B. M. Bower

“ Nature had played a joke upon old Peaceful Hart; for he, the mildest-mannered man who ever helped to tame the West when it really needed taming, had somehow fathered five riotous young males to whom fight meant fun—and the fiercer, the funnier.
He used to suck at his old, straight-stemmed pipe and regard them with a bewildered curiosity sometimes; but he never tried to put his puzzlement into speech. The nearest he ever came to elucidation, perhaps, was when he turned from them and let his pale-blue eyes dwell speculatively upon the face of his wife, Phoebe. ”

“ Down the winding trail of Snake River bluff straggled a blanketed half dozen of old Wolfbelly's tribe, the braves stalking moodily in front and kicking up a gray cloud of dust which enveloped the squaws behind them but could not choke to silence their shrill chatter; for old Hagar was there, and Viney, and the incident of the dog was fresh in their minds and tickling their tongues. ”

“ Once the gate swung shut upon the grove one blinked in the garish sunlight of the plains. There began the real ranch world. There was the pile of sagebrush fuel, all twisted and gray, pungent as a bottle of spilled liniment, where braided, blanketed bucks were sometimes prevailed upon to labor desultorily with an ax in hope of being rewarded with fruit new-gathered from the orchard or a place at Phoebe's long table in the great kitchen. ”

“ Evadna found words to express her thoughts, and her thoughts were as wholly conventional as was the impulse to straighten her hat.
“We've only known each other a week!” she cried tremulously, while her gloved fingers felt inquiringly for loosened hairpins. “You've no right—you're perfectly horrid! You take everything for granted—”
Good Indian laughed at her, a laugh of pure, elemental joy in life and in love.
“A man's heart does not beat by the calendar. Nature made the heart to beat with love, ages before man measured time, and prattled of hours and days and weeks,” he retorted. ”

“ Evadna was right, to a certain extent the Indian in him held him quiet.
It occurred to him that someone ought to pick up Baumberger, and put him somewhere, but he did not move. The boys and Peaceful must have stayed down in the garden, he thought. He glanced up at the tops of the nodding poplars, and estimated idly by their shadow on the bluff how long it would be before sundown, and as idly wondered if Stanley and the others would go, or stay. There was nothing they could gain by staying, he knew, now that Baumberger was out of it. Unless they got stubborn and wanted to fight. ”

“ The house stood cuddled against a rocky bluff so high it dwarfed the whole ranch to pygmy size when one gazed down from the rim, and so steep that one wondered how the huge, gray bowlders managed to perch upon its side instead of rolling down and crushing the buildings to dust and fragments. Strangers used to keep a wary eye upon that bluff, as if they never felt quite safe from its menace. ”

“ Evadna, crisp and cool in a summery dress of some light-colored stuff, and looking more than ever like a Christmas angel set a-flutter upon the top of a holiday fir in a sudden gust of wind, threw open the door, rushed halfway into the room, and stopped beside the chair of her aunt. Her hands dropped to the plump shoulder of the sitter. “Aunt Phoebe, there's a man down at the farther end of the strawberry patch! He's got a gun, Aunt Phoebe, and he's camped there, and when he heard me he jumped up and pointed the gun straight at me!” ”

“ Evadna rushed up the steps like a crisp little whirlwind, and caught his arm tightly in her two hands.
“Grant! We don't believe a word of it. You couldn't do a thing like that. Don't we KNOW? Don't pay any attention to her. We aren't going to. It'll hurt her worse than any kind of punishment we could give her. Oh, she's a VILE old thing! Too vile for words! Aunt Phoebe and I shouldn't belittle ourselves by even listening to her. SHE can't do any harm unless we let it bother us—what she says. I know you never could take a human life, Grant. It's foolish even to speak of such a thing. ”

“ He had fished all his life—had Good Indian—and had found joy in the sport. And here was he inwardly condemning a sportsman who stood self-revealed, repelling, hateful; a man who gloated over the struggle of something alive and at his mercy; to whom sport meant power indulged with impunity. Good Indian did not try to put the thing in words, but he felt it nevertheless.
“Brute!” he muttered aloud, his face eloquent of cold disgust.
At that moment Baumberger drew the tired fish gently into the shallows, swung him deftly upon the rocks, and laid hold of him greedily. ”

