An Apache Princess Part 18

Just before sunset she had left him and gone to her room to change her dress for the evening, and Janet's first swoop was upon her brother.

Once before during the exciting day she had had a moment to herself and him. She had so constantly fanned the flame of his belief in Blakely's gallantries as even to throttle the sense of grat.i.tude he felt, and, in spite of herself, that she felt for that officer's daring and successful services during the campaign. She felt, and he felt, that they must disapprove of Blakely--must stamp out any nascent regard that Angela might cherish for him, and to this end would never in her presence admit that he had been instrumental in the rescue of his captain, much less his captain's daughter. Hurriedly Janet had told him what she and Plume had seen, and left him to ponder over it.

Now she came to induce him to bid her tell it all to Angela. "Now that, that other--affair--seems disproved," said she, "she'll be thinking there's no reason why she shouldn't be thinking of him," and dejectedly the Scotchman bade her do as seemed best. Women, he reasoned, could better read each other's hearts.

And so Janet had gone and had thought to shock, and had most impressively detailed what she had witnessed--I fear me Janet scrupled not to embroider a bit, so much is permissible to the "unco guid" when so very much is at stake. And Angela went on brushing out her beautiful hair without a sign of emotion. To the scandal of Scotch maidenhood she seemed unimpressed by the depravity of the pair. To the surprise of Aunt Janet she heard her without interruption to the uttermost word, and then--wished to know if Aunt Janet thought the major would let her send Natzie something for supper.

Whatever the girl may have thought of this new and possible complication, she determined that no soul should read that it cost her a pang. She declined to discuss it. She did what she had not done before that day--went forth in search of Kate Sanders. Aunt Janet was astonished that her niece should wish to send food to that--that trollop. What would she have thought could she have heard what pa.s.sed a few moments later? In the dusk and the gloaming Kate Sanders was in conversation on the side veranda with a tall sergeant of her father's troop. "Ask her?" Kate was saying. "Of course I'll ask her. Why, here she comes now!" Will it be believed that Sergeant Shannon wished Miss Angela's permission to "take Punch out for a little exercise," a thing he had never ventured to ask before, and that Angela Wren eagerly said, "Yes." Poor Shannon! He did not know that night how soon he would be borrowing a horse on his own account, nor that two brave girls would nearly cry their eyes out over it, when they were barely on speaking terms.

Of him there came sad news but the day after his crack-brained, Quixotic essay. Infatuated with Elise, and believing in her promise to marry him, he had placed his savings in her hands, even as had Downs and Carmody. He had heard the story of her visiting Blakely by night, and scouted it. He heard, in a maze of astonishment, that she was being sent to Prescott under guard for delivery to the civil authorities, and taking the first horse he could lay hands on, he galloped in chase. He had overtaken the ambulance on Cherry Creek, and with moving tears she had besought him to save her. Faithful to their trust, the guard had to interpose, but, late at night, they reached Stemmer's ranch; were met there by a relief guard sent down by Captain Stout; and the big sergeant who came in charge, with special instructions from Stout's own lips, was a new king who knew not Joseph, and who sternly bade Shannon keep his distance. Hot words followed, for the trooper sergeant would stand no hectoring from an equal in rank. Shannon's heart was already lost, and now he lost his head. He struck a fellow-sergeant who stood charged with an important duty, and even his own comrades could not interpose when the infantrymen threw themselves upon the raging Irish soldier and hammered him hard before they could subdue and bind him, but bind him they did. Sadly the trooper guard went back to Sandy, bringing the "borrowed" horse and the bad news that Shannon had been arrested for a.s.saulting Sergeant Bull, and all men knew that court-martial and disgrace must follow. It was Shannon's last run on the road he knew so well. Soldiers of rank came forward to plead for him and bear witness to his worth and services, and the general commanding remitted most of the sentence, restoring to him everything the court had decreed forfeited except the chevrons. They had to go, yet could soon be regained. But no man could restore to him the pride and self-respect that went when he realized that he was only one of several plucked and deluded victims of a female sharper. While the Frenchwoman ogled and languished behind the bars, Shannon wandered out into the world again, a deserter from the troop he was ashamed to face, an unfollowed, unsought fugitive among the mining camps in the Sierras. "Three stout soldiers stricken from the rolls--two of them gone to their last account," mused poor Plume, as at last he led his unhappy wife away to the sea, "and all the work of one woman!"

