Eleanor Gates

“ Life at the shack was even less eventful. For Dallas, it was a season of idleness. The pumpkins and the melons were swelling; the tasselled corn wanted weeks before it would ripen; the field and garden were free of weeds. With no work to do, alone except for her sister, the elder girl had ample time to worry.
[Pg 310] Marylyn saw that she was dispirited, and increased in tenderness toward her, following her about with eyes that entreated, yet were not sad. At breakfast she spitted the choicest cuts for Dallas. In the noon heat, she was at her elbow with a dipper of ginger-beer. ”

“ A young warrior was lingering at the lodge flap, blowing spirals of kinnikinick. He burst into a laugh. "Ho! ho!" he taunted. "The squaw of a squaw drudges to-day. Ho! ho!"
The crone joined in the laugh. Then, "Standing Buffalo may enter," she said, and respectfully led the way into the wigwam.
The pariah heard, yet did not pause. But when, among the dogs again, he cleaned at the deer hide with short, swift strokes, a light once more flamed up in his dull eyes—a light unlike the one that had burned in them at Brown Mink's fireside. ”

“ But long after Marylyn left the window, the elder girl remained outside. The dun of the east was painted out with uprushing waves of pink. The stars sank back into the heavens, grew smaller and dimmer, and, one by one, disappeared. Finally, a yellow rind, haloed in mist, was thrust above the level of the prairie. As Dallas greeted it, the distant ridge of a snow-drift, rose-tinged like the sky, hid the crawling speck that was the pung.
On his arrival behind David Bond, Nick Matthews had found that full pockets were plentiful among the soldiery, and had promptly gone about emptying them. ”

“ The wide valley was brown, with green splots and tracings for slough and stream. The distant ranges were grey. The sky showed the misty blue of the dog-days. Far off to the north and west, black streaks edged the horizon, where smoke rolled up from prairie-fires.
Brannon was quiet to the point of lethargy. Guard was mounted, and daily dress-parade held ceremoniously. The trumpet blew its unvarying round of commands. There was no hunting, and no field duty beyond the scouting of the eastern shore. The hoarse salute of an upward-plying steamer roused the garrison to life one morning. ”

“ Then, from beside it, she picked up the Sharps.
He saw that, and his jaw squared. The blood darkened his face, too, as if the sight shamed him. He spurred faster, reined so sharply that the horse slid upon its fetlocks, and swung off.
"Dallas!" he cried. It was not a greeting, but a plea.
The moment was one long dreamed of, yearned for. A woman less genuine might have met it without a show of feeling. She—outspoken and simple—could not. Her eyes swam. Dropping the gun, she clasped his hand greedily. ”

“ The road touched the coulée again, bringing close the giant cottonwoods, where the Sioux dead were lashed; and the girls, glancing toward the trees, suddenly caught a glimpse of long, wrapped bodies.
Marylyn edged toward her sister. "Oh, I hope it'll be light when we get here coming back," she whispered, shuddering.
"We won't be alone," answered Dallas, reassuringly.
The coulée was deep and dark at that point, and full of queer shadows. From the boughs that cradled the braves came uncanny flutterings, as the wind shook loosened scraps of the sleepers' covering. ”

“ Again mingled cries went up from the troopers: "The shack, boys!" "They'll kill them girls!" "God!"
Oliver saw the need. "To the ferry," he commanded.
Like one man, they bounded headlong across the parade, through the red smoke pouring from barracks and stables, and on—only to come short upon a boatless landing, where they crowded upon each other and cursed.
Fraser was half-crazed. Oliver took him forcibly in hand. No man of them all, even if not burdened with a gun, could stem the river's current. ”

“ Lancaster and the younger girl stayed in bed all of the twenty-four hours. Dallas got up only long enough to tend the animals and prepare food. But a day came when she could not make her way to the lean-to, and when the warped door could not be opened in the teeth of the raging storm. Toward noon, she cooked some food, however. The seed sacks were empty; there was no rice and no flour. While the blizzard howled without, and Simon and the mules called pitifully for their fodder and drink, she broke up what was left of the table. ”

“ Lame Foot addressed his brothers. "We delay too long," he cautioned. "Standing Buffalo, go forward and slay the she-skunk, and let us hasten."
Standing Buffalo waved his bow aloft. "I do so," he promised. "But you, Medicine-Giver, must hold me clean of shame for fighting a squaw!" Then, to the outcast, "Come out, coffee-cooler, and die." He halved the distance between him and the Throat.
Squaw Charley approached him watchfully, setting a shaft in place. His face seemed all eyes—eyes burning with a fierce joy. Standing Buffalo fitted an arrow. Both raised their bows. ”

“ The night of the third day there was activity on the other bank of the Missouri. Unknown to shack and fort, the squalid line of shanty saloons that stretched itself like a waiting serpent along a high bench opposite the new stockade, sprang into sudden life. Two wagons filled with men and barrels crossed the bend and emptied themselves into the dilapidated buildings. And far into the early hours, loud laughter, the click of chips and the clink of glasses disturbed the quiet of the night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the first call for the trumpeters, Lounsbury routed the sutler in a quest for breakfast. Then, once more he sought the river. There was no waiting for men to row him. He found the small boat, headed for the beach below Shanty Town, mounted the cayuse, and climbed the steep road to the prairie. Before him, on a green stretch between river and shack, he saw Dallas.
She was cutting grass in that same swale across which, a month before, had been tracked the deep-planted, laboured footprints. ”

