Hope Hathaway Part 9

"I reckon I was over-hasty," McCullen replied. "But that was our little girl you were talkin' about--little Hope; an' no man on earth, let alone a common squaw-man, ain't goin' to even breathe her name disrespectfully. She's like my own child. I've almost brought her up.

Learned her little baby fingers to shoot, an' had her on a horse before she could talk plain. Don't let her find this out, for I'm plumb sorry I had to hurt you; but the man who says more than you did _dies_!" He rode away and soon was lost in the deep falling shadows. The men in the cow-camp unrolled their bedding, and all was soon one with the stillness of the night.

CHAPTER IX

All the small ranchers and disreputable stragglers about that immediate vicinity were of one opinion in regard to the new sheep-man. This particular section of the country promised to be soon over-crowded with cattle and horses. There was no room in their mountains for sheep.

Livingston, the interloper, must vacate. That was the unanimous decision of the whole Harris faction. This gang was a mixture of badness, a sc.u.m of the roughest element from the face of the globe, which in new countries invariably drifts close upon the heels of the first settlers.

It is the herald of civilization, but fortunately goes on before its advance to other fields or is deeply buried in its midst. The breeds, pliable to the strong will of Joe Harris, were not an unimportant factor, and among these, old Mother White Blanket was the ruling spirit.

She lived in a tepee not a rod to the left of Harris' squalid log buildings. Her daughter was the cattle-man's wife, therefore the old woman had particular rights about the premises, a mother-in-law's rights, more honored and considered among Indians than among civilized whites.

Her tepee was the usual Indian affair, its conical, pointed top, dingy with the smoke of many camp-fires. Back of the old woman's tepee, at various distances, stood a few ordinary wall tents. These were occupied by the families of some breeds who were working for Harris. The whole, heightened by numerous dogs and the old squaw stooping over her fire, presented the appearance of a small Indian camp, such as may be seen about any reservation. The old woman's rattle-trap cart stood beside her lodge, for she had her periods of wandering, after the manner of her race. The running gears of a couple of dilapidated wagons were drawn up between the other tents, and not far away two closely hobbled horses, unmistakably Indian, for horses resemble their human a.s.sociates, fed eagerly upon the short, new gra.s.s.

At an early hour, when the rising sun cast rosy lights upon every gra.s.s-covered mountain top, when bird notes from the distant brush sounded the most melodious, when the chanticleer in the barnyard became loudest in his crowing, when the dew of night began to steam upward in its vitality-giving stream, when the pigs with a grunt rose lazily upon their fore-legs, and old Mother White Blanket bent over the smoke of her newly built camp-fire, the girl school-teacher came out of her room and leaned against the smooth rain-washed logs of the building. She drew in with every deep breath new vitality to add to her plentiful fund of it, she saw the rosy glow upon the mountains, listened in awe and rapture to the bird notes from the brush, and finally brought herself back to more material things; to old Mother White Blanket and the Indian scene spread out before her.

The old woman was bending over the fire apparently unconscious of the girl's presence. From the school children Hope had learned something of the wonderful perceptive powers of Mother White Blanket. They had innumerable stories of witchcraft to tell, as various as they were astonishing, and, while crediting nothing, she felt a quickened interest in the old squaw. But she had so far no opportunity to cultivate her acquaintance. Generally the s.p.a.ces between the tents were filled with groups of breeds, and these she had no inclination to approach. Now, quiet pervaded the place. No one except the old woman and herself were about. She knew full well that the squaw had seen her, but on an impulse walked over beside the tepee, spreading out her hands to the warmth of the fire.

"Good-morning!" she exclaimed. Mother White Blanket made no reply, and turning her back proceeded to fill a large black kettle with water.

"Good-morning!" repeated Hope in French, to which greeting the old woman grunted, while she placed the kettle over the fire.

"I beg your pardon," continued Hope. "I forgot for the moment you were French."

At this old White Blanket stood up, anger bristling all over her.