“ They caught the aromatic odor of tobacco smoke ascending, and knew that his presence there had all at once become the most innocent, the most natural thing in the world; for any man, waking on such a night, needs no justification for smoking a nocturnal pipe upon the porch while he gazes dreamily out upon the moon-bathed world around him.
Peppajee touched Grant's arm, and turned back, skirting the poplars again until they were well away from the house, and there was no possibility of being heard. ”

“ Miss Georgie regarded her with the frown she used when she was applying her mental measuring-stick. She began to suspect that Evadna was, after all, an extremely self-centered little person; she was sorry for the suspicion, and she was also conscious of a certain disappointment which was not altogether for herself.
“Ah, well”—she dismissed analysis and the whole subject with a laugh that was partly yawn—“away with dull care. Away with dull everything. It's too hot to think or feel. A real emotion is as superfluous and oppressive as a—a 'camel petticoat!” ”

“ As it was, she thawed toward him as he held himself more aloof, until she actually came to the point of addressing him directly, with a flicker of a smile for good measure; and, although he responded with stiff civility, he felt his blood pulse faster, and suddenly conceived the idea that women are like the creatures of the wild. If one is very quiet, and makes no advance whatever, the hunted thing comes closer and closer, and then a sudden pounce—he caught his breath. ”

“ Three Indians, Clark decided regretfully, would make a tame showing on the warpath, however much they might lend themselves to the spirit of the joke. He did not quite know how he was going to manage it, but he was hopeful still. It was unthinkable that real live Indians should be permitted to come and go upon the ranch without giving Evadna Ramsey, straight from New Jersey, the scare of her life.
The three bucks, grunting monosyllabic greetings' climbed, in all the dignity of their blankets, to the top rail of the corral, and roosted there to watch the horse-breaking ”

“ Jack and Wally came up, scowling at the world and finding no words to match their gloom. Wally gave her a glance, and went on to the blacksmith shop, but Jack went straight up to her, for he liked her well.
“What's the matter?” he asked dully. “Mad because you can't smoke up the ranch?”
Evadna fumbled blindly for her handkerchief, scoured her eyes well when she found it, and put up the other hand to further shield her face.
“Oh, the whole place is like a GRAVEYARD,” she complained. “Nobody will talk, or do anything but just wander around! I just can't STAND it!” ”

“ Miss Georgie reproved quizzically, and reached for the inevitable candy box.
“A lot of good that does, when he's never there!” flashed Evadna, unintentionally revealing her real grievance. “He just eats and goes—and he isn't even there to eat, half the time. And when he's there, he's grumpy, like all the rest.” She was saying the things she had told herself, on the way up, that she would DIE rather than say; to Miss Georgie, of all people. ”

“ It was an ideal place for hammocks and romance—a place where dainty maidens might dream their way to womanhood. And Peaceful Hart, when all was done, grew old watching five full-blooded boys clicking their heels unromantically together as they roosted upon the porch, and threw cigarette stubs at the water lilies while they wrangled amiably over the merits of their mounts ”

“ Also, it occurred to him that Peppajee, usually given over to creature comforts and the idle gossip of camp and the ranches he visited, was proving the sincerity of his manifest uneasiness by a watchfulness wholly at variance with his natural laziness. On the other hand, Peppajee loved to play the oracle, and a waving wisp of smoke, or the changing shapes in a wind-riven cloud meant to him spirit-sent prophecies not to be ignored. ”

“ Miss Georgie burned a frying-panful of fish until they sent up an acrid, blue smoke, while she ran over to try her luck with a stone or two. Even Baumberger heaved himself up from where he was lounging, and strolled over to watch. But Evadna could not have stuck closer to her rock if she had been glued there, and if she had been blind and deaf she would not have appeared more oblivious.
Good Indian grew anxious, and then angry. The savage stirred within him, and counseled immediate and complete mastery of her—his woman. ”

