CHAPTER III. OLD WIVES TALES
Down the winding trail of Snake River bluff straggled a blanketed halfdozen of old Wolfbelly's tribe, the braves stalking moodily in front andkicking up a gray cloud of dust which enveloped the squaws behind thembut could not choke to silence their shrill chatter; for old Hagar wasthere, and Viney, and the incident of the dog was fresh in their mindsand tickling their tongues.
The Hart boys were assembled at the corral, halter-breaking athree-year-old for the pure fun of it. Wally caught sight of theapproaching blotch of color, and yelled a wordless greeting; him hadold Hagar carried lovingly upon her broad shoulders with her own papoosewhen he was no longer than her arm; and she knew his voice even at thatdistance, and grinned--grinned and hid her joy in a fold of her dingyred blanket.
"Looks like old Wolfbelly's back," Clark observed needlessly. "Donny, ifthey don't go to the house right away, you go and tell mum they're here.Chances are the whole bunch'll hang around till supper."
"Say!" Gene giggled with fourteen-year-old irrepressibility. "Doesanybody know where Vadnie is? If we could spring 'em on her and make herbelieve they're on the warpath--say, I'll gamble she'd run clear to theMalad!"
"I told her, cross my heart, this morning that the Injuns are peacefulnow. I said Good Injun was the only one that's dangerous--oh, I sure didthrow a good stiff load, all right!" Clark grinned at the memory. "I'vegot to see Grant first, when he gets back, and put him wise to the rephe's got. Vad didn't hardly swallow it. She said: 'Why, Cousin Clark!Aunt Phoebe says he's perfectly lovely!"' Clark mimicked the girl'svoice with relish.
"Aw--there's a lot of squaws tagging along behind!" Donny complaineddisgustedly from his post of observation on the fence. "They'll go tothe house first thing to gabble--there's old Hagar waddling along likea duck. You can't make that warpath business stick, Clark--not with allthem squaws."
"Well, say, you sneak up and hide somewhere till yuh see if Vadnie'sanywhere around. If they get settled down talking to mum, they'regood for an hour--she's churning, Don--you hide in the rocks by themilk-house till they get settled. And I'll see if--Git! Pikeway, whilethey're behind the stacks!"
Donny climbed down and scurried through the sand to the house as if hisvery life depended upon reaching it unseen. The group of Indians cameup, huddled at the corral, and peered through the stout rails.
"How! How!" chorused the boys, and left the horse for a moment whilethey shook hands ceremoniously with the three bucks. Three Indians,Clark decided regretfully, would make a tame showing on the warpath,however much they might lend themselves to the spirit of the joke. Hedid not quite know how he was going to manage it, but he was hopefulstill. It was unthinkable that real live Indians should be permitted tocome and go upon the ranch without giving Evadna Ramsey, straight fromNew Jersey, the scare of her life.
The three bucks, grunting monosyllabic greetings' climbed, in all thedignity of their blankets, to the top rail of the corral, and roostedthere to watch the horse-breaking; and for the present Clark held hispeace.
The squaws hovered there for a moment longer, peeping through the rails.Then Hagar--she of much flesh and more temper--grunted a word or two,and they turned and plodded on to where the house stood hidden awayin its nest of cool green. For a space they stood outside the fence,peering warily into the shade, instinctively cautious in their manner ofapproaching a strange place, and detained also by the Indian etiquettewhich demands that one wait until invited to enter a strange camp.
After a period of waiting which seemed to old Hagar sufficient, shepulled her blanket tight across her broad hips, waddled to thegate, pulled it open with self-conscious assurance, and led the waysoft-footedly around the house to where certain faint sounds betrayedthe presence of Phoebe Hart in her stone milk-house.
At the top of the short flight of wide stone steps they stopped andhuddled silently, until the black shadow of them warned Phoebe of theirpresence. She had lived too long in the West to seem startled when shesuddenly discovered herself watched by three pair of beady black eyes,so she merely nodded, and laid down her butter-ladle to shake hands allaround.
"How, Hagar? How, Viney? How, Lucy? Heap glad to see you. Buenobuttermilk--mebbyso you drinkum?"
However diffident they might be when it came to announcing theirarrival, their bashfulness did not extend to accepting offers of foodor drink. Three brown hands were eagerly outstretched--though it was thehand of Hagar which grasped first the big tin cup. They not onlydrank, they guzzled, and afterward drew a fold of blanket across theirmilk-white lips, and grinned in pure animal satisfaction.
"Bueno. He-e-ap bueno!" they chorused appreciatively, and squatted atthe top of the stone steps, watching Phoebe manipulate the great ball ofyellow butter in its wooden bowl.