Yes, Mrs. Plume was gone now for good and all, her devoted, yet sore-hearted major with her, and Wren was sufficiently recovered to be up and taking the air on his veranda, where Sanders sometimes stopped to see him, and "pa.s.s the time of day," but cut his visits short and spoke of everything but what was uppermost in his mind, because his better half persuaded him that only ill would come from preaching.

Then, late one wonderful day, the interesting invalid, Mr. Neil Blakely himself, was "paraded" upon the piazza in the Sanders's special reclining-chair, and Kate and Mrs. Sanders beamed, while nearly all society at the post came and purred and congratulated and took sidelong glances up the row to where Angela but a while before was reading to her grim old father, but where the father now read alone, for Angela had gone, as was her custom at the hour, to her own little room, and thither did Janet conceive it her duty to follow, and there to investigate.

"It won't be long now before that young man will be hobbling around the post, I suppose. How do you expect to avoid him?" said the elder maiden, looking with uncompromising austerity at her niece. Angela as before had just shaken loose her wealth of billowy tresses and was carefully brushing them. She did not turn from the contemplation of her double in the mirror before her; she did not hesitate in her reply. It was brief, calm, and to the point.

"I shall not avoid him."

"Angela! And after all I--your father and I--have told you!" And Aunt Janet began to bristle.

"Two-thirds of what you told me, Aunt Janet, proved to be without foundation. Now I doubt--the rest of it." And Aunt Janet saw the big eyes beginning to fill; saw the twitching at the corners of the soft, sensitive lips; saw the trembling of the slender, white hand, and the ominous tapping of the slender, shapely foot, but there wasn't a symptom of fear or flinching. The blood of the Wrens was up for battle. The child was a woman grown. The day of revolt had come at last.

"Angela Wr-r-ren!" rolled Aunt Janet. "D'you mean you're going to _see_ him?--speak to him?"

"I'm going to see him and--thank him, Aunt Janet." And now the girl had turned and faced the astounded woman at the door. "You may spare yourself any words upon the subject."

The captain was seated in loneliness and mental perturbation just where Angela had left him, but no longer pretending to read. His back was toward the southern end of the row. He had not even seen the cause of the impromptu reception at the Sanders's. He read what was taking place when Angela began to lose her voice, to stumble over her words; and, peering at her under his bushy eyebrows, he saw that the face he loved was flushing, that her young bosom was swiftly rising and falling, the beautiful brown eyes wandering from the page. Even before the glad voices from below came ringing to his ears, he read in his daughter's face the tumult in her guileless heart, and then she suddenly caught herself and hurried back to the words that seemed swimming in s.p.a.ce before her. But the effort was vain. Rising quickly, and with brave effort steadying her voice, she said, "I'll run and dress now, father, dear," and was gone, leaving him to face the problem thrust upon him. Had he known that Janet, too, had heard from the covert of the screened and shaded window of the little parlor, and then that she had followed, he would have shouted for his German "striker" and sent a mandate to his sister that she could not fail to understand. He did not know that she had been with Angela until he heard her footstep and saw her face at the hall doorway. She had not even to roll her r's before the story was told.

Two days now he had lived in much distress of mind. Before quitting the post Major Plume had laboriously gone the rounds, saying good-by to every officer and lady. Two officers he had asked to see alone--the captain and first lieutenant of Troop "C." Janet knew of this, and should have known it meant amende and reconciliation, perhaps revelation, but because her brother saw fit to sit and ponder, she saw fit to cling unflinchingly to her preconceived ideas and to act according to them. With Graham she was exceeding wroth for daring to defend such persons as Lieutenant Blakely and "that Indian squaw."

It was akin to opposing weak-minded theories to positive knowledge of facts. She had seen with her own eyes the ignorant, but no less abandoned, creature kneeling at Blakely's bedside, her black head pillowed close to his breast. She had seen her spring up in fury at being caught--what else could have so enraged her that she should seek to knife the intruders? argued Janet. She believed, or professed to believe, that but for the vigilance of poor Todd, now quite happy in his convalescence, the young savage would have murdered both the major and herself. She did not care what Dr. Graham said. She had seen, and seeing, with Janet, was believing.