“ Phoebe bit her lips because she wanted to treat the subject very seriously. “I want you to promise me, honey, that you will be particularly nice to Grant; PARTICULARLY nice. He's so alone, and he's very proud and sensitive, because he feels his loneliness. No one understands him as I do—”
“I hate him!” gritted Evadna, in an emphatic whisper which her Aunt Phoebe thought it wise not to seem to hear. ”

“ Grant smiled bitterly. “All men are savages under the skin,” he said. “How do YOU know what I think and feel? If I fail to come through with the conventional patter, I am called an Indian—because my mother was a half-breed.” He threw up his head proudly, let his eyes rest for a moment upon the moon, swimming through a white river of clouds just over the tall poplar hedge planted long ago to shelter the orchard from the sweeping west winds ”

“ If either Stanley or Baumberger had chanced to look toward Good Indian, he might have wondered why that young man had come, of a sudden, to resemble so strongly his mother's people. He had that stoniness of expression which betrays strong emotion held rigidly in check, with which his quivering nostrils and the light in his half-shut eyes contrasted strangely. ”

“ I told Hagar so. What do you care what she says about you? You don't want to fight an old woman, Grant—a man can't fight a woman—”
“You tell her you heap big liar!” Grant did not even look at Phoebe, but his purpose seemed to waver in spite of himself. “You all time kay bueno. You all time lie.” He gripped her more firmly, and turned his head slightly toward Phoebe. “You'd be tired of it yourself if she threw it into you like she does into me, Mother Hart. It's got so I can't ride past this old hag in the trail but she gives me the bad eye, and mumbles into her blanket. ”

“ Good Indian appraised the situation with a quick glance as he came up, but he did not slacken his pace until he was within ten feet of Stanley.
“You're across the dead line, m' son,” said Stanley, with lazy significance. “And you, too,” he added, flickering a glance at Miss Georgie.
“The dead line,” said Good Indian coolly, “is beyond the Point o' Rocks. I'd like to see you on the other side by sundown.”
Stanley looked him over, from the crown of his gray hat to the tips of his riding-boots, and laughed when his eyes came back to Good Indian's face. ”

“ Nearer, the meadow of alfalfa and clover lay like a soft, green carpet of velvet, lined here and there with the irrigation ditches which kept it so. And in the center of the meadow, a small inclosure marked grimly the spot where lay the bones of old John Imsen. All around the man-made oasis of orchards and meadows, the sage and the sand, pushed from the river by the jumble of placer pits, emphasized by sharp contrast what man may do with the most unpromising parts of the earth's surface, once he sets himself heart and muscle to the task. ”

“ Good Indian gave her a glance of grateful understanding. “This thing has hit me hard,” he confided suddenly. “I've been holding myself in all day. The Harts are like my own folks. They're all I've had, and she's been—they've all been—” Then the instinct of repression walled in his emotion, and he let the rest go in a long breath which told Miss Georgie all she needed to know. So much of Good Indian would never find expression in speech; all that was best of him would not, one might be tempted to think.
“By the way, is there any pay dirt on that ranch?” ”

“ I'm not really stupid. You don't like me any better than I like you. I can see that. We're to be as decent as possible to each other—you from 'common humanity,' and I because I promised Aunt Phoebe.”
“We-e-l!—that's about it, I guess.” Grant eyed her sidelong.” Only I wouldn't go so far as to say I actually dislike you. I never did dislike a girl, that I remember. I never thought enough about them, one way or the other.” He seemed rather fond of that statement, he repeated it so often.” The life I live doesn't call for girls. ”

“ Evadna asserted warmly. “And so is Aunt Phoebe.”
“To be sure.” Miss Georgie smiled indulgently. “I quite agree with you. And by the way, I met that polysyllabic cowboy again—and I discovered that, on the whole, my estimate was incorrect. He's emphatically monosyllabic. I said sixteen nice things to him while I was waiting for Pete to wake up Saunders; and he answered in words of one syllable; one word, of one syllable. I'm beginning to feel that I've simply got to know that young man. There are deeps there which I am wild to explore. I never met any male human in the least like him. ”

