Two on the Trail Part 4

"I will be careful," she said.

To do him justice, Nick Grylls, on a close examination of Natalie, had the grace to feel a little ashamed of his rough outburst. He altered his features to what he thought was a genteel expression; but Garth called it a leer.

"Bully day for our trip," he said.

They all agreed in various tones; even Garth. He knew it would not help Natalie for him to start by inviting trouble.

"You're the New York newspaper man," said Grylls to Garth.

"That's right," said Garth quietly.

"They tell me you're going to write up the country," said Grylls; exhibiting that curious blend of suspicion, contempt and respect his kind has for the fellow who writes. "I can tell you quite a bit about the country myself," he added with a braggadocio air.

Garth thanked him.

"It's an onusual trip for a lady," continued Grylls, cunningly trying to draw Natalie into the conversation; "but nothing out of the way at this season. The Bishop travels comfortable enough; separate tent for the women; and an ile stove like."

His move was not successful; Natalie continued looking charmingly blank.

Old Paul created a diversion by facing them with a confiding smile. The pert Fedora with its curly brim was comically ill-suited to his seamed old face, and mild blue eye. He pointed with his whip down a road on the outskirts of the town.

"My place is down there," he said simply. "Just sold it last week; three hundred acres at three hundred dollars an acre. They're layin' it out in town lots."

"Good G.o.d, man!" cried Grylls. "You could buy me out and have a pile over!" Every time he spoke, he glanced over his shoulder at Natalie.

Old Paul smiled up at him admiringly. "But this is only a sort of accident," he said. "You made yours."

"What in he--Why are you driving the stage, then?" demanded Grylls.

"Well," said the old man slowly; "seems though I just got in the way of it. Seems I just _had_ to keep hanging on to the ribbons, or lose holt altogether."

"What are you going to do with all that money?" Grylls wanted to know.

"Well," said Paul with a quiet grin; "I bought me a new hat like the swells wear; and a pair of Eastern shoes. They pinch me somepin' cruel, too."

"Why don't you travel East, Mr. Smiley?" suggested Nell. She whom they all addressed so cavalierly was particular to put a handle to each name.

"Travel! I had enough o' that, my girl," he said. "Forty-five years ago I travelled East to Winnipeg and got me a wife. Brought her back over the plains in a Red River cart. Eight hunder miles, and hostile redskins all the way! What's travellin' nowadays!"

"Were you born out here?" asked Garth, shaping a story for the _Leader_ in his mind.

"At Howard House, west of here in the Rockies," said Paul. "My father was Hudson's Bay trader there."

"Paul's an old-timer all right," said Grylls carelessly. He was becoming bored with the trend the conversation was taking.

"One of the first eight who broke ground in Prince George," said the old man proudly. "Yonder's the first two-story house in the country. I built it. No!" he continued thoughtfully; "I'm keeping my house and ten acres; and me and the old woman's calc'latin' to stop there and watch the march o' progress by our door. She wouldn't give up her front step for all the real-estate sharks in Prince George. But," he added with a chuckle, "I shouldn't wonder if she was shocked some when them trolley-cars I hear tell of goes kitin' by."

"I kin understand just how she feels," remarked old Nell to Natalie, with her apologetic little smile. "What could take the place of a home with real nice things in it? I got a house up near the Landing with a carpet in every room. I just love to buy things for it. You see I never had what you might call a regular house until just lately. This trip I bought a pink-and-gold chiny was.h.i.+n' set; and a down comfort for the best room. I never could tire of fixin' it up. We'll pa.s.s there to-morrow afternoon.

I'd just love to have you step in--"

Grylls laughed boisterously.

"Ah-h, shut up, Nell!" muttered the dark young man beside her.

"Thank you, I'd like to see it," said Natalie, with a flash of the blue eyes.

They had now left the town behind; and were rolling, or rather b.u.mping, over the prairie. Here, it is not an empty plain, but a series of natural, park-like meadows, broken by graceful clumps of poplar and willow. On a prairie trail when the wheels begin to bite through the sod, and sink into ruts, a new track is made beside the old--there is plenty of room; and in turn another and another, spreading wide on each side, crossing and interweaving like a tangled skein of black cotton flung down in the green.

