Told in the Hills: A Novel Page 10

  CHAPTER I.

  IN THE KOOTENAI SPRING-TIME.

  In the spring that followed, what a spirit of promise and enterprise wasabroad on the Hardy ranch! What multitudes of white lambs, uncertain inthe legs, staggered and tottered about the pasture lands! and whatmusical rills of joy in the mountain streams escaping through thesunshine from their prisons of ice! The flowers rose from the dead oncemore--such a fragrant resurrection! slipping from out their damp coffinsand russet winding-sheets with dauntless heads erect, and eager lipsopen to the breath of promise. Some herald must bear to theirearth-homes the tidings of how sweet the sun of May is--perhaps the snowsprites who are melted into tears at his glances and slip out of sightto send him a carpet of many colors instead of the spotless white hislooks had banished. It may be so, though only the theory of an alien.

  And then the winged choruses of the air! What matinees they held in thesylvan places among the white blossoms of the dogwood and the featherytassels of the river willow, all nodding, swaying in the soft kissessent by the Pacific from the southwest--soft relays of warmth andmoisture that moderate those western valleys until they are affronted bythe rocky wall that of old was called by the Indians the ChippewyanMountains, but which in our own day, in the more poetical language ofthe usurper, has been improved upon and dubbed the "Rockies." But allthe commonplaces of those aliens can not deprive the inaccessible,conservative solitudes of their wild charms. And after those long monthsof repression, how warmly their smile bursts forth--and how contagiousit is!

  Laugh though the world may at the vibrations of poet hearts echoing thesongs of the youngest of seasons, how can they help it? It is never theempty vessel that brims over, and with the spring a sort of inspirationis wakened in the most prosaic of us. The same spirit of change thatthrills the saplings with fresh vitality sends through human veins acreeping ecstasy of new life. And all its insidious, penetrating charmseemed abroad there in the Northern-land escaped from under the whitecloak of winter. The young grass, fresh from the valley rains, warmedinto emerald velvet in the sunshine, bordered and braced with yellowbuttons of dandelion; while the soil was turned over with the plows, andfield and garden stocked with seed for the harvest.

  Energetic, busy days those were after the long months of semi-inaction;even the horses were too mettlesome for farm drudgery--intoxicated, nodoubt, by the bracing, free winds that whispered of the few scattereddroves away off to the north that bore no harness and owned no master.All things were rebellious at the long restraint, and were breaking intonew paths of life for the new season.

  Even a hulking Siwash, with his squaw and children, came dragging downthe valley in the wake of the freshets, going to the Reservation south,content to go any place where they could get regular meals, with but theproviso to be "good Injun."

  They loafed about the ranch two days, resting, and coming in for a shareof rations from the Hardy table; and the little barefooted "hostiles"would stand about the gate and peer in around the posts of the porch,saying in insinuating tones:

  "Pale papoose?"

  Yes, the spirit of the hills and grazing lands had crept under therafters and between the walls, and a new life had been given to theworld, just as the first violets crept sunward.

  And of course no other life was ever quite so sweet, so altogetherpriceless, as this little mite, who was already mistress of all shesurveyed; and Aunty Luce--their one female servant--declared:

  "Them eyes o' hers certainly do see everything in reach of 'em. She's amighty peart chile, I'm tellin' ye."

  Even Jim had taken to loafing around the house more than of old, andshowing a good deal of nervous irritation if by any chance "she" wasallowed to test her lungs in the slightest degree. The setter pups paledinto insignificance, and a dozen times a day he would remark to Ivansthat it was "the darndest, cutest, little customer he ever saw."

  "Even you have become somewhat civilized, Rachel, since baby's arrival,"remarked Tillie in commendation.

  Yes, Rachel was still there. At the last moment, a few appealing glancesfrom Tillie and some persuasive words from Hen had settled the question,and a rebellion was declared against taking the home trail, and all thewords of the Houghtons fell on barren soil, for she would not--and shewould not.

  "They will never miss me back there in Kentucky," she argued; "there areso many girls there. But out here, femininity is at a premium. Let mealone, Clara; I may take the prize."

