The Watchers of the Plains Read online

  “The white teacher makes much happy,” she said in her labored English.

  Seth promptly answered her in her own tongue.

  “The papooses of the Indian make the white man happy,” he said simply.

  There was a long pause. Suddenly one dusky urchin rose with a whoop of delight, bearing aloft the torn paper with several lumps of sweet stuff, discolored with dirt, sticking to it. With one accord the little mob broke. The triumphant child fled away to the bluff pursued by the rest of her howling companions. The man and the squaw were left alone.

  “The white man tells a story of a wolf and a squaw,” Wanaha said, returning to her own language. The children were still shrieking in the distance.

  Seth nodded assent. He had nothing to add to her statement.

  “And the wolf eats the squaw,” the woman went on, quite seriously. It sounded strange, her literal manner of discussing this children’s story.

  A look of interest came into the man’s thoughtful eyes. But he turned away, not wishing to display any curiosity. He understood the Indian nature as few men do.

  “There was no one by to warn the squaw?” she went on in a tone of simple inquiry. “No brave to help her?”

  “No one to help,” answered the man.

  There was another pause. The children still inside the Mission house were helping to chant the Doxology, and the woman appeared to listen to it with interest. When it was finished she went on——

  “Where the wolf is there is much danger for the squaw. Indian squaw—or white. I, too, learn these things. I learn from much that I hear—and see.”

  “I know,” Seth nodded.

  “You know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wanaha is glad. The white brave will watch over the young squaw.” The woman smiled again. Seth thought he detected a sigh of relief. He understood this woman as well as it is given to man to understand any woman—even an Indian woman.

  “This wolf won’t bother about the gran’ma,” said Seth, looking straight into Wanaha’s eyes. “He’s after the young squaw.”

  “And he will have the young squaw soon.”

  Wanaha abruptly turned away and hurried round to the entrance of the Mission. The sound of people moving within the building told her that the Sunday-school was over. Her silent going suggested that she had no wish to be seen talking in private to Seth.

  Seth remained where he was. His delay may have been intentional, yet he had the appearance of deep preoccupation. He quite understood that Wanaha’s presence during his story had been deliberate. She had left her own class on some trifling excuse and come out to warn him, knowing that he would be alone with his children. There was no smile on his face while he stood thinking, only a pucker between his dark brows, and an odd biting of his under-lip.

  At last he shook himself as though he found the shade chilly, and, a moment later, sauntered round to the front of the building in time to meet the others coming out.

  He joined the group which included Wanaha, and they talked a few minutes with the Agent and Mr. Hargreaves. Then Mrs. Rankin and Rosebud moved off to the two waiting buckboards, and Wanaha disappeared down a by-path through the trees. Seth and Charlie Rankin followed their womenfolk.

  Seth was the only silent member of the party, but this was hardly noticeable, for he rarely had much to say for himself.

  On the way home Rosebud at last found reason to grumble at his silence. She had chattered away the whole time in her light-hearted, inconsequent fashion, and at last asked him a question to which she required more than a nod of the head in reply. And she had to ask it three times, a matter which ruffled her patience.

  “Why are you so grumpy with me, Seth?” she asked, with a little frown. She always accused Seth of being “grumpy” when he was more than usually silent.

  “Eh?” The man turned from the contemplation of the horses’ tails.

  “I asked you three times if you saw the Agent talking to two of his scouts—Jim Crow and Rainmaker—before service.”

  Seth flicked his whip over the backs of the horses.

  “Sure,” he said indifferently.

  “Jim Crow is the head of his Indian police.”

  The girl spoke significantly, and Seth glanced round at her in surprise.

  “I know,” he observed.

  “Do you think there is anything—moving? Oh, look, Seth, there’s a lovely jack-rabbit.” Rosebud pointed ahead. A large jack-rabbit was loping slowly out of the way of the buckboard. Seth leant forward with unnecessary interest, and so was saved a direct answer to the girl’s question.

