Lucy read also the girl"s face; but she reached up, pressed her hand gently, 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 fat legs, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and grunting a command to the others. With visible reluctance Lucy and Viney rose also, hitched their blankets into place, and vanished, soft-footed as they had come.
"Oo-oo!" Evadna stared at the place where they were not. "Wild Indians--I thought the boys were just teasing when they said so--and it"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"t make a sound when they go--you just look, and they"re gone! That old fat one--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 known old Hagar ever since Wally was a baby. She took him right to her own wikiup and nursed him with her own papoose for two months when I was sick, and Viney stayed with me day and night and pulled me through. Lucy I"ve known since she was a papoose. Great grief, child! Didn"t you hear me say they"re old friends? I wanted you to be nice to them, because if 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 the noise broke at the corner of the house like a great wave, in a tumult of red blanket, flying black hair, the squalling of a female voice, and the harsh laughter of the man who carried the disturbance, kicking and clawing, in his arms. Fighting his way to the milk-house, he dragged the squaw along beside the porch, followed by the Indians and all the Hart boys, a yelling, jeering audience.
"You tell her shont-isham! Ah-h--you can"t break loose, you old she-wildcat. Quit your biting, will you? By all the big and little spirits of your tribe, you"ll wish--"
Panting, laughing, swearing also in breathless exclamations, he forced her to the top of the steps, backed recklessly down them, and came to a stop in the corner by the door. Evadna had taken refuge there; and he pressed her hard against the rough wall without in the least realizing that anything was behind him save unsentient stone.
"Now, you sing your little song, and be quick about it!" he commanded his captive sternly. "You tell Mother Hart you lied. I hear she"s been telling you I"m drunk, Mother Hart--didn"t you, you old beldam? You say you heap sorry you all time tellum lie. You say: "Good Injun, him all time heap bueno." Say: "Good Injun no drunk, no heap shoot, no heap yell--all time bueno." Quick, or I"ll land you headforemost in that pond, you infernal old hag!"
"Good Injun hee-eeap kay bueno! Heap debbil all time." Hagar might be short of breath, but her spirit was unconquered, and her under lip bore witness to her stubbornness.
Phoebe caught him by the arm then, thinking he meant to make good his threat--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--of course, I knew it all the time. I told Hagar so. What do you care what she says about you? You don"t want to fight an old woman, Grant--a man can"t fight a woman--"
"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 kay bueno. You all time lie." He gripped her more firmly, and turned his head slightly toward Phoebe. "You"d be tired of it yourself if she threw it into you like she does into me, Mother Hart. It"s got so I can"t ride past this old hag in the trail but she gives me the bad eye, and mumbles into her blanket. And if I look sidewise, she yowls all over the country that I"m drunk. I"m getting tired of it!" He shook the squaw as a puppy shakes a shoe--shook her till her hair quite hid her ugly old face from sight.
"All right--Mother Hart she tellum mebbyso let you go. This time I no throw you in pond. You heap take care next time, mebbyso. You no tellum big lie, me all time heap drunk. You kay bueno. All time me tellum Mother Hart, tellum boys, tellum Viney, Lucy, tellum Charlie and Tom and Sleeping Turtle you heap big liar. Me tell Wally shont-isham. Him all time my friend--mebbyso him no lik.u.m 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 she sprawled 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 herself in her dingy blanket, and scuttled away, muttering maledictions under her breath. The watching group turned and followed her, and in a few seconds the gate was heard to slam shut behind them. Grant stood where he was, leaning against the milk-house wall; and when they were gone, he gave a short, apologetic laugh.
"No need to lecture, Mother Hart. I know it was a fool thing to do; but when 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 all about the poor child being here! You poor little--"
"Squeezing who?" Grant whirled, and caught a brief glimpse of a crumpled little figure behind him, evidently too scared to cry, and yet not quite at the fainting point of terror. He backed, and began to stammer an apology; but she did not wait to hear a word of it. For an instant she stared into his face, and then, like a rabbit released from its paralysis of dread, she darted past him and deaf up the stone steps into the 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 his astonishment.
