"But the Sioux?"
"Wal, she"d be safer with me. The Injuns an" me are friends."
"All right. Good. But you ride after the troops, anyhow, and tell Dillon about the girl--that we"re going to your cabin." Slingerland galloped away after the dust cloud down the trail.
Neale gazed strangely down at the face of the girl he had rescued. Her lips barely parted to make again the low moan. So that was what had called to him. No--not all! There was something more than this feeble cry that had brought him back to search; there had been some strong and nameless and inexplicable impulse. Neale believed in his impulses--in those strange ones which came to him at intervals. So far in his life girls had been rather negative influences. But this girl, or the fact that he had saved her, or both impressions together, struck deep into him; life would never again be quite the same to Warren Neale.
Red King came striding back with a sombrero full of water.
"Take your scarf and wash that blood off her hands before she comes to and sees it," said Neale.
The cowboy was awkward at the task, but infinitely gentle. "Poor kid!
I"ll bet she"s alone in the world now."
Neale wet his scarf and bathed the girl"s face. "If she"s only fainted she ought to be reviving now. But I"m afraid--"
Then suddenly her eyes opened. They were large, violet-hued, covered with a kind of veil or film, as though sleep had not wholly gone; and they were unseeingly, staringly set with horror. Her breast heaved with a sharply drawn breath; her hands groped and felt for something to hold; her body trembled. Suddenly she sat up. She was not weak. Her motions were violent. The dazed, horror-stricken eyes roved around, but did not fasten upon anything.
"Aw! Gone crazy!" muttered King, pityingly.
It did seem so. She put her hands to her ears as if to shut out a horrible sound. And she screamed. Neale grasped her shoulders, turned her round, and forced her into such a position that her gaze must meet his.
"You"re safe!" he cried sharply. "The Indians have gone! I"m a white man!"
It seemed as though his piercing voice stirred her reason. She stared at him. Her face changed. Her lips parted and her hand, shaking like a leaf, covered them, clutched at them. The other hand waved before her as if to brush aside some haunting terror.
Neale held that gaze with all his power--dominant, masterful, masculine.
He repeated what he had said.
Then it became a wonderful and terrible sight to watch her, to divine in some little way the dark and awful state of her mind. The lines, the tenseness, the shade, the age faded out of her face; the deep-set frown smoothed itself out of her brow and it became young. Neale saw those staring eyes fix upon his; he realized a dull, opaque blackness of horror, hideous veils let down over the windows of a soul, images of h.e.l.l limned forever on a mind. Then that film, that unseeing cold thing, like the shade of sleep or of death, pa.s.sed from her eyes. Now they suddenly were alive, great dark-violet gulfs, full of shadows, dilating, changing into exquisite and beautiful lights.
"I"m a white man!" he said, tensely. "You"re saved! The Indians are gone!"
She understood him. She realized the meaning of his words. Then, with a low, agonized, and broken cry she shut her eyes tight and reached blindly out with both hands; she screamed aloud. Shock claimed her again. Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear that was uppermost. She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip he could not have loosened without breaking her bones.
"Red, you saw--she was right in her mind for a moment--you saw?" burst out Neale.
"Sh.o.r.e I saw. She"s only scared now," replied King. "It must hev been h.e.l.l fer her."
At this juncture Slingerland came riding up to them. "Did she come around?" he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung to Neale.
"Yes, for a moment," replied Neale.
"Wal, thet"s good.... I caught up with Dillon. Told him. He was mighty glad we found her. Cussed his troopers some. Said he"d explain your absence, an" we could send over fer anythin"."
"Let"s go, then," said Neale. He tried to loosen the girl"s hold on him, but had to give it up. Taking her in his arms, he rose and went toward his horse. King had to help him mount with his burden. Neale did not imagine he would ever forget that spot, but he took another long look to fix the scene indelibly on his memory. The charred wagons, the graves, the rocks over which the naked, gashed bodies had been flung, the three scraggy trees close together, and the ledge with the dark aperture at the base--he gazed at them all, and then turned his horse to follow Slingerland.