  * * *

  CHAPTER X

  SETH ATTEMPTS TO WRITE A LETTER

  It is not usually a remarkable event in one’s life, the writing of a letter. In these days of telephone, however, it soon will be. In Seth’s case it nearly was so, but for a different reason. Seth could write, even as he could read. But he was not handy at either. He abominated writing, and preferred to read only that which Nature held out for his perusal. However, after some days of deep consideration, he had decided to write a letter. And, with characteristic thoroughness, he intended it to be very long, and very explicit.

  After supper one evening, when Rube had gone out for his evening smoke, and that final prowl round necessary to see that all was prepared for the morrow’s work, and the stock comfortable for the night, and Ma Sampson and Rosebud were busy washing up, and, in their department, also seeing things straight for the night, Seth betook himself to the parlor, that haven of modest comfort and horsehair, patchwork rugs and many ornaments, earthen floor and low ceiling, and prepared for his task. He had no desire to advertise the fact of that letter, so he selected this particular moment when the others were occupied elsewhere.

  His ink and paper were on the table before him, and his pen was poised while he considered. Then the slow, heavy footfall of old Rube sounded approaching through the kitchen. The scribe waited to hear him pass up-stairs, or settle himself in an armchair in the kitchen. But the heavy tread came on, and presently the old man’s vast bulk blocked the doorway.

  “Ah! Writin’?”

  The deep tone was little better than a grunt.

  Seth nodded, and gazed out of the window. The parlor window looked out in the direction of the Reservation. If he intended to convey a hint it was not taken. Old Rube had expected Seth to join him outside for their usual smoke. That after-supper prowl had been their habit for years. He wanted to talk to him.

  “I was yarnin’ with Jimmy Parker s’afternoon,” said Rube.

  Seth looked round.

  The old man edged heavily round the table till he came to the high-backed, rigid armchair that had always been his seat in this room.

  “He says the crops there are good,” he went on, indicating the Reservation with a nod of his head toward the window.

  “It’ll be a good year all round, I guess,” Seth admitted.

  “Yes, I dare say it will be,” was the answer.

  Rube was intently packing his pipe, and the other waited. Rube’s deep-set eyes had lost their customary twinkle. The deliberation with which he was packing his pipe had in it a suggestion of abstraction. Filling a pipe is a process that wonderfully indicates the state of a man’s mind.

  “Jimmy’s worried some. ‘Bout the harvest, I guess,” Rube said presently, adjusting his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and testing the draw of it. But his eyes were not raised to his companion’s face.

  “Injuns ain’t workin’ well?”

  “Mebbe.”

  “They’re a queer lot.”

  “Ye-es. I was kind o’ figgerin’. We’re mostly through hayin’.”

  “I’ve got another slough to cut.”

  “That’s so. Down at the Red Willow bluff.” The old man nodded.

  “Yes,” assented Seth. Then, “Wal?”

  “After that, guess ther’s mostly slack time till harvest. I thought, mebbe, we could jest haul that lumber from Beacon Crossing. And cut the logs
. Parker give me the ’permit.’ Seems to me we might do wuss.”

  “For the stockade?” suggested Seth.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve thought of that, too.” The two men looked into each other’s eyes. And the old man nodded.

  “Guess the gals wouldn’t want to know,” he said, rising and preparing to depart.

  “No—I don’t think they would.”

  The hardy old pioneer towered mightily as he moved toward the door. In spite of his years he displayed none of the uneasiness which his words might have suggested. Nothing that frontier life could show him would be new. At least, nothing that he could imagine. But then his imagination was limited. Facts were facts with him; he could not gild them. Seth was practical, too; but he also had imagination, which made him the cleverer man of the two in the frontiersman’s craft.

  At the door Rube looked round.

  “Guess you was goin’ to write some?”

  He passed out with a deep gurgle, as though the fact of Seth’s writing was something to afford amusement.

