The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 22

"They are not mysterious to me," he made answer. "Only in the sense that s.p.a.ce and dusk are inexplicable. After all, the wonder of the universe is in our brains, like love, rather than in the object to which we attribute mystery or majesty. To the Tetong, the simplest thing belonging to the white race is mysterious--a b.u.t.ton, a cartridge, a tin-plate. 'How are they made? What are they built for?' he asks. So, deeply considered, all nature is inexplicable to us also. We white children of the Great Ruler push the mystery a little further back, that is all. Once I tried to understand the universe; now I am content to enjoy it."

"Tell me, how did you first become interested in these people?"

He hesitated a little before he replied. "Well, I was always interested in them, and when I got out among the Payonnay I tried to get at their notions of life; but they are a strange people--a secretive people--and I couldn't win their confidence for a long time. One day while on a hunting expedition I came suddenly upon a crew of wood-choppers who had an old man tied to a tree and were about to burn him alive--"

"Horrible! Why?"

"No reason at all, so far as I could learn. His wife sat on the ground not far away, wailing in deep despair. What treatment she had suffered I do not know. Naturally, I ordered the men to release the old man, and when they refused I cut his bands. The ruffians were furious with rage, and threatened to tie me up and burn me, too. By this time I was too angry to fear anything. 'If you do, you better pulverize the b.u.t.tons on my uniform, for the United States government will demand a head for every one of them.' Had I been a civilian they would have killed me."

"They wouldn't have dared!" Elsie shuddered.

"Such men dare do anything when they are safe from discovery--and there is always the Indian to whom a deed of that sort can be laid."

"Did they release the old man?"

"Yes; and he and his wife camped along with me for several days, and their devotion to me was pathetic. Finally I came to understand that he considered himself dead, so far as his tribe was concerned. 'My life belongs to you,' he said. I was just beginning the sign language at that time and I couldn't get very far with him, but I made him understand that I gave his life back to him. He left me at last and returned to the tribe. Thereafter, every redman I met called me friend, and patiently sat while I struggled to learn his language. As I grew proficient they told me things they had concealed from all white men. I ceased to be an enemy. I became an adviser, a chief."

"Did you ever see the old man again?"

"Oh yes. He was my guide on several hunting expeditions. Poor old Siyeh, he died of small-pox. 'The white man's disease,' he called it, bitterly.

He wanted to see me, but when he understood that I would be endangered thereby, he said: 'It is well--I will die alone; but tell him I fold my hands on my breast and his hand is between my palms.'" The soldier's voice grew hard and dry as the memory of the old man's death returned upon him.

Elsie shuddered with a new emotion. "You make my head whirl--you and the night. Did that determine your course with regard to them?"

"Yes. I resolved to get at their hearts--their inner thoughts--and my commanders put me forward from time to time as interpreter, where I could serve both the army and the redman. In some strange way all the Northwest tribes came to know of me, and I could go where few men could follow me. It is curious, but they never did seem strange to me. From the first time I met an Indian I felt that he was a man like other men--a father, a son, a brother, like anybody else. Naturally, when the plan for enlisting redmen into the cavalry came to be worked out, I was chosen to command a troop of s.h.i.+-an-nay. I received my promotion at that time. My detail as Indian agent came from the same cause, I suppose. I was known to be a friend of the redman, and the department is now experimenting with 'Curtis of the Gray-Horse Troop,'" he added, with a smile. "Such is the story of my life."

"How long will you remain Indian agent?"

"Till I can demonstrate my theory that, properly led, these people can be made happy."

"I am afraid you will live here until you are old," she said, and there was a note of undefinable regret in her voice. "I begin to feel that you really have a problem to solve."

"It lies with us, the dominant race," he said, slowly, "whether the red race shall die or become a strand in the woof of our national life. It is a question of saving our own souls, not of making them grotesque caricatures of American farmers. I am not of those who believe in teaching creeds that are dying out of our own life; to be clean, to be peaceful, to be happy--these are the precepts I would teach them."

"I don't understand you, and I think I would better go to bed," she said, with a return to her ordinary manner. "Good-night."

"Good-night," he replied, and in the utterance of those words was something that stirred her unaccountably.

"He makes life too serious, and too full of responsibility," she thought. "I don't like to feel responsible. All the same, he is fine,"

she added, in conclusion.

XV

ELSIE ENTERS HER STUDIO

Elsie, being young and of flamelike vitality, was up and ready for a walk while Two Horns was building the fire, and was trying to make him understand her wish to paint him, when Curtis emerged from his tent.

"Good-morning, Captain," she called. "I'm glad you've come. Please tell Two Horns I want to have him sit for me."

Curtis, with a few swift gestures, conveyed her wishes to Two Horns, who replied in a way which made Curtis smile.

Elsie asked, "What does he say?"

"He says, 'Yes, how much?'"

"Oh, the mercenary thing!"

"Not at all," replied Curtis. "His time is worth something. You artists think the redmen ought to sit for nothing."

Two Horns ran through a swift and very graceful series of signs, which Curtis translated rapidly.

"He says: 'I have heard of you. You painted Elk's daughter. I hear you sell these pictures and catch a great pile of money. I think it is right you pay us something when we stand before you for long hours, while you make pictures to sell to rich men in Was.h.i.+ngton. Now, I drive a team; I earn some days two dollars driving team. If I stop driving team, and come and sit for you, then I lose my two dollars.'"

As he finished, Two Horns smiled at Elsie with a sly twinkle in his eyes which disconcerted her. "You sabbe?" he ended, speaking directly to her.

"I sabbe," she said, in reply.

"Good!" He held out his hand and she took it, and the bargain was sealed. He then returned to his work about the camp.

"Isn't it glorious!" the girl cried, as she looked about her. "It's enough to do an artist all over new." The gra.s.s and the willows sparkled with dew-drops. The sky, cloudless save for one long, low, orange-and-purple cape of glory just above the sunrise, canopied a limitless spread of plain to the north and east, while the high b.u.t.te to the back was like the wall of a temple.

"Oh, let's take a run up that hill," Elsie said, with sudden change of tone. "Come!" and, giving Curtis no time to protest, she scuttled away, swift as a partridge. He followed her, calling:

"Wait a moment, please!"

When he overtook her at the foot of the first incline she was breathless, but her eyes were joyous as a child's and her cheeks were glowing.

"Let me help you," he said; "and if you slip, don't put your hand on the ground; that is the way men get snake-bitten."

"Snakes!" She stopped short. "I forgot--are there rattlesnakes here?"

"There is always danger on the sunny side of these b.u.t.tes at this time of the year, especially where the rocks crop out."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't give me time."

"Do you really think there is danger?"

"Not if you walk slowly and follow me; I'll draw their poison. After they bite me they'll have no virus left for you."

She began to smile roguishly. "You are tired--you want an excuse to rest."

"If I thought you meant that, I'd run up to the summit and back again to show you that I'm younger than my years."