The Plow-Woman Part 11

The pariah was standing close to the shanty, his head held forward, as if he were watching to spring, his hands opening and clenching angrily.

"Charles!" pleaded the old man, reproachfully. "Remember--do good to them that wish you evil, and love them that hate."

The Indian dropped his arm meekly and shuffled over to the pung. But when David Bond again drew him on to the seat, his lips moved silently, and until the cut was reached and Shadrach pulled them out upon the prairie once more, he continued to glower back at the line of saloons.

"It will be a terrible night," the other said, as they came to a standstill beside the cottonwoods. "It is getting late. I suppose I must try to cross the river."

The pariah was recalled from his backward glances. Rising, he extended an arm to direct David Bond's attention. And the old man, rising also, made out the squat shack of the Lancasters, almost hidden from sight by drifts. With a fervent prayer of thanksgiving, he touched up Shadrach and steered him toward it, pausing only long enough for the Indian to load the chip-sack and the filled blanket on top of the wheels and hay.

"If this lonely house will give me shelter and welcome," vowed David Bond, urging his horse on, "it will find me grateful."

Squaw Charley made no answering sign. Bundled again in the soft quilt, he sat in the wagon-box, brooding. For he had divined, with the instinct of the savage, that if the shack on the rise before them would find a faithful friend in him who sat beneath the wavering cross, it was threatened by the presence of a dangerous foe--the man just come to the shanty saloon by the river.

CHAPTER VII

OUT OF THE SKY

When four distinct raps--Squaw Charley's familiar signal--sounded upon the outer battens of the warped door, Dallas drew back the iron bolt eagerly, caught the lantern that lighted the dim room from its high nail above the hearth, and held it over her head. Then, standing in the opening, with the icy wind fluttering the wide flame till it leaped and smoked in its socket, she met, not the faltering eyes of the faithful Indian, but the piercing gaze of aged David Bond.

She fell back and let the lantern drop to her waist. There she held it, her fingers trembling despite her effort to appear calm. Many days and nights she had waited expectantly for the man who, by voice and fist, had displayed an enmity toward them; she had pictured his arrival, or that of his emissary, and planned what she would say and do. Now, certain that he had come at last--after she had long ceased to watch for him--and reading justice and fearlessness in the stern visage before her, she was dumb and helpless.

Her father's voice, rising from the hearth-side, brought her to action.

"Wal! wal!" he was saying, "don' keep th' door open all night."

With a defiant step forward, and as if to bar intrusion, she spread out her arms. "You're here," she said in a low tone.

Dallas' words did not penetrate the head-covering worn by David Bond; and the fire having died down for lack of fuel, the interior of the shack was so dark that he could see only her gesture. He thought her alone and frightened.

"Have no fear, daughter," he begged. "I will go somewhere else. But the ice is so----"

His gentle address surprised and disarmed her. She advanced relentingly as her father came up behind.

"W'y--a stranger?" cried the section-boss.

She stopped him. "Yes, but we wouldn't turn a dog away to-night, dad."

She motioned David Bond to enter.

As he crossed the sill, Dallas, for the first time, caught a glimpse of the white horse and the pung, and saw Squaw Charley lifting his load of chips from the wagon-box.

"You came together?" she asked.

"Charley pointed out your house to me," was the answer.

A sudden hope came to her. "Maybe I made a mistake," she said. "Tell me, who are you?"

"David Bond--an evangelist by the grace of G.o.d."

She lifted the lantern, so that he could see the others. "My father and my sister," she said. Then she put the light on the table, retired to a corner and suddenly sank down.

Squaw Charley, having brought in and emptied the sack and blanket, fed the blaze and crouched at one side of the fireplace. Evan and Marylyn were across from him, intently examining the features and dress of the traveller. It was Dallas who, eased, yet shaken, remembered to be hospitable.

"Come, Charley," she said, rising, "we'll put the horse up. No, no," as their guest would have accompanied her, "we won't need help. The mules are used to Charley, now, and Simon's pretty ugly to strangers." She started out. "Marylyn," she said, from the door, "you take Mr. Bond's coat." Then, to the evangelist, "I'm glad it's you, and not--somebody--else." A rare smile crossed her face.

The aged man, divested of his long ulster, advanced and, with fatherly tenderness, lightly touched her braids.

"'I was a stranger, and ye took me in,'" he quoted solemnly.

Dallas lingered a moment, arrested by the picture: Lancaster was leaning forward from his seat in unaccustomed silence; Marylyn sat beside him, the nubia thrown across her arm; nearer was the Indian, his copper-coloured face marvellously softened; and, before them all, stood the evangelist, priestly, patriarchal.

When Dallas and Squaw Charley were gone, the section-boss and his younger daughter were, for a s.p.a.ce, tongue-tied through a lack of something to say. Soon, however, David Bond broke the quiet to a.s.sure Lancaster of his grat.i.tude. And thereafter the two men talked freely.

"You need not fear any trouble with my horse," the evangelist said, as Dallas was heard bidding Simon keep to his side of the stall. "Shadrach is a gentle beast."

At the name, the section-boss c.o.c.ked his head like an inquiring bird.

"M-m, Shadrach," he began in important reflection; "y' call y' hoss Shadrach. Ah seem t' hev heerd thet name before."

Marylyn raised to her father a quick, warning finger. "It's in the Bible, pa," she whispered.

"Heh?"

"It's in the Bible."

"Don' y' think Ah know?" Evan poked the fire cheerfully. He was fairly started in a conversation. "Thet Shadrach was a prophet, ef Ah recall it jes' right," he said tentatively.

The evangelist shot him a sorrowful glance.

"No, pa," whispered Marylyn again. "He was put in a furnace. Remember the furnace, pa?"

"With th' lions!" cried the section-boss. "Certainly Ah do."

"Oh, pa, _that_ isn't the story."

Evan stroked his moustache. "Ah'm kinda offen th' trail, honey, ain't Ah?" he said aside. Then, to cover his mistake and forestall any embarra.s.sing explanation, he poked the fire again and resolutely began: "Pahson, how'd y' come t' name you' hoss Shadrach?"

"He had been christened Spooks," began the evangelist as if repeating an oft-told tale, "because his last owner mistook him, one night, for a ghost. I could not bear to call the faithful animal by that name, and, day after day, thought over all the names I had ever heard, striving to find one suitable. That summer something happened that decided for me.

Spooks and I awoke to find ourselves surrounded by a prairie fire. And I, having hitched up and then gotten down into the bottom of the wagon, my good horse was forced to meet the wall of flame alone. He came out unscorched. I knew at once what his name should be. Henceforth, I called him Shadrach."

The light of returning knowledge--of blessed total recall--illumined the face of the listening section-boss. He gave the fire a glad poke that sent the burning chips to every side, thrust out his chest proudly and pinned the other with a triumphant eye. "Wal, how 'bout Meshach and Abednego?" he demanded.

David Bond studied a moment, knitting his brows until their heavy archings met in a single h.o.a.ry line. "I take their place," he said at last, with dignity.

Following supper, which Dallas prepared, all gathered before the cheery blaze. There, the evangelist, anxious over the welfare of the people among whom he had preached and taught, promptly began to question Squaw Charley.

"You have not told me of your capture," he said, "or of the fight that came before it. Were you taken in the north--in the country of the White Mother--or in Dakota?"