  "And when am I to tell the folks you will come back?" asked Mrs.Houghton, with the purpose of settling on a fixed time and then holdingher to it.

  "Just tell them the truth, dear--say you don't know," answered the girlsweetly. "I may locate a claim out here yet and develop into astock-grower. Do not look so sulky. I may be of use here; no one needsme in Kentucky."

  "What of Nard Stevens?" was a final query; at which Rachel no longersmiled--she laughed.

  "Oh, you silly Clara!" she burst out derisively. "You think yourself sowise, and you never see an inch beyond that little nose of yours. Nardneeds me no more than I need him--bless the boy! He's a good fellow; butyou can not use him as a trump card in this game, my dear. Yes, I knowthat speech is slangy. Give my love to Nard when you see him--well,then, my kind regards and best wishes if the other term conflicts withyour proper spirit, and tell him I have located out here to grow up withthe country."

  And through the months that followed she assuredly grew to the countryat all events; the comparative mildness of the winters proving acomplete surprise to her, as, hearing of the severe weather of theNorth, she had not known that its greatest intensity extends only to theeastern wall of the great mountain range, and once crossing the divide,the Chinook winds or currents from the Pacific give the valleys much thetemperature of our Middle States, or even more mild, since the snow-fallin the mountains is generally rain in the lowlands. Sometimes, ofcourse, with the quick changes that only the wind knows, there wouldcome a swoop downward of cold from the direct North, cutting through thebasins, and driving the Pacific air back coastward in a fury, and thosefitful gusts were to be guarded against by man and beast; and wise weregrowing those eastern prophets in their quickness to judge from theheavens whether storm or calm was to be with them.

  But despite Clara's many predictions, the days did not grow dull toRachel, and the ranch was not a prison in winter-time. She had tooclearly developed the faculty of always making the best of hersurroundings and generally drawing out the best points in the peopleabout her.

  It was that trait of hers that first awakened her interest in thatsplendid animal, their guide from the Maple range.

  He had disappeared--gone from the Kootenai country, so they told her.But where? or for what? That none could answer.

  Her memory sometimes brought her swift flushes of mortification when shethought of him--of their association so pregnant with some sympathy orsubtle influence that had set the world so far beyond them at times. Nowthat he was gone, and their knowledge of each other perhaps all over,she tried to coolly reason it all out for herself, but found so muchthat contained no reason--that had existed only throughimpulses--impulses not easy to realize once outside the circle of theirattending circumstances.

  Those memories puzzled her--her own weakness when she lay in his arms,and her own gift of second-sight that gave her an understanding of himthat morning when she turned champion for him against himself.

  Was it really an understanding of him? or was it only that oldhabit of hers of discovering fine traits in characters votedworthless?--discoveries laughed at by her friends, until her "spectaclesof imagination" were sometimes requested if some specimen of the genushomo without any redeeming points was under discussion.

  Was it so in this case? She had asked herself the question more thanonce during the winter. And if she had been at all pliable in heropinions, she would long ere spring have dropped back to the originalimpression that the man was a magnificent animal with an intellect, andwith spirituality and morality sleeping.

  But she was not
. A certain stubbornness in her nature kept her frombeing influenced, as the others were, by the knowledge that after allthey had had a veritable "squaw man" as a guide.

  Hardy was surprised, and Tillie was inconsolable.

  "I never will believe in an honest face again!" she protested.

  "Nonsense!" laughed Rachel. "Pocahontas was an Indian and Rolfe was nothustled out of society in consequence."

  "N--No," assented Tillie, eyeing Rachel doubtfully "but then, you seeRolfe married Pocahontas."

  "Yes?"

  "And--and Ivans told Hen he heard that the squaw you saw at Genesee'swas only a sort of slave. Did he tell you and Jim that she was hiswife?"

  "I--I don't know;" and Rachel suddenly sat down on a chair near thewindow and looked rather hopelessly at the questioner. "No, I don'tbelieve he said so, but the circumstances and all--well, I took it forgranted; he looked so ashamed."

