Told In The Hills Part 21

Rachel was thinking of the other part of his speech.

"I should not have asked to be taken," she said, "but would have gone on my own independence, as one of the party."

"Then your independence would have led you to several sights revolting to a refined nature," he said seriously, "and you would have wished yourself well out of it."

"Well, the Kootenais are several degrees superior to other tribes of the Columbia Basin; so you had better fight shy of Jim's knowledge. Why,"

she added, with a little burst of indignation that their good points were so neglected, "the Kootenais are a self-supporting people, asking nothing of the Government. They are independent traders."

"Say, Miss Rachel," broke in Jim, "was Kalitan a Kootenai Injun?"

"No, though he lived with them often. He was of the Gros Ventres, a race that belongs to the plains rather than the hills."

"You are already pretty well posted about the different tribes,"

observed Stuart.

"Yes, the Lawd knows--humph!" grunted Aunty Luce, evidently thinking the knowledge not a thing to be proud of.

"Oh, yes," smiled Tillie, "Rachel takes easily to everything in these hills. You should hear her talking Chinook to a blanket brave, or exchanging compliments with her special friend, the Arrow."

"The Arrow? That is a much more suggestive t.i.tle than the Wahoosh, Kah-kwa, Sipah, and some other equally meaningless names I jotted down as I heard them up there."

"They are only meaningless to strangers," answered the girl. "They all have their own significance."

"Why, this same Arrow is called Kalitan," broke in Jim; "an' what'd you make out of that? Both names mean just the same thing. He was called that even when he was a little fellow, he said, 'cause he could run like a streak. Why, he used to make the trip down to the settlement an' be back here with the mail afore supper, makin' his forty miles afoot after breakfast; how's that for movin' over rough country?"

The swiftness did not seem to make the desired impression, his listener catching, instead, at the fact of their having had an Indian mail-carrier.

"And where is your Indian messenger of late?" he asked. "He has not visited you since my arrival, has he?"

"No; he left this country months ago," said Rachel. "Kalitan is a bit of a wanderer--never long in one place."

"Davy MacDougall says he'd allus loaf around here if Genesee would, but he's sure to go trottin' after Genesee soon as he takes a trail."

"That is the Indian you spoke of this morning, is it not?" asked Stuart, looking at Rachel.

"What!" roared Jim; and Hardy, who was taking a nap behind a paper, awoke with a start. "Genesee an Injun! Well, that's good!" and he broke into shrill, boyish laughter. "Well, you ought to just say it to his face, that's all!"

"Is he not?" he asked, still looking at the girl, who did not answer.

"Oh, no," said Tillie; "he is a white man, a--a--well, he has lived with the Indians, I believe."

"I understood you to say he himself was an Indian." And Rachel felt the steady regard of those warm eyes, while she tried to look unconscious, and knew she was failing.

Hardy laughed, and shook himself rightly awake.

"Beg your pardon," he said, coming to the rescue, "but she didn't say so; she only gave you the information that he was pure-blooded; and I should say he is--as much of a white man as you or I."

"Mine was the mistake," acknowledged Stuart, with his old easy manner once more; "but Miss Rachel's love of a joke did not let me fall into it without a leader. And may I ask who he is, this white man with the Indian name--what is he?"

Rachel answered him then brusquely: "You saw a white man with the Kootenais, did you not--one who lives as they do, with a squaw wife, or slave? You described the specimen as more degraded than the Indians about him. Well, Genesee is one of the cla.s.s to which that man belongs--a squaw man; and he is also an Indian by adoption. Do you think you would care for a closer acquaintance?"

Tillie opened her eyes wide at this sweeping denunciation of Genesee and his life, while even Hardy looked surprised; Rachel had always, before, something to say in his favor. But the man she questioned so curtly was the only one who did not change even expression. He evidently forgot to answer, but sat there looking at her, with a little smile in his eyes.

