Arthur Chapman

“ Helen answered, "but I must admit that the responsibilities of being an Indian agent's wife seem alarming. The thought of there being so much to do among these people makes me afraid that I shall not be able to meet the responsibilities."
"You'll be bothered every day with Indians—men, women, and babies. You'll hear the thumping of their moccasined feet every hour of the day. They'll overrun your front porch and seek you out in the sacred precincts of your kitchen, mostly about things that are totally inconsequential." ”

“ It was fortunate that Helen had accustomed herself to long rides, as otherwise she could not have undergone the experiences of the next few hours in the saddle. All semblance of a trail seemed to end a mile or so beyond the camp. The ride became a succession of scrambles across treacherous slides of shale, succeeded by plunges into apparently impenetrable walls of underbrush and low-hanging trees. ”

“ They drove for miles toward the heart of the Indian reservation. The road had changed to narrow, parallel ribbons, with grass between. Cattle, some of which belonged to the Indians and some to white leasers, were grazing in the distance. Occasionally they could see an Indian habitation—generally a log cabin, with its ugliness emphasized by the grace of a flanking tepee. Everything relating to human affairs seemed dwarfed in such immensity. The voices of Indian herdsmen, calling to each other, were reduced to faint murmurs. ”

“ Though you are not any kinder to horseflesh than you are to human beings who come within your blighting influence, you took the saddle off the animal. Perhaps the horse had caught his foot in a stirrup as he kicked at a buzzing fly."
The keen, strong features into which Lowell gazed were mask-like in their impassiveness.
"Soon you saw something approaching on the road over the prairie," went on the agent. "It must be the automobile driven by the man you had come to meet. You saddled quickly and rode out of the sagebrush. You met the man in the automobile as he was climbing the hill. ”

“ It isn't that he wants charity so much as understanding."
"Understanding often comes quickest through charity," interposed Helen. "It seems to me that no one could ask a better life-work than to help these people."
"There's more to them than the world has been willing to concede," declared Lowell. "I never have subscribed to Parkman's theory that the Indian's mind moves in a beaten track and that his soul is dormant. The more I work among them the more respect I have for their capabilities."
Further talk of Indian affairs consumed the remainder of the trip. ”

“ I know Bill Talpers better than you do."
"What right have you to be afraid for me? I'm of age, and besides, I have a protector—a guardian—at the ranch."
Lowell was on the point of making some bitter reply about the undesirability of any guardianship assumed by Willis Morgan, squaw man, recluse, and recipient of common hatred and contempt. But he kept his counsel, and remarked, pleasantly:
"My rights are merely those of a neighbor—the right of one neighbor to help another."
"There are no rights of that sort where the other neighbor isn't asking any help and doesn't desire it." ”

“ The Indian has had to assimilate too much, as it is. It seems to me that if he makes progress slowly that is about all that can be expected of him."
"It seems to me that saving the Indian from extermination, as all this work is helping to do, is among the greatest things in the world," said Helen. "The sad thing to me is that these people seem so remote from all help. The world forgets so easily what it can't see." ”

“ Redmond, with memories of countless wider and more treacherous fords crowding upon him, merely jested at each new buffeting in the stream. The Indians were concerned only lest some pack-animal should fall in midstream. Lowell, a good horseman and tireless mountaineer, counted physical discomfort as nothing when such vistas of delight were being opened up.
The giant horseshoe in the cliffs was in semi-darkness when they came in sight of it. Lowell was in the lead, and he turned his horse and motioned to the sheriff to remain hidden in the trees that skirted the glade. ”

“ In the evening, his chief clerk, Ed Rogers, found Lowell reading a magazine.
"The talk is that you'll have to get Fire Bear for this murder," said Rogers. Then the chief clerk added, bluntly: "I thought sure you'd be working on this case."
Lowell smiled at the clerk's astonishment.
"There's nothing more that requires my attention just now," he said. "If Fire Bear is wanted, we can always get him. That's one thing that simplifies all such matters, where Indians are concerned. An Indian can't lose himself in a crowd, like a white man. Furthermore, he never thinks of leaving the reservation." ”

“ Traders on the reservation were not permitted to have such corners in their stores, but Bill, being over the line, drove such bargains as he pleased and took such security as he wished.
As Bill looked over his oft-appraised stock, it seemed to have lost much of its one-time charm. Storekeeping for a bunch of Indians and cowpunchers was no business for a smart, self-respecting man to be in—a man who had ambitions to be somebody in a busier world. The thing to do was to sell out and clear out—after he had married that girl at Morgan's ranch. ”

“ Each man looked out of the window, absorbed in his own dreams. Lowell had forsaken an active career to take up the routine of an Indian agent's life. After leaving college he had done some newspaper work, which he abandoned because a position as land investigator for a corporation with oil interests in view had given him a chance to travel in the West. There had been a chance journey across an Indian reservation, with a sojourn at an agency. ”

