第6章

OLD WIVES TALES

Down the winding trail of Snake River bluff straggled a blanketed half dozen of old Wolfbelly's tribe, the braves stalking moodily in front and kicking up a gray cloud of dust which enveloped the squaws behind them but could not choke to silence their shrill chatter; for old Hagar was there, and Viney, and the incident of the dog was fresh in their minds and tickling their tongues.

The Hart boys were assembled at the corral, halter-breaking a three-year-old for the pure fun of it. Wally caught sight of the approaching blotch of color, and yelled a wordless greeting; him had old Hagar carried lovingly upon her broad shoulders with her own papoose when he was no longer than her arm; and she knew his voice even at that distance, and grinned--grinned and hid her joy in a fold of her dingy red blanket.

"Looks like old Wolfbelly's back," Clark observed needlessly.

"Donny, if they don't go to the house right away, you go and tell mum they're here. Chances are the whole bunch'll hang around till supper.""Say!" Gene giggled with fourteen-year-old irrepressibility.

"Does anybody know where Vadnie is? If we could spring 'em on her and make her believe they're on the warpath--say, I'll gamble she'd run clear to the Malad!""I told her, cross my heart, this morning that the Injuns are peaceful now. I said Good Injun was the only one that's dangerous--oh, I sure did throw a good stiff load, all right!"Clark grinned at the memory. "I've got to see Grant first, when he gets back, and put him wise to the rep he's got. Vad didn't hardly swallow it. She said: 'Why, Cousin Clark! Aunt Phoebe says he's perfectly lovely!"' Clark mimicked the girl's voice with relish.

"Aw--there's a lot of squaws tagging along behind!" Donny complained disgustedly from his post of observation on the fence.

"They'll go to the house first thing to gabble--there's old Hagar waddling along like a duck. You can't make that warpath business stick, Clark--not with all them squaws.""Well, say, you sneak up and hide somewhere till yuh see if Vadnie's anywhere around. If they get settled down talking to mum, they're good for an hour--she's churning, Don--you hide in the rocks by the milk-house till they get settled. And I'll see if-- Git! Pikeway, while they're behind the stacks!"Donny climbed down and scurried through the sand to the house as if his very life depended upon reaching it unseen. The group of Indians came up, huddled at the corral, and peered through the stout rails.

"How! How!" chorused the boys, and left the horse for a moment while they shook hands ceremoniously with the three bucks. Three Indians, Clark decided regretfully, would make a tame showing on the warpath, however much they might lend themselves to the spirit of the joke. He did not quite know how he was going to manage it, but he was hopeful still. It was unthinkable that real live Indians should be permitted to come and go upon the ranch without giving Evadna Ramsey, straight from New Jersey, the scare of her life.

The three bucks, grunting monosyllabic greetings' climbed, in all the dignity of their blankets, to the top rail of the corral, and roosted there to watch the horse-breaking; and for the present Clark held his peace.

The squaws hovered there for a moment longer, peeping through the rails. Then Hagar--she of much flesh and more temper--grunted a word or two, and they turned and plodded on to where the house stood hidden away in its nest of cool green. For a space they stood outside the fence, peering warily into the shade, instinctively cautious in their manner of approaching a strange place, and detained also by the Indian etiquette which demands that one wait until invited to enter a strange camp.

After a period of waiting which seemed to old Hagar sufficient, she pulled her blanket tight across her broad hips, waddled to the gate, pulled it open with self-conscious assurance, and led the way soft-footedly around the house to where certain faint sounds betrayed the presence of Phoebe Hart in her stone milk-house.

At the top of the short flight of wide stone steps they stopped and huddled silently, until the black shadow of them warned Phoebe of their presence. She had lived too long in the West to seem startled when she suddenly discovered herself watched by three pair of beady black eyes, so she merely nodded, and laid down her butter-ladle to shake hands all around.

"How, Hagar? How, Viney? How, Lucy? Heap glad to see you.

Bueno buttermilk--mebbyso you drinkum?"

However diffident they might be when it came to announcing their arrival, their bashfulness did not extend to accepting offers of food or drink. Three brown hands were eagerly outstretched--though it was the hand of Hagar which grasped first the big tin cup. They not only drank, they guzzled, and afterward drew a fold of blanket across their milk-white lips, and grinned in pure animal satisfaction.

"Bueno. He-e-ap bueno!" they chorused appreciatively, and squatted at the top of the stone steps, watching Phoebe manipulate the great ball of yellow butter in its wooden bowl.

After a brief silence, Hagar shook the tangle of unkempt, black hair away from her moonlike face, and began talking in a soft monotone, her voice now and then rising to a shrill singsong.

"Mebbyso Tom, mebbyso Sharlie, mebbyso Sleeping Turtle all time come along," she announced. "Stop all time corral, talk yo'

boys. Mebbyso heap likum drink yo' butter water. Bueno."When Phoebe nodded assent, Hagar went on to the news which had brought her so soon to the ranch--the news which satisfied both an old grudge and her love of gossip.

"Good Injun, him all time heap kay bueno," she stated emphatically, her sloe black eyes fixed unwaveringly upon Phoebe's face to see if the stab was effective. "Good Injun come Hartley, all time drunk likum pig.