"What you come here for? You stand there and make fun. You think I don't know you make fun at me? Go away, girl, or you be sorry! You call me French and laugh to yourself. Go away, I say!"

"No," said the girl, "I shall not go away until it pleases me. I have heard that you are a great woman, a witch, and I want to find out if it is true." She had not one particle of belief in the old woman's generally credited supernatural powers, but she thought she must possess sharp wit to so deceive the people and was curious to know more about her. This she was destined to do.

"I have heard," she continued, "that you can bring the wild deer to your side by calling to them, that a horse or cow will lie down and die when you command, and that little children who annoy you are taken with severe pains in their stomachs. I have heard that you can say 'go' to any of your men or women and they go; that if anyone is sick you can lay your hand on them and they are well, and that you can tell the future and the past of anyone. If all these things are true you must be a very great, remarkable woman. Is it true that you can do all these things?"

She waited a moment and, as the old woman offered no reply, went on: "Whether you can do these things or not, you still remain, in my eyes, a remarkable woman in possessing the ability to make people believe that you can."

"You shall believe them too, _you_!" said the woman, suddenly rising and confronting the girl.

As she spoke two yellow fangs of teeth protruded from her thin lips, and on her face was the snarl of a dog. She drew up her mummified face within two inches of the girl's own. Hope shuddered and involuntarily moved backward toward the house. With every step she took the squaw followed, her weazened face and cruel, baneful eyes held close to hers.

"You murderer of men, you teacher of little children, you butcher, I will show you my power!"

The girl recoiled from the frenzied woman, shutting out the sight with her hands and moving backward step by step until she leaned against the smooth logs of the building. There the foolishness of her sudden fright presented itself. Should the grimaces of a weazened old squaw frighten her into a fit, or should she pick up the bony thing and throw her over the top of the tepee? An impulse to do the latter came over her--then to her fancy she could hear the crashing of brittle bones. What she did do, however, was to take her hands away from her eyes and look at the old witch fearlessly. At this old White Blanket broke into a terrible jargon, not a word of which was intelligible. Her voice rose to its utmost pitch. The crisp morning air resounded with its sharp intonations.

Hope leaned against the logs of the house, lashing the squaw into greater fury by her cool, impertinent gaze. She began to be interested in the performance, speculating to just what degree of rage the old woman would reach before she foamed at the mouth, and as to how much strength she would have to exert to pitch the frail thing bodily into the top of the tepee.

At that instant a man, apparently hurriedly dressed, rushed from the lodge and grasped the old woman by the arm.

"What're you doin'? Go over there and git my breakfast, and don't be all day about it!"

The old woman's face changed marvelously. She calmed like a dove, under the hand of her son-in-law, but before turning away began muttering what might have been intended for an apology.

"I no hurt her. She think I know nothing. I _show_ her."

The man laughed good-naturedly.

"Well, you show me some grub an' that'll be enough fer one day, I reckon. Wimmen folks should be seen an' not heard, an' you make as much noise as an old guinea hen." Meekly the old woman continued her interrupted task, showing that in spite of his gruff speech she entertained great respect for her tall son-in-law, Long Bill.

"Hope the old woman didn't frighten you, Miss. She don't mean nothin' by it, only she gits them spells once in a while," apologized Long Bill politely. Hope gave a short laugh, while the man continued: "Seems like all Hades is turned loose when she does git on the rampage, though."

"Probably I aggravated her. If so, I am sorry. But I wouldn't have missed it--not for anything. Her rage was perfect--such gestures, and _such_ expressions!"

At her words the man smiled, holding up to his face as he did so a bandaged hand. In an instant her eyes were riveted upon it. She had searched for that hand since Sat.u.r.day evening among all the men she had chanced to see. That this great, strong fellow possessed it eased her conscience, if, indeed, it had greatly troubled her. She wanted to get him to talk about the hand, but shifted her eyes from it to the old woman moving slowly before the tepee.

"She seems a very interesting woman," she remarked casually to Long Bill, who through sheer awkwardness made no attempt to move away.

