Where the Trail Divides Part 14

In silence the younger man sat down to eat alone. He did not press his invitation, he did not express sympathy at the other's admission. Either would have been superfluous. Instead he ate with the hearty appet.i.te of a healthy human, and thereafter, swiftly and methodically as he had prepared the meal, cleared the table and put all in order. Then at last, the fire replenished and a couple of long-haired buffalo robes thrown within the radius of its heat, he stretched full length thereon in the perfect contentment of one whose labor for the day is done, and awaited the something he knew had brought the other to him at this unusual hour.

"There's a pipe and tobacco in the drawer of the little table at your right," he a.s.sisted.

Landor roused with a trace of surprise.

"I didn't know you ever smoked," he commented.

"I don't," simply. Again there was no suggestion of the superfluous, the obvious explanation.

Nervously, almost jerkily, Landor filled the brier bowl and pressed the brown flakes tight with his little finger. The match he lit crackled explosively, and he started at the unexpected sound as one whose nerves were on edge. The pipe aglow, he still sat for a moment puffing hard.

"How," he initiated then abruptly, "I wish you would do me a favour.

Will you promise me?"

The younger man did not hesitate, did not question. "If in my power, yes, sir," he said.

That was all, yet better than a complete chapter it told the relation of the two men; the unquestioning confidence of the younger, the trace of almost patriarchal respect that never left his manner when, addressing the elder. "If in my power, yes, sir."

"It isn't much I'm going to ask," continued Landor hurriedly. "It's simply that you and Bess be married at once instead of waiting until the day set." Puff, puff went the pipe as though the speaker were uncertain whether or no to say more. "I have a particular reason for wishing it,"

he completed inadequately.

For a moment the Indian hesitated; but even then no question was voiced; there was no probing of the confidence the other preferred not to give.

"I will speak to Bess to-morrow if you wish," he said.

Landor lit another match absently and held it to the already glowing bowl; then threw it away, unconscious of what he had done.

"Another thing," he introduced hurriedly. "I'm pretty strong now, but nevertheless I'm getting to be an old man, and so to-day while I was in town I had Bob Manning witness my will. I know it's all form, but I feel better to have things settled." With forced matter of factness he knocked the burned contents of the pipe into the grate and filled the bowl afresh. "Mary isn't used to having any responsibility, so I left practically everything to Bess. I know that if anything should happen to me you'd take care of her mother."

No answer, though Landor waited expectantly.

"I don't need to ask your promise to be good to Bess." Very different from his usual peremptory self was the big rancher to-night, very obvious, pathetically so, his effort to appear natural. "I know you'll make her happy, my boy."

Even yet there was no response, and the visitor shifted uncomfortably.

As well as he knew his own name he knew that his secret was secret no longer. Yet with the instinct of the wild thing that hides itself to die alone he avoided direct mention of the fact, direct wording of the inevitable. But something in the att.i.tude of the motionless figure before him prevented further dissimulation. Some influence urged him to hasten the _denouement_ which he knew was but postponed. With an effort he straightened in his seat and for the first time met the other's black eyes steadily.

"I did right, don't you think, How?" he questioned directly.

"Right, perhaps; I don't know." A pause. "What I do know is that I'm sorry you did as you did."

"Sorry, How?"

"Yes, sir. Very sorry."

"And why?"

No answer.

The light from the tin reflector had been playing full upon the Indian's face, and now, rising, he shifted it until the corner by the stove was in shadow.

"I will tell you why." He returned to his place and stretched himself as before, his hands locked beneath his head. "You are a rich man, Mr.

Landor, and Bess is human. She doesn't know what money is yet, but you will compel her to learn. From what I have read and the little I have seen, I think she would be happier if she never knew."

For the third time Landor filled the pipe bowl and lit it with a fragment of coal from the grate.

"I don't see why, How," he refuted.

"You do, though, sir."

"No. Tell me."

There was a long pause, so long that Landor fancied the other would not answer; then of a sudden he found the intense black eyes fixed upon him unshiftingly.

"The reason is because not only Bess but others are human. As we are now I can make her happy, very happy. I know it because--I love her." He paused, and into the tent there came the long-drawn-out wail of the baby prisoner. Silence returned. "As surely as that little wolf is lonely, Bess will know the trouble money brings if you do as you intend. Not myself, but other men will teach her."

Landor was not smoking now. The pipe had gone dead in his fingers.

"Once more I ask why, How?"

The other's eyes did not shift, nor a muscle of his body.

"Because she is white and they are white, and I--am an Indian."

At last it had come: the thing Landor had tried to avoid, had hitherto succeeded in avoiding. Yet face to face the big man could ignore it no longer. It was true, as true as human nature; and he knew it was true.

Other men, brothers of his own race, would do this thing--as they would do anything for money; and he, Landor, he who had raised her from a child, who had adopted her as his own daughter, he it was who would make it possible!

Involuntarily the big man got to his feet. He did not attempt to move about, he did not speak. There, standing, he fought himself inch by inch; battled against the knowledge of the inevitable that had been d.o.g.g.i.ng him day by day, hour by hour. A long time he stood so, his great hands locked, his face toward the blank tent wall opposite; then at last he turned.

