The Watchers of the Plains: A Tale of the Western Prairies

Seth seated himself on a fallen tree-trunk, and now looked squarely into the wood-cutter’s thin, mean face.

“Y’ see it’s kind o’ curious. I got that gal from the Injuns more’n six years back, as you’ll likely remember. Her folks, her father an’ her ma, was killed south o’ the Reservations. Guess they were kind o’ big folk in your country. An’ ther’ was a feller come along awhiles back all the way from England to find her. He was a swell law feller; he’d hit her trail, an’ when he comes along he said as she owned ’states in your country, a whole heap. Guess she’s to be treated like a queen. Dollars? Gee! She ken buy most everything. I ’lows they ken do it slick in your country.”

Seth paused to light his pipe. His manner was exquisitely simple. The narration of the story of the girl’s good fortune appeared to give him the keenest pleasure. Nevil removed his pipe from his lips and sat chewing the end of his ragged moustache. There was an ugly look in his eyes as he contemplated the ashes of his fire. He might have been staring at the ashes of his own fortunes. However, he contrived a faint smile when he spoke.

“Then I s’pose you’ve found out her real name?”

“Sure. Marjorie Raynor. Her father was Colonel Landor Raynor.”

“Ah.”

“An’ ther’ ain’t no question o’ the dollars. She hain’t no near folk ’cep’ an uncle, Stephen Raynor, an’ he don’t figger anyways, ’cause the dollars are left to her by will. He only comes in, the lawyer feller says, if the gal was to die, or – or get killed.”

Seth had become quite reflective; he seemed to find a curious pleasure in thus discussing the girl he loved with a man he at no time had any use for.

Nevil stared uneasily. A quick, furtive glance at Seth, who at that moment seemed to be watching his horse, gave an inkling of his passing thought. If a look could kill Seth would certainly have been a dead man.

“So the whole thing’s a dead cinch for her?”

“Yup. Now.”

Nevil gave a short laugh.

“You mean – that matter with Little Black Fox. But she brought it on herself. She encouraged him.”

Seth was round on him in a twinkling.

“Maybe he was encouraged – but not by her.”

“Who then?”

There was unmistakable derision in the wood-cutter’s tone. Seth shrugged. A shadowy smile played round his lips, but his eyes were quite serious.

“That’s it,” he said, relapsing into his reflective manner, “the whole thing’s mighty curious. Them law fellers in your country are smartish. They’ve located a deal. Don’t jest know how. They figger that uncle feller is around either this State or Minnesota – likely this one, seein’ the Colonel was comin’ this aways when he got killed. We got yarnin’, an’ he was sayin’ he thought o’ huntin’ out this uncle. I guessed ther’ wa’an’t much need, an’ it might set him wantin’ the dollars. The law feller said he wouldn’t get ’em anyhow – ’cep’ the gal was dead. We kind o’ left it at that. Y’ see the whole thing for the uncle hung around that gal – bein’ dead.”

“And you think he might have had something – ” Nevil’s words came slowly, like a man who realizes the danger of saying too much.

“Wal, it don’t seem possible, I guess. Them two was killed by the Injuns, sure. An’ she – I guess she ain’t never seen him.”

A slight sigh escaped Nevil.

“That’s so,” he said deliberately.

“Howsum, I guess I’m goin’ to look around for this feller. Y’ see Rosebud’s li’ble to like him. Mebbe he ain’t well heeled for dollars, an’ she’s that tender-hearted she might – I’ve got his pictur’. Mebbe I’ll show it around – eh, what’s up?” Seth inquired in his blandest tone.

Nevil suddenly sat up and there was a desperate look in his eyes. But he controlled himself, and, with an effort, spoke indifferently.

“Nothing. I want another pipe.”

“Ah.” Seth fumbled through his pockets, talking the while. “The pictur’ was took when he was most a boy. His hair was thick an’ he hadn’t no moustache nor nothin’, which kind o’ makes things hard. As I was sayin’, I’m goin’ to show it around some, an’ maybe some one ’ll rec’nize the feller. That’s why I got yarnin’ to you. Mebbe you ken locate him.”

As he said the last word he drew a photograph from his pocket and thrust it into Nevil’s hand.

The wood-cutter took it with a great assumption of indifference, and found himself looking down on a result of early photographic art. It was the picture of a very young man with an overshot mouth and a thin, narrow face. But, as Seth had said, he wore no moustache, and his hair was still thick.

