In his gloomy self-scrutiny he had often wondered if he ought not to openly proclaim his kinship with the despised race, but he was always deterred by the thought of his sister and her husband, as well as by the persistent doubt whether his advocacy of Indian rights with his fellow countrymen would be as well served by such a course. And here again he was perplexed by a singular incident of his early missionary efforts which he had at first treated with cold surprise, but to which later reflection had given a new significance. After Gray Eagles revelation he had made a pilgrimage to the Indian country to verify the statements regarding his dead father,the Indian chief Silver Cloud. Despite the confusion of tribal dialects he was amazed to find that the Indian tongue came back to him almost as a forgotten boyish memory, so that he was soon able to do without an interpreter; but not until that functionary, who knew his secret, appeared one day as a more significant ambassador. Gray Eagle says if you want truly to be a brother to his people you must take a wife among them. He loves youtake one of his! Peter, through whose veinsalbeit of mixed bloodran that Puritan ice so often found throughout the Great West, was frigidly amazed. In vain did the interpreter assure him that the wife in question, Little Daybreak, was a wife only in name, a prudent reserve kept by Gray Eagle in the orphan daughter of a brother brave. But Peter was adamant. Whatever answer the interpreter returned to Gray Eagle he never knew. But to his alarm he presently found that the Indian maiden Little Daybreak had been aware of Gray Eagles offer, and had with pathetic simplicity already considered herself Peters spouse. During his stay at the encampment he found her sitting before his lodge every morning. A girl of sixteen in years, a child of six in intellect, she flashed her little white teeth upon him when he lifted his tent flap, content to receive his grave, melancholy bow, or patiently trotted at his side carrying things he did not want, which she had taken from the lodge. When he sat down to work, she remained seated at a distance, looking at him with glistening beady eyes like blackberries set in milk, and softly scratching the little bare brown ankle of one foot with the turned-in toes of the other, after an infantine fashion. Yet after he had lefta still single man, solely though his interpreters diplomacy, as he always believedhe was very worried as to the wisdom of his course. Why should he not in this way ally himself to his unfortunate race irrevocably? Perhaps there was an answer somewhere in his consciousness which he dared not voice to himself. Since his visit to the English Atherlys, he had put resolutely aside everything that related to that episode, which he now considered was an unhappy imposture. But there were times when a vision of Lady Elfrida, gazing at him with wondering, fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy; even the contact with his own race and his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the soldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter. He could not pass the upright supported bier of an Indian braveslowly desiccating in the desert airwithout seeing in the dead warriors paraphernalia of arms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whose marble effigy SHE had girlishly perched herself as she told the story of her ancestors. Yet only the peaceful gloom and repose of the old church touched him now; even she, too, with all her glory of English girlhood, seemed to belong to that remote past. She was part of the restful quiet of the church; the yews in the quaint old churchyard might have waved over her as well.
Still, he was eager to see his sister, and if he should conclude to impart to her his secret, she might advise him. At all events, he decided to delay his departure until her arrival, a decision with which the commanding officer concurred, as a foraging party had that morning discovered traces of Indians in the vicinity of the fort, and the lately arrived commissary train had reported the unaccountable but promptly prevented stampede.
Unfortunately, his sister Jenny appeared accompanied by her husband, who seized an early opportunity to take Peter aside and confide to him his anxiety about her health, and the strange fits of excitement under which she occasionally labored. Remembering the episode of the Californian woods three years ago, Peter stared at this good-natured, good-looking man, whose life he had always believed she once imperiled, and wondered more than ever at their strange union.
Do you ever quarrel? asked Peter bluntly.
No, said the good-hearted fellow warmly, never! We have never had a harsh word; shes the dearest girl,the best wife in the world to me, buthe hesitated, you know there are times when I think she confounds me with somebody else, and is strange! Sometimes when we are in company she stands alone and stares at everybody, without saying a word, as if she didnt understand them. Or else she gets painfully excited and dances all night until she is exhausted. I thought, perhaps, he added timidly, that you might know, and would tell me if she had any singular experience as a child,any illness, or, he went on still more gently, if perhaps her mother or father
No, interrupted Peter almost brusquely, with the sudden conviction that this was no time for revelation of his secret, no, nothing.
The doctor says, continued Lascelles with that hesitating, almost mystic delicacy with which most gentlemen approach a subject upon which their wives talk openly, that it may be owing to Jennys peculiar state of health just now, you know, and that ifall went well, you know, and there should bedont you seea little child
Peter interrupted him with a start. A child! Jennys child! Silver Clouds grandchild! This was a complication he had not thought of. No! It was too late to tell his secret now. He only nodded his head abstractedly and said coldly, I dare say he is right.