After a brief silence, Hagar shook the tangle of unkempt, black hairaway from her moonlike face, and began talking in a soft monotone, hervoice now and then rising to a shrill singsong.
"Mebbyso Tom, mebbyso Sharlie, mebbyso Sleeping Turtle all time comealong," she announced. "Stop all time corral, talk yo' boys. Mebbysoheap likum drink yo' butter water. Bueno."
When Phoebe nodded assent, Hagar went on to the news which had broughther so soon to the ranch--the news which satisfied both an old grudgeand her love of gossip.
"Good Injun, him all time heap kay bueno," she stated emphatically, hersloe black eyes fixed unwaveringly upon Phoebe's face to see if the stabwas effective. "Good Injun come Hartley, all time drunk likum pig.
"All time heap yell, heap shoot--kay bueno. Wantum fightMan-that-coughs. Come all time camp, heap yell, heap shoot some more. Ifetchum dog--Viney dog--heap dragum through sagebrush--dog all time cry,no can get away--me thinkum kill that dog. Squaws cry--Viney cry--GoodInjun"--Hagar paused here for greater effect--"makum horse all timebuck--ridum in wikiup--Hagar wikiup--all time breakum--no can fix thatwikiup. Good Injun, hee-e-ap kay bueno!" At the last her voice was highand tremulous with anger.
"Good Indian mebbyso all same my boy Wally." Phoebe gave the butter avicious slap. "Me heap love Good Indian. You no call Good Indian, youcall Grant. Grant bueno. Heap bueno all time. No drunk, no yell, noshoot, mebbyso"--she hesitated, knowing well the possibilities of herfoster son--"mebbyso catchum dog--me think no catchum. Grant all same myboy. All time me likum--heap bueno."
Viney and Lucy nudged each other and tittered into their blankets,for the argument was an old one between Hagar and Phoebe, though thegrievance of Hagar might be fresh. Hagar shifted her blanket and thrustout a stubborn under lip.
"Wally boy, heap bueno," she said; and her malicious old face softenedas she spoke of him, dear as her own first-born. "Jack bueno, mebbysoGene bueno, mebbyso Clark, mebbyso Donny all time bueno." Doubt was inher voice when she praised those last two, however, because of theircontinual teasing. She stopped short to emphasize the damning contrast."Good Injun all same mebbyso yo' boy Grant, hee-ee-eap kay bueno. GoodInjun Grant all time DEBBIL!"
It was at this point that Donny slipped away to report that "Mamma andold Hagar are scrappin' over Good Injun again," and told with glee thetale of his misdeeds as recounted by the squaw.
Phoebe in her earnestness forgot to keep within the limitations of theirdialect.
"Grant's a good boy, and a smart boy. There isn't a better-heartedfellow in the country, if I have got five boys of my own. You thinkI like him better than I like Wally, is all ails you, Hagar. You'rejealous of Grant, and you always have been, ever since his fatherleft him with me. I hope my heart's big enough to hold them all." Sheremembered then that they could not understand half she was saying, andappealed to Viney. Viney liked Grant.
"Viney, you tell me. Grant no come Hartley, no drunk, no yell, nocatchum you dog, no ride in Hagar's wikiup? You tell me, Viney."
Viney and Lucy bobbed their heads rapidly up and down. Viney, with asidelong glance at Hagar, spoke softly.
"Good Injun Grant, mebbyso home Hartley," she admitted reluctantly, asif she would have been pleased to prove Hagar a liar
in all things."Me thinkum no drunk. Mebbyso ketchum dog--dog kay bueno, mebbyso mekilling. Good Injun Grant no heap yell, no shoot all time--mebbyso nodrunk. No breakum wikiup. Horse all time kay bueno, Hagar--"
"Shont-isham!" (big lie) Hagar interrupted shrilly then, and Vineyrelapsed into silence, her thin face growing sullen under the upbraidingshe received in her native tongue. Phoebe, looking at her attentively,despaired of getting any nearer the truth from any of them.
There was a sudden check to Hagar's shrewish clamor. The squawsstiffened to immobility and listened stolidly, their eyes alonebetraying the curiosity they felt. Off somewhere at the head of the tinypond, hidden away in the jungle of green, a voice was singing; a girl'svoice, and a strange voice--for the squaws knew well the few womenvoices along the Snake.
"That my girl," Phoebe explained, stopping the soft pat--pat of herbutter-ladle.
"Where ketchum yo' girl?" Hagar forgot her petulance, and became curiousas any white woman.