Nevil looked long at that picture, and once or twice he licked his lips as though they were very dry. All the time Seth’s steady eyes were upon his face, and the shadow of a smile was still about his lips.

At last Nevil looked up and Seth’s eyes held his. For a moment the two men sat thus. Then the wood-cutter handed back the photograph and shifted his gaze.

“I’ve never seen the original of that about these parts,” he said a little hoarsely.

“I didn’t figger you had,” Seth replied, rising and proceeding to tighten up the cinches of his saddle preparatory to departing. “The lawyer feller gave me that. Y’ see it’s an old pictur’. ’Tain’t as fancy as they do ’em now. Mebbe I’ll find him later on.”

He had swung into his saddle. Nevil had also risen as though to proceed with his work.

“It might be a good thing for him, since Rosebud is so well disposed,” Nevil laughed; he had almost recovered himself.

“That’s so,” observed Seth. “Or a mighty bad thing. Y’ can’t never tell how dollars ’ll fix a man. Dollars has a heap to answer for.”

And with this vague remark the plainsman rode slowly away.

CHAPTER XX

SETH PAYS

As the weeks crept by and the torrid heat toned down to the delightful temperature of the Indian summer, news began to reach White River Farm from England. After the first excitement of her arrival had worn off, Rosebud settled down to a regular correspondence.

Even her return to the scenes of her childhood in no way aided her memory. It was all new to her. As her letters often said, though she knew she was grown up, yet, as far as memory served her, she was still only six years old. Servants who had nursed her as a baby, who had cared for her as a child of ten, aunts who had lavished childish presents upon her, cousins who had played with her, they were all strangers, every one.

So she turned with her confidences to those she knew; – those old people on the prairie of Dakota, and that man who had been everything to her. To these she wrote by every mail, giving details of the progress of affairs, telling them of her new life, of her pleasures, her little worries, never forgetting that Ma and Pa were still her mother and father.

Thus they learned that the lawyer’s prophecies had been fulfilled. Rosebud was in truth her father’s heiress. The courts were satisfied, and she was burdened with heritage under certain conditions of the will. These conditions she did not state, probably a girlish oversight in the rush of events so swiftly passing round her.

The winter stole upon the plains; that hard, relentless winter which knows no yielding till spring drives it forth. First the fierce black frosts, then the snow, and later the shrieking blizzard, battling, tearing for possession of the field, carrying death in its breath for belated man and beast, and sweeping the snow into small mountains about the lonely prairie dwellings as though, in its bitter fury at the presence of man, it would bury them out of sight where its blast proved powerless to destroy them. Christmas and New Year were past, that time of peace and festivity which is kept up wherever man sojourns, be it in city or on the plains.

Through these dark months Seth and Rube worked steadily on building their stockade, hauling the logs, cutting, splitting, joining. The weather made no difference to them. The fiercest storm disturbed them no further than to cause them to set a life-line from house to barn, or to their work, wherever that might be. No blizzard could drive them within doors when work was to be done. This was the life they knew, they had always lived, and they accepted it uncomplainingly, just as they accepted the fruits of the earth in their season.

No warning sound came from the Indians. The settlers forgot the recent episode, forgot the past, which is the way of human nature, and lived in the present only, and looked forward happily to the future.

Seth and Rube minded their own affairs. They were never the ones to croak. But their vigilance never relaxed. Seth resumed his visits to the Reservation as unconcernedly as though no trouble had ever occurred. He went on with his Sunday work at the Mission, never altering his tactics by one iota. And in his silent way he learned all that interested him.

He learned of Little Black Fox’s protracted recovery, his lately developed moroseness. He knew whenever a council of chiefs took place, and much of what passed on these occasions. The presence of Nevil Steyne at such meetings was a matter which never failed to interest him. He was rarely seen in the company of the Agent, yet a quiet understanding existed between them, and he frequently possessed news which only Parker could have imparted.

So it was clearly shown that whatever the general opinion of the settlers, Seth, and doubtless Rube also, had their own ideas on the calm of those winter months, and lost no opportunity of verifying them.

New Year found the ponderous stockade round the farm only a little more than half finished in spite of the greatest efforts. Rube had hoped for better results, but the logs had been slow in forthcoming. The few Indians who would work in the winter had been scarcer this year, and, in spite of the Agent, whose duty it was to encourage his charges in accepting and carrying out remunerative labor, the work had been very slow.