Nevertheless, Jenny was looking remarkably well. Perhaps it was the excitement of travel and new surroundings; but her tall, lithe figure, nearly half a head taller than her husbands, was a striking one among the officers wives in the commandants sitting-room. Her olive cheek glowed with a faint illuminating color; there was something even patrician in her slightly curved nose and high cheek bones, and her smile, rare even in her most excited moments, was, like her brothers, singularly fascinating. The officers evidently thought so too, and when the young lieutenant of the commissary escort, fresh from West Point and Flirtation Walk, gallantly attached himself to her, the ladies were slightly scandalized at the naive air of camaraderie with which Mrs. Lascelles received his attentions. Even Peter was a little disturbed. Only Lascelles, delighted with his wifes animation, and pleased at her success, gazed at her with unqualified admiration. Indeed, he was so satisfied with her improvement, and so sanguine of her ultimate recovery, that he felt justified in leaving her with her brother and returning to Omaha by the regular mail wagon next day. There was no danger to be apprehended in her accompanying Peter; they would have a full escort; the reservation lay in a direction unfrequented by marauding tribes; the road was the principal one used by the government to connect the fort with the settlements, and well traveled; the officers wives had often journeyed thither.
The childish curiosity and high spirits which Jenny showed on the journey to the reservation was increased when she reached it and drew up before the house of the Indian agent. Peter was relieved; he had been anxious and nervous as to any instinctive effect which might be produced on her excitable nature by a first view of her own kinsfolk, although she was still ignorant of her relationship. Her interest and curiosity, however, had nothing abnormal in it. But he was not prepared for the effect produced upon THEM at her first appearance. A few of the braves gathered eagerly around her, and one even addressed her in his own guttural tongue, at which she betrayed a slight feeling of alarm; and Peter saw with satisfaction that she drew close to him. Knowing that his old interpreter and Gray Eagle were of a different and hostile tribe a hundred miles away, and that his secret was safe with them, he simply introduced her as his sister. But he presently found that the braves had added to their curiosity a certain suspiciousness and sullen demeanor, and he was glad to resign his sister into the hands of the agents wife, while he prosecuted his business of examination and inspection. Later, on his return to the cabin, he was met by the agent, who seemed to be with difficulty suppressing a laugh.
The childish curiosity and high spirits which Jenny showed on the journey to the reservation was increased when she reached it and drew up before the house of the Indian agent. Peter was relieved; he had been anxious and nervous as to any instinctive effect which might be produced on her excitable nature by a first view of her own kinsfolk, although she was still ignorant of her relationship. Her interest and curiosity, however, had nothing abnormal in it. But he was not prepared for the effect produced upon THEM at her first appearance. A few of the braves gathered eagerly around her, and one even addressed her in his own guttural tongue, at which she betrayed a slight feeling of alarm; and Peter saw with satisfaction that she drew close to him. Knowing that his old interpreter and Gray Eagle were of a different and hostile tribe a hundred miles away, and that his secret was safe with them, he simply introduced her as his sister. But he presently found that the braves had added to their curiosity a certain suspiciousness and sullen demeanor, and he was glad to resign his sister into the hands of the agents wife, while he prosecuted his business of examination and inspection. Later, on his return to the cabin, he was met by the agent, who seemed to be with difficulty suppressing a laugh.
Your sister is exciting quite a sensation here, he said. Do you know that some of these idiotic braves and the Medicine Man insist upon it that shes A SQUAW, and that youre keeping her in captivity against your plighted faith to them! Youll excuse me, he went on with an attempt to recover his gravity, troubling you with their dd fool talk, and you wont say anything to HER about it, but I thought you ought to know it on account of your position among em. You dont want to lose their confidence, and you know how easily their skeery faculties are stampeded with an idea!
Where is she now? demanded Peter, with a darkening face.
Somewhere with the squaws, I reckon. I thought she might be a little skeered of the braves, and Ive kept them away. SHES all right, you know; only if you intend to stay here long Id
But Peter was already striding away in the direction of a thicket of cottonwood where he heard the ripple of womens and childrens voices. When he had penetrated it, he found his sister sitting on a stump, surrounded by a laughing, gesticulating crowd of young girls and old women, with a tightly swaddled papoose in her lap. Some of them had already half mischievously, half curiously possessed themselves of her dust cloak, hat, parasol, and gloves, and were parading before her in their grotesque finery, apparently as much to her childish excited amusement as their own. She was even answering their gesticulations with equivalent gestures in her attempt to understand them, and trying amidst shouts of laughter to respond to the monotonous chant of the old women who were zigzagging a dance before her. With the gayly striped blankets lying on the ground, the strings of beads, wampum, and highly colored feathers hanging from the trees, and the flickering lights and shadows, it was an innocent and even idyllic picture, but the more experienced Peter saw in the performances only the uncertain temper and want of consecutive idea of playing animals, and the stolid unwinking papoose in his sisters lap gave his sentiment a momentary shock.