“ And, as if totally unconscious of the action, David Bond reached up and bared his head.
"I love that summons," he said; "it bids our good lads wake and do their duty."
Lancaster was not unmindful of the courtesy due a guest. But any reference to patriotism was offensive, and he had been particularly provoked. So, behind the broad shoulders of the other he disdainfully turned up his nose.
They were off at last, with Marylyn watching them from a window, and Dallas walking alongside for a few rods to say good-by and to pat Shadrach's bony, white flanks encouragingly. ”

“ The evangelist had laid a charge upon him: No matter what came, he was to think first of the shack. He had accepted it before he knew it would clash with his own purpose. Was he held to the promise now? David Bond was dead. If he were not obeyed, he could never come back to punish.
But he had said to give up all—even life. He had given his own life for the stolen white women. What he preached he had followed. "Greater love," he had said, "hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." ”

“ As he hunted along the bare ridge, something more than the frigid gusts that whipped the skirt about his lean shanks urged him to finish his gathering and go riverward. In the little snug cabin out on the prairie a cheery welcome awaited him; before the glowing coals in the stone fireplace he could warm his shaking legs; there was good food for his empty stomach. But, better than all else, there a kindly face always smiled a greeting.
The blanket piled so high with chips that its weight balanced the grain-sack, he prepared to start riverward. ”

“ And at the tail of each horse, surrounded by limping Indian dogs, came a travee laden with a wounded or aged Indian, or heaped with cooking utensils, blankets and buffalo-skins.
One woman of all the squaws rode a pony that had not a double burden. She was dressed in buckskin and bright calico, and sat upon a blanket that almost covered her horse. Her hair was braided neatly, her dark cheeks were daubed with carmine. She kept a rigid seat as she passed Dallas, and her black eyes answered the other's kindly look with one full of sullen pride. ”

“ Under the cottonwoods that shadowed the landing-place, the clematis trailed its tufts of fluffy grey; a cluster of wind-flowers nodded, winking their showy blue eyes; birds whisked about to fetch straws and scraps for their building; and the grass, bright green, but stubby, wore a changing spatterwork of sun and leaf.
Marylyn let drop her bonnet and the cow-horn that hung by a thong to her wrist. Then, with folded hands, she looked up and around her, sniffing the warm air in delight. The Texas home had never offered such a lovely retreat. ”

“ The pariah was recalled from his backward glances. Rising, he extended an arm to direct David Bond's attention. And the old man, rising also, made out the squat shack of the Lancasters, almost hidden from sight by drifts. With a fervent prayer of thanksgiving, he touched up Shadrach and steered him toward it, pausing only long enough for the Indian to load the chip-sack and the filled blanket on top of the wheels and hay. ”

“ Not a stream, not a butte, not even a nubbin of rock varied the view. And not a head of cattle! To the south moved a score of yellow animals—antelope. But these and a village of saucy prairie-dogs were the only signs of life. The land dropped away by imperceptible degrees. As imperceptibly, it melted into a mellow sky.
Dallas and Marylyn were each intent upon Clark's, lying far ahead, and to the left, a dun-coloured line which seemed scarcely to get nearer as the time went. But after an hour, their patience was rewarded. ”

“ If Dallas, as she crossed the sill, formed, with the swift keenness of the plainswoman, a new and truer estimate of Lounsbury, he, saluting cordially, failed not to measure her. The dirt-floored shack, partitioned by Navajo blankets and furnished with unplaned benches, was a background totally unsuited to Marylyn's delicate beauty; but for the elder daughter of the section-boss, its very rude simplicity seemed strangely fine and fitting.
Many women had come under the storekeeper's notice during his frontier life: Roughly reared women of pure ways who toiled and bore with the patience of beasts ”

“ And now Red Moon leaped back to resume his stand. With his turning, the band drew after, sending a shower of arrows.
At the Throat he faced them again.
"Braves!" he laughed mockingly. "Dogs—that fight like dogs, a pack against one!"
Now he shot, swift and unerringly. Here one flattened; there, another; a third broke his jaw upon a stone. Till from their midst flew the missile of Big Ox, hard-driven, straight. Quivering, it buried its deadly point in Red Moon's breast.
Deafening whoops echoed in the narrow canyon, drowning the hoof-beats of a nearing horse. ”

“ Towering pines and spreading oaks, lush grass strewn with blossoms, clear-running streams and gay-feathered birds replaced thirsty vegetation, salt lakes, and hovering vultures. They travelled slowly, each day bringing some fresh delight to ear and eye, until one evening in the waning Dakota summer they camped beside a great crooked split in the prairie, on a flat peninsula made by a sweeping westward bend of the muddy Missouri. ”

“ But from under the wide, battered felt that had supplanted the nubia, his eyes shone with no resentment, only fatherly tenderness.
"You wonder why I do not remain," he began, "so that Matthews could be sent away. I shall tell you."
She let the reins fall to the drag. "That isn't it," she answered quickly. "We have no right to ask you to do anything after the way dad treated you. But the Colonel sent you over to tell us to look out. Didn't he? And he keeps a man over there—pays him to stay—and that man is a sight worse than an Indian!" ”

“ Many months later, when Evan Lancaster's wounds were at last healed, Ben and Betty were unhitched from a dirt-laden scraper on the siding and put before a white-topped prairie-schooner. Then the old section-boss, with his crutches beside him and his daughters seated in the all but empty box behind, said a husky farewell to the men crowding around the wagon, and started the mules along the road that led northward beside the rails. ”

“ But Marylyn, as they drew away, looked regretfully backward—to where a clump of tall cottonwoods, shaking their heart-shaped leaves in the wind, dappled a flower-studded stretch below the coulée mouth.
Rod by rod the mules climbed the gently sloping prairie. The morning was perfect, and belied, in its beauty, even a suggestion of lurking harm. The air, crystal-clear and exhilarating, brought far things magically near to the eye. ”