The Plow-Woman Part 38

Toward night, she began to watch about her--southward, to the shanty of the Norwegian; eastward, to where the tent of the Sioux Falls man had been; west, where the setting sun touched the sentinel guns on the bluffs; along the coulee, where the darkness always crept first.

She found herself examining the tops of distant rises. Medicine Mountain showed a dark speck at its summit,--had she ever noticed that before?

Other peaks looked unfamiliar--were they the lookouts of savage spies?

And north, far beyond the "little bend" was the smoke of a camp-fire. In fancy, she saw the one who had lighted it--a warrior with vindictive, painted face, who peered at the squat shack on the bend as he fanned and smothered the flame.

Night was at hand. The plover were wailing; the sad-voiced pewits called; one by one, the frogs began a lonesome chant. A light had sprung up in the shack. She glanced that way. And the window eyes of the log-house seemed to leer at her.

A warm supper, Marylyn's bright face, her father's placid retorts--all these did not suffice to drive away her forebodings. What was there in the coming night?

All her instinct spoke for caution. The lantern was shaken out before the table was cleared. Her father and sister early sought their beds.

She only lay down in her clothes. The hours pa.s.sed in a strange suspense. She listened to her father's deep breathing, to the mules, when they wandered into their stalls, to the snap of Simon's long brush as he whipped at the mosquitoes. Her eyes kept searching the black corners of the room, and the pale squares of the windows. Her ears were alert for every sound.

She fell to thinking of Squaw Charley. He had not come for his supper, or brought them the daily basket. Was he growing indifferent--to them?

It was when she could no longer keep awake that her thoughts a.s.sumed even a terrible shape. She dreamed, and in her dream a head came through the dirt floor close to her bed. It was covered by a war-bonnet of feathers. Beside it, thrust up by lissome fingers--fingers white and strangely familiar--was a tomahawk.

Soon, she made out a face--Matthews'. She squirmed, striving to summon her father. A flame flickered up in the fireplace. The face changed from white to red, and Charley danced before her. She squirmed again; the face faded----

She found herself sitting bolt upright. Her hands were clenched defensively, her teeth were shut so tight that her jaws ached. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the door.

The shack was no longer in darkness. Morning was come, and its light made everything clear. She sprang up and lifted the latch, then fell back, her stiffened lips framing a cry.

Before the shack, driven deep into the nearest bit of unpacked ground, was a sapling, new-cut and stripped clean of the bark. From its top, flying pennon-like in the wind, was a scarlet square. And at one corner of this, dangling to and fro in horrid suggestiveness, swung a shrivelled patch that held a lock of hair.

CHAPTER XXIII

AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT

Rifle in hand, forgetful of crutches, bewildered by sleep, the section-boss came diving through the blanket part.i.tion to answer her call. "Wha's matter? Wha's matter?" he demanded thickly, rubbing hard at his eyes to unclog their sight.

Dallas leaned in the doorway, facing out. Her shoulders were bent forward heavily, as if she, too, were only half awake. Her head was rested against a casing. She lifted it when she felt him beside her.

"Well, dad," she answered grimly, "it's Indians, this time, and--I reckon they got us stampeded." She smiled a little, ruefully, and pointed.

Winking into the light, Lancaster followed her pointing, and saw the pole. Up jerked his chin, as if from a blow on the goatee. He stared wildly. His jaw dropped. "W'y, Lawd!" he breathed perplexedly, and his chest heaved beneath the grey flannel of his shirt. Slowly he hobbled forward in his bare feet, using the gun for a prop. Before the pole, he halted, and began tousling his grizzled crown with trembling fingers.

Overhead, the scalp-weighted rag swung to and fro in the breeze, waving him its sinister salute.

Gradually, his brain cleared, and into it there trickled a hint of the pole's meaning and purpose. He stopped ruffling his hair, and caught up the Sharps in both hands. Then, all at once, the trickle swelled to a foaming torrent of suspicion, that carried him close to the truth.

Maddened, cursing, he dropped the gun and fell upon the sapling, pried it furiously from the sod, and smashed it into a dozen bits.

To Dallas, watching him in silence, the destruction of the pole was a sore reminder. For, better than ever before, she realised that her father could only accomplish the hasty, childish things; that beyond these, he was powerless. Without a doubt, she must ask elsewhere for aid.