"Me ketchum 'way off, where sun come up. In time me have heapboys--mebbyso want girl all time. My mother's sister's boy have onegirl, 'way off where sun come up. My mother's sister's boy die, hiswife all same die, that girl mebbyso heap sad; no got father, no gotmother--all time got nobody. Kay bueno. That girl send one letter, sayall time got nobody. Me want one girl. Me send one letter, tell thatgirl come, be all time my girl. Five days ago, that girl come. Her heapglad; boys all time heap glad, my man heap glad. Bueno. Mebbyso you gladme have one girl." Not that their approval was necessary, or even ofmuch importance; but Phoebe was accustomed to treat them like spoiledchildren.
Hagar's lip was out-thrust again. "Yo' ketchum one girl, mebbyso yo' nomore likum my boy Wally. Kay bueno."
"Heap like all my boys jus' same," Phoebe hastened to assure her, andadded with a hint of malice, "Heap like my boy Grant all same."
"Huh!" Hagar chose to remain unconvinced and antagonistic. "Good Injunkay bueno. Yo' girl, mebbyso kay bueno."
"What name yo' girl?" Viney interposed hastily.
"Name Evadna Ramsey." In spite of herself, Phoebe felt a trifle chilledby their lack of enthusiasm. She went back to her butter-making indignified silence.
The squaws blinked at her stolidly. Always they were inclined towardsuspicion of strangers, and perhaps to a measure of jealousy as well.Not many whites received them with frank friendship as did the Hartfamily, and they felt far more upon the subject than they might put intowords, even the words of their own language.
Many of the white race looked upon them as beggars, which was badenough, or as thieves, which was worse; and in a general way they couldnot deny the truth of it. But they never stole from the Harts, and theynever openly begged from the Harts. The friends of the Harts, however,must prove their friendship before they could hope for better than animperturbable neutrality. So they would not pretend to be glad. Hagarwas right--perhaps the girl was no good. They would wait until theycould pass judgment upon this girl who had come to live in the wikiupof the Harts. Then Lucy, she who longed always for children and had beendenied by fate, stirred slightly, her nostrils aquiver.
"Mebbyso bueno yo' girl," she yielded, speaking softly. "Mebbyso seeyo' girl."
Phoebe's face cleared, and she called, in mellow crescendo: "Oh,Va-ad-NIEE?" Immediately the singing stopped.
"Coming, Aunt Phoebe," answered the voice.
The squaws wrapped themselves afresh in their blankets, passed brownpalms smoothingly down their hair from the part in the middle, settledtheir braids upon their bosoms with true feminine instinct, and waited.They heard her feet crunching softly in the gravel that bordered thepond, but not a head turned that way; for all the sign of life theygave, the three might have been mere effigies of women. They heard afaint scream when she caught sight of them sitting there, and theirfaces settled into more stolid indifference, adding a hint of antagonismeven to the soft eyes of Lucy, the tender, childless one.
"Vadnie, here are some new neighbors I want you to get acquainted with."Phoebe's eyes besought the girl to be calm. "They're all old friends ofmine. Come here and let me introduce you--and don't look so horrified,honey!"
Those incorrigibles, her cousins, would have whooped with joy at herunmistakable terror when she held out a trembling hand and gaspedfaintly: "H-how do you--do?"
"This Hagar," Phoebe announced cheerfully; and the old squaw caught thegirl's hand and gripped it tightly for a moment in malicious enjoymentof her too evident fear and repulsion.
"This Viney."
Viney, reading Evadna's face in one keen, upward glance, kept her handshidden in the folds of her blanket, and only nodded twice reassuringly.
"This Lucy."
Lucy read also the girl's face; but she reached up, pressed her handgently, and her glance was soft and friendly. So the ordeal was over.
"Bring some of that cake you baked to-day, honey--and do brace up!"Phoebe patted her upon the shoulder.
Hagar forestalled the hospitable intent by getting slowly upon her fatlegs, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and grunting a command to theothers. With visible reluctance Lucy and Viney rose also, hitched theirblankets into place, and vanished, soft-footed as they had come.
"Oo-oo!" Evadna stared at the place where they were not. "WildIndians--I thought the boys were just teasing when they said so--andit's really true, Aunt Phoebe?"
"They're no wilder than you are," Phoebe retorted impatiently.
