Witch Winnie Part 27

For answer, the young man threw himself from his pony and began to ascend the cliff. It was very steep, but he chose his way cautiously, seizing each point of vantage in the way of a crevice or projection. He had almost reached the nest when he paused, looked away to the southward, and began rapidly to descend. "There is a band of Utes coming over the divide," he said; "I think it would be as well for us to go a little further up the valley." He hurriedly collected his herd, and drove them before him through a pa.s.s into a long, shady gorge. Mr.

Armstrong followed with the team. "This is the place!" he exclaimed, excitedly, as they entered the ravine. "It was in this little canon that I found the silver. A vein cropped right out to the surface, and I filled my pockets with the ore. I set up a buffalo skull to mark the spot. There it is--at the foot of that pine. It must have rolled down, for I placed it higher. Hold the reins, Jim, while I scramble up the bank and see if I see any signs of the vein." With the agility of a younger man, Mr. Armstrong climbed the steep bank, and came down with his hands filled with crumbled ore. "It is there, fast enough," he said, triumphantly; "if it were not on the Indian reservation I would be the owner of that mine now. They cannot hold the lands long, and when they are opened to settlement this canon shall be ours, Jim. You say you would like to live a western life. If your mother, of whom you seem so fond, is of the same opinion, you shall pre-empt a claim here, and I will take one just beside you, and between us we will own the mine. You don't understand it, my boy; but I have taken a fancy to you, and I mean to make your fortune."

"And will this ravine be my very own?" Jim asked--"mother's and mine?"

"Yes, my boy; and I am curious to see what you will make of it, and what you will make of yourself while you are waiting to come into your possessions. I mean to put you in the way of getting a good practical education, which shall be of use to you out here."

"And can I learn surveying?"

"Yes; and mining engineering and a.s.saying and mechanics, and all that."

"That is what Lovey Dimple would like to learn too. Can he come with me?

He'd invent a machine right off to dig the silver just as easy."

"We will see, Jim. I would like to give him a good turn for his father's sake; but don't take too many into our company, or we shall have to water the stock too freely."

They had nearly reached the head of the gorge, and they found that Charles Sumner had paused, and had corraled his cows in a little natural amphitheatre, where they were resting contentedly.

"I must watch them pretty sharply," the Indian explained, "for the corn I told you about is in the next valley, and if they should get into that, they would be as bad as our relations. Just walk to the top of the hill, Mr. Armstrong, and see what a nice field of it I have over there."

Mr. Armstrong returned bringing an armful of fine roasting ears, but Charles Sumner thought it best not to build a fire until the party of Utes had pa.s.sed, and they sat down to a cold supper of canned baked beans. After supper Jim had a long talk with Charles Sumner, and ascertained that the young man had fixed his heart upon making this particular section his home farm as soon as the reservation should be divided in severalty among the Indians, which he hoped would happen before many years.

"Then," said Jim, "you think that the white people will never have a chance to come in here and take up land?"

"Do you think they ought to be allowed to do so, when the land is ours?"

Charles Sumner asked.

"No, I don't," Jim replied, promptly. "I think it is really yours, and you ought to keep it; and I'll just tell you a secret about this canon.

It is worth a great deal more than you know. There is a silver mine in it, and I'll show you where, and you had just better go back East and study the best way to mine silver, and then when you get your claim you will know how to work it. I wish you would take me in as your partner, for Mr. Armstrong is going to have me taught all about mining. He thought he might pre-empt this mine for me, but, of course, when he sees that it really belongs to you, he will not want to, unless, perhaps, you would like to sell out your right in it."

Jim had spoken so rapidly that he did not notice that Mr. Armstrong had approached, and was listening with an astonished expression to what he was saying.

"Jim, are you crazy?" Mr. Armstrong exclaimed, as soon as he could recover himself. "Don't you see that you are throwing away your chances?"

"Oh no," Jim replied, with a smile, "I hadn't any chance at all. You didn't know, but it all belongs to Charles Sumner."

Their conversation was interrupted by a whoop in the valley below. The band of Utes had discovered the traces of their last camp, and had followed their trail into the canon.

"Drive over into the next ravine!" said Charles Sumner; "they will camp here when they find my cows. Wait for me just below the corn-field, and I will join you as soon as I can. They will not hurt you if they find you, but they will beg and steal everything."

Mr. Armstrong hurriedly followed Charles Sumner's advice, and was joined about midnight by the young Indian, who drove before him three cows, all he had been able to rescue from a herd of twelve.

The young man wiped his brow with a despairing gesture. "They were ugly," he said. "Some Durango cow-boys have been pasturing their cattle on the reservation, and they insisted that my cows were a part of the herd, and that the owners were somewhere near. If they had found you, they might have treated you roughly. I think we had better get away while they are feasting."

It occurred to Mr. Armstrong that it looked very much as if Charles Sumner had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his property, and a feeling of grat.i.tude and liking sprang up in his heart for the young man.

"I don't know what I shall do," the Indian continued, dejectedly. "It doesn't seem to be any use to try to be civilized in this country."

"No, my poor fellow!" replied Mr. Armstrong, "it really does not. In your place, I think I should go back to the blanket and be a savage with the rest. I will tell you what to do: come East again with your mother and sister. I will let you try farming on a piece of land which I have taken a fancy to in Ma.s.sachusetts, where you will not have these discouragements. When the land question is settled, you and Jim shall come back here and form a partnership. If it is divided in severalty to the Utes, then I will establish your right to the canon, and you shall take Jim in as your partner; and if it is opened to the whites for settlement, he will take up the land and give you a share in it."