Seeing him approach she ran to meet him, the squaws and children slinking away from his grave face. I have had such a funny time, Peter! Only to think of it, I believe theyve never seen men or women with decent clothes before,of course the settlers wives dont dress much,and I believe theyd have had everything I possess if you hadnt come. But theyre TOO funny for anything. It was killing to see them put on my hat wrong side before, and try to make one out of my parasol. But I like them a great deal better than those gloomy chiefs, and I think I understand them almost. And do you know, Peter, somehow I seem to have known them all before. And those dear little papooses, arent they ridiculously lovely. I only wishshe stopped, for Peter had somewhat hurriedly taken the Indian boy from her arms and restored it to the frightened mother. A singular change came over her face, and she glanced at him quickly. But she resumed, with a heightened color, I like it ever so much better here than down at the fort. And ever so much better than New York. I dont wonder that you like them so much, Peter, and are so devoted to them. Dont be angry, dear, because I let them have my things; Im sure I never cared particularly for them, and I think it would be such fun to dress as they do. Peter remembered keenly his sudden shock at her precipitate change to bright colors after leaving her novitiate at the Sacred Heart. I do hope, she went on eagerly, that we are going to stay a long time here.
We are leaving to-morrow, he said curtly. I find I have urgent business at the fort.
And they did leave. None too soon, thought Peter and the Indian agent, as they glanced at the faces of the dusky chiefs who had gathered around the cabin. Luckily the presence of their cavalry escort rendered any outbreak impossible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race kept Peter from any verbal insult. But Mrs. Lascelles noticed their lowering dissatisfaction, and her eyes flashed. I wonder you dont punish them, she said simply.
For a few days after their return she did not allude to her visit, and Peter was beginning to think that her late impressions were as volatile as they were childlike. He devoted himself to his government report, and while he kept up his communications with the reservation and the agent, for the present domiciled himself at the fort.
Colonel Bryce, the commandant though doubtful of civilians, was not slow to appreciate the difference of playing host to a man of Atherlys wealth and position and even found in Peters reserve and melancholy an agreeable relief to the somewhat boisterous and material recreations of garrison life, and a gentle check upon the younger officers. For, while Peter did not gamble or drink, there was yet an unobtrusive and gentle dignity in his abstention that relieved him from the attitude of a prig or an example. Mrs. Lascelles was popular with the officers, and accepted more tolerantly by the wives, since they recognized her harmlessness. Once or twice she was found apparently interested in the gesticulations of a few friendlies who had penetrated the parade ground of the fort to barter beads and wampum. The colonel was obliged at last to caution her against this, as it was found that in her inexperience she had given them certain articles that were contraband of the rules, and finally to stop them from an intrusion which was becoming more frequent and annoying. Left thus to herself, she relieved her isolation by walks beyond the precincts of the garrison, where she frequently met those friendly wanderers, chiefly squaws and children. Here she was again cautioned by the commander,
Dont put too much faith in those creatures, Mrs. Lascelles.
Jenny elevated her black brows and threw up her arched nose like a charger. Im not afraid of old women and children, she said loftily.
But I am, said the colonel gravely. Its a horrible thing to think of, but these feeble old women and innocent children are always selected to torture the prisoners taken by the braves, and, by Jove, they seem to like it.
Thus restricted, Mrs. Lascelles fell back upon the attentions of Lieutenant Forsyth, whose gallantry was always as fresh as his smart cadet-like tunics, and they took some rides together. Whether it was military caution or the feminine discretion of the colonels wife,to the quiet amusement of the other officers,a trooper was added to the riding party by the order of the colonel, and thereafter it consisted of three. One night, however, the riders did not appear at dinner, and there was considerable uneasiness mingled with some gossip throughout the garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at his little moustache, but took the whole blame upon himself. HE and Mrs. Lascelles had, he said, outridden the trooper and got lost; it was late when Cassidy (the trooper) found them, but it was no fault of HIS, and they had to ride at the top of their speed to cover the ground between them and the fort. It was noticed that Mrs. Lascelles scarcely spoke to Forsyth, and turned abruptly away from the colonels interrogations and went to her room.