At Rube’s suggestion it was finally decided to seek white labor in Beacon Crossing. It was more expensive, but it was more reliable. When once the new project had been put into full working order it was decided to abandon the Indian labor altogether.

With this object in view Seth went across to the Reservation to consult Parker. He was met by the Agent’s sister. Her brother was out, but she expected him home to dinner, which would be in the course of half an hour.

“He went off with Jim Crow,” the amiable spinster told her visitor. “Went off this morning early. He said he was going over to the Pine Ridge Agency. But he took Jim Crow with him, and hadn’t any idea of going until the scout came.”

Seth ensconsed himself in an armchair and propped his feet up on the steel bars of a huge wood stove.

“Ah,” he said easily. “Guess there’s a deal for him to do, come winter. With your permission I’ll wait.”

Miss Parker was all cordiality. No man, in her somewhat elderly eyes, was more welcome than Seth. The Agent’s sister had once been heard to say, if there was a man to be compared with her brother in the whole country it was Seth. She only wondered he’d escaped being married out of hand by one of the town girls, as she characterized the women of Beacon Crossing. But then she was far more prejudiced in favor of Seth than her own sex.

“He’ll be glad, Seth,” she said at once; “James is always partial to a chat with you. You just make yourself comfortable right there. I’ve got a boil of beef and dumplings on, which I know you like. You’ll stay and have food?”

“I take that real friendly,” said Seth, smiling up into the plain, honest face before him. “Guess I’ll have a pipe and a warm while you’re fixin’ things.”

Somehow Miss Parker found herself retiring to her kitchen again before she had intended it.

During the next half hour the hostess found various excuses for invading the parlor where Seth was engaged in his promised occupation. She generally had some cheery, inconsequent remark to pass. Seth gave her little encouragement, but he was always polite. At last the dinner was served, and, sharp to time, Jimmy Parker returned. He came by himself, and blustered into the warm room bringing with him that brisk atmosphere of the outside cold which, in winter, always makes the inside of a house on the prairie strike one as a perfect haven of comfort. He greeted Seth cordially as he shook the frost from his fur-coat collar, and gently released his moustache from its coating of ice.

Seth deferred his business until after dinner. He never liked talking business before womenfolk. And Miss Parker, like most of her sex in the district, was likely to exaggerate the importance of any chance hint about the Indians dropped in her presence. So the boil of silverside and dumplings was discussed to the accompaniment of a casual conversation which was chiefly carried on by the Agent’s sister. At length the two men found themselves alone, and their understanding of each other was exampled by the prompt inquiry of Parker.

“Well?” he questioned. Seth settled himself in his chair and, from force of habit, spread his hands out to the fire.

“We’re finishing our job with white labor,” he said. Then as an afterthought, “Y’ see we want to git things fixed ’fore spring opens.”

The Agent nodded.

“Just so,” he said.

The beads on his moccasins had much interest for Seth at the moment.

“I’d never gamble a pile on Injuns’ labor,” he remarked indifferently. Parker laughed.

“No. It would be a dead loss – just now.”

Seth looked round inquiringly.

“I was wondering when you would give them up,” the Agent went on. “I’ve had a great deal of difficulty keeping them at it. And we’re liable, I think, to have more.”

The last was said very gravely.

“Kind o’ how we’ve figgered right along?” Seth asked.

“Yes.”

The two men relapsed into silence for a while, and smoked on. At last Seth spoke with the air of a man who has just finished reviewing matters of importance in his mind.

“We’ve taken in the well in fixin’ that corral.”

“Good. We’ve got no well here.”

“No.”

“I was over at Pine Ridge to-day.”

“That’s what your sister said.”

“I went for two reasons. Jim Crow has smelt out preparations for Sun-dances. We can’t locate where they are going to be held, or when. I went over to consult Jackson, and also to see how he’s getting on over there. He’s having the same trouble getting the Indians to look at any work. Little Black Fox is about again. Also he sees a heap too much of that white familiar of his, Nevil Steyne. By Jove, I wish we could fix something on that man and get the government to deport him. He’s got a great sway over the chief. What the devil is his object?” Jimmy Parker’s face flushed under his exasperation.