But she knew her brother well, and knew that since Graham's impetuous outbreak he had been wavering sadly, and since Plume's parting visit had been plunged in a mental slough of doubt and distress. Once before his stubborn Scotch nature had had to strike its colors and surrender to his own subaltern, and now the same struggle was on again, for what Plume said, and said in presence of grim old Graham, fairly startled him:

"You are not the only one to whom I owe amende and apology, Captain Wren. I wronged you, when you were shielding--my wife--at no little cost to yourself. I wronged Blakely in several ways, and I have had to go and tell him so and beg his pardon. The meanest thing I ever did was bringing Miss Wren in there to spy on him, unless it was in sending that girl to the guard-house. I'd beg her pardon, too, if she could be found. Yes, I see you look glum, Wren, but we've all been wrong, I reckon. There's no mystery about it now."

And then Plume told his tale and Wren meekly listened. It might well be, said he, that Natzie loved Blakely. All her people did. She had been watching him from the willows as he slept that day at the pool.

He had forbidden her following him, forbidden her coming to the post, and she feared to wake him, yet when she saw the two prospectors, that had been at Hart's, ride over toward the sleeping officer she was startled. She saw them watching, whispering together. Then they rode down and tied their horses among the trees a hundred yards below, and came crouching along the bank. She was up in an instant and over the stream at the shallows, and that scared them off long enough to let her reach him. Even then she dare not wake him for fear of his anger at her disobedience, but his coat was open, his watch and wallet easy to take. She quickly seized them--the little picture-case being within the wallet at the moment--and sped back to her covert. Then Angela had come cantering down the sandy road; had gone on down stream, pa.s.sing even the prowling prospectors, and after a few minutes had returned and dismounted among the willows above where Blakely lay--Angela whom poor Natzie believed to be Blakely's sister. Natzie supposed her looking for her brother, and wondered why she waited. Natzie finally signaled and pointed when she saw that Angela was going in disappointment at not finding him. Natzie witnessed Angela's theft of the net and her laughing ride away. By this time the prospectors had given up and gone about their business, and then, while she was wondering how best to restore the property, Lola and Alchisay had come with the annoying news that the agent was angered and had sent trailers after her. They were even then only a little way up stream.

The three then made a run for the rocks to the east, and there remained in hiding. That night Natzie had done her best to find her way to Blakely with the property, and the rest they knew. The watch was dropped in the struggle on the _mesa_ when Mullins was stabbed, the picture-case that morning at the major's quarters.

"Was it Blakely told you all this, sir?" Wren had asked, still wrong-headed and suspicious.

"No, Wren. It was I told Blakely. All this was given me by Lola's father, the interpreter, back from Chevlon's Fork only yesterday. I sent him to try to persuade Natzie and her kinsfolk to return. I have promised them immunity."

Then Plume and Graham had gone, leaving Wren to brood and ponder, and this had he been doing two mortal days and nights without definite result, and now came Janet to bring things to a head. In grim and ominous silence he listened to her recital, saying never a word until her final appeal:

"R-r-robert, is our girlie going daft, do you think? She solemnly said to me--to me--but a minute ago, 'I mean to go to him myself--and thank him!'"

And solemnly the soldier looked up from his reclining-chair and studied his sister's amazed and anxious face. Then he took her thin, white hand between his own thin, brown paws and patted it gently. She recoiled slowly as she saw contrition, not condemnation, in his blinking eyes.

"G.o.d forgive us all, Janet! It's what I ought to have done days ago."

Another cloudless afternoon had come, and, under the willows at the edge of the pool, a young girl sat daydreaming, though the day was nearly done. All in the valley was wrapped in shadow, though the cliffs and turrets across the stream were resplendent in a radiance of slanting sunshine. Not a whisper of breeze stirred the drooping foliage along the sandy sh.o.r.es, or ruffled the liquid mirror surface.

Not a sound, save drowsy hum of beetle or soft murmur of rippling waters among the pebbly shadows below, broke the vast silence of the scene. Just where Angela was seated that October day on which our story opened, she was seated now, with the greyhounds stretched sprawling in the warm sands at her feet, with Punch blinking lazily and switching his long tail in the thick of the willows.

And somebody else was there, close at hand. The shadows of the westward heights had gradually risen to the crest of the rocky cliffs across the stream. A soft, prolonged call of distant trumpet summoned homeward for the coming night the scattered herds and herd guards of the post, and, rising suddenly, her hand upon a swift-throbbing heart, her red lips parted in eagerness or excitement uncontrollable, Angela stood intently listening. Over among the thickets across the pool the voice of an Indian girl was uplifted in some weird, uncanny song. The voice was shrill, yet not unmusical. The song was savage, yet not lacking some crude harmony. She could not see the singer, but she knew. Natzie's people had returned to the agency, accepting the olive branch that Plume had tendered them--Natzie herself was here.