This proposition was accepted by Charles Sumner and his sister, the mother preferring to remain with her husband. After establishing the young Indians in Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Armstrong brought Jim with him to Narragansett Pier.

A short s.p.a.ce must now be given to Milly and Adelaide, who, though mingling in a very different cla.s.s of society, had an experience that summer not unlike our own. Mrs. Roseveldt gave a lawn-party at the beginning of the season to organize a tennis club. Tennis was the rage that season. Many of the cottages had tennis courts, and the different players wished to plan for a grand tournament at the end of the season.

A pretty uniform was designed of white flannel, the skirt embroidered with a deep Greek fret in gold thread, and laid in accordion pleats. A little jacket lined with gold-colored silk, and embroidered in the same pattern, was to be worn over the shirt waist, and a gold-colored sash ending in a ta.s.sel, with a white Tam o'Shanter, completed the costume.

Milly had planned that Mrs. Halsey should have the making of these costumes while at the Pier.

A fund was contributed with which to purchase a trophy for the prize player. It rose quickly to a hundred and fifty dollars, and a meeting was held to decide what the trophy should be. Most of the members thought that a gold pin in the shape of a racket, with a pearl ball, manufactured by Tiffany, would be the correct thing, and this idea would certainly have been adopted if Milly had not turned the current by a neat little speech.

"I am sure," she said, "that we do not want to vulgarize our club by making it professional, and a prize of any great money value would certainly do this. So I move that the prize be a simple wreath of laurel tied with a white ribbon, on which the date of the tournament and name of the club be printed." The members all agreed that this would be in better form, but asked what was to be done with the money already contributed. Then Milly rose to the occasion, and flung out the banner of the Home.

"It seems as if we had no right to be romping in this delicious fresh air while poor children are gasping in the vile smells of the city."

The Fresh-Air Fund and the Working Girls' Vacation Society were both popular charities, and were proposed by different members as proper recipients of our funds. Milly was ready to agree to this, but one young man, supposed until that day to be a mere gilded youth, without an idea above his neckties, suggested that it was always pleasanter to be the distributer of one's own benefits, and moved that the club get up a little Fresh-Air Fund of its own. "We might rent a cottage down here and send for a dozen or so young beggars, and take turns in caring for them."

A general laugh followed this remark. "What would you do, personally, Mr. Van Silver?" asked one of the girls.

"I would put my coach and four-in-hand at the service of the enterprise," he said, "and make myself expressman and 'bus driver. I'd take the children out to drive every day, for one thing."

Everyone insisted that they would like to see him do it, but he persisted until they were convinced of his sincerity. Mr. Van Silver's patronage had given an aristocratic stamp to the enterprise, and some one now proposed that they rent a cottage for the children for the season.

Milly then explained that Adelaide had already fitted up her cottage for the purpose, and was expecting an invoice of children by the next day.

Adelaide invited the party to visit the cottage that afternoon, and the entire club climbed to the top and interior of Mr. Van Silver's coach; Mr. Stacy Fitz-Simmons, the whilom drum-major of the Cadet band, blowing the coach horn for all he was worth.

They found a park overgrown into a forest, in the depth of which stood a pleasant cottage, with broad verandas, which once commanded a beautiful view of the glistening bay, with Newport in the distance.

"I intend to have some of these trees cut away, so as to leave a vista through to the water," Adelaide explained.

They entered the house, and found it renovated from the mold and decay with which ten years had enc.u.mbered it, sweet and fresh with new paint, and papering of pretty design. Light and graceful ratan furniture and chintz hangings added to the beauty of the room, simple straw mattings covered the floor. It was as lovely a home as heart could wish.

"I have done all I can afford," Adelaide said, simply, "and if the club would like to use this cottage for their city children it is at their service, but first Milly wants to entertain the younger children of the Home of the Elder Brother here for a couple of weeks."

"And we will each of us take his or her turn for a week," said Mr. Van Silver; and so the "Paradiso Seaside Home" was provided for.

Mrs. Halsey came with the children. From the moment that she left the station she seemed to be in a dream.

"It all looks so familiar!" she exclaimed; "I am sure I have been here before! There is something caressing in the feeling of the damp air, as though it kissed my cheek like an old friend. And the scent of the salt-water! I remember it so well; and shall we hear the surf? Oh, when was it, where was it, that I knew it all?"

When they drove into the grounds she shook her head. "No, it was not this place," she said, with a wistful look in her eyes; "there were no trees." But at the first glimpse of the house a trembling seized her, and she could hardly mount the steps. Within doors a puzzled expression came into her face.

"It is familiar, yet unfamiliar," she said. "I cannot be sure. If I could only see some face that I had known before, then I could tell."

"Perhaps the face will come," Adelaide said; and it came.

A few weeks later Mr. Armstrong returned with Jim from the western trip, and came down to the Pier to make the visit which his daughter so greatly desired. Adelaide had driven to the station for them in Milly's pony carriage, Jim mounted to his old place on the rumble, Mr. Armstrong settled himself for the drive, and Adelaide took the reins.

"I am going to take you around by the cottage, papa," she said. "I want to show you what I have done there, and how happy the Home children are."

Mr. Armstrong drew himself up, as though wincing from some sudden pain.

"I did not intend to go there again, daughter," he said; "I shall miss a face at the window."