X
CURTIS AT HEADQUARTERS
Curtis was frankly exclamatory at the size and splendor of Lawson'sapartments. He had accepted the invitation to take breakfast with himwithout much thought as to the quality of the breakfast or where itwould be eaten, until he found himself entering the hall of a superbapartment hotel.
"Why, see here, Lawson," he exclaimed, as he looked about his friend'ssuite, "this is too much for any bachelor--it's baronial! I must revisemy judgments. I had a notion you were a hard-working ethnologic sharp."
"So I am," replied Lawson, smiling with frank enjoyment of his visitor'samazement. "I've been at work two hours at my desk. If you don't believeit, there's the desk."
The room was filled with books, cases of antique pottery, paintings ofIndians, models of Pueblo dwellings, and other things in keeping, andwas made rich in color by a half-dozen very choice Navajo blankets inthe fine old weaves with the vegetable dyes so dear to the collector.The long table was heaped with current issues of the latest magazines,and dozens of books, with markers set to guard some valuable passages,were piled within reach. It was plainly the library of a student and manof letters.
Lawson's lean, brown face at once assumed a different aspect to Curtis.It became more refined, more scholarly, and distinctly less shrewd andquizzical, and the soldier began to understand the writer's smilingdefiance of Western politicians and millionaire cattle-owners. Plainly aman of large fortune, with high social connections, what had Lawson tofear of the mountain West? The menace of the greedy cattlemen troubledhim no more than the howl of the blizzard.
In the same measure that Lawson's power was revealed to him the heart ofthe agent sank. He could not but acknowledge that here was the fittinghusband and proper home for Elsie--"while I," he thought, "have only abarrack in a desolate Indian country to offer her," and he swung deep inthe trough of his sea of doubt.
A map on the wall, lined with red, caught his eye, and he seized upon itfor diversion.
"What is this?" he asked.
"That's my trail-map," replied Lawson. "The red lines represent mywanderings."
Curtis studied it with expert eyes. "You have ploughed the Arizonadeserts pretty thoroughly."
"Yes, I've spent three summers down in that country studyingcliff-dwellings. It's a mighty alluring region. Last summer I broke awayand got back into the north, but I am greatly taken with the hotsunshine and loneliness of the desert."
Curtis turned sharply. "What I can't understand, Lawson, is this: Howcan you pull up and leave such a home?"--he indicated the room with asweep of his hand--"and go out on the painted desert or down the Chacoand swelter in the heat like a horned toad?"
Lawson smiled. "It _is_ absurd, isn't it? Man's an unaccountable beast.But come! Breakfast is waiting, and I hope you're hungry."
The dining-room was built on a scale with the library, and the mahoganytable, sparsely covered with dishes, looked small and lonely in themidst of the shining floor. This feature of the beautiful room impressedCurtis, and as they took seats opposite each other he remarked, "If Iwere not here you would be alone?"
"Yes, quite generally I breakfast alone. I entertain less than you wouldthink. I'm a busy man when at home."
"Well, the waste of room is criminal, Lawson, that's all I have tosay--criminal. You'll be called upon to answer for it some time."
"I've begun to think so myself," replied the host, significantly.
They talked mountain ranges and Pueblo dwellers, and the theoreticalrelation of the mound-builders to the small, brown races of the RioGrande Valley, touching also on the future of the redman; and all thewhile Curtis was struggling with a benumbing sense of his hopelessweakness in the face of a rival like Lawson. He gave up all thought ofseeing Elsie again, and resolutely set himself to do the work beforehim, eager to return to his duties in the Western foot-hills.
Lawson accompanied him to the Interior Department and introduced him tothe Secretary, who had the preoccupied air of a business man rather thanthe assumed leisure of the politician. He shook hands warmly, and askedhis visitors to be seated while he finished a paper in hand. At last heturned and pleasantly began:
"I'm glad to meet you, Captain. Yours is a distinguished name with us.We fully recognize the value of your volunteer service, and hope to makethe best use of you. Our mutual friend, Lawson here, threatens to makeyou Secretary in my stead." Here he looked over his spectacles with agrave and accusing air, which amused Lawson greatly.
"Not so bad as that, Mr. Secretary," he laughed. "I merely suggestedthat Captain Curtis would make an excellent President."
"Oh, well, it all comes to the same thing." He then became quiteserious. "Now, Captain, I would suggest that you put this whole matteras you see it, together with your recommendations, into the briefest,most telling form possible, and be ready to come before the committeeto-morrow. Confer with the commissioner and be ready to meet the queriesof the opposition. Brisbane is behind the cattlemen in this controversy,and he is a strong man. I agree entirely with you and Lawson that theTetongs should remain where they are and be helped in the way yousuggest. Be ready with computations of the cost of satisfying claims ofthe settlers, building ditches, etc. Come and see me again before youreturn. Good-morning," and he bent to his desk with instant absorption.
Lawson again led the way across the square in search of thecommissioner's office. The large, bare waiting-room was filled with adozen or more redmen, all wearing new blue suits and wide black hats.They were smoking in contemplative silence, with only an occasional wordspoken in undertone. It was plain they were expecting an audience withthe great white chief.
Several of them knew Lawson and cried out: "Ho! Ho!" coming up one byone to shake hands, but they glowed with pleasure as Curtis began tosign-talk with them.