As he came limping and raging back to her, she hurried forward to relieve him of the rifle and to guide his crippled feet. "Dad, I think it's about time we had a' understanding at the Fort," she said quietly, and took him by an arm.

He brought up short and wrung himself out of her grasp. "Th' Fort! th'

Fort! th' Fort!" he repeated in a frenzy. "Lawd-a-mighty, Dallas, y'

make me sick!"

"It's Indians," she replied steadily. "They're coming too near to be comfortable. We got to have help."

He raised his fists and shook them. "Help an' fiddlesticks!" he bl.u.s.tered. "_Thet_ ain't no Injuns! It's thet Shanty Town blackleg a-tryin' t' skeer us. Go look at th' groun'--go look at th' groun', Ah say. _See_ if they's moccasin tracks thereabout. Ah bet y' won't fin'

any!" He turned back to the scattered splinters, pulling Dallas after him.

Together they got down, examining with care. As he had said, there were no prints of an Indian shoe in the soft earth. But mingling with the round, faint marks of his own naked heel were those--more plainly stamped--of a large boot. They led up to the spot from the nearest point on the river; and back upon themselves toward the same point.

"W'at'd Ah tell y'?" demanded the section-boss, almost triumphantly. His voice quavered, however, and he gulped. "It's thet scalawag, an' he wanted us t' know it! Ain't ev'ry Injun in fifty mile shet up tight in yon corral? Ev'ry one 'cept Charley--an' this ain't the job o' _thet_ blamed fool. No, siree! An' then, th' mules didn' make no row las'

night. They'd a sh.o.r.e snorted if it was Injuns----"

"I guess that's so," agreed Dallas, hastily, and made him a warning sign. Marylyn was moving about inside, and calling.

But he was beyond thought for another. "Bosh! bosh!" he cried. "She's got t' stop bein' coddled an' know w'at's w'at. _You_ got t' stop talkin' Fort. Ah'm goin' t' ketch thet low-down skunk 'thout no soldiers. An' _Ah'll_ pepper his ugly hide! _Ah'll_ make him spit blood like a broncho-buster. Th' _idee_ o' his havin' th' gall!" He rammed the Sharps into its rack and laughed immoderately.

"Oh, pa!" expostulated Marylyn, in a startled whisper, and flew to Dallas. Her face, still pink from slumber, paled a little. She laid it against her sister. Long ago, she had seen her father roused to the same pitch. The sight had terrified her, and blunted some earlier and tenderer memories.

"You git you' clothes on," he ordered roughly, "an' rustle us some breakfas'."

She retreated, ready for tears.

Dallas walked up to him, gave him his crutches, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Dad," she said firmly, "don't take out your mad on Marylyn.

Keep it all for--him." She nodded south toward Brannon. "That's where it belongs."

"Dallas, you plumb disgus' me," he retorted. "Talkin' soldier, when y'

know Matthews could buy th' hull kit an' boodle with a swig o' whisky!"

He arraigned the Fort with a crutch.

"What do you think of doing, dad?"

"Ah'll fin' out where thet cuss was las' night--Charley'll help me, y'

see----"

"And then?"

"Ah'll see thet--thet Oliver knows o' this, thet he keeps a' eye on thet dog-goned----"

"But it'll be easier just to go straight to the Captain; not _I_, but _you_----"

"Yes, do pa," urged Marylyn. "Oh, Dallas, what's happened?"

The elder girl told of the pole and the bootmarks, treating them lightly. Then she came back to her father. To find that her argument of a moment before, for all its short-cut logic, had set him utterly against the plan he had himself proposed. And now he was for no man's help, but for a vengeance wreaked with his own gun. Hurling a final defy toward Shanty Town, he disappeared behind the part.i.tion.

No breakfast was eaten that morning. The section-boss was too angry to taste of food, Marylyn was too frightened, and Dallas had no time. For she was busy with the mules, currying them and putting them before the wagon. "Can't help what you think about it this time," she said when her father asked her where she was going; "I've made up my mind that if you won't say the Fort, why then I'll have to drive to Clark's for Mr.

Lounsbury. We don't know for sure what that pole meant. We must ask."

"Aw, you ain't got a smitch o' pride," he taunted jealously. "Goin' t'

Lounsbury. Wal! Wal! You think a heap o' him, don' y'? More 'n you do o'

you' father! Thet sticks out like a sore finger."