The Plow-Woman Part 41

"He'll come back, won't he? They wouldn't kill him? Oh, you don't think he's dead?"

"We'll find him," said the captain. He was pitiful in his regret. This tragedy was striking home to him as even the Jamieson failure had not.

His long, sad face was more like a walrus' than ever.

"Mr. Bond said we'd have good luck here," she went on despairingly. "But there _was_ danger by night, wasn't there? There _was_ danger!"

"She's knocked silly," Oliver murmured to the surgeon. "The child doesn't know what she's saying."

"You're right. Clean blunted," was the answer. "But I'll straighten 'em both out by noon."

A long halloo summoned the captain to the door. A group of men were gathered in the swale between the shack and Shanty Town. Fraser was among them. Oliver signalled, and the young officer wheeled and came galloping in.

"What is it?"

"Old man's gun, discharged, out there in the gra.s.s----"

"Yes?"

"And two sets of footprints coming and going across that bit of low ground. One set looks about two days old, and was made by boots. Other is newer, and made by moccasins."

"Ah!"

"There's something strange about these last: Coming this way, the marks are so light you can hardly see 'em; going back, they're sunk way down."

"Carried a load, eh?"

"It looks like it." Oliver mounted, and they rode off to the swale.

Noon was past when the captain called at the shack again. He found the surgeon gone, but his promise fulfilled: Food and medicine had gone far to revive his patients physically; tears had mercifully combined with returning strength to right their minds.

This time, the elder girl met Oliver with no incoherence, but with brave quiet. All her self-command had returned. She asked him in, and showed a tender forethought for Marylyn by sending her out into the sunshine and the garden before she listened to what he had to tell. When he was done, she began her story with the finding of the pole.

"Redskins!" he exclaimed.

"Boot-marks were around it, though," she said.

"You are sure? I wish your father had asked my advice. I feel as if I had come short in my duty."

"Please don't," she entreated. "You see, we thought we could tend to it--long's we knew who it was."

He turned astonished eyes upon her. "Knew!" he exclaimed. "Well, for Heaven's sake out with it, then!"

"Matthews--he wanted the land."

"The interpreter! But last night's tracks were made by moccasins.

There's one Indian free----"

She let him get no further. "It's not Charley," she declared. "Matthews meant us to think it was Indians. Moccasins are easy to get."

"That's true." He frowned. "Hm!--Well, I shall inquire into his whereabouts during the last two days." And the captain fell to studying the figures on the Navajos.

Outside, Lieutenant Fraser was pa.s.sing the shack. He rode on to the cornfield, where he flung himself off his horse.

"Marylyn! Marylyn!" he said tremblingly. "You poor girl! I'm so sorry--What can I say? It's my fault."

She lifted a scared face to his. "No, it's mine," she answered; "if I'd told Dallas about you, we'd never 'a' gone to Clark's----"

"Thank goodness you did! But if your father had known about me--if I could have come to the house. I must after this. We'll tell your sister about us now. Come on."

She shrank back in sudden fright. "No, no. Don't you see? She'd think it was awful I didn't say something yesterday!"

"Why didn't you, Marylyn?"

She looked down. "You don't know Dallas. She don't like soldiers any more'n pa. She said so, and she'd----"

"Oh, I think she does," he argued. "Now, let's try her--let's make a clean breast of it."

Her hands came out in wild imploring. "You won't, you won't, you _won't_," she begged. "Don't you understand?--my keeping still was just as if I'd killed pa! Oh, it was! So I _can't_ tell--_now_!"

"Marylyn----"

"Promise you won't, oh, promise you won't!" And she went down, crumpling into a little, miserable heap.

Quickly, he lifted her. "Well, we won't tell her then, not if you don't want to--but we'll have to some day."

"Some day--maybe--but _not now_."

"All right, then--not now." He led her from garden to coulee and back again, trying to comfort her all the while as best he could.

"You see, Marylyn," he said, "you're wrong about its being your fault.

It's mine. I promised Lounsbury I'd look after you folks."

She stopped short. "Did you tell him about you and me?"

"No."

"Oh." She was relieved. "You mustn't, either. Not him, or anyone."

"I don't see how I can ever look Lounsbury in the face again," he said bitterly.

Whereupon, she straightway began to comfort him.

At the shack, Oliver and Dallas had arrived at the question of future safety.

"I must insist," the captain was saying, "upon your coming to live at the Fort. I cannot spare a permanent guard for this side of the river--a scouting party up and down once a day is about the best I could do. We have our hands full already."

"Live at the Fort----" Her lips tightened a little. She got up to walk.

She was thinking of the cold stares, the "Ahs," the "Ohs," and the laughter of the post ladies in their bowling ambulance; the nudges and the grins of the pa.s.sing musicians; and "There's allus room at the Fort when there's good-lookin' gals in the fambly."