"I realise what you mean, How," he said swiftly, "and understand the way you feel. G.o.d knows I wish it were different, wish I did not believe what you say true; but things are as the are. What we have to do now is the best thing possible under the circ.u.mstances." He sat down in the chair again heavily, his hands still locked in his lap. "If wrong has been done I am to blame, I myself, in raising you and Bess together. I might have known that it was inevitable, you two here alone to care for each other; but I was poor then, and I never thought that Bess--"

"Mr. Landor--"

The big man halted. For the first time he realised the admission of what he had been saying, the inevitable implication--and he was silent. For seconds likewise the Indian was still; but in them he was looking at the other steadily, in a way he had never looked at him before, with an intensity that was haunting.

"So you, too, feel that way," he said at last slowly. There was no anger in the voice, nor menace; merely wonder, and, yes, pathos--terrible, gripping pathos. "I knew that everyone else felt so--everyone except Bess herself; but you--you--I did not know that before, Mr. Landor."

Mute as before the big man sat motionless, listening. From the bottom of his soul he wished to say something in refutation, in self-defence; but he could not. There was nothing to say.

"No, I never even dreamed of such a thing," went on the repressed voice, "not even when at first you were slow to give your consent to our marriage. I fancied it was merely because you thought me impractical, because I cared nothing for a life that was different, was not my own.

Nor again, even a bit ago when you asked me to promise--what I did promise--I did not suspicion such a thing. I thought it a compliment, the sincerest compliment I had ever received in my life: the fact that you should trust me so, with all that was dear to you in the world."

Just perceptibly he halted, but his eyes did not leave the white man's face. "But I see it all now. I was blind before, but I see at last. You are like the rest, like everyone with a white skin. The fact that we've lived together for half a generation makes no difference. You're square, square to the end. You even like me in a way. You've given your word and won't go back on it; but nevertheless you're sorry. Even while you urge us to marry, to have the thing over, to have a responsibility off your mind, you feel you are sacrificing Bess to an inferior." He halted for a second, and even at this time Landor was conscious that it was infinitely the longest speech he had ever heard the man make. "I don't blame you, Mr. Landor; you can't help it; it's the instinct of your race; but nevertheless, nevertheless--"

The voice halted abruptly, repressedly. The intense black eyes were of a sudden looking directly past the other, straight up at the roof of the tent. No power on earth could have made him complete that sentence, made him admit the deadly hurt it suggested. From the unusual confidence of a bit ago he merely lapsed into the normal, his own repressed, impa.s.sive self. Yet as plainly as though he had spoken Landor recognised the difference, realised as well that while outwardly there would be no change, from this moment on so long as they both lived the confidence of the Indian would be as dead to him as though he had ceased to exist. He had seen it happen before. He knew the signs. With the knowledge for the first time in the years they two had lived together he realised how much after all he had grown to depend upon this laconic human, how much he had lost. It was the last drop in his cup of bitterness, the crushing straw. His great ungainly body dropped forward until his face was hid in his hands. On the walls of the tent a distorted, exaggerated shadow marked the movement of his shoulders as they rose and fell with his deep, irregular breathing. Again silence fell upon them, silence that by word of mouth was to remain unbroken. In it from the stable there sounded again the wail of the lonely baby, and a moment later, m.u.f.fled, echo-like from the distance, the answering call of one of its own kind free upon the infinite prairie; but apparently neither man noticed, neither man cared--and the silence returned. Long minutes pa.s.sed. The fire in the stove burned lower and lower. Into the tent crept a suggestion of the coolness without. Then at last Landor roused. Without a word he put on his hat and b.u.t.toned his coat. His fingers were unnaturally clumsy and he found the task difficult. Just for a moment he had a wild idea of asking the other's forgiveness, of attempting an explanation where none was possible; but he realised it would but make matters worse, and desisted. The Indian, too, had arisen, and repressedly courteous, stood ready to open the flap of the tent for the other to pa.s.s. For a moment, the last moment they were ever to see each other alive, they stood so, each waiting for the other to speak, each knowing that the other would not speak; then heavily, shufflingly, Landor took a step forward.

The tent curtain opened before him, was held back while he pa.s.sed; then closed again, shutting him out.

For five long dragging minutes after he was gone the other man remained as he stood, motionless as a bronze statue, as an inanimate thing. The kerosene lamp was burning low now and sputtered dismally; but he did not notice, did not hear. For the third time, tremulous against the background of night and of silence, came the wail of the lonely little captive. It was a kindred sound, an appealing sound, and at last the figure responded. Hatless as he was he left the tent, returned a minute later with something tagging at his heels: a woolly, grey, bright-eyed something, happy as a puppy at release and companionship. Methodically the man banked the coal fire and put out the lantern. He did not make a bed, did not undress. Instead, weary as Landor himself, he dropped amid the buffalo robes, lay still. "Sniff, sniff," sounded a pointed, inquiring nose in the darkness, "sniff, sniff, sniff." There was no response, and becoming bolder, its owner crept close to the face of the silent being on the ground, squirmed a moment contentedly--and likewise became still.