  "And you thought it was because of a marriage ceremony, not for the lackof one?"

  "Yes," acknowledged the girl, inwardly wondering why that view of thequestion had not presented itself to her. Had she after all imaginedherself sighting an eagle, and was it on nearer acquaintance to developinto a vulture--or, worse still, a buzzard--a thing reveling only incarrion, and knowing itself too unclean to breathe the same air with theuntainted! So it seemed; so Tillie was convinced; so she knew Clarawould have thought. In fact, in all the range of her femaleacquaintances she could think of none whose opinion would not have beenthe same, and she had an impatient sort of wonder with herself for notagreeing with them. But the memory of the man's face that morning, andthe echo of that "God bless you, girl!" always drifted her away fromutter unbelief in him.

  She heard considerable about him that winter; that he was thought rathereccentric, and belonged more to the Indians than the whites, sometimesliving with a tribe of Kootenais for weeks, sometimes disappearing, noone knew where, for months, and then settling down in the cabin againand placidly digging away at that hole in the hill by the littlelake--the hill itself called by the Indians "Tamahnous," meaningbewitched, or haunted. And his persistence in that work was one of theeccentric things that made some people say significantly:

  "They allowed Genesee was a good man, but a little 'touched' on thesilver question."

  And for Tillie's benefit Hen had to explain that the term "good" hadnothing whatever to do with the man's moral or spiritual worth; its usewas in a purely physical sense.

  After the snows fell in the mountains there were but few strangers foundtheir way to the new ranch. Half locked in as it was by surroundinghills, the passes were likely to be dangerous except to the initiated,and there were not many who had business urgent enough to push themthrough the drifts, or run their chances with land-slides. But if astray hunter did come their way, his call was not allowed to be a shortone. They had already become too thoroughly Western in their hospitalityto allow the quick departure of a guest, a trait of which they hadcarried the germs from old Kentucky.

  What cheery evenings there were in the great sitting-room, with the logsheaped high in the stone fire-place! An uncarpeted room, with long,cushioned settees along two sides of it--and mighty restful they werevoted by the loungers after the day's work; a few pictures on the wall,mostly engravings; the only color given the furnishing was in the pinkand maroon chintz curtains at the windows, or cushions to the oakchairs. There in the fire-light of the long evenings were cards played,or stories told, or magazines read aloud, Rachel and Hen generallytaking turn about as reader. And Tillie in the depths of the cushionedrocker, knitting soft wool stuffs, was a chatelaine, the picture ofserene content, with close beside her a foil in the form of black AuntyLuce, whom only devotion to her young miss would ever have tempted intothose wilds; and after the work was over for the night, it was a usualthing to see her slipping in and snuggling down quietly to listen to thestories told or read, her big eyes glancing fearfully toward windows ordoors if the Indian question was ever touched on; though occasionally,if approached with due ceremony and full faith shown in her knowledge,she would herself add her share to the stories told, her donationconsisting principally of sure "hoodoos," and the doings of blackwitches and warlocks in the land of bayous; for Aunty Luce hadoriginally come from the swamps of Louisiana, where the native religionand superstitions have still a good following. And old Aunty'sreminiscences added to the variety of their evening's bill ofentertainment.

  A mail-carrier unexpectedly sprang up for them in the winter in theperson of a young half-breed called Kalitan, or the Arrow. He hadanother name, his father, an Englishman, and agent for a fur company,had happened to be around when his swarthy offspring was ushered intothe world, and he promptly bestowed on him his own name of ThomasAlexander. But it was all he did bestow on him--and that only bycourtesy, not legality; and Alexander Junior had not even the pleasureof remembering his father's face, as his mother was soon deserted. Shewent back to her tribe and reared her son as an Indian, even his name intime was forgotten, as by common consent the more characteristic one ofKalitan was given him because of the swiftness of foot that had placedhim among the best "runners" or messengers in the Indian country--andthe average speed of a runner will on a long march out-distance that ofcavalry. At the military post at Fort Missoula, Kalitan's lines hadfirst fallen among those of Genesee, and for some unexplained reason hisadherence to that individual became as devoted as Mowitza's own. For along time they had not ranged far apart, Genesee seldom leaving theKootenai country that Kalitan did not disappear as well. This last triphis occupation was gone, for word had been left with MacDougall that thetrail was not clear ahead, but if Kalitan was wanted he would be sentfor, and that sinewy, bronze personage did not seem to think of doingother than wait--and the waiting promised to be long.

