The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 47

"Your position is equally strange to me; but duties will discover themselves--later. A life without duties is impossible."

"I know what you mean, but I do not intend to allow any duty to circ.u.mscribe my art." This she uttered defiantly.

"I don't like to hear you say that. Life is greater than art."

She laughed. "How different our points of view! You are Anglo-Saxon, I am French. Art counts far more with us."

"Was your mother French? I did not know that."

"Yes--a Canadian. I have her nature rather than that of my father."

"Sometimes I think you are your father's daughter. Did your mother live to enjoy her husband's success?"

"Not to the full. Still, she had a nice home in Alta, where I was born.

She died before he was elected Senator." They had nearly reached the agency now, and she shook off her sober mood. "Shall we go in with a dash?"

"I'm agreed."

She put quirt to her horse and they entered the lane at a flying gallop.

As he a.s.sisted her to alight at the studio door he said:

"I hope your father will not require you to join him in the East. It is a great pleasure to have you here." His voice touched something vibrant in her heart.

"Oh, I don't think he will when he fully understands the situation. I'm sure I don't want to go. I shall write him so."

Curtis rode away elate as a boy. Something which he did not care to define had come to him from her, subtle as a perfume, intangible as light, and yet it had entered into his blood with most transforming effect. He put aside its a.n.a.lysis, and went about his duties content with the feeling that life was growing richer day by day.

Wilson, seeing his shining face, sighed and said to himself: "I guess the Major has found his girl. He's a lucky dog. I wish I could pick up even a piece of plain calico, I'd be satisfied." And he ran through a list of the unmarried women within reach, to no result, as usual.

Meanwhile the supply-wagons had arrived, and Captain Maynard was overseeing the laying-out of the camp just below the agency. Lieutenant Payne and his command returned at five o'clock, and in a short time the little village of white tents was in order. Curtis came over to insist that the officers take dinner with them at "the parsonage," and, as Captain Maynard had already spoken of the good company and the excellent dinner he had enjoyed in the middle of the day, Lieutenant Payne was quite ready to comply, especially as his lunch had been as light as his breakfast.

The meal was as enjoyable as the mid-day dinner, and the Parkers derived much comfort from the presence of the soldiers.

"I guess I'm not fitted to be a pioneer artist," Parker confessed, and the hearty agreement he met with quite disconcerted him.

Mrs. Parker was indignant at the covert ridicule of her husband, and was silent all through the meal; indeed, the burden of the conversation fell upon Jennie and Maynard, but they were entirely willing to bear it, and were not lacking for words.

"It is good to hear the bugles again," Jennie remarked, as one of the calls rang out on the still air, sweet and sad and as far removed from war as a love song.

"They're not so pleasant when they call to the same monotonous round of daily duties," said Mr. Payne.

Curtis smiled. "Here's another disgruntled officer. What would you do--kill off the Indians and move into the city?"

"To kill off a few measly whites might insure completer peace and tranquillity," replied Maynard.

"You fellows couldn't be more righteously employed," put in Lawson. "You might begin on the political whoopers round about."

"What blasphemy!" cried Jennie. "These 'n.o.ble pioneers!'"

"Founding a mighty State," added Curtis.

"Founding a state of anarchy!" retorted Lawson. "They never did have any regard for law, except a law that worked in their favor."

Parker got in a word. "Lawson, do you know what you are? You're what Norman Ba.s.s used to call 'a blame a-riss-to-crat.'" This provoked a laugh at Lawson's expense.

"I admit it," said Lawson, calmly. "I am interested in the cowboy and the miner--as wild animals--as much as any of you, but as founders of an empire! The hard and unlovely truth is, they are representatives of every worst form of American vice; they are ignorant, filthy, and cruel.

Their value as couriers of the Christian army has never been great with me."

Maynard was unusually reflective as he stared at Lawson.

"That's mighty plain talk," he observed, in the pause that followed.

"You couldn't run for office on speeches like that."

"Lawson's living doesn't depend on prevarication," remarked Curtis. "If it did--"

"If it did I'd lie like the best--I mean the worst of you," replied Lawson.

"In a few years there will not be an Indian left," Parker remarked.

"The world will be the poorer."

"They will all be submerged," continued Parker.

"Why submerge them? Is the Anglo-Saxon type so adorable in the sight of G.o.d that He desires all the races of the earth to be like unto it? If the proselytizing zeal of the missionaries and functionaries of the English-speaking race could work out, the world would lose all its color, all its piquancy. Hungary would be like Scotland, Scotland would be Cornwall, Cornwall would duplicate London, and London reflect New York. Beautiful scheme for tailors, shoe-makers, and preachers, but depressing to artists."

"You must be one of those chaps the missionaries tell about, who would keep men savage just to please your sense of the picturesque."

"Savage! There's a fine word. What is a savage?"

"A man who needs converting to our faith," said Jennie.

"A man to exercise the army on," said Maynard.

"A man to rob in the name of the Lord," said Parker.

"You're stealing all my oratorical thunder," complained Lawson. "When a speaker asks a question like that he doesn't want a detailed answer--he is pausing for effect. Speaking seriously--"

"Oh!" said Maynard, "then you were _not_ serious."

Lawson went his oratorical way. "My conviction is that savagery held more of true happiness than we have yet realized; and civilization, as you begin to see, does not, by any construction, advance the sum of human happiness as it should do."

"What an advantage it is to have an independent income!" mused Maynard, looking about the table. "There's a man who not only has opinions, but utters them in a firm tone of voice."

"I am being instructed," remarked Elsie. "I used to think no one took the Indian's side; now every one seems opposed to the cattlemen."

"When we are civilized enough to understand this redman, he will have disappeared," said Curtis, very soberly.

"Judging from the temper of this State at present, I reckon you're about right," replied Maynard. "Well, it's out o' my hands, as the fellah says; I'm not the Almighty; if I were I'd arrange things on a different basis."