At the first sound of the uplifted voice an Apache boy, crouching in the shrubbery at the edge of the pool, rose quickly to his feet, and, swift and noiseless, stole away into the thicket. If he thought to conceal himself or his purpose his caution was needless. Angela neither saw nor heard him. Neither was it the song nor the singer that now arrested her attention. So still was the air, so deep was the silence of nature, that even on such sandy roads and bridlepaths as traversed the winding valley, the faintest hoof-beat was carried far.

Another horse, another rider, was quickly coming. Tonto, the big hound nearest her, lifted his shapely head and listened a moment, then went bounding away through the willows, followed swiftly by his mate. They knew the hoof-beats, and joyously ran to meet and welcome the rider.

Angela knew them quite as well, but could neither run to meet, nor could she fly.

Only twice, as yet, had she opportunity to see or to thank Neil Blakely, and a week had pa.s.sed since her straightforward challenge to Aunt Janet. As soon as he could walk unaided, save by his stick, Wren had gone stumping down the line to Sanders's quarters and asked for Mr. Blakely, with whom he had an uninterrupted talk of half an hour.

Within two days thereafter Mr. Blakely in person returned the call, being received with awful state and solemnity by Miss Wren herself.

Angela, summoned by her father's voice, came flitting down a moment later, and there in the little army parlor, where first she had sought to "entertain" him until the captain should appear, our Angela was once again brought face to face with him who had meanwhile risked his life in the effort to rescue her father, and again in the effort to find and rescue her. A fine blush mantled her winsome face as she entered, and, without a glance at Janet, went straightway to their visitor, with extended hand.

"I am so glad to see you again, Mr. Blakely," she bravely began. "I have--so much--to thank you--" but her brown eyes fell before the fire in the blue and her whole being thrilled at the fervor of his handclasp. She drew her hand away, the color mounting higher, then snuggled to her father's side with intent to take his arm; but, realizing suddenly how her own was trembling, grasped instead the back of a chair. Blakely was saying something, she knew not what, nor could she ever recall much that anyone said during the brief ten minutes of his stay, for there sat Aunt Janet, bolt upright, after the fashion of fifty years gone by, a formidable picture indeed, and Angela wondered that anyone could say anything at all.

Next time they met she was riding home and he sat on the south veranda with Mrs. Sanders and Kate. She would have ridden by with just a nod and smile; but, at sight of her, he "hobbled" down the steps and came hurriedly out to speak, whereupon Mrs. Sanders, who knew much better, followed to "help him," as she said. "Help, indeed!" quoth angry Kate, usually most dutiful of daughters. "You'd only hinder!" But even that presence had not stopped his saying: "The doctor promises I may ride Hart's single-footer in a day or two, Miss Angela, and then--"

And now it was a "single-footer" coming, the only one at Sandy. Of course it might be Hart, not Blakely, and yet Blakely had seen her as she rode away. It was Blakely's voice--how seldom she had heard, yet how well she knew it! answering the joyous welcome of the hounds. It was Blakely who came riding straight in among the willows, a radiance in his thin and lately pallid face--Blakely who quickly, yet awkwardly, dismounted, for it still caused him pain, and then, forgetful of his horse, came instantly to her as she stood there, smiling, yet tremulous. The hand that sought hers fairly shook, but that, said Angela, though she well knew better, might have been from weakness or from riding. For a moment he did not speak. It was she who began. She thought he should know at once.

"Did you--hear her singing--too?" she hazarded.

"Hear?--Who?" he replied, grudgingly letting go the hand because it pulled with such determination.

"Why--Natzie, I suppose. At least--I haven't seen her," she stammered, her cheeks all crimson now.

"Natzie, indeed!" he answered, in surprise, turning slowly and studying the opposite willows. "It is only a day or two since they came in. I thought she'd soon be down." Obviously her coming caused him neither embarra.s.sment nor concern. "She still has a notecase of mine. I suppose you heard?" And his clear blue eyes were fastened on her lovely, downcast face.

"Something. Not much," she answered, drawing back a little, for he stood so close to her she could have heard the beating of his heart--but for her own. All was silence over there in the opposite willows, but so it was the day Natzie had so suddenly appeared from nowhere, and he saw the hurried glance she sent across the pool.