Once in bed, it did not keep her awake; and the gray morning crept in ere she opened her eyes, earlier than usual, and from a cause not usual--the sound in the yard of a man's voice singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, ignoring the words sometimes, but continuing the air in low carols of music, such as speak so plainly of a glad heart. It was not yet sun-up, and she rebelled, drowsily, at the racket as she rolled over toward the window and looked out. There he was, tinkering at something about his saddle, now and then whistling in mimicry of a bird swaying on a leafless reed in the garden. She could see the other men, out across the open s.p.a.ce by the barn, moving around as usual, looking after the domestic stock; but until one has had a breakfast, no well-regulated individual is hilarious or demonstrative, and their movements, as she could see, were not marvels of fast locomotion. They looked as she felt, she thought, yawningly, and groped around for her shoes, and finding them, sat down on the side of the bed again and looked out at that musical worker in the yard.

She could hear Aunty Luce tinkling the dishes in the kitchen, and Tillie and Miss Margaret, in the next room, cooing over some love-story of dawn they were telling each other. All seemed drowsy and far off, except that penetrating, cheery voice outside.

"The de'il tak' him!" she growled, quoting MacDougall; "what does the fellow mean by shouting like that this time of the night? He is as much of a boy as Jim."

"Here awa', there awa', wandering Willie.

Here awa', there awa', haud awa', hame!"

warbled the Stuart, with an accent that suited his name; and the girl wakened up a bit to the remembrance of the old song, thinking, as she dressed, that, social and cheery as he often was, this was the first time she had ever heard him sing; and what a resonant, yet boyish, timbre thrilled through his voice. She threw up the window.

"Look here!" she said, with mock asperity, "we are willing to make some allowance for national enthusiasm, Mr. Charles, Prince of the Stuarts, but we rebel at Scotch love-songs shouted under our windows before daybreak."

"All right," he smiled, amiably. "I know one or two Irish ones, if you prefer them.

"Oh, acushla Mavourneen! won't you marry me?

Gramachree, Mavourneen; oh, won't you marry me?"

Click! went the window shut again, and from the inside she saw him looking up at the cas.e.m.e.nt with eyes full of triumph and mischief. He was metamorphosed in some way. Yesterday he had been serious and earnest, returning from his hill trip with something like despondency, and now--

She remembered her last sight of him the night before, as he smiled at her from the stairway. Ah, yes, yes! all just because he had felt jubilant over outwitting her, or rather over seeing a chance do the work for another. Was it for that he was still singing? Had her instincts then told her truly when she had connected his presence with the memory of that older man's sombre eyes and dogged exile? Well, the exile was his own business, not that of anyone else--least of all that of this debonair individual, with his varying emotions.

And she went down the stairs with a resentful feeling against the light-hearted melody of "Acushla Mavourneen."

"Be my champion, Mrs. Hardy," he begged at the breakfast-table, "or I am tabooed forever by Miss Rachel."

"How so?"

"By what I intended as an act of homage, giving her a serenade at sunrise in the love-songs of my forefathers."

"Nonsense!" laughed Rachel. "He never knew what his forefathers were until Davy MacDougall brushed up his history; and you have not thought much of the songs you were trying to sing, else you would know they belong to the people of the present and future as well as the past.

"Trying to sing!" was all the comment Mr. Stuart made, turning with an injured air to Tillie.

"Learn some Indian songs," advised that little conspirator impressively; "in the Kootenai country you must sing Chinook if you want to be appreciated."

"There speaks one who knows," chimed in Hardy lugubriously. "A year ago I had a wife and an undivided affection; but I couldn't sing Chinook, and the other fellow could, and for many consecutive days I had to take a back seat."

"Hen! How dare you?"

"In fact," he continued, unrestrained by the little woman's tones or scolding eyes, "I believe I have to thank jealousy for ever reinstating me to the head of the family."

"Indeed," remarked Stuart, with attention impressively flattering; "may I ask how it was effected?"

"Oh, very simply--very simply. Chance brought her the knowledge that there was another girl up the country to whom her hero sang Chinook songs, and, presto! she has ever since found English sufficient for all her needs."