“I’d give a heap to git a cinch on him,” Seth replied thoughtfully. “He’s smart. His tracks are covered every time. Howsum, if things git doin’ this spring, I’ve a notion we’ll run him down mebbe – later.”

The Agent was all interest.

“Have you discovered anything?”

“Wal – nothin’ that counts your way. It’s jest personal, ’tween him an’ me.”

The other laughed cheerfully.

“Couldn’t be better,” he exclaimed. “I’d sooner it depended on you than on the government.”

Seth let the tribute pass.

“We must locate them Sun-dances,” he said.

“Yes. We’ve got troops enough to stop them.”

“Troops? – pshaw!”

Seth rose. Parker understood his last remark. The presence of troops had long since been discussed between them. The visitor moved toward the door, and the Agent went to his desk. At the door Seth turned as some thought occurred to him.

“Guess I’d not report anything yet. Not till the Sun-dances are located. I’ll git around some.” He slipped into his fur coat and turned up the storm collar.

Parker nodded.

“Keep a smart eye for yourself, Seth,” he said. “Little Black Fox isn’t likely to forget. Especially with Steyne around.”

Seth smiled faintly.

“And Steyne ’ll kind o’ remember, sure.” He passed out and left his sturdy friend wondering.

“I’d give something to know,” that individual said to himself, when the sound of horse’s hoofs had died out. “Seth’s dead against Steyne, and I’d like to bet it’s over Rosebud.”

The object of the Agent’s thoughts passed unconcernedly on his way. He branched off the ford trail intending to make for the bridge, below which his men were cutting the timbers for the corral. His way was remote from the chief encampment, and not a single Indian showed himself.

The skeleton woods that lined the trail gave a desolate air to the bleak, white prospect. The whole of that northern world offered little promise to the traveler, little inducement to leave the warmth of house or tepee.

As the horseman neared the bridge he paused to listen. Something of his attitude communicated itself to his horse. The animal’s ears were laid back, and it seemed to be listening to some sound behind it. Whatever had attracted master and horse must have been very faint.

A moment later Seth let the horse walk on and the animal appeared content. But if the animal were so, its master was not. He turned several times as he approached the bridge, and scanned the crowding branches on each side of the snow-covered trail behind him.

Seth knew that he was followed. More, he knew that the watcher was clumsy, and had not the stealth of the Indian. At the bridge he faced about and sat waiting. The gravity of his face was relieved by a slight smile.

Suddenly the crack of a rifle rang out. The horseman’s smile died abruptly. His horse reared, pawing the air, and he saw blood on the beast’s shoulder. He saw that the flesh had been ripped by a glancing bullet, and the course of the wound showed him whence the shot had come.

He looked for the man who had fired, and, as he did so, another shot rang out. He reeled forward in his saddle, but straightened up almost at once, and his right hand flew to his revolver, while he tried to swing his horse about. But somehow he had lost power, and the horse was in a frenzy of terror. The next moment the beast was racing across the bridge in the direction of home.

The journey was made at a great pace. Seth was sitting bolt upright. His face was ashen, and his eyelids drooped in spite of his best efforts.

Rube was in the region of the kitchen door as he galloped up, and he called out a greeting.

The rider began to reply. But, at that moment, the horse propped and halted, and the reply was never finished. Seth rolled out of the saddle and fell to the ground like a log.

CHAPTER XXI

TWO HEADS IN CONSPIRACY

Seth was badly hit; so badly that it was impossible to say how long he might be confined to a sick-room. His left shoulder-blade had been broken by the bullet, which, striking under the arm, had glanced round his ribs, and made its way dangerously adjacent to the spine. Its path was marked by a shocking furrow of lacerated flesh. Though neither gave expression to the thought, both Ma and Rube marveled at the escape he had had, and even the doctor from Beacon Crossing, accustomed as he was to such matters, found food for grave reflection on the ways of Providence.

When the patient recovered consciousness he maintained an impenetrable silence on the subject of the attack made upon him. Parker and Hargreaves protested. The military authorities demanded explanation in vain. To all but the Agent Seth vouchsafed the curtest of replies, and to him he made only a slight concession.

“Guess this is my racket,” he said, with just a touch of invalid peevishness. “Mebbe I’ll see it thro’ my own way – later.”

Ma and Rube refrained from question. It was theirs to help, and they knew that if there was anything which Seth had to tell he would tell it in his own time.