"Oh, she's a little locoed, but barrin' that she's smarter'n a steel trap. They ain't nothin' goin' on but she's got her eye peeled. If she takes a likin' to anyone she'll just about break her neck to please, but," he added in a lower voice, "if she ain't a-likin' anyone she's just about the _orneriest_, _cussedest_----" Words failed, in view of the critical eyes before him.

"Do you belong to the family?" asked Hope, observing: "I noticed you came from the tepee."

"Well, you see," replied the man awkwardly, "I sort of do--that is, I did. I married her youngest girl awhile back, but I ain't sure now we're goin' to make it a go. You see I 'lowed to meet her here when the round-up come 'round to these parts, but here's she's done run off to Canada with some o' her folks, and I ain't set eyes on her fer nigh on to four months. But we've been spliced all right 'nough, an' the old woman's mighty fond o' me."

"I should think you would be glad of that!" exclaimed Hope. "It would be too bad if she didn't like you. I am sorry she is not in a more amiable mood, for I'd really like to talk with her; but perhaps I will be permitted to approach her later in the day."

"Oh, she'll be all right, now she's had her spell out," a.s.sured Long Bill.

"You speak of the round-up; why are you not with it?" queried the girl, with cool intent.

Long Bill brought his huge bandaged fist up before him, resting it upon the well one.

"I had a little accident th' other day," he explained, "an' hurt my hand powerful bad. It ain't goin' to be much use fer handlin' a rope fer quite a spell. Had to let the round-up move away without me." His voice grew plaintive.

She spoke quickly, with great compa.s.sion. "I am sorry! It seems too bad to see a great big fellow like you disabled. How did it happen?"

"Well, it was like this: I come over here th' other night an' got to settin' 'round here doin' nothin', so I thought I'd improve th' time an'

clean this here gun o' mine. It's been a-needin' it powerful bad fer awhile back. I didn't know there was nary load in it until the blame thing went off an' I felt somethin' kind o' sudden an' hot piercin' my left hand. It was a fool trick to do, but it's the gospel truth, Miss."

"I heard--that is, the boys said something about a shooting affair up the road." She pointed toward the sheep-man's ranch. "I thought for a moment that perhaps you had been mixed up in that. I'm very glad to know that you were not, because you know it wasn't a very nice, manly thing to do to a defenseless stranger." Her cool eyes watched his nervous shifting. "You see I can't very well help hearing a lot of things around here. The girls hear things and they tell me, and then I am often forced to overhear the men and boys talking among themselves. It's none of my business, but yet I am glad to know that you were not one to set upon an innocent white man. I scarcely know this Mr. Livingston by sight, but he is a friend of Sydney's, my cousin, and they say,"--here she drew out her words slowly and impressively,--"that over in his country he has been in the army and is well versed in firearms; also that he has a small Gatling gun with him over here that shoots hundreds of shots a minute. So he really isn't so defenseless as he seems." This startled the man into open-mouth astonishment.

"I thought there was something!--I mean I thought, when I heard tell about the fracas over there, that there was somethin' like that in the wind," stammered the man.

Apparently Hope had told a deliberate untruth to force a confession from Long Bill, but yet it was a fact that she had heard something very similar. On the day before, Sunday, Jim McCullen had come to visit her.

From his camp the noise of the shooting had been plainly heard, and through curiosity he and Carter had ridden to Livingston's ranch to inquire into it, but the sheep-man had been very reticent about the matter. Had told them only that there had been trouble with some breeds, and his herder had been killed. This old Jim repeated to Hope, adding that Livingston must have a Gatling gun concealed on his place, judging from the sound of the firing. So Hope in her effort to impress the tall cow-puncher had not used her imagination wholly.

"I am glad you had nothing to do with it," she concluded, walking slowly away toward the kitchen end of the house. "And I hope your hand will soon be well."

"That's right," said Long Bill. "I didn't have nothin' to do with it. No Gatlin' guns in mine, Miss!"