“ She sprang up and backed from him, horror plain in her wide eyes. “Make him keep away, Aunt Phoebe!”
Good Indian straightened, and stood perfectly still, looking at her in a stunned, incredulous way.
“Chicken, don't be silly!” Miss Georgie's sane tones were like a breath of clean air. “You've simply gone all to pieces. I know what nerves can do to a woman—I've had 'em myself. Grant isn't going to bite you, and you're not afraid of him. You're proud of him, and you know it. He's acted the man, chicken!—the man we knew he was, all along. ”

“ What sort of a young man is he?”
“He's a perfectly horrid young man.” Evadna leaned to help herself to more chocolates. “He—well, just to show you how horrid, he calls me a—a Christmas angel! And—”
“Did he!” Miss Georgie eyed her measuringly between bites. “Tag him as being intelligent, a keen observer, with the ability to express himself—” She broke off, and turned her head ungraciously toward the sounder, which seemed to be repeating something over and over with a good deal of insistence. “That's Shoshone calling,” she said, frowning attentively. ”

“ Evadna's eyes were very blue and very bright, but there was no look of an angel in her face.
Miss Georgie pressed her lips together tightly for a minute. When she spoke, she was cheerfully impersonal as to tone and manner.
“Chicken, you're a little goose. The man is simply crazy about you, and harassed to death with this ranch business. Once that's settled—well, you'll see what sort of a lover he can be!” ”

“ Jack interrupted her, coldly. “Why didn't you say that to Good Indian?”
“I told you not to call him that. I don't see why everybody is so mean to-day. There isn't a person—”
When Jack laughed, he shut his eyes until he looked through narrow slits under heavy lashes, and showed some very nice teeth, and two deep dimples besides the one which always stood in his chin. He laughed then, for the first time that day, and if Evadna had been in a less vixenish temper she would have laughed with him just as everyone else always did. ”

“ Me want one girl. Me send one letter, tell that girl come, be all time my girl. Five days ago, that girl come. Her heap glad; boys all time heap glad, my man heap glad. Bueno. Mebbyso you glad me have one girl.” Not that their approval was necessary, or even of much importance; but Phoebe was accustomed to treat them like spoiled children.
Hagar's lip was out-thrust again. “Yo' ketchum one girl, mebbyso yo' no more likum my boy Wally. Kay bueno.”
“Heap like all my boys jus' same,” Phoebe hastened to assure her, and added with a hint of malice, “Heap like my boy Grant all same.” ”

“ Evadna looked sidelong at Good Indian, as if a secret had been betrayed. “No,” she said, “I didn't. I just got to the top of the grade when a squaw came along, and she was leading Huckleberry. A gaudy young squaw, all red and purple and yellow. She was awfully curious about you, Grant. She wanted to know where you were and what you were doing. I hope you aren't a flirtatious young man. ”

“ It is astonishing how a family can live for months together, and not realize how little real privacy there is for anyone until something especial comes up for secret discussion. It struck Good Indian forcibly that afternoon, because he was anxious for a word in private with Peaceful, or with Phoebe, and also with Evadna—if it was only to continue their quarrel. ”

“ A little later, Phoebe boldly invaded the secret chambers of Good Indian's heart when he was readjusting the rocks which formed the floor of the milk-house.
“Now, Grant,” she began, laying her hand upon his shoulder as he knelt before her, straining at a heavy rock, “Mother Hart is going to give you a little piece of her mind about something that's none of her business maybe.”
“You can give me as many pieces as you like. They're always good medicine,” he assured her. ”

“ Good Indian finished. “I didn't tell a soul, either, for that matter.”
They left the meadowland and the broad stretch of barren sand and sage, and followed, at a leisurely pace, the winding of the trail through the scarred desolation where the earth had been washed for gold. Evadna stared absently at the network of deep gashes, evidently meditating very seriously. Finally she turned to Grant with an honest impulse of friendliness. ”

“ Good Indian shook off the touch as if it were a tarantula upon him.
“You go to the devil,” he advised chillingly.
“Tut, tut!” Baumberger reproved gently. “The ladies are within hearing, my boy. Let's get at this thing sensibly and calmly. Violence only makes things worse. See how quiet Wally and Jack and Clark and Gene are! THEY realize how childishly spiteful it would be for them to follow your example. They know better. They don't want—”
Jack grinned, and hitched his gun into plainer view. ”