“ The agent said nothing, letting the panorama tell its own story.
"Oh, it's almost overwhelming," said Helen finally, with a sigh. "Sometimes it all seems so intimate, and personally friendly, and then those meadow-larks stop singing for a moment, and the sun brings out the bigness of everything—and you feel afraid, or at least I do."
Lowell smiled understandingly.
"It works on strong men the same way," he said. "That's why there are no Indian tramps, I guess. No Indian ever went 'on his own' in this big country. The tribes people always clung together. ”

“ The prosecuting attorney was quick to sense a difference in the way the Indian's story was received. When he had first told it, disbelief was evident. Today it seemed to be impressing crowd and jury as the truth.
The same sentiment seemed to be even more pronounced when Jim McFann took the stand, after Fire Bear's brief testimony was concluded without cross-examination. Audience and jury sat erect. Word was passed out to the crowd that the half-breed was testifying. In the court-room there was such a stir that the bailiff was forced to rap for order. ”

“ She had walked with a certain buoyancy of carriage which Lowell ascribed to athletics. Her eyes were brown, and rather serious of expression, but her smile was quick and natural—the sort of a smile that brings one in return, so Lowell concluded in his fragmentary process of cataloguing. Her youth was the splendid thing about her to-day. To-morrow her strong, resourceful womanhood might be still more splendid. Lowell surrendered himself completely to the enjoyment of the drive, and likewise he slowed down the car another notch. ”

“ Nor did she know that Talpers's rage over Jim McFann's weakening had been so great that the trader had nearly snatched up his rifle and shot his partner dead when the half-breed brought Helen into camp.
As a matter of fact, when Talpers had realized that Jim McFann had failed in his mission of assassination, the trader had been consumed with alternate rage and fear. A kidnaping had been the last thing in the world in the trader's thoughts. Assassination, with some one else doing the work, was much the better way. ”

“ School-teachers and other agency employees chorused good-bye as the automobile was driven away.
The girl was flushed with pleasure, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I don't blame you for liking to live on an Indian reservation," she said, "amid such cordial people."
"Well, it isn't so bad, though, of course, we're in a backwater here," said Lowell. "An Indian reservation gives you a queer feeling that way. The tides of civilization are racing all around, but here the progress is painfully slow." ”

“ A good fellow to work for was Bill Talpers if no one got too curiously inclined. One or two clerks had been disciplined on account of inquisitiveness, and they would not be as beautiful after the Talpers methods had been applied, but they had gained vastly in experience. Some day he would do even more for this young Indian agent. Bill's cracked lips were stretched in a grin of satisfaction at the very thought.
The trader traveled swiftly toward the reservation. He often boasted that he got every ounce that was available in horseflesh. Traveling with a pack-horse was little handicap to him. ”

“ He had not gone into details with his clerk. Rogers would have been surprised to know that his chief had even blocked out the scene of the murder in squares like a checkerboard. Each one of these squares had been examined, slowly and painfully. The net result had been some loose change which undoubtedly had been dropped by Talpers in robbing the murdered man; an eagle feather, probably dropped from a coup stick which some one of Fire Bear's followers had borrowed from an elder; a flint arrowhead of great antiquity, and a belt buckle and some moccasin beads. ”

“ Lowell surveyed the scene while Plenty Buffalo and the interpreter searched the prairie for more clues. The agent did not want to disturb the body nor search the automobile until the arrival of the sheriff, as the murder had happened outside of Government jurisdiction, and the local authorities were jealous of their rights. The murder had been done close to the brow of a low hill. The gently rolling prairie stretched to a creek on one side, and to interminable distance on the other. There was a carpet of green grass in both directions, dotted with clumps of sagebrush. ”

“ Apparently the two men in the glade, as Helen saw them through the inverted V of the open tent flaps, were most peacefully inclined. They sat smoking and talking, and, from all outward appearances, might have been two hunters talking over the day's prospects. Suddenly they sprang to their feet, and, with rifles in readiness, looked toward the trail, which was hidden from Helen's vision.
"Don't come any nearer, Plenty Buffalo," called Talpers, in Indian language. "If you try to rush the camp, the first thing we'll do is to kill this girl. The only thing for you to do is to go back." ”

“ The graceful lines of her figure were brought out by her riding-suit. Lowell put his palm over the gloved hand on her saddle pommel. Even so slight a touch thrilled him.
"If a neighbor has no right to give advice," said Lowell, "let us assume that my unwelcome offerings have come from a man who is deeply in love with you. It's no great secret, anyway, as it seems to me that even the meadow-larks have been singing about it ever since we started on this ride." ”

“ Helen Ervin's life in a private school for girls at San Francisco had been uneventful until her graduation. She had been in the school for ten years. Before that, she had vague recollections of a school that was not so well conducted. In fact, almost her entire recollection was of teachers, school chums, and women who had been hired as companions and tutors. Some one had paid much money for her upbringing—that much Helen Ervin knew. The mystery of her caretaking was known, of course, by Miss Scovill, head of the Scovill School, but it had never been disclosed. ”