  Seth turned to the paper and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he wiped it clean on his coat sleeve and dipped it again. After that he headed his paper with much precision. Then he paused, for he heard a light footstep cross the passage between the parlor and the kitchen. He sighed in relief as it started up-stairs. But his relief was short-lived. He knew that it was Rosebud. He heard her stop. Then he heard her descend again. The next moment she appeared in the doorway.

  “What, Seth writing?” she exclaimed, her laughing eyes trying to look seriously surprised. “I knew you were here by the smell of the smoke.”

  “Guess it was Rube’s.” Seth’s face relaxed for a moment, then it returned to its usual gravity.

  “Then it must have been that pipe you gave him the other night,” she returned quick as thought.

  Seth shook his head.

  “Here it is,” he said, and drew a pipe from his pocket. “He ’lowed he hadn’t no nigger blood in him.”

  “Too strong?”

  “Wal—he said he had scruples.”

  Rosebud laughed, and came and perched herself on the edge of Seth’s table. He leant back in his chair and smiled up at her. Resignation was his only refuge. Besides—

  “So you’re writing, Seth,” the girl said, and her eyes had become really serious. They were deep, deep now, the violet of them was almost black in the evening light. “I wonder——”

  Seth shook his head.

  “Nobody yet,” he said.

  “You mean I’m to go away?” Rosebud smiled, but made no attempt to move.

  “Guess I ain’t in no hurry.”

  “Well, I’m glad of that. And you’re not grumpy with me either, are you? No?” as Seth shook his head. “That’s all right, then, because I want to talk to you.”

  “That’s how I figgered.”

  “You’re always figuring, Seth. You figure so much in your own quiet way that I sometimes fancy you haven’t time to look at things which don’t need calculating upon. I suppose living near Indians all your life makes you look very much ahead. I wonder—what you see there. You and Rube.”

  “Guess you’re side-tracked,” Seth replied uneasily, and turning his attention to the blank paper before him.

  The girl’s face took on a little smile. Her eyes shone again as she contemplated the dark head of the man who was now unconscious of her gaze. There was a tender look in them. The old madcap in her was taming. A something looked out of her eyes now which certainly would not have been there had the man chanced to look up. But he didn’t. The whiteness of the paper seemed to absorb all his keenest interest.

  “I rather think you always fancy I’m side-tracked, Seth,” the girl said at last. “You don’t think I have a serious thought in my foolish head.”

  Seth looked up now and smiled.

  “Guess you’ve always been a child to me,” he said. “An’ kiddies ain’t bustin’ with brain—generly. However, I don’t reckon you’re foolish. ’Cep’ when you git around that Reservation,” he added thoughtfully.

  There was a brief silence. The man avoided the violet eyes. He seemed afraid to look at them. Rosebud’s presence somehow made things hard for him. Seth was a man whom long years of a life fraught with danger had taught that careful thought must be backed up by steady determination. There must be no wavering in any purpose. And this girl’s presence made him rebel against that purpose he had in his mind now.

  “That has always been a trouble between us, hasn’t it?” Rosebud said at last. And her quiet manner drew her companion’s quick attention. “But it shan’t be any more.”

  The man looked up now; this many-sided girl could still astonish him.

  “You’re quittin’ the Reservation?” he said.

  “Yes,—except the sewing and Sunday classes at the Mission,” Rosebud replied slowly. “But it’s not on your account I’m doing it,” she added hastily, with a gleam of the old mischief in her eyes. “It’s because—Seth, why do the Indians hate you? Why does Little Black Fox hate you?”

  The man’s inquiring eyes searched the bright earnest face looking down upon him. His only reply was a shake of the head.

  “I know,” she went on. “It’s on my account. You killed Little Black Fox’s father to save me.”

  “Not to save you,” Seth said. He was a stickler for facts. “And saved you.”

  “Oh, bother! Seth, you are stupid! It’s on that account he hates you. And, Seth, if I promise not to go to the Reservation without some one, will you promise me not to go there without me? You see it’s safer if there are two.”

