The Plow-Woman. Gates Eleanor
that," he growled inwardly, "when she hadn't even thought of it! John Lounsbury, you've got about as much sense as a fool mud-hen."
"And," went on Marylyn, "there's the ladies at Fort Brannon. If pa——" She hesitated.
Lounsbury shook his head, smiling. "Well, I wouldn't count on them, if I were you," he advised, remembering certain experiences of Bismarck belles. "Those women over there are as clannish as crows."
"Yes?" plaintively. She went at her beads again.
"As I was saying," he began once more, "I've thought of you folks a lot. Seemed as if I just had to come down to-day. And I brought you something. See here!" He delved into the side pockets of his coat and pulled out two books.
"O-o-oh!" breathed Marylyn. "Books!"
"All I had, but maybe you'll like 'em. They're love stories."
The shadow beyond the firelight claimed her again.
From the lean-to came the sound of Lancaster's voice. It was shrill with anger. A great sadness came over the storekeeper. "I wish I could come down often and look after things," he said. "You need another man around."
There was a short silence. Then, "Dallas likes the work outside," she answered, very low, "and driving Ben and Betty up and down."
He nodded. "But you?"
"I like to stay in and sew."
"'Stay in and sew,'" he mused. "That takes me back to the States. My dear mother sits by the fire and sews. Ah!"—with big-brotherly tenderness—"I hope you'll never have to do anything harder."
"Dallas won't let me work outside. She says she's the man."
Dallas—the man! Somehow it stung him. And then he heard the elder girl pushing an armful of hay before the eager noses of the mules. He got up quickly. "She is tending to those beasts!" he exclaimed. "Why, if I'd 'a' thought——"
She rose also, a wavering figure in the half light.
He picked up hat and coat, then halted. If he offered his help in the lean-to, what would be his reception? He felt utterly hampered, and began twirling his thumbs like a bashful cowboy. Moreover, Lancaster had been gone a good while. Was his absence a hint for his visitor to go?
The storekeeper went up to Marylyn. "Good-by," he said. "I must be hiking along."
She put a trembling hand in his.
The latch clicked behind them, and the section-boss entered. Again the younger girl started, and consciously.
Lancaster banged the door and looked them over. "Huh!" he snorted meaningly. So—he had misled himself with the idea that Lounsbury had come to pry into the matter of the claim. And all the while, underneath, the storekeeper had had another object!
He jerked at a bench, dropped upon it and flung his crutches down.
The other saw the look and heard the sniff. He believed they arose from the fact that he was still there. "Just going, Lancaster," he said. "So long."
"S' long."
"Good-by, Miss Marylyn. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." He gave her a hearty smile.
"Good-by." She opened the door for him.
John Lounsbury passed out, regretting that he had been unwelcome; indignant that the section-boss had misjudged his interest in the ownership of the claim. But he would have been astounded if he had known the real nature of the false impression he was leaving with Evan Lancaster; or had read the thoughts of the younger girl, country-reared, unused to the little courtesies of speech and action. For there were two who had misunderstood him that day.
CHAPTER V
THE DESPISED
Squaw Charley crouched, dull-eyed, among the dogs. The dark folds of his blanket were drawn tight over his tattered waist. Close around his feet, which were shod in old and cracking moccasins, was tucked his fringed skirt. An empty grain-sack covered his head and shielded his face from the wind. As an icy gust now and then filtered in through the chinks of the stockade wall and swept him, he swayed gently back and forth; while the tailless curs snuggling against him whined in sympathy and fought for a warmer place. For the kennel roof of shingles, put up in one corner of the enclosure as a protection for the pack, had served only, during the week that followed the storm, to prevent the pale beams of the winter sun from reaching the pariah and his dumb companions.
Presently the flap of a near-by lodge was flung aside. An Indian woman emerged and threw a handful of bones toward the shelter. At once Squaw Charley awoke to action. Shedding sack and blanket, he scrambled forward with the half-starved, yelping beasts to snatch his portion.
His bone picked clean of its little, the pariah resumed his crouching seat once more; and the pack closed quietly about him, licking his face and the hands that had cuffed them as, with much turning and shivering, they settled down to sleep.
A warrior stalked proudly past, ignoring both his disgraced brother and the sentries that paced the high board walk at the wall's top. Two Indian lads approached, chattering to each other over the heart-shaped horn tops they were swinging on buckskin strings, and tarried a moment to scoff. Squaw Charley paid no heed to either brave or boys. His face was hidden, his eyes shut. He seemed, like the dogs, to be sleeping.
Of a sudden there came a shrill summons from a distant wigwam, and the pariah sprang up eagerly. Afraid-of-a-Fawn stood in the tepee opening, her evil face with its deep scar thrust forward to look about.
"Skunk!" she shrieked, as he hurried toward her, and her long, black teeth snapped together; "a fire!" Then she spat to cleanse her mouth.
Squaw Charley hastened back to the shingle roof for an armful of fuel. Returning, he entered the wigwam and knelt beneath the smoke-hole. And while he arranged the sticks carefully upon a twist of grass, the aged crone hovered, hawk-like, over him, ready with fist or foot for any lack of haste, or failure with the fire. Not until, with flint and steel, he lighted a strip of spongy wood and thrust it under the dry hay, and a flame leaped up and caught the soot on a hanging kettle, did she leave him and go on a quest for breakfast rations.
The pariah had not dared to lift his eyes from his task while the hag was watching. But now he stole a swift glance toward the back of the lodge, where the maid, Brown Mink, was reclining, and his dull eyes, like the fuel at his knees, leaped into sudden flame. But, with the deftness of a woman, he kept on putting bits of wood into the mounting blaze.
Brown Mink did not look his way. She lay on a slanting frame of saplings held together by a network of thongs. The gay blanket on which she had ridden during the march was folded under her. A buffalo-robe was spread over her bead-wrought leggins and shoes, its hairy side under, its tanned face, which was gaudily painted, uppermost. Festoonings of beads fell from her neck to the top of her richly embroidered skirt, and heavy ear-drops of gilt pushed through the purple-black masses of her hair.
Squaw Charley fed his sight gladly with her loveliness, thankful that she, who once had looked upon him kindly, did not now turn to see his squalor. The blaze was thawing his chilled limbs and fast warming him, the brass pot was singing merrily. He kept his hands gratefully near it, and as, from time to time, the girl held up her arms admiringly to let the firelight shine upon her bracelets and pinchbeck rings, he watched her furtively from half-closed eyes.
But not for long. Afraid-of-a-Fawn soon returned with meat and meal and, cursing, ordered him away.
"Off, Ojibway coward," she cried; "to the dogs. But see that there is