Natalie had never seen such luxuriant greenness; such diverse and plentiful wild flowers. Nell pointed out the brilliant fire-weed, blending from crimson to purple, the wild sunflower, the lovely painted-cup, old-rose in colour; and there were other strange and showy plants she could not name. Occasionally they pa.s.sed a log cabin, gayly whitewashed, and with its sod roof sprouting greenly. These dwellings, though crude, fulfilled the great aim of architecture; they were a part of the landscape itself.

When they stopped at one of these places for dinner, Garth watched Natalie narrowly to see how she would receive her first taste of rough fare. But far from quailing at the salt pork, beans and bitter tea, she ate with as much gusto as if it had always been her portion. "She'll do," he thought approvingly.

Afterward as they toiled up a long, sandy rise in the full heat of the afternoon sun, Paul, the old dandy, had leisure while his horses walked to devote to his pa.s.sengers. He was pleased as a child at the interest shown by Garth and Natalie in his anecdotes. Turning to them now, he pointed to a high mound topped by a splendid pine standing by itself, and said:

"Cannibal Hill. Used to be an Indian called Swift had his lodge there. A fine figger of a man too; high-chested; beautiful-muscled. He was a good Indian; and I want to say when a redskin is good, he's d.a.m.n good--beg pardon, Miss--he's good and no mistake, I should say. He has a high-minded way of looking at things, which ought to make a white man blush; but it don't; for them kind makes the softest tradin'. I been a trader myself.

"This here Swift had a wife and ten childer, that he thought a power of.

He hunted for 'em night and day; and he come to be known as the best provider in the tribe. Well, come one winter he went crazy; yes, ma'am, plumb looney; and he went for 'em with his hatchet. He killed and _et_ 'em one at a time, beginning with the youngest; while the others waited their turn. You see an old-fas.h.i.+oned Indian was the boss of his family; and they didn't dast fight him back. Right up there on that hill, under that very same tree; I seen the ashes of their bones myself. In the Spring he come down to the settlement and give himself up; said he didn't want to live no more. Shouldn't think he would."

Grylls made no secret of his impatience with the old man's yarns. He interrupted him, careless of his feelings.

"Are you making the round trip with the Bishop?" he asked Garth.

Garth answered in the affirmative.

"I have a rabbit-skin robe at the Landing I'd be glad to lend the lady,"

he said leering sidewise at Natalie.

"Much obliged," said Garth agreeably; "but we really have all we can use."

"What does _she_ say?" growled Nick.

"Thank you very much," said Natalie quickly; "but I could not think of accepting it."

He had forced her to speak to him at last; but the words were hardly to his satisfaction. He flung around in his seat with an ugly scowl.

Meanwhile old Paul was still pursuing his thoughts about redskins.

"Indians think when they go off their heads they're obliged to be cannibals," he continued agreeably. "They can't separate the two idees somehow. So when a redskin feels a screw beginning to work loose up above, he settles on a nice, fat, tender subject. He says his head's full of ice, and has to be melted. I mind one winter at Caribou Lake forty years back, we were all nigh starving, and our bones was comin'

through our skins, like ten-p'ny nails in a paper bag. And one night they comes snoopin' into the settlement an Indian woman as sleek and soft and greasy as a fresh sausage--and lickin' her chops--um--um!

There was a man with her and he let it out. She had knifed two young half-breed widows, as fair and beautiful a two girls as ever I see--and she et 'em, yes, ma'am! And n.o.body teched her; they warn't no police in them days. She lives to the Lake at this day!"

"Good Law! Mr. Smiley!" cried Nell with an uneasy glance at the grinning half-breed on the tail-step.

"Keep cool, old gal!" growled Nick. "n.o.body wouldn't pick you out for a square meal!"

Nell's companion rewarded this sally with an enormous guffaw; and poor, mortified Nell made believe to laugh too. Natalie's cheeks burned.

"I suppose you hunted buffalo in the old days," said Garth to old Paul.