The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop. Garland HamlinЧитать онлайн книгу.
fell. "I don't think I need to go. Hosy can carry the orders just as well as me," he said, boyishly sullen.
"I want you to go!" was the stern answer, and it was plain that Streeter was commander even of his reckless son.
As he rose from the table, Calvin said, in a low voice, to Jennie, "I'll be here to breakfast all right, and I'll see that you get over to the agency."
Streeter the elder upon reflection considered that his guests had not sufficiently accounted for themselves, and, after Calvin left, again turned a penetrating glance on Curtis, saying, in a peculiar way, "Where did you say you were from?"
"San Francisco," replied Curtis, promptly, and cut in ahead with a question of his own. "You seem to be well supplied with munitions of war. Do you need all those guns now?"
"Need every shell. We're going to oust these devils pretty soon, and they know it, and they're ugly."
"What do you mean by ousting 'em?"
"We're pushing a bill to have 'em removed."
"Where to?"
"Oh, to the Red River reservation, or the Powder Valley; we're not particular, so that we get rid of 'em."
Jennie tingled with indignation as Streeter outlined the plans of the settlers and told of his friction with the redmen, but Curtis remained calm and smiling.
"You'll miss their market for your beef, won't you?"
"Oh, that's a small item in comparison with the extra range we'll get," and thereupon he entered upon a long statement of what the government ought to do.
Jennie rose wearily, and the old man was all attention.
"I suppose you are tired and would like to go to bed?"
"We are rather limp," confessed Curtis, glad to escape the searching cross-examination which he knew would follow Jennie's retirement.
When they were alone the two young people looked at each other in silence, Jennie with big, horrified eyes, Curtis with an amused comprehension of his sister's feeling. "Isn't he a pirate? He doesn't know it, but his state of mind makes him indictable for murder on the high seas."
"George, I don't like this. We are going to have trouble if this old man and his like are not put off this reservation."
"Well, now, we won't put him off to-night, especially as he is a gallant host. But this visit here has put me in touch with the cattlemen. I feel that I know their plans and their temper very clearly."
"George, I will not sleep here in this room alone. You must make up a cot-bed or something. These people make me nervous, with their guns and Mexican servants."
"Don't you worry, sis. I'll roll up in a blanket and sleep across your door-sill," and this he did, acknowledging the reasonableness of her fears.
III
CURTIS ASSUMES CHARGE OF THE AGENT
During the night Curtis was quite sure he heard a party of men ride up to the door, but in the morning there remained no signs of them.
They were early on their feet, and Calvin, true to his promise, was present to help get breakfast. He had shaved some time during the night, and wore a new shirt with a purple silk handkerchief looped about his neck, and Jennie found it hard to be as cold and severe with him as she had resolved upon. He was only a big, handsome boy, after all.
"I'm going to send that half-breed back and take you over to the fort myself," he said to Curtis.
"No, I can't have that," Curtis sharply replied. "If you care to ride with us over to the fort I've no objection, but Louie will carry out his contract with us." The truth was, he did not care to be under any further obligation to the Streeters.
Breakfast was a hurried and rather silent meal. As they rose, Jennie said, apologetically: "I fear I can't stop to do up the dishes. It is a long, hard ride to the fort."
"That's right," replied Calvin, "it's close on thirty-five miles. Never you mind about the dishes. Hosy will swab 'em out."
As they were mounting, the elder Streeter said, hospitably: "If you return this way, Mr. Curtis, make my ranch your half-way house." He bowed to Jennie. "My wife will be here then, miss, and you will not be obliged to cook your own meals."
"Oh, I didn't mind; I rather enjoyed it," responded Jennie.
Calvin was delayed at the start, and came thundering after with a shrill, cowboy yell, his horse running close to the ground with ears viciously laid back. The boy made a fine figure as he swept past them with the speed of an eagle. His was the perfection of range horsemanship. He talked, gesticulated, rolled cigarettes, put his coat on or off as he rode, without apparent thought of his horse or of the ground he crossed.
He knew nothing but the life of a cattleman, and spoke quite frankly of his ignorance.
"The old man tried to send me to school once. Packed me off to St. Joe. I stayed a week. 'See here, old man, don't do that again,' I says. 'I won't stand for it.' Hell! You might as well tie up a coyote as shut me in a school-room."
He made a most picturesque guide as he rode ahead of them, always in view, completing a thousand typical combinations of man and horse and landscape—now suppling in his saddle to look down and a little backward at some "sign," now trotting straight towards a dark opening among the pines, now wheeling swiftly to mount a sudden ascent on the trail. Everything he did was as graceful and as self-unconscious as the movements of a panther. He was a living illustration of all the cowboy stories the girl had read. His horse, his saddle, his peculiar, slouching seat, the roll of clothing behind his saddle, his spurs, his long-heeled boots—every detail was as it should be, and Jennie was glad of him, and of Louis, too.
"Yes, it's all here, Jennie," replied Curtis—"the wild country, the Indian, the gallant scout, and the tender maiden."
"I'm having a beautiful ride. Since we left the wagon-road it really seems like the primitive wilderness."
"It is. This little wedge of land is all these brave people have saved from the flood. They made their last stand here. The reflux from the coast caught them here, and here they are, waiting extinction."
The girl's eyes widened. "It's tragic, isn't it?"
"Yes, but so is all life, except to Calvin Streeter, and even he wants what he can't get. He told me this morning he wanted to go to Chicago and take a fall out of a judge who fined him for carrying a gun. So even he has his unsatisfied ambition. As he told me about it he snarled like a young tiger."
At about one o'clock, Calvin, who was riding ahead, halted on the crest of a timbered ridge and raised a shout.
"He's topped the divide!" called Curtis to Jennie, who was riding behind. "We'll soon be in."
"I'm glad of it. I'm tired."
When they reached the spot where Calvin waited they could look down into the main valley of the Elk, and the agency, a singular village of ancient barracks, sheds, corrals, and red-roofed storehouses was almost beneath them. All about on the low hills the criss-crossing trails gave evidence that the Tetongs were still a nation of horsemen. Theirs was a barren land, a land of pine-clad, precipitous hills and deep valleys, which opened to the east—a region of scant rains and thin, discouraged streams.
The sight of the officers' whitewashed quarters and the parade-ground brought a certain sadness to Curtis.
"The old garrison don't look as it did when I was here in 188-," he said, musingly. "Army days in the West are almost