"Has she worried you?" he began, "has she been--" spying, he was going to say, and she knew it, and grew redder still with vexation. Natzie could claim at least that she was not without a shining example had she come there to spy, but Blakely had that to say to her that deserved undivided attention, and there is a time when even one's preserver and greatest benefactor may be _de trop_.

"Will you wait--one moment?" he suddenly asked. "I'll go to the rocks yonder and call her," and then, almost as suddenly, the voice was again uplifted in the same weird, barbaric song, and the singer had gone from the depths of the opposite thicket and was somewhere farther up stream, still hidden from their gaze--still, possibly, ignorant of Angela's presence. The brown eyes were at the moment following the tall, white form, moving slowly through the winding, faintly-worn pathway toward the upper shallows where, like stepping stones, the big rocks stretched from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, and she was startled to note that the moment the song began he stopped short a second or two, listened intently, then almost sprang forward in his haste to reach the crossing. Another minute and he was out of sight among the shrubbery.

Another, and she heard the single shot of a revolver, and there he stood at the rocky point, a smoking pistol in his hand. Instantly the song ceased, and then his voice was uplifted, calling, "Natzie!

Natzie!" With breathless interest Angela gazed and, presently, parting the shrubbery with her little brown hands, the Indian girl stepped forth into the light and stood in silence, her great black eyes fixed mournfully upon him. Could this be their mountain princess--the daring, the resolute, the commanding? Could this be the fierce, lissome, panther-like creature before whose blow two of their stoutest men had fallen? There was dejection inexpressible in her very att.i.tude. There was no longer bravery or adornment in her dress. There was no more of queen--of chieftain's daughter--in this downcast child of the desert.

He called again, "Natzie," and held forth his hand. Her head had drooped upon her breast, but, once again, she looked upon him, and then, with one slow, hesitant, backward glance about her, stepped forward, her little, moccasined feet flitting from rock to rock across the murmuring shallows until she stood before him. Then he spoke, but she only shook her head and let it droop again, her hands pa.s.sively clasping. He knew too little of her tongue to plead with her. He knew, perhaps, too little of womankind to appreciate what he was doing.

Finding words useless, he gently took her hand and drew her with him, and pa.s.sively she obeyed, and for a moment they disappeared from Angela's view. Then presently the tall, white form came again in sight, slowly leading the unresisting child, until, in another moment, they stepped within the little open s.p.a.ce among the willows. At the same instant Angela arose, and the daughter of the soldier and the daughter of the savage, the one with timid yet hopeful welcome and greeting in her lovely face, the other with sudden amaze, scorn, pa.s.sion, and jealous fury in her burning eyes, stood a breathless moment confronted. Then, all in a second, with one half-stifled, inarticulate cry, Natzie wrenched her hand from that of Blakely, and, with the spring of a tigress, bounded away. Just at the edge of the pool she halted, whirled about, tore from her bosom a flat, oblong packet and hurled it at his feet; then, with the dart of a frightened deer, drove through the northward willows. Angela saw her run blindly up the bank, leaping thence to the rocks below, bounding from one to another with the wild grace of the antelope. Another instant and she had reached the opposite sh.o.r.e, and there, tossing her arms wildly above her head, her black tresses streaming behind her, with a cry that was almost a scream, she plunged into the heart of the thicket; the stubborn branches closed behind her, and our Apache queen was gone. As they met, so had they parted, by the waters of the pool.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NATZIE WRENCHED HER HAND FROM THAT OF BLAKELY, AND WITH THE SPRING OF A TIGRESS BOUNDED AWAY"]

When Blakely turned again to Angela she, too, was gone. He found her a little later, her arms twined about her pony's neck, her face buried in his mane, and sobbing as though her heart would break.

On a soft, starlit evening within the week, no longer weeping, but leaning on Blakely's arm, Angela stood at the edge of the bluff, looking far out over the Red Rock country to the northeast. The sentry had reported a distant signal fire, and several of the younger people had strolled out to see. Whatever it was that had caused the report had vanished by the time they reached the post, so, presently, Kate Sanders started the homeward move, and now even the sentry had disappeared in the darkness. When Angela, too, would have returned, his arm restrained. She knew it would. She knew he had not spoken that evening at the willows because of her tears. She knew he had been patient, forbearing, gentle, yet well she knew he meant now to speak and wait no longer.

"Do you remember," he began, "when I said that some day I should tell you--but never your aunt--who it was that came to my quarters that night--and why she came?" and though she sought to remove her hand from his arm he would not let it go.

"You _did_ tell me," she answered, her eyelids drooping.