  He took to hanging around Scot's Mountain more than of old, with thequery, "Maybe Genesee send lettah--s'pose? I go see."

  And go he would, over and over again, always with a philosophic "S'posenext time," when he returned empty-handed. Sometimes he stopped at theranch, and Rachel at once recognized him as the youth who had broughther the black bear skin months before, and pretended at the time utterignorance of Chinook. He would speak Chinook fast enough to her now ifthere was any occasion, his white blood, and the idea that she wasGenesee's friend, inclining him to sociability seldom known to thearistocratic conservatives of the Indian race.

  The nearest mail station was twenty miles south, and it was quite anitem to find a messenger as willing as was Kalitan; storm or calm, hewould make the trip just the same, carrying his slip of paper on whichall the names were written and which he presented as an order to thepostmaster. A big mail was a cause of pride to him, especially magazinesor packages. Letters he did not think of much account, because of theirsize.

  To Aunty Luce he was a thing of dread, as were all of his race. She wasfirmly convinced that the dusky well-featured face belonged to an imp ofthe evil one, and that he simply slid over the hills on the cold winds,without even the aid of a broom-stick. The nights that he spent at theranch found Aunty's ebony face closer than ever to the side of MistressTillie's chair.

  Another member had been added to the visiting list at Hardy's, and thatwas the sovereign of Scot's Mountain.

  Along in midwinter, Kalitan brought a scrawled note from "Ole Man Mac,"asking for some drugs of which he stood in need. The request brought tolight the fact that Kalitan one day while paying visits had found "OleMan Mac" sick in bed--"heap sick--crank--no swallow medicine but whiteman's."

  The required white man's medicine was sent, and with it a basket withwhite bread, fresh butter, and various condiments of home manufacturethat Tillie's kindly heart prompted her to send to the old trapper--oneof their nearest neighbors.

  The following day Rachel and her henchman Jim started on Kalitan'strail, with the idea of learning personally if any further aid that theranch could give was needed at the cabin. A snow three days old coveredthe ground, in which Kalitan's trail was easily followed; and thenRachel
had been over the same route before, starting light-hearted andeager, on that cultus corrie.

  They reached Scot's Mountain a little after noon, and found itsgrizzled, unshaven owner much better than he had been the day before,and close beside him on the pillow lay his one companion, the cat.

  "Well, well! to think o' this!" said the old man, reaching a brawny handto her from the bunk. "You're the first white woman as ever passed thatdoor-post, and it's rare and glad I am that it's your own self."

  "Why myself more than another?" she asked, rather surprised at hiswords. "I would have come long ago if I had known I was wanted, or thatyou even knew of me."

  "Have I not, then?" he queried, looking at her sharply from under hiswrinkled, half-closed lids. "But sit ye down, lady. Kalitan, bring thechair. And is that a brother--the lad there? I thought I had na heard ofone. Sit you down close that I can see ye--a sight good for sore een;an' I have no heard o' ye? Ah, but I have, though. Many's the hour thelad has lain lazy like on the cot here, an' told me o' the gay folk fraethe East. Ye know I'd be a bit curious o' my new neighbors, an' would beaskin' many's the question, an' all the tales would end wi' somethingabout the lass that was ay the blithe rider, an' ever the giver o' goodjudgment."

  The girl felt her face grow hot under those sharp old eyes. She scarcelyknew what to say, and yet could give no sensible reason for suchembarrassment; and then--

  "The lad--what lad?" she asked at last.