"Oh, they ARE wild. They're exactly like in my history--and they don'tmake a sound when they go--you just look, and they're gone! That old fatone--did you see how she looked at me? As if she wanted to--SCALP me,Aunt Phoebe! She looked right at my hair and--"
"Well, she didn't take it with her, did she? Don't be silly. I've knownold Hagar ever since Wally was a baby. She took him right to her ownwikiup and nursed him with her own papoose for two months when I wassick, and Viney stayed with me day and night and pulled me through. LucyI've known since she was a papoose. Great grief, child! Didn't you hearme say they're old friends? I wanted you to be nice to them, becauseif they like you there's nothing they won't do for you. If they don't,there's nothing they WILL do. You might as well get used to them--"
Out by the gate rose a clamor which swept nearer and nearer until thenoise broke at the corner of the house like a great wave, in a tumult ofred blanket, flying black hair, the squalling of a female voice, andthe harsh laughter of the man who carried the disturbance, kicking andclawing, in his arms. Fighting his way to the milk-house, he dragged thesquaw along beside the porch, followed by the Indians and all the Hartboys, a yelling, jeering audience.
"You tell her shont-isham! Ah-h--you can't break loose, you oldshe-wildcat. Quit your biting, will you? By all the big and littlespirits of your tribe, you'll wish--"
Panting, laughing, swearing also in breathless exclamations, he forcedher to the top of the steps, backed recklessly down them, and came toa stop in the corner by the door. Evadna had taken refuge there; and hepressed her hard against the rough wall without in the least realizingthat anything was behind him save unsentient stone.
"Now, you sing your little song, and be quick about it!" he commandedhis captive sternly. "You tell Mother Hart you lied. I hear she's beentelling you I'm drunk, Mother Hart--didn't you, you old beldam? You sayyou heap sorry you all time tellum lie. You say: 'Good Injun, him alltime heap bueno.' Say: 'Good Injun no drunk, no heap shoot, no heapyell--all time bueno.' Quick, or I'll land you headforemost in thatpond, you infernal old hag!"
"Good Injun hee-eeap kay bueno! Heap debbil all time." Hagar might beshort of breath, but her spirit was unconquered, and her under lip borewitness to her stubbornness.
Phoebe caught him by the arm then, thinking he meant to make good histhreat--and it would not have been unlike Grant Imsen to do so.
"Now, Grant, you let her go," she coaxed. "I know you aren't drunk--ofcourse, I knew it all the time. I told Hagar so. What do you care whatshe says about you? You don't want to fight an old woman, Grant--a mancan't fight a wo
man--"
"You tell her you heap big liar!" Grant did not even look at Phoebe,but his purpose seemed to waver in spite of himself. "You all time kaybueno. You all time lie." He gripped her more firmly, and turned hishead slightly toward Phoebe. "You'd be tired of it yourself if she threwit into you like she does into me, Mother Hart. It's got so I can't ridepast this old hag in the trail but she gives me the bad eye, and mumblesinto her blanket. And if I look sidewise, she yowls all over the countrythat I'm drunk. I'm getting tired of it!" He shook the squaw as a puppyshakes a shoe--shook her till her hair quite hid her ugly old face fromsight.
"All right--Mother Hart she tellum mebbyso let you go. This time I nothrow you in pond. You heap take care next time, mebbyso. You no tellumbig lie, me all time heap drunk. You kay bueno. All time me tellumMother Hart, tellum boys, tellum Viney, Lucy, tellum Charlie and Tom andSleeping Turtle you heap big liar. Me tell Wally shont-isham. Him alltime my friend--mebbyso him no likum you no more.
"Huh. Get out--pikeway before I forget you're a lady!"
He laughed ironically, and pushed her from him so suddenly that shesprawled upon the steps. The Indians grinned unsympathetically at her,for Hagar was not the most popular member of the tribe by any means.Scrambling up, she shook her witch locks from her face, wrapped herselfin her dingy blanket, and scuttled away, muttering maledictions underher breath. The watching group turned and followed her, and in a fewseconds the gate was heard to slam shut behind them. Grant stood wherehe was, leaning against the milk-house wall; and when they were gone, hegave a short, apologetic laugh.
"No need to lecture, Mother Hart. I know it was a fool thing to do; butwhen Donny told me what the old devil said, I was so mad for a minute--"
Phoebe caught him again by the arm and pulled him forward. "Grant!You're squeezing Vadnie to death, just about! Great grief, I forgot allabout the poor child being here! You poor little--"
"Squeezing who?" Grant whirled, and caught a brief glimpse of a crumpledlittle figure behind him, evidently too scared to cry, and yet not quiteat the fainting point of terror. He backed, and began to stammer anapology; but she did not wait to hear a word of it. For an instantshe stared into his face, and then, like a rabbit released from itsparalysis of dread, she darted past him and deaf up the stone steps intothe house. He heard the kitchen-door shut, and the click of the lock.He heard other doors slam suggestively; and he laughed in spite of hisastonishment.
