Told In The Hills Part 19

"What do ye mean by that, la.s.s?"

"Oh, nothing, only he says so;" and then she went into the house, leaving her guest sitting on the bench of the porch.

"The Stuart," as the others had already dropped into calling him, after MacDougall, had been at the ranch about a week. The proposed hunt was yet to be; and in the meantime he rode through the parks, and saw all that was near-about the ranch. He talked stock raising with Hardy, medicinal herbs with Aunty Luce, babies with Tillie, and with Rachel numerous worldly topics of interest, that, however, never seemed to change the nature of their acquaintance; which remained much as it was the first day--on her side, arms burnished and ready for action; on his, the serene gentleness of manner, almost a caress, a changeless good-humor that spoke volumes for his disposition, and at times forced even her into a sort of admiration of him.

The health-recruiting trip he had come on, he was evidently taking advantage of, for he almost lived out-of-doors, and looked wonderfully healthy and athletic for an invalid. In the house, he wrote a great deal. But the morning Rachel left MacDougall on the porch, the Stuart came sauntering up the path, the picture of careless content with himself and the world. "Where has Mr. Hardy gone?" he inquired, seating himself on the porch. "I've been looking for him out at the pens but the men have all disappeared."

"Gone up the range for the yearlin's that strayed off the last week; but they'll no go far."

"I wanted to ask Mr. Hardy about mail out here. How often is it brought to the ranch?"

"Well," said the old man, between the puffs of his pipe, "that depends a bit on how often it is sent for; just whene'er they're a bit slack o'

work, or if anybody o' them wants the trip made special; but Hardy will be sendin' Jimmy across for it, if it's any favor to you--be sure o'

that."

"Oh, for that matter--I seem to be the most useless commodity about the ranch--I could make the trip myself. Is Jim the usual mail-carrier?"

"Well, I canna say; Andrews, a new man here, goes sometimes, but it's no rare thing for him to come home carrying more weight in whisky than in the letters, an' Hardy got a bit tired o' that."

"But haven't you a regular mail-carrier for this part of the country?"

persisted Stuart.

MacDougall laughed shortly at the idea. "Who'd be paying the post?" he asked, "with but the Hardys an' myself, ye might say, barring the Kootenais; an' I have na heard that they know the use of a postage stamp."

"But someone of their tribe does come to the Centre for mail," continued Stuart in half argument--"an Indian youth; have you never seen him?"

"From the Kootenais? Well, I have not, then. It may be, of late, there are white men among them, but canna say; I see little o' any o' them this long time."

"And know no other white people in this region?"

"No, lad, not for a long time," said the old man, with a half sigh.

The listener rose to his feet. "I think," he said, as if a prospect of new interest had suddenly been awakened in his mind--"I think I should like to make a trip up into the country of the Kootenais. It is not very far, I believe, and would be a new experience. Yes, if I could get a guide, I would go."

"Well," said MacDougall drily, "seeing I've lived next door to the Kootenais for some time, I might be able to take ye a trip that way myself."

Rachel, writing inside the window, heard the conversation, and smiled to herself.

"Strange that Kalitan should have slipped MacDougall's memory," she thought; "but then he may have been thinking only of the present, and the Stuart, of months back. So he does know some things of people in the Kootenai, for all his blind ignorance. And he would have learned more, if he had not been so clever and waited until the rest were gone, to question. I wonder what he is hunting for in this country; I don't believe it is four-footed game."

CHAPTER III.

AT CROSS-PURPOSES.

"Their tricks and craft ha' put me daft, They've taen me in, and a' that."

"And so you got back unharmed from the midst of the hostiles?" asked Rachel in mock surprise, when, a week later, Hardy, Stuart, and MacDougall returned from their pilgrimage, bringing with them specimens of deer they had sighted on their return.

"Hostiles is about the last name to apply to them, I should imagine,"

remarked Stuart; "they are as peaceable as sheep."

"But they can fight, too," said MacDougall, "an' used to be reckoned hard customers to meet; but the Blackfeet ha' well-nigh been the finish o' them. The last o' their war-chiefs is an old, old man now, an'

there's small chance that any other will ever walk in his moccasins."

"I've been told something of the man's character," said Rachel, "but have forgotten his name--Bald Eagle?"

"Grey Eagle. An' there's more character in him worth the tellin' of than you'll find in any Siwash in these parts. I doubt na Genesee told you tales o' him. He took a rare, strange liking to Genesee from the first--made him some presents, an' went through a bit o' ceremony by which they adopt a warrior."

"Was this Genesee of another tribe?" asked Stuart, who was always attentive to any information of the natives.

"Yes," said Rachel quickly, antic.i.p.ating the others, "of a totally different tribe--one of the most extensive in America at present."

"A youth? A half-breed?"

"No," she replied; "an older man than you, and of pure blood. Hen, there is Miss Margaret pummeling the window for you to notice her. Davy MacDougall, did you bring me nothing at all as a relic of your trip?

Well, I must say times are changing when you forget me for an entire week."

Both the men looked a little amused at Rachel's truthful yet misleading replies, and thinking it just one of her freaks, did not interfere, though it was curious to them both that Stuart, living among them so many days, had not heard Genesee mentioned before. But no late news coming from the southern posts, had made the conversations of their troops flag somewhat; while Stuart, coming into their circle, brought new interests, new topics, that had for the while superseded the old, and Genesee's absence of a year had made them count him no longer as a neighbor. Then it may be that, ere this, Rachel had warded off attention from the subject. She scarcely could explain to herself why she did it--it was an instinctive impulse in the beginning; and sometimes she laughed at herself for the folly of it.

"Never mind," she would rea.s.sure herself by saying, "even if I am wrong, I harm no one with the fancy; and I have just enough curiosity to make me wonder what that man's real business is in these wilds, for he is not nearly so careless as his manner, and not nearly so light-hearted as his laugh."

"Well, did you find any white men among the Kootenais?" she asked him abruptly, the day of his return.

His head, bent that Miss Margaret could amuse herself with it, as a toy of immense interest, raised suddenly. Much in the girl's tone and manner to him was at times suggestive; this was one of the times. His usually pale face was flushed from his position, and his rumpled hair gave him a totally different appearance as he turned on her a look half-compelling in its direct regard.

"What made you ask that?" he demanded, in a tone that matched the eyes.

She laughed; to see him throw off his guard of gracious suavity was victory enough for one day.

"My feminine curiosity prompted the question," she replied easily. "Did you?"

"No," he returned, after a rather steady look at her; "none that you could call men."

"A specimen, then?"

"Heaven help the race, if the one I saw was accepted as a specimen," he answered fervently; "a filthy, unkempt individual, living on the outskirts of the village, and much more degraded than any Indian I met; but he had a squaw wife."

"Yes, the most of them have--wives or slaves."

"Slaves?" he asked incredulously.

"Actually slaves, though they do not bring the high prices we used to ask for those of darker skin in the South. Emanc.i.p.ation has not made much progress up here. It is too much an unknown corner as yet."

"Is it those of inferior tribes that are bartered, or prisoners taken in battle?"