  "Oh--ay. I clean forgot he is no lad to you. Kalitan, will ye bebuilding up that fire a bit? When we have quality to visit we must givethem a warm welcome, if no more. An' the lad, as I was sayin'," hecontinued, "was but Genesee--no other; though he looked more the ladwhen I called him so first."

  "You are such old friends, then?"

  "No so old as so close, ye might say. It's a matter o' five year nowsince he come up in these hills wi' some men who were prospectin', an'one an' another got tired and dropped down the country again till onlyGenesee was left. He struck that haunted hill in the Maple range thatthey all said was of no good, an' he would na leave it. There he stuckin very stubbornness, bewitched like by it; an' the day before hisflittin' in the fall found him clear through the hill, helped a bit bystriking into an old mine that nobody knew aught of. Think o' that!--duginto a mine that had been abandoned by the Indians generations ago, mostlike."

  "I did not know that the Indians ever paid attention to mining. Theyseem to know no use for gold or silver until the white men teach themit."

  "True enough; but there the old mine stands, as a clear showin' thatsome o' the heathen, at some time, did mine in that range; an' the stonemallets an' such like that he stumbled on there shows that the cave wasnot the result o' accident."

  "And has he at last given it up as hopeless?"

  "That's as time may happen to tell," answered the old man sagely; "an'old Daddy Time his own self could na keep his teeth shut more tight thancan Genesee if there's a bit secret to hold. But o' the old mine he saidlittle when he was takin' the trail, only, 'It has kept these thousando' years, Davy--it will most like keep until I get back.'"

  From that speech Rachel gathered the first intimation that Genesee'sabsence from the Kootenai country was only a transient one. Was he thento come back and again drop his life into its old lines? She did notlike to think of it--or to question. But that winter visit to "Ole ManMac," as Kalitan called him, was the beginning of an avowed friendshipbetween the old hermit of the northern hills and the young girl from thesouthern ones.

  Her independent, curious spirit and youthful vitality were a sort oftonic to him, and as he grew better he accepted her invitation to visitthe ranch, and from that time on the grizzled head and still athleticframe of the old fellow were not strange to the Hardy household. He wasthere as often as was consistent with the weather in the hills andalmost seventy years of braving their hardships; for of late yearsMacDougall did not range widely. His traps could find too many nooksnear home for mink, lynx, and the black bear, and from the Kootenaitribes on the north he bought pelts, acting the trader as well astrapper; and twice a year making a trip to a settlement to dispose ofhis wares, with horses from his Indian neighbors to transport them with.

  Rachel learned that for forty years he had followed that isolatedlife--moving steadily farther west or farther north as the grip ofcivilization made itself felt behind him; and he felt himself crowded ifa settler's prairie schooner was sighted within twenty-five miles ofhim. The girl wondered, often, the cause of that self-exile, but no wordor sign gave her any clew. He had come from the eastern highlands ofScotland when less than thirty years old, and had struck out at once forthe extreme borders of civilization in America; and there he hadremained--always on the borders--never quite overtaken.

  "It will be but a few more stands I can make," he would say to hersometimes. "Time is little content to be a laggard, and he is running meclose in a race he has na' a doubt of winning."

  With advancing years, the barrier, whatever the foundation, that he hadraised between himself and the world was evidently weakening somewhat;and first through Genesee, and now through this girl, had come a growingdesire for intercourse with his own race once more. And much teasing didthe girl get in consequence of the visits that by the family in generalwere conceded to belong to Rachel in particular, teasing, however, whichshe bore with indifference, openly claiming that the stronger interestwas on her side, and if he forgot his visits she would certainly goherself to Scot's Mountain to learn the why and wherefore. This she didmore than once, through the season, when indoor life grew at allmonotonous; sometimes with Jim as a companion, and sometimes withKalitan trotting at her mare's head, and guiding very carefully Betty'sfeet over the dangerous places--Aunty Luce always watching such adeparture with prophecies of "Miss Rache's sea'p a-hangin' round theneck o' that red nigger some o' these days, I'm a-tellin' yeh!"

