore a white man's hat or shoes or vest; all were in leggings and moccasins, fringed and painted, and they carried their summer blankets as they once carried their robes of the buffalo-skin.

Even the boys of six and seven wore suits cunningly fas.h.i.+oned and decorated like those of their elders. The young warriors, painted, and with fluttering feathers, rode their fleetest ponies, with shoulders bare and gleaming like bronze in the sun.

With all due form, without hurry or jostling, the whole tribe camped in a wide ellipse, each clan in its place, each family having a fixed position in the circle. The tepees rose like magic, and their threads of smoke began to creep up into the clear sky like mysterious plants, slender and wavering.

Greetings pa.s.sed from camp to camp, the head men met in council, and, as the sun rose higher, swarms of the young men galloped to and fro, laying out a racing-course and making up for a procession under Wilson's direction.

Curtis said: "I am not interdicting any of their customs merely because they belong to their old life, but because some of them are coa.r.s.e or hurtful. Their dance is not harmful unless protracted to the point of interfering with their work. That they are all living somewhat in the past, to-day, is true; but they will put away this finery and go to work with me to-morrow. To cut them off from all amus.e.m.e.nt is cruel fanaticism. No people can endure without amus.e.m.e.nt."

"How appropriate their gay colors seem in this hot, dun land!" remarked Elsie. "They would look gaudy in a studio; but out here they are grateful to the sense."

In the centre of the wide circle of tepees a huge bower of pines was being erected for the dance, and pulsing through the air the voice of the criers could be heard, as they rode slowly round the circle publis.h.i.+ng the programme of the day.

"Looking over the camp towards the hills it is not difficult to imagine one's self back in the old days," said Maynard. "I saw Sitting Bull camped like this. See, here is the 'Soldier Lodge' or chief's headquarters," and he pointed to a large, handsome tepee set in one of the foci of the big ellipse.

Everywhere they went Curtis and his friends met with hearty greeting.

"Hoh--hoh! The Little Father!" the old men cried, and came to shake hands, and the women smiled, looking up from their work. The little children, though they ran away at first, came out again when they knew that it was the Captain who called. Jennie gave hints about the cooking, and praised the neat tepees and the pretty dresses, while Elsie, looking upon it all with reflective eyes, could not help thinking, "Such will be my work if I do my duty as a wife."

Once she looked at the firm, bold, facial outlines of the man she had learned to love, and snuggled a little closer into his shelter; he would toil to make every hards.h.i.+p light, that was certain; but, oh! the dreary winters! There were moments when she took to herself a part of the love and obedience this people showed Curtis. Here was a little kingdom over which Curtis reigned, a despotic monarch, and she, if she did her duty, would reign by his side. It had, at least, the virtue of being an unconventional self-sacrifice. And then, again, she smiled to think that Elsie Bee Bee should feel a touch of pride in being the wife of an Indian agent!

Driving his guests back to the agency, Curtis returned to the camp and moved about on foot among his people. Wherever he went he seemed to give zest to the sports, and knowing this he remained with them till noon, and only came in to rest his weary feet and aching eyes for half an hour before lunch.