"Who are you?" he asked of one. "Oh! Northern Cheyenne--I thought so.And you--you are Apache?" he said to another. "I can tell that, too.What are you all waiting for? To see the commissioner? Have you had agood visit? Yes, I see you have nice new suits. The government is goodto you--sometimes." They laughed at his sharp hits. "Well, don't staytoo long here. The white man will rob you of your good clothes. Becareful of fire-water."
One old man, whose gestures were peculiarly flowing and dignified,thereupon signed: "When the white man come to buy our lands we are greatchiefs--very tall; when we ask for our money to be paid to us, then weare small, like children." This caused a general laugh, in which Curtisjoined. They all wanted to know who he was, and he told them. "Ah! weare glad for the Tetongs. They have a good man. Tell the commissioner weare anxious to council and go home--we are weary of this place."
Lawson, meanwhile, had entered the office and now reappeared. "Mr. Brownwill see you at once, Captain."
The acting commissioner wore the troubled look of a man sorelyoverworked and badly badgered. He breathed a sigh of ostentatious reliefas he faced his two visitors, who came neither to complain nor to askfavors. He studied Curtis contemplatively, his pale face set in sadlines.
"I'm leaning on you in this Tetong business," he began. "I have so manysimilar fights all over the West, I can't give you the attention youdeserve. It seems as though our settlers were insane over Indian lands.I honestly believe, if we should lay out a reservation on the stakedplains there'd be a mad rush for it. 'The Injun has it--let's take itaway from him,' seems to be the universal cry. I am pestered to deathwith schemes for cutting down reservations and removing tribes. It wouldseem as if these poor, hunted devils might have a thumb-nail's breadthof the continent they once entirely owned; but no, so long as an acreexists they are liable to attack. I'm worn out with the attempt todefend them. I'll have nervous prostration or something worse if thispressure continues. Yesterday nearly finished me. What kind of piratesdo you raise out there, anyway?"
Curtis listened with amazement to this frank avowal, but Lawson onlylaughed, saying, in explanation: "This is one of the commissioner's poordays. He'll fight till the last ditch--"
"I
rrigating ditch!" supplemented the commissioner. "Yes, there's anothernightmare. Beautiful complication! The government puts the Indian on areservation so dry that water won't run down hill, and then Lawson orsome other friend of the Indian comes in here and insists on irrigatingditches being put in, and then I am besieged by civil engineers forjobs, and wild-eyed contractors twist my door-knobs off. Captain Curtis,keep out of the Indian service if you have any conscience."
"That's exactly why I recommended him," said Lawson--"because he _has_ aconscience."
"It'll shorten his life ten years and do no material good. Well, now,about this Tetong imbroglio."
Immediately he fell upon the problem with the most intense application,and Curtis had a feeling that his little season of plain speaking hadrefreshed him.
Lawson went his way, but Curtis spent the remainder of the day in thecommissioner's office, putting together his defence of the Tetongs,compiling figures, and drawing maps to show the location of grass andwater. He did not rise from his work till the signal for closing came,and even then he gathered his papers together and took them home to hisroom in the club in order to put the finishing touches to them.
While dressing for his dinner with Lieutenant Kirkman, a classmate andcomrade, he began to wonder how soon he could decently make hisdinner-call on the Brisbanes. It was shameful in him, of course, but hehad suddenly lost interest in the Kirkmans. The day seemed lost becausehe had not been able to see Elsie. There was a powerful longing in hisheart, an impatience which he had not experienced since his earlymanhood. It was a hunger which had lain dormant--scotched but notkilled--for now it rose from its mysterious lair with augmented power tobreak his rest and render all other desires of no account.
That night, after he returned from the Kirkmans', where he had enjoyedan exquisite little dinner amid a joyous chatter reviving old-timememories, he found himself not merely wide-awake, but restless. Hisbrain seemed determined to reveal itself to him completely. Pictures ofhis early life and the faces and homes of his friends in the West camewhirling in orderless procession like flights of swift birds--now acouncil with the Sioux; now a dinner of the staff of General Miles;visions of West Point, a flock of them, came also, and the faces of thegirls he had loved with a boy's fancy; and then, as if these were butwhisks of cloud scattering, the walls of great mountain ranges appearedbehind, stern and majestic, sunlit for a moment, only to withdrawswiftly into gray night; and when he seized upon these sweepingfragments and attempted to arrange them, Elsie's proud face, with itsdark, changeful eyes and beautiful, curving lips, took central place,and in the end obscured all the rest.
The Kirkman home, the cheer, the tenderness of the husband towards hisdainty little wife, the obvious rest and satisfaction of the man,betokening that the ultimate of his desires had been reached, also camein for consideration by the restless brain of the soldier-mountaineer."I shall never be at peace till I have wife and child, that I nowrealize," he acknowledged to himself in the deep, solitary places of histhought.
Then he rose and took up the papers which he had been preparing, and ashe went over them again he came to profounder realization than everbefore of the mighty tragedy whose final act he seemed about to witness.His heart swelled with a great tenderness towards that fragment of aproud and free people who sat in wonder before the coming of an infiniteflood of alien races, helpless to stay it, appalled by the breadth andpower of the stream which swept them away. He felt himself in some sensetheir chosen friend--their Moses, to lead them out of the desolation inwhich they sat bewildered and despairing. Thinking of them and of plansto help them, he grew weary at last, his brain ceased to grind, and heslept.