The Plow-Woman Part 39

"No," she answered simply. "I'm putting my pride in my pocket, dad. I'm going to Mr. Lounsbury because I care so much for you, and for Marylyn.

And I want to say something--I hate to say it--you've almost discouraged me about Brannon lately. We came here to raise stuff to sell over there.

But I can't see how we can sell over there if we won't even speak to a soul. It looks as if we're going to give all that up--as if a lot of my work is for nothing."

It was a new thought for the section-boss. And while Dallas disappeared behind Betty, he pondered it with hanging head. She came around soon to hitch Ben's tugs, when her father looked up shamefacedly. "Ah'll tell y', Dallas," he said, by way of compromise, "ef Lounsbury don't come back with y'----"

"He will," a.s.sured Dallas, stoutly.

"W'y, we'll go t' th' Fort, as you say."

"All right, dad," she replied, giving his back a pat.

He began to hobble up and down. "You ain't scairt t' go?" he ventured at last. "Ain't afeerd o' nothin'?"

"No; and I'm going on my own hook, remember. It's not your fault."

"Y' kain't think o' no other way----"

She paused in front of him. "Can you?" she asked.

He could have sworn; but there was something in her face that forbade it. "No--no," he said explosively, and so matched her determination with his hot stubbornness.

He left her, and taking the rifle and all the ammunition there was, seated himself on a bench placed just outside the door. There he was--a pitiful sentinel--as she circled the shack and reined.

And now another question was presented: Should Marylyn stay or go?

Dallas was for her remaining, so that, in case of need, help could be summoned--from somewhere. Marylyn sided with her. And it was long afterward, when many things were made clear, before the elder girl understood her sister's action--one that seemed so contrary to what the younger one felt. But their father opposed them both, and vehemently.

Dallas upon the wagon-seat, prepared for her long drive, had softened and touched him. She bore herself so bravely. She was so respectful, and concerned.

"You take Mar'lyn," he insisted, "an' th' pistol. Ah c'n git along fine by myself. Charley'll be comin', an' Ah'll hang on t' him. Ah reckon, between us, we'll be O. K. 'Sides, y' know, Ah got a weasel's tail."

The mention of Charley won Dallas to her father's view. He would not be alone all day, for the outcast would surely appear. On the other hand, she longed to have Marylyn with her, where she could s.h.i.+eld her from cross words and possible harm. "We'll have Mr. Lounsbury with us coming home," she said.

At that, Marylyn waxed still more eager to remain. And it took some pleading to overcome her reluctance, and to bring about her consent.

Finally, however, the two girls drove away.

Before she started the team, Dallas climbed down to say good-by. In all their lives, few caresses had ever pa.s.sed between father and daughter, and those had been during her babyhood. But now, moved by a common impulse, each reached out at parting to clasp the other. And there were tears in the eyes of both.

As the wagon trundled out of ear-shot, that one of the trio least consulted in the affairs of the shack was hard beset by a temptation: to tell Dallas about Lieutenant Fraser and his earnest, oft-repeated promise of protection. But Marylyn hesitated, afraid to speak--no less afraid of her sister than of her father. She realised that if she mentioned the officer, she would have to admit their meetings. And such a confession would undoubtedly result in an end to those meetings and, perhaps, in severe blaming. Yet--it would also cut short the drive to Clark's. And what might not be awaiting them on that journey? Still, there were only two likely dangers: Indians and the interpreter. "But Mr. Fraser says this upper side of the river's safe," she remembered. As to Matthews, he would not be lingering beside the road to waylay them.

Her fears for her own safety were thus argued down.

There was yet her father's safety to consider. Well, her gallant new friend would look to that. "He'll be across again this afternoon," she thought, "and he'll watch the house careful. He couldn't do any more if he knew about the pole." So, her conscience satisfied, she decided to keep her own counsel. That decision cost her abundant grief and penitence in the months to come.

While Marylyn was busy with her troublesome problem, a similar one was running in Dallas' brain, where it called for calculation. Would Matthews threaten the shack that day? It was scarcely probable. Night offered the best hours for an attack. Therefore, the wagon must return before night. But could Ben and Betty make Clark's and the return trip before then? So far, they had never done it. The previous summer, the drive was begun at dawn, when dawn was at three o'clock. "We'll just have to hike along," she said aloud to Marylyn.

Into the coulee slid the wagon, its long tongue in the air, the loose tugs. .h.i.tting the mules in the hock. When the team had scrambled up the farther side, Dallas put them to a trot by a flick of the black-snake.

Then she bent forward over the dashboard, her eyes fixed eagerly on that distant brown blotch at the eastern ridge-top. But Marylyn, as they drew away, looked regretfully backward--to where a clump of tall cottonwoods, shaking their heart-shaped leaves in the wind, dappled a flower-studded stretch below the coulee mouth.

Rod by rod the mules climbed the gently sloping prairie. The morning was perfect, and belied, in its beauty, even a suggestion of lurking harm.

The air, crystal-clear and exhilarating, brought far things magically near to the eye. On every hand s.h.i.+mmered the springing gra.s.s, now, a pale emerald with the wind brus.h.i.+ng it, again, in the still places, a darker green, and yet again--under the ravine's fringing willows, where the deer nibbled--a cool black. Out of it, the meadow-larks showed their good-luck waistcoats and rippled their tunes; out of it, countless wild roses smiled up pinkly to the sun.

But all the loveliness of the new day only mocked at the lonely girls in the wagon. To them, the grey sands of their desert home, the blistering "northers," the bra.s.sy skies, were, unconsciously, synonymous of safety and peace. More than once, as they pressed on, the old, red-painted section-house rose before them, a very haven.