"And who the deuce might that be?" he asked, feeling in his pocket forsmoking material.
Phoebe seemed undecided between tears and laughter. "Oh, Grant, GRANT!She'll think you're ready to murder everybody on the ranch--and you canbe such a nice boy when you want to be! I did hope--"
"I don't want to be nice," Grant objected, drawing a match along afairly smooth rock.
"Well, I wanted you to appear at your best; and, instead of that, hereyou come, squabbling with old Hagar like--"
"Yes--sure. But who is the timid lady?"
"Timid! You nearly killed the poor girl, besides scaring her half todeath, and then you call her timid. I know she thought there was goingto be a real Indian massacre, right here, and she'd be scalped--"
Wally Hart came back, laughing to himself.
"Say, you've sure cooked your goose with old Hagar, Grant! She's righton the warpath, and then some. She'd like to burn yuh alive--she saidso. She's headed for camp, and all the rest of the bunch at her heels.She won't come here any more till you're kicked off the ranch, as nearas I could make out her jabbering. And she won't do your washing anymore, mum--she said so. You're kay bueno yourself, because you take GoodIndian's part. We're all kay bueno--all but me. She wanted me to quitthe bunch and go live in her wikiup. I'm the only decent one in theoutfit." He gave his mother an affectionate little hug as he went past,and began an investigative tour of the stone jars on the cool rock floorwithin. "What was it all about, Grant? What did yuh do to her, anyway?"
"Oh, it wasn't anything. Hand me up a cup of that buttermilk, will you?They've got a dog up there in camp that I'm going to kill some of thesedays--if they don't beat me to it. He was up at the store, and when Iwent out to get my horse, he tried to take a leg off me. I kicked himin the nose and he came at me again, so when I mounted I just droppedmy loop over Mr. Dog. Sleeping Turtle was there, and he said the dogbelonged to Viney, So I just led him gently to camp."
He grinned a little at the memory of his gentleness. "I told Viney Ithought he'd make a fine stew, and, they'd better use him up right awaybefore he spoiled. That's all there was to it. Well, Keno did sink hishead and pitch around camp a little, but not to amount to anything. Hejust stuck his nose into old Hagar's wikiup--and one sniff seemed to beabout all he wanted. He didn't hurt anything."
He took a meditative bite of cake, finished the buttermilk in threerapturous swallows, and bethought him of the feminine mystery.
"If you please, Mother Hart, who was that Christmas angel I squashed?"
"Vad? Was Vad in on it, mum? I never saw her." Wally straightened upwith a fresh chunk of cake in his hand. "Was she scared?"
"Yes," his mother admitted reluctantly, "I guess she was, all right.First the squaws--and, poor girl, I made her shake hands all round--andthen Grant here, acting like a wild hyena--"
"Say, PLEASE don't tell me who she is, or where she belongs, or anythinglike that," Grant interposed, with some sarcasm. "I smashed her flatbetween me and the wall, and I scared the daylights out of her; and I'mtold I should have appeared at my best. But who she is, or where shebelongs--"
"She belongs right here." Phoebe's tone was a challenge, whether shemeant it to be so or not. "This is going to be her home from now on; andI want you boys to treat her nicer than you've been doing. She's beenhere a week almost; and there ain't one of you that's made friends withher yet, or tried to, even. You've played jokes on her, and told herthings to scare her--and my grief! I was hoping she'd have a softeninginfluence on you, and make gentlemen of you. And far as I can make out,just having her on the place seems to put the Old Harry into every oneof you! It isn't right. It isn't the way I expected my boys would acttoward a stranger--a girl especially. And I did hope Grant would behavebetter."
"Sure, he ought to. Us boneheads don't know any better--but Grant'sEDUCATED." Wally grinned and winked elaborately at his mother's back.
"I'm not educated up to Christmas angels that look as if they'd beenstepped on," Grant defended himself.
"She's a real nice little thing. If you boys would quit teasing the lifeout of her, I don't doubt but what, in six months or so, you wouldn'tknow the girl," Phoebe argued, with some heat.
"I don't know the girl now." Grant spoke dryly. "I don't want to. If I'dheld a tomahawk in one hand and her flowing locks in the other, andwas just letting a war-whoop outa me, she'd look at me--the way she didlook." He snorted in contemptuous amusement, and gave a little, writhingtwist of his slim body into his trousers. "I never did like blondes," headded, in a tone of finality, and started up the steps.
"You never liked anything that wore skirts," Phoebe flung after himindignantly; and she came very close to the truth.