"And who the deuce might that be?" he asked, feeling in his pocket for smoking 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 can be 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 a fairly smooth rock.
"Well, I wanted you to appear at your best; and, instead of that, here you 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 to death, and then you call her timid. I know she thought there was going to be a real Indian ma.s.sacre, 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 right on the warpath, and then some. She"d like to burn yuh alive--she said so. 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 near as I could make out her jabbering. And she won"t do your washing any more, mum--she said so. You"re kay bueno yourself, because you take Good Indian"s part. We"re all kay bueno--all but me. She wanted me to quit the bunch and go live in her wikiup. I"m the only decent one in the outfit." 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 floor within. "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 b.u.t.termilk, will you?
They"ve got a dog up there in camp that I"m going to kill some of these days--if they don"t beat me to it. He was up at the store, and when I went out to get my horse, he tried to take a leg off me. I kicked him in the nose and he came at me again, so when I mounted I just dropped my loop over Mr. Dog. Sleeping Turtle was there, and he said the dog belonged to Viney, So I just led him gently to camp."
He grinned a little at the memory of his gentleness. "I told Viney I thought he"d make a fine stew, and, they"d better use him up right away before he spoiled. That"s all there was to it. Well, Keno did sink his head and pitch around camp a little, but not to amount to anything. He just stuck his nose into old Hagar"s wikiup--and one sniff seemed to be about all he wanted. He didn"t hurt anything."
He took a meditative bite of cake, finished the b.u.t.termilk in three rapturous 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 up with 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--and then Grant here, acting like a wild hyena--"
"Say, PLEASE don"t tell me who she is, or where she belongs, or anything like that," Grant interposed, with some sarcasm. "I smashed her flat between me and the wall, and I scared the daylights out of her; and I"m told I should have appeared at my best. But who she is, or where she belongs--"
"She belongs right here." Phoebe"s tone was a challenge, whether she meant it to be so or not. "This is going to be her home from now on; and I want you boys to treat her nicer than you"ve been doing. She"s been here a week almost; and there ain"t one of you that"s made friends with her yet, or tried to, even. You"ve played jokes on her, and told her things to scare her--and my grief! I was hoping she"d have a softening influence 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 one of you! It isn"t right. It isn"t the way I expected my boys would act toward a stranger--a girl especially. And I did hope Grant would behave better."
"Sure, he ought to. Us boneheads don"t know any better--but Grant"s EDUCATED." Wally grinned and winked elaborately at his mother"s back.
"I"m not educated up to Christmas angels that look as if they"d been stepped on," Grant defended himself.
"She"s a real nice little thing. If you boys would quit teasing the life out of her, I don"t doubt but what, in six months or so, you wouldn"t know the girl," Phoebe argued, with some heat.
"I don"t know the girl now." Grant spoke dryly. "I don"t want to. If I"d held a tomahawk in one hand and her flowing locks in the other, and was just letting a war-whoop outa me, she"d look at me--the way she did look." He snorted in contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt, and gave a little, writhing twist of his slim body into his trousers. "I never did like blondes," he added, in a tone of finality, and started up the steps.
"You never liked anything that wore skirts," Phoebe flung after him indignantly; and she came very close to the truth.
CHAPTER IV. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
Phoebe watched the two unhappily, sighed when they disappeared around the corner of the house, and set her bowl of b.u.t.ter upon the broad, flat rock which just missed being overflowed with water, and sighed again.
"I"m afraid it isn"t going to work," she murmured aloud; for Phoebe, having lived much of her life in the loneliness which the West means to women, frequently talked to herself. "She"s such a nice little thing--but the boys don"t take to her like I thought they would. I don"t see as she"s having a mite of influence on their manners, unless it"s to make them act worse, just to shock her. Clark USED to take off his hat when he come into the house most every time. And great grief! Now he"d wear it and his chaps and spurs to the table, if I didn"t make him take them off. She"s nice--she"s most too nice. I"ve got to give that girl a good talking to."