Behind, the squat shack was gradually lessening in size. A jutting corner had already shut from view its crippled sentry.

There was little conversation. Marylyn, for a time, could not dismiss the subject that had confronted her at the start. Finally, however, she put it aside impatiently, and let herself drift on a pleasant current.

And Dallas--her thoughts were also harried. For as her home dropped, mile by mile, in the distance, and she was forced to meet the question of what she would say and do when she arrived at Clark's, her feelings underwent a marvellous change. It had been easy enough, in the excitement following her discovery, to contemplate a meeting with Lounsbury. But that excitement having dwindled not a little, the idea of seeing him and of talking to him mounted in proportional importance. She saw herself drawing up before his store, or standing just within as she related her story. She saw his face, the blue eyes, full of fun--and she had not met him since that evening! Her heart began to thump with her picturing, its poundings playing up to her throat and down again. Want of food was giving her a sensation of weakness and sinking. But this seemed also to be the result of mental, and not physical, suffering. She was torn by a desire to retreat.

Then darted through her mind the remembrance of Marylyn's midnight confidence. It was a blow on a wound. She glanced at her sister entreatingly. And what she fancied she read in the other's eyes instantly altered the desire to turn--made her send the mules forward at a better pace. Marylyn was sitting stiffly upright, bracing herself with her hands. Her head was up, her look was eager and fixed. There was a smile on her parted lips.

"She's happy about seeing him," thought Dallas, and was overwhelmed by a sense of her own guilt.

A diversion soon came in a horrid guise. The road touched the coulee again, bringing close the giant cottonwoods, where the Sioux dead were lashed; and the girls, glancing toward the trees, suddenly caught a glimpse of long, wrapped bodies.

Marylyn edged toward her sister. "Oh, I hope it'll be light when we get here coming back," she whispered, shuddering.

"We won't be alone," answered Dallas, rea.s.suringly.

The coulee was deep and dark at that point, and full of queer shadows.

From the boughs that cradled the braves came uncanny flutterings, as the wind shook loosened sc.r.a.ps of the sleepers' covering. The dead seemed to be moving restlessly upon their bier-boards, and waving an imploring summons to be freed of the thongs that bound them. Overhead was full cause for fear. Floating on motionless wing, with bare necks craning hungrily, circled black watchers.

"They say," whispered Marylyn, watching nervously behind, "they say the Indians are scared to come near these trees, never do till one of 'em dies. I don't wonder. It gives me the s.h.i.+vers just to see that bunch."

Dallas drew the whip across Betty. "A dead Indian's not dangerous," she said, smiling. And forgot to ask Marylyn where she had heard the tale.

Six miles were gone. But the way ahead was still long, the brown blotch at the ridge-top was still only a blotch. And the team was fast tiring.

When Murphy's Throat was reached, Dallas drove out to the left, watered the thirsty pair at a slough, and ate with Marylyn the long-deferred breakfast. After that they went at a better pace for a time. Soon, however, the road became steeper, and Betty slacked up. The sun was high, now, and unpleasantly warm. So the wise old mule merely humped her back as Dallas applied the lash, and doggedly refused to increase her speed.

It was noon when the wagon approached the summit. It did not rest there a moment. Behind was spread out a wonderful landscape. The Missouri threaded it quarteringly, the western bluffs walled its farther edge to the sky. Its eastern boundary was the ridge over which the wagon was rolling. From this undulating line, the verdant land slipped down and down and down--to the fantastic turnings of the river. But the girls, peering back upon it, through a haze that was softly blue, were wholly indifferent to its beauty. They sought, and in vain, for a remote dot that might be the shack--the shack they had left at the end of that unswerving road.

And now they went forward again. The scene on the farther side of the summit was newer than that on the other, but did not rival it. Short coulees had eaten the bluff slopes into flutings, and spilled small rivulets upon the plain. Yet, barring these, and a lake that sparkled, a round sapphire, on the right, there was superb uniformity. Not a stream, not a b.u.t.te, not even a nubbin of rock varied the view. And not a head of cattle! To the south moved a score of yellow animals--antelope. But these and a village of saucy prairie-dogs were the only signs of life.

The land dropped away by imperceptible degrees. As imperceptibly, it melted into a mellow sky.

Dallas and Marylyn were each intent upon Clark's, lying far ahead, and to the left, a dun-coloured line which seemed scarcely to get nearer as the time went. But after an hour, their patience was rewarded. When the dun-coloured line resolved itself into two, and they saw the cow-camp: A narrow street flanked by low shanties of canvas and board.

Again, Dallas and Marylyn were absorbed, each with a mental conflict.

The younger got fidgety, then petulant, and began to complain of thirst.

For once, the elder girl showed scant sympathy. She was hurriedly planning some new speeches.

At the southern end of the camp, their destination was made plain to them by a sign reading, "General Merchandise." It was nailed along the hip of a large building that stood midway of the street. Looking to neither side, they made straight for it.

When the team came to a stand before the store, the girls saw to their surprise that the door was shut. They waited. A minute pa.s.sed. No one came out. Then, Dallas climbed down and knocked. There was no answer.

She waited again. Finally, she tried the k.n.o.b. It resisted her effort.

From within came the rattle of a chain.

"It's locked!" She went back to Marylyn. The two looked at each other.

Over the younger's face swept a flush of relief. But Dallas had forgotten her dread of seeing Lounsbury in a keen disappointment at finding him gone. She glanced anxiously up and down the street.

It was deserted and still. Dallas climbed back to the seat. "Maybe he's at the Fort," she said encouragingly. "We'll drive home quick. There's a lot of it down-hill." She clucked to the team.