  Despite prophecies, Kalitan proved a most eager and careful guardian,seeming to feel rather proud when he was allowed to be her solecompanion.

  Sometimes he would say: "S'pose you hear where Genesee is--may be?" andat her negative he, like a philosopher of unlimited patience, wouldcontent himself with: "Sometime he sure come; s'pose waumillihie"--waum illihie meaning the summer-time; and Rachel, notinghis faithfulness to that one idea, wondered how many seasons hispatience would endure.

  At last, about the middle of April, he stalked into the ranch door onemorning early, scaring Aunty Luce out of her seven senses, or as manyextra ones as she laid claim to.

  "Rashell Hardy?" was all he deigned to address to that personage, soinborn in the Indian is the scorn of a slave or those of slavish origin.And Kalitan, who had lived almost entirely with his tribe, had many ofthe aristocratic ideas of race that so soon degenerate in the Indian ofthe settlements or haunts of the white man. Once Aunty Luce, notunderstanding his ideas of caste, thought to propitiate him with somekindly social inquiry as to the state of his health and well-being, andhad beat an ignominious retreat to the floor above at the black look ofindignation on his face at being questioned by a slave. When Rachel tookhim to task for such a ferocious manner, he answered, with a sullen sortof pride: "I, Kalitan, am of a race of chiefs--not a dog to be bidden byblack blood;" and she had noticed then, and at other times, that anystrong emotion, especially anger, gave an elevated tone and manner ofspeech to him and his race, lifting it out of the slurred commonplacesof the mongrel jargon--a direct contradiction of their white brother, onwhom anger generally has an effect exactly contrary. After that oneventure of Aunty's at timorous friendliness, she might have been a dumbwoman so far as Kalitan ever had further knowledge; for herconversations in his presence were from that date carried on entirely inpantomime, often to the annoyance, though always to the amusement, ofthe family.

  Kalitan's abrupt entrance and query that April morning was answered by acomprehensive nod and wave of pudgy black hands toward the sitting-room,into which he walked without knocking--that, also perhaps, being deemeda prerogative of his lordly rac
e.

  "Why, Kalitan, so early!" said Rachel in surprise. "Are you trying tooutrun the sun? What is it?" For her eyes, accustomed to the usual calmof his countenance, recognized at once that some new current of emotionwas struggling for supremacy in him that morning. He did not answer atonce, but seated himself in impressive silence on the edge of one of thesettees, and after a dramatic pause that he considered a fitting preludeto the importance of his communication, he addressed himself toRachel--the only woman, by the way, whom he was ever known to meet orconverse with on terms of equality, as Indian chivalry does not extendto their exaltation of the gentler sex.

  "Rashell Hardy," he said, in a mingling of English and Chinook, "I,Kalitan, the Arrow, shoot to the south. Genesee has sent in thetalking-paper to Ole Man Mac that the Reservation Indians south have dugup the hatchet. Genesee is taking the trail from the fort, with rifleand many men, and he wants an arrow that can shoot out of sight of anyother; so he wants Kalitan."

  And having delivered himself of this modest encomium on his own worth,there was a stage-wait of about a minute, that might have been relievedby some words conceding his superiority, but wasn't. Rachel was lookingout of the window as if in momentary forgetfulness of the honor done herin this statement of facts. Kalitan rose to his feet.

  "Ole Man Mac come town valley, may be, in two days. I stop to tell you,and say like white man, klahowya."

  And with the Indian word of farewell, he turned to the door, when Rachelstopped him.

  "Wait, Kalitan," she said, holding out her hand to stop him. "You aregoing south into the hostile country. Will the Arrow carry a message asit flies?"

  "Let Rashell Hardy speak. Kalitan is swift. A message is not heavy froma friend."

  "That is it, Kalitan; it is to your friend--Genesee."

  "Rachel!" ejaculated Tillie, who had been a silent auditor of this queerlittle scene, with its ceremony and its ludicrous features--ludicrous toany not knowing the red man's weakness for forms and a certain pompositythat seems a childish love of display and praise. But Rachel neverridiculed it; instead, she simply let herself drop into his tone, andthus enhanced very much his opinion of her. And at Tillie's voice sheturned impatiently.