6
Some ten miles from the scene of the ma.s.sacre and perhaps fifteen from the line surveyed by the engineers, Slingerland lived in a wild valley in the heart of the Wyoming hills.
The ride there was laborsome and it took time, but Neale scarcely noted either fact. He paid enough attention to the trail to fix landmarks and turnings in his mind, so that he would remember how to find the way there again. He was, however, mostly intent upon the girl he was carrying.
Twice that he knew of her eyes opened during the ride. But it was to see nothing and only to grip him tighter, if that were possible. Neale began to imagine that he had been too hopeful. Her body was a dead weight and cold. Those two glimpses he had of her opened eyes hurt him. What should he do when she did come to herself? She would be frantic with horror and grief and he would be helpless. In a case like hers it might have been better if she had been killed.
The last mile to Slingerland"s lay through a beautiful green valley with steep sides almost like a canon--trees everywhere, and a swift, clear brook running over a bed of smooth rock. The trail led along this brook up to where the valley boxed and the water boiled out of a great spring in a green glade overhung by bushy banks and gray rocks above. A rude cabin with a red-stone chimney and clay-c.h.i.n.ked cracks between the logs, stuffed to bursting with furs and pelts and horns and traps, marked the home of the trapper.
"Wal, we"re hyar," sung out Slingerland, and in the cheery tones there was something which told that the place was indeed home to him.
"Sh.o.r.e is a likely-lookin" camp," drawled Red, throwing his bridle.
"Been heah a long time, thet cabin."
"Me an" my pard was the first white men in these hyar hills," replied Slingerland. "He"s gone now." Then he turned to Neale. "Son, you must be tired. Thet was a ways to carry a girl nigh onto dead.... Look how white! Hand her down to me."
The girl"s hands slipped nervelessly and limply from their hold upon Neale. Slingerland laid her on the gra.s.s in a shady spot. The three men gazed down upon her, all sober, earnest, doubtful.
"I reckon we can"t do nothin" but wait," said the trapper.
Red King shook his head as if the problem were beyond him.
Neale did not voice his thought, yet he wanted to be the first person her eyes should rest upon when she did return to consciousness.
"Wal, I"ll set to work an" clean out a place fer her," said Slingerland.
"We"ll help," rejoined Neale. "Red, you have a look at the horses."
"I"ll slip the saddles an" bridles," replied King, "an" let "em go.
Hosses couldn"t be chased out of heah."
Slingerland"s cabin consisted really of two adjoining cabins with a door between, one part being larger and of later construction. Evidently he used the older building as a storeroom for his pelts. When all these had been removed the room was seen to be small, with two windows, a table, and a few other crude articles of home-made furniture. The men cleaned this room and laid down a carpet of deer hides, fur side up. A bed was made of a huge roll of buffalo skins, flattened and shaped, and covered with Indian blankets. When all this had been accomplished the trapper removed his fur cap, scratched his grizzled head, and appealed to Neale and King.
"I reckon you can fetch over some comfortable-like necessaries--fixin"s fer a girl," he suggested.
Red King laughed in his cool, easy, droll way. "Sh.o.r.e, we"ll rustle fer a lookin"-gla.s.s, an" hair-brush, an" such as girls hev to hev. Our camp is full of them things."
But Neale did not see any humor in Slingerland"s perplexity or in the cowboy"s facetiousness. It was the girl"s serious condition that worried him, not her future comfort.
"Run out thar!" called Slingerland, sharply.
Neale, who was the nearest to the door, bolted outside, to see the girl sitting up, her hair disheveled, her manner wild in the extreme. At sight of him she gave a start, sudden and violent, and uttered a sharp cry. When Neale reached her it was to find her shaking all over.
Terrible fear had never been more vividly shown, yet Neale believed she saw in him a white man, a friend. But the fear in her was still stronger than reason.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"My name"s Neale--Warren Neale," he replied, sitting down beside her.