“ Good Indian was thinking how barren had been his talk with Peppajee, and was realizing keenly how much he had expected from the interview. It is frequently by the depth of our disappointment only that we can rightly measure the height of our hope. He had come to Peppajee for something tangible, some thing that might be called real evidence of the conspiracy he suspected. He had got nothing but suspicion to match his own. As for Miss Georgie Howard—
“What can she do?” he thought resentfully, feeling as if he had been offered a willow switch with which to fight off a grizzly. ”

“ Wally was trying to send his mother to the house with Evadna, and neither would go. Miss Georgie was standing near Good Indian, watching Stanley with her lips pressed together.
It is doubtful if Good Indian realized what the others were doing. He had gone straight past the line of stakes to where Stanley was sitting with his back against the lightning-stricken apricot tree. Stanley was smoking a cigarette as if he had heard nothing of the excitement, but his rifle was resting upon his knee in such a manner that he had but to lift it and take aim. ”

“ Lovers, it would seem, require much less material for a quarrel than persons in a less exalted frame of mind.
Good Indian believed himself very much in love with his Christmas angel, and was very much inclined to let her know it, but at the same time he saw no reason why he should not sit down in Miss Georgie's rocking-chair, if he liked, and he could not quite bring himself to explain even to Evadna his reason for doing so. It humiliated him even to think of apologizing or explaining, and he was the type of man who resents humiliation more keenly than a direct injury. ”

“ The buck pulled a brass watch ostentatiously from under his blanket, held it to his ear a moment, as if he needed auricular assurance that it was running properly, and pointed to the hour of three. “Ketchum one dolla, mebbyso pikeway quick. No stoppum,” he said virtuously.
“You see Peaceful in Hartley?” Good Indian asked the question from an idle impulse; in reality, he was wondering what it was that Miss Georgie had to tell him.
“Peacefu', him go far off. On train. All same heap fat man go 'long. Mebbyso Shoshone, mebbyso Pocatello.” ”

“ Old Peaceful Hart cleared his throat, glanced furtively at Phoebe, and drew his hand down over his white beard. The boys puffed their cheeks with the laughter they would, if possible, restrain, and eyed Evadna's set face aslant. It was Good Indian who rebuked the offender.
“Peppajee, mebbyso you no more say them words,” he said quietly. “Heap kay bueno. White man no tellum where white woman hear. White woman no likum hear; all time heap shame for her.” ”

“ Good Indian laughed softly and bent to his work again.
“ARE you, Grant?” Phoebe laid a moist hand on his shoulder, and felt the muscles sliding smoothly beneath his clothing while he moved a rock. “I ain't mad because you and Vadnie fell out; I kind of looked for it to happen. Love that grows like a mushroom lasts about as long—only I don't call it love! ”

“ I believe that horrid old thing lies awake nights just thinking up nasty, wicked lies to tell about the people she doesn't like. I don't think you ought to ride around alone so much, Grant; she might murder you. It's in her to do it, if she ever got the chance.”
“What do you suppose made her ring Georgie Howard in like that?” Phoebe speculated, looking at Grant. “She must have some grudge against her, too.”
“I don't know why.” Good Indian spoke unguardedly, because he was still thinking of Rachel and those laboriously printed words which he had scattered afar. ”

“ Good Indian pulled his glance from Evadna, and tried to bore through the beefy mask which was Baumberger's face, but all he found there was a gross interest in his breakfast and a certain indulgent sympathy for Evadna's fear, and he frowned in a baffled way.
“Who ever heard of a tramp camped in our orchard!” flouted Phoebe. “They don't get down here once a year, and then they always come to the house. You couldn't know there WAS any strawberry patch behind that thick row of trees—or a garden, or anything else.” ”

“ Good Indian looked at her, and at Evadna. He opened his lips for speech, and closed them without saying a word. That near he came to telling them the truth about meeting Miss Georgie, and explaining about the hair and the knife and the footprints Hagar had prated about. But he thought of Rachel, and knew that he would never tell anyone, not even Evadna. The girl loosened his arm, and moved toward her aunt.
“I hate Indians—squaws especially,” she said positively. “I hate the way they look at one with their beady eyes, just like snakes. ”