  "Well, why not?" she asked; and her combative air at once reduced Tillieto withdrawing as easily as she could from the discussion.

  "But, dear, the man's reputation! and really you know he is nothing wethought he was. He is scarcely fit for any lady to speak to. It isbetter to leave such characters alone. One never can tell how far theymay presume on even recognition."

  "Yes? After all, Tillie, I believe you are very much of the worldworldly. Did he stop to ask if I was entirely a proper sort of personbefore he started to hunt for me that time in the Kootenai hills?"

  "Nonsense! Of course not. But the cases are totally unlike."

  "Naturally. He is a man; I am a woman. But if the cases were reversed,though I might preserve a better reputation, I doubt much if, in somerespects, I should equal the stubborn strength of character I have seenthat man show at times."

  "Oh, I might have known better than to advise you, Rachel, if I wantedto influence you," remarked Tillie helplessly. "You are like anIrishman, always spoiling for a fight, and hunt up the most ridiculous,impossible theories to substantiate your views; but I am so disappointedin that man--he seemed such a fine fellow. But when we are assured ofour mistake, it is time, especially, Rachel, for a girl to drop allacquaintance with him."

  "I wish I was not a girl. Then I would not have to be hedged in forever.You would not think it so terrible if Hen or Ivans, or any of the men,were to meet him as usual or send word to him if they chose."

  "But that is different."

  "And I am sick of the differences. The more I see the narrowness ofsocial views, the less I wonder at old MacDougall and Genesee taking tothe mountains, where at least the life, even the life's immoralities,are primitive."

  "Primitive! Oh, good Lord!" ejaculated Tillie in serio-comic despair."What would you suggest as an improvement on their simplicity?"

  And then, both being rather good-natured women, the absurdity of theirvehemence seemed to strike them, and looking at each other for a second,they both burst out laughing.

  All this time Kalitan stood, showing his silent disdain of this squaw"wau-wau" with the impassive gaze that went straight over their headsat the opposite wall, not seeing the debaters, as if it were beneath hisdignity to open his ears to their words. In fact, his dignity had beenenhanced several degrees since his visit to the ranch, some ten daysbefore--all because of that "talking-paper," no doubt, that had comefrom the Fort, and his full Indian dress--for he would scorn to wear thegarb of his father--was decked with several additional trinkets,borrowed or stolen from the tribe, that were likely to render hisappearance more impressive.

  And Rachel, glancing at him, was reminded by that manner of dignifiedtoleration that she had kept him waiting no doubt five minutes--and fiveminutes in the flight of an arrow is a life-time.

  "Tell Jack Genesee," she said, turning to him in complete negligence ofarguments just used, "that Rachel Hardy sends to him greetings--youunderstand? That she is glad to hear where he is; a soldier's life is agood one for him, and she will always have faith in his fighting well,and trying to fight on the right side. Is that message much toremember?"

  Kalitan poetically answered in Chinook to the effect that his heart wasin his ears when she spoke, and would be in his tongue when he metGenesee, and with that startling statement he made his exit, watched byAunty Luce from the stairs on which she had taken refuge.

  "You are a queer girl, Rache," said Tillie as Rachel stood watching thegaily-decked, sinewy form as it broke into a sort of steady trot, onceoutside the gate, and was so quickly out of sight down the valley.

  "Am I? Try and say something more original," she suggested.

  "I believe you would make a good missionary," continued Tilliedebatably. "Your theory of civilizing people seems to be all right; butwhile it may work capitally with those savages born in heathendom, Ifear its results when applied to enlightened mortals who have preferreddropping into degraded lives. Your laudable energy is likely to bewasted on that sort of material."

  "What a learned diagnosis for you to make, my child," said Miss Hardyapprovingly. "Aunty Luce confided to me she was going to make a 'batch'of sugar cookies this morning, and you shall have the very first one asa reward for delivering your little speech so nicely."