第75章

Viney and Lucy shrank from the tone of him, and, hiding their faces in a fold of blanket, slunk silently away like dogs that have been whipped and told to go. Even Hagar drew back a pace, hardy as was her untamed spirit. She looked at Evadna clinging to his arm, her eyes wide and startlingly blue and horrified at all she had heard. She laughed then--did Hagar--and waddled after the others, her whole body seeming to radiate contentment with the evil she had wrought.

"There's nothing on earth can equal the malice of an old squaw,"said Phoebe, breaking into the silence which followed. "I'd hope she don't go around peddling that story--not that anyone would believe it, but--"Good Indian looked at her, and at Evadna. He opened his lips for speech, and closed them without saying a word. That near he came to telling them the truth about meeting Miss Georgie, and explaining about the hair and the knife and the footprints Hagar had prated about. But he thought of Rachel, and knew that he would never tell anyone, not even Evadna. The girl loosened his arm, and moved toward her aunt.

"I hate Indians--squaws especially," she said positively. "Ihate the way they look at one with their beady eyes, just like snakes. I believe that horrid old thing lies awake nights just thinking up nasty, wicked lies to tell about the people she doesn't like. I don't think you ought to ride around alone so much, Grant; she might murder you. It's in her to do it, if she ever got the chance.""What do you suppose made her ring Georgie Howard in like that?"Phoebe speculated, looking at Grant. "She must have some grudge against her, too.""I don't know why." Good Indian spoke unguardedly, because he was still thinking of Rachel and those laboriously printed words which he had scattered afar. "She's always giving them candy and fruit, whenever they show up at the station.""Oh--h!" Evadna gave the word that peculiar, sliding inflection of hers which meant so much, and regarded him unwinkingly, with her hands clasped behind her.

Good Indian knew well the meaning of both her tone and her stare, but he only laughed and caught her by the arm.

"Come on over to the hammock," he commanded, with all the arrogance of a lover. "We're making that old hag altogether too important, it seems to me. Come on, Goldilocks--we haven't had a real satisfying sort of scrap for several thousand years."She permitted him to lead her to the hammock, and pile three cushions behind her head and shoulders--with the dark-blue one on top because her hair looked well against it--and dispose himself comfortably where he could look his fill at her while he swung the hammock gently with his boot-heel, scraping a furrow in the sand. But she did not show any dimples, though his eyes and his lips smiled together when she looked at him, and when he took up her hand and kissed each finger-tip in turn, she was as passive as a doll under the caresses of a child.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, when he found that her manner did not soften. "Worrying still about what that old squaw said?""Not in the slightest." Evadna's tone was perfectly polite--which was a bad sign.

Good Indian thought he saw the makings of a quarrel in her general attitude, and he thought he might as well get at once to the real root of her resentment.

"What are you thinking about? Tell me, Goldilocks," he coaxed, pushing his own troubles to the back of his mind.

"Oh, nothing. I was just wondering--though it's a trivial matter which is hardly worth mentioning--but I just happened to wonder how you came to know that Georgie Howard is in the habit of giving candy to the squaws--or anything else. I'm sure Inever--" She bit her lips as if she regretted having said so much.

Good Indian laughed. In truth, he was immensely relieved; he had been afraid she might want him to explain something else--something which he felt he must keep to himself even in the face of her anger. But this--he laughed again.

"That's easy enough," he said lightly. "I've seen her do it a couple of times. Maybe Hagar has been keeping an eye on me--Idon't know; anyway, when I've had occasion to go to the store or to the station, I've nearly always seen her hanging around in the immediate vicinity. I went a couple of times to see Miss Georgie about this land business. She's wise to a lot of law--used to help her father before he died, it seems. And she has some of his books, I discovered. I wanted to see if there wasn't some means of kicking these fellows off the ranch without making a lot more trouble for old Peaceful. But after I'd read up and talked the thing over with her, we decided that there wasn't anything to be done till Peaceful comes back, and we know what he's been doing about it. That's what's keeping him, of course.