第74章

THE MALICE OF A SQUAW

Good Indian looked in the hammock, but Evadna was not there. He went to the little stone bench at the head of the pond, and when he still did not see her he followed the bank around to the milk-house, where was a mumble of voices. And, standing in the doorway with her arm thrown around her Aunt Phoebe's shoulders in a pretty protective manner, he saw her, and his eyes gladdened.

She did not see him at once. She was facing courageously the three inseparables, Hagar, Viney, and Lucy, squatted at the top of the steps, and she was speaking her mind rapidly and angrily.

Good Indian knew that tone of old, and he grinned. Also he stopped by the corner of the house, and listened shamelessly.

"That is not true," she was saying very clearly. "You're a bad old squaw and you tell lies. You ought to be put in jail for talking that way." She pressed her aunt's shoulder affectionately. "Don't you mind a word she says, Aunt Phoebe.

She's just a mischief-making old hag, and she--oh, I'd like to beat her!"Hagar shook her head violently, and her voice rose shrill and malicious, cutting short Evadna's futile defiance.

"Ka-a-ay bueno, yo'!" Her teeth gnashed together upon the words.

"I no tellum lie. Good Injun him kill Man-that-coughs. All time I seeum creep, creep, through sagebrush. All time I seeum hoss wait where much rock grow. I seeum. I no speakum heap lie.

Speakum true. I go tell sheriff mans Good Indian killum Man-that-coughs. I tellum--""Why didn't you, then, when the sheriff was in Hartley?" Evadna flung at her angrily. "Because you know it's a lie. That's why.""Yo' thinkum Good Injun love yo', mebbyso." Hagar's witch-grin was at its malevolent widest. Her black eyes sparkled with venom. "Yo' heap fool. Good Injun go all time Squaw-talk-far-off. Speakum glad word. Good Injun ka-a-ay bueno. Love Squaw-talk-far-off. No love yo'. Speakum lies, yo'. Makum yo' heap cry all time. Makeum yo' heart bad." She cackled, and leered with vile significance toward the girl in the doorway.

"Don't you listen to her, honey." It was Phoebe's turn to reassure.

Good Indian took a step forward, his face white with rage. Viney saw him first, muttered an Indian word of warning, and the three sprang up and backed away from his approach.

"So you've got to call me a murderer!" he cried, advancing threateningly upon Hagar. "And even that doesn't satisfy you.

You--"

Evadna rushed up the steps like a crisp little whirlwind, and caught his arm tightly in her two hands.

"Grant! We don't believe a word of it. You couldn't do a thing like that. Don't we KNOW? Don't pay any attention to her. We aren't going to. It'll hurt her worse than any kind of punishment we could give her. Oh, she's a VILE old thing! Too vile for words! Aunt Phoebe and I shouldn't belittle ourselves by even listening to her. SHE can't do any harm unless we let it bother us--what she says. _I_ know you never could take a human life, Grant. It's foolish even to speak of such a thing. It's just her nasty, lying tongue saying what her black old heart wishes could be true." She was speaking in a torrent of trepidation lest he break from her and do some violence which they would all regret. She did not know what he could do, or would do, but the look of his face frightened her.

Old Hagar spat viciously at them both, and shrilled vituperative sentences--in her own tongue fortunately; else the things she said must have brought swift retribution. And as if she did not care for consequences and wanted to make her words carry a definite sting, she stopped, grinned maliciously, and spoke the choppy dialect of her tribe.

"Yo' tellum me shont-isham. Mebbyso yo' tellum yo' no ketchum Squaw-talk-far-off in sagebrush, all time Saunders go dead! Me ketchum hair--Squaw-talk-far-off hair. You like for see, you thinkum me tell lies?"From under her blanket she thrust forth a greasy brown hand, and shook triumphantly before them a tangled wisp of woman's hair--the hair of Miss Georgie, without a doubt. There was no gainsaying that color and texture. She looked full at Evadna.

"Yo' like see, me show whereum walk," she said grimly. "Good Injun boot make track, Squaw-talk-far-off little shoe make track.

Me show, yo' thinkum mebbyso me tell lie. Stoppum in sagebrush, ketchum hair. Me ketchum knife--Good Injun knife, mebbyso."Revenge mastered cupidity, and she produced that also, and held it up where they could all see.

Evadna looked and winced.

"I don't believe a word you say," she declared stubbornly. "You STOLE that knife. I suppose you also stole the hair. You can't MAKE me believe a thing like that!""Squaw-talk-far-off run, run heap fas', get home quick. Me seeum, Viney seeum, Lucy seeum." Hagar pointed to each as she named her, and waited until they give a confirmatory nod. The two squaws gazed steadily at the ground, and she grunted and ignored them afterward, content that they bore witness to her truth in that one particular.

"Squaw-talk-far-off sabe Good Injun killum Man-that-coughs, mebbyso," she hazarded, watching Good Indian's face cunningly to see if the guess struck close to the truth.

"If you've said all you want to say, you better go," Good Indian told her after a moment of silence while they glared at each other. "I won't touch you--because you're such a devil Icouldn't stop short of killing you, once I laid my hands on you."He stopped, held his lips tightly shut upon the curses he would not speak, and Evadna felt his biceps tauten under her fingers as if he were gathering himself for a lunge at the old squaw. She looked up beseechingly into his face, and saw that it was sharp and stern, as it had been that morning when the men had first been discovered in the orchard. He raised his free arm, and pointed imperiously to the trail.

"Pikeway!" he commanded.