  Seth smiled at the naïve simplicity of the suggestion. He did not detect the guile at first. But it dawned on him presently and he smiled more. She had said she was not going to visit the Reservation again.

  “Who put these crazy notions into your head, Rosebud?” he asked.

  “No one.”

  The girl’s answer came very short. She didn’t like being laughed at. And she thought he was laughing at her now.

  “Some one’s said something,” Seth persisted. “You see Little Black Fox has hated me for six years. There is no more danger for me now than there was when I shot Big Wolf. With you it’s kind o’ different. You see—you’re grown——”

  “I see.” Rosebud’s resentment had passed. She understood her companion’s meaning. She had understood that she was “grown” before. Presently she went on. “I’ve learned a lot in the last few days,” she said quietly, gazing a little wistfully out of the window. “But nobody has actually told me anything. You see,” with a shadowy smile, “I notice things near at hand. I don’t calculate ahead. I often talk to Little Black Fox. He is easy to read. Much easier than you are, Seth,” she finished up, with a wise little nod.

  “An’ you’ve figgered out my danger?” Seth surveyed the trim figure reposing with such unconscious grace upon the table. He could have feasted his eyes upon it, but returned to a contemplation of his note-paper.

  “Yes. Will you promise me, Seth—dear old Seth?”

  The man shook his head. The wheedling tone was hard to resist.

  “I can’t do that,” he said. “You see, Rosebud, ther’s many things take me there which must be done. Guess I git around after you at times. That could be altered, eh?”

  “I don’t think you’re kind, Seth!” The girl pouted her disappointment, but there was some other feeling underlying her manner. The man looked up with infinite kindness in his eyes, but he gave no sign of any other feeling.

  “Little Rosebud,” he said, “if ther’s a creetur in this world I’ve a notion to be kind to, I guess she ain’t more’n a mile from me now. But, as I said, ther’s things that take me to the Reservation. Rube ken tell you. So——”

  The man broke off, and dipped his pen in the ink. Rosebud watched him, and, for once in her wilful life, forgot that she had been refused something, and consequently to be angry. She looked at the head bending over the paper as the man
inscribed, “Dear sirs,” and that something which had peeped out of her eyes earlier in their interview was again to be seen there.

  She reached out a hand as she slid from the table and smoothed the head of dark hair with it.

  “All right, Seth,” she said gently. “We’ll have no promises, but take care of yourself, because you are my own old—‘Daddy.’”

  At the door she turned.

  “You can write your letter now,” she said, with a light laugh. The next moment she was gone.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XI

  THE LETTER WRITTEN

  But Seth’s trials were not yet over. The two interviews just passed had given Ma Sampson sufficient time to complete her household duties. And now she entered her parlor, the pride of her home.

  She came in quite unaware of Seth’s presence there. But when she observed him at the table with his writing materials spread out before him, she paused.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, “I didn’t know you were writin’, Seth!”

  The man’s patience seemed inexhaustible, for he smiled and shook his head.

  “No, Ma,” he said with truth.

  The little old woman came round the table and occupied her husband’s chair. If Seth were not writing, then she might as well avail herself of the opportunity which she had long wanted. She had no children of her own, and lavished all her motherly instincts upon this man. She was fond of Rosebud, but the girl occupied quite a secondary place in her heart. It is doubtful if any mother could have loved a son more than she loved Seth.

  She had a basket of sewing with her which she set upon the table. Then she took from it a bundle of socks and stockings and began to overhaul them with a view to darning. Seth watched the slight figure bending over its work, and the bright eyes peering through the black-rimmed glasses which hooked over her ears. His look was one of deep affection. Surely Nature had made a mistake in not making them mother and son. Still, she had done the next best thing in invoking Fate’s aid in bringing them together. Mrs. Sampson looked no older than the day on which Rosebud had been brought to the house. As Seth had once told her, she would never grow old. She would just go on as she was, and, when the time came, she would pass away peacefully and quietly, not a day older than she had been when he first knew her.