But time passed on, and no explanation was forthcoming. Taking their meals together in the kitchen, or passing quiet evenings in the parlor while their patient slept up-stairs, Ma and Rube frequently discussed the matter, but their speculations led them nowhere. Still, as the sick man slowly progressed toward recovery, they were satisfied. It was all they asked.

Rube accepted the burden of the work thus thrust upon him in cheerful silence. There was something horse-like in his willingness for work. He just put forth a double exertion without one single thought of self.

Every week the English mail brought Ma a letter from Rosebud, and ever since Seth had taken up his abode in the sick-room the opening and reading of these long, girlish epistles had become a function reserved for his entertainment. It was a brief ray of sunshine in the gray monotony of his long imprisonment. On these occasions, generally Tuesdays, the entire evening would be spent with the invalid.

They were happy, single-hearted little gatherings. Ma was seated at the bedside in a great armchair before a table on which the letter was spread out. An additional lamp was requisitioned for the occasion, and her glasses were polished until they shone and gleamed in the yellow light. Seth was propped up, and Rube, large, silent, like a great reflective St. Bernard dog, reclined ponderously at the foot of the wooden bedstead. The reading proceeded with much halting and many corrections and rereadings, but with never an interruption from the attentive audience.

The men listened to the frivolous, inconsequent gossip of the girl, now thousands of miles away from them, with a seriousness, a delighted happiness that nothing else in their lives could have afforded them. Comment came afterward, and usually from Ma, the two men merely punctuating her remarks with affirmative or negative monosyllables.

It was on the receipt of one of these letters that Ma saw her way to a small scheme which had been slowly revolving itself in her brain ever since Seth was wounded. Seth had been in the habit of enclosing occasional short notes under cover of the old woman’s more bulky and labored replies to the girl. Since his misadventure these, of course, had been discontinued, with the result that now, at last, Rosebud was asking for an explanation.

In reading the letter aloud Ma avoided that portion of it which referred to the matter. Her reason was obviously to keep her own plans from her boy’s knowledge, but so clumsily did she skip to another part of the letter, that, all unconscious of it, she drew from her audience a sharp look of inquiry.

Nothing was said at the time, but the following day, at supper, when Ma and Rube were alone, the man, who had taken the whole day to consider the matter, spoke of it in the blunt fashion habitual to him.

“Guess ther’ was suthin’ in that letter you didn’t read, Ma?” he said without preamble.

Ma looked up. Her bright eyes peered keenly through her spectacles into her husband’s massive face.

“An’ if ther’ was?” she said interrogatively.

The old man shrugged.

“Guess I was wonderin’,” he said, plying his knife and fork with some show of indifference.

A silence followed. Ma helped herself to more tea and refilled her husband’s mug.

“Guess we’ll have to tell the child,” she said presently.

“Seems like.”

A longer silence followed.

“She was jest askin’ why Seth didn’t write.”

“I kind o’ figgered suthin’ o’ that natur’. You’d best tell her.”

Rube rested the ends of his knife and fork on the extremities of his plate and took a noisy draught from his huge mug of tea. A quiet smile lurked in the old woman’s eyes.

“Rosebud’s mighty impulsive,” she observed slowly.

“Ef you mean she kind o’ jumps at things, I take it that’s how.”

The old woman nodded, and a reflection of her smile twinkled in her husband’s eyes as he gazed over at the little figure opposite him.

“Wal,” said Rube, expansively, “it ain’t fer me to tell you, Ma, but we’ve got our dooty. Guess I ain’t a heap at writin’ fancy notions, but mebbe I ken help some. Y’ see it’s you an’ me. I ’lows Seth would hate to worrit Rosie wi’ things, but as I said we’ve got our dooty, an’ it seems – ”

“Dooty?” Ma chuckled. “Say, Rube, we’ll write to the girl, you an’ me. An’ we don’t need to ask no by-your-leave of nobody. Not even Seth.”

“Not even Seth.”

The two conspirators eyed one another slyly, smiled with a quaint knowingness, and resumed their supper in silence.

A common thought, a common hope, held them. Neither would have spoken it openly, even though no one was there to overhear. Each felt that they were somehow taking advantage of Seth and, perhaps, not doing quite the right thing by Rosebud; but after all they were old, simple people who loved these two, and had never quite given up the hope of seeing them ultimately brought together.