Once more the shoulders of the Easterner lifted in mute thanksgiving of fundamental difference. Of a sudden, for some indefinite reason, he felt more at ease in his companion's presence. For the time being the sense of antagonism became pa.s.sive. What use, after all, was mere physical courage, if one were to bury it in a houseless, treeless waste such as this? The sense of aloofness, of tranquil superiority, returned. He even felt a certain pleasure in questioning the other; as one is interested in questioning a child. Bob Manning's store and Pete Sweeney were temporarily in abeyance.

"Pardon me, if I seem inquisitive," he prefaced, "but I'll probably be here a month or so, and we'll likely see a good deal of each other. Are you married?"

"No."

"You will be, though." It was the ultimatum of one unaccustomed to contradiction. "No man could live here alone. He'd go insane."

"I eat at the ranch house sometimes, but I live alone."

"You won't do so, though, always." Again it was the voice of finality.

The Indian looked straight ahead into the indefinite distance where the earth and sky met.

"No, I shall not do so always," he corroborated.

"I thought so." It was the tolerant approval of the prophet verified.

"I'd be doing the same thing myself if I lived here long. Conformity's in the air. I felt it the moment I left the railroad and struck this--wilderness." Once again the unconscious shoulder shrug. "It's an atavism, this life. I've reverted a generation already. It's only a question of time till one would be back among the cave-dwellers. The thing's in the air, I say."

Again no comment. Again for any indication he gave, the Indian might not have heard.

Craig straightened, as one conscious that he was talking over his companion's head.

"When, if I may ask, is it to be, your marriage, I mean?" he returned.

"While I am here?"

For an instant the other's eyes dropped until they were hid beneath the long lashes, then they returned to the distance as before.

"It will be soon. Three weeks from to-day."

"And at the ranch, I presume? My uncle will see to that, of course."

"Yes, it will be at the ranch."

"Good! I was wondering if anything would be doing here while I was here." Craig threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle and adjusted the knickerbockers comfortably. "By the way, how do you--your people--celebrate an event of this kind? I admit I'm a bit ignorant on the point."

"Celebrate? I don't think I understand." The Easterner glanced at his companion suspiciously but the other man was still looking straight ahead into the distance.

"You have a dance, or a barbecue or--or something of that sort, don't you? It's to be an Indian wedding, is it not?"

Pat, pat went the horses' feet on the prairie sod. While one could count ten slowly there was no other sound.

"No, there will be no dance or barbecue or anything out of the ordinary, so far as I know," said a low voice then. "It will not be an Indian wedding."

Craig hesitated. An instinct told him he had gone far enough. Lurking indefinite in the depths of that last low-voiced answer was a warning, a challenge to a trespa.s.ser; but something else, a thing which a lifetime of indulgence had made almost an instinct, prevented his heeding. He was not accustomed to being denied, this man; and there was no contesting the obvious fact that now a confidence was being withheld. The latent antagonism aroused with a bound at the thought. Something more than mere curiosity was at stake, something which he magnified until it obscured his horizon, warped hopelessly his vision of right or wrong. He was of the conquering Anglo-Saxon race, and this other who refused him was an Indian. Racial supremacy itself hung in the balance: the old, old issue of the white man and the red. Back into the stirrup went the leg that hung over the saddle. Involuntarily as before he stiffened.

"Why, is it not to be an Indian wedding?" he queried directly. "You seemed a bit ago rather proud of your pedigree." A trace of sarcasm crept into his voice at the thinly veiled allusion. "Have you forsaken entirely the customs of your people?"

Pat, pat again sounded the horses' feet. The high places as well as the low bore their frost blanket now, and the dead turf cracked softly with every step.

"No, I have not forsaken the customs of my people."

"Why then in this instance?" insistently. "At least be consistent, man.

Why in this single particular and no other?"

The hand on the neck of the cayuse tightened, tightened until the tiny ears of the wicked little beast went flat to its head; then of a sudden the grip loosened.

"Why? The answer is simple. The lady who is to be my wife is not an Indian."

For an instant Craig was silent, for an instant the full meaning of that confession failed in its appeal; then of a sudden it came over him in a flood of comprehension. Very, very far away now, banished into remotest oblivion, was Pete Sweeney. Into the same grave went any remnants of grat.i.tude to the other man that chanced to remain. Paramount, beckoning him on, one thought, one memory alone possessed his brain: the recollection of that look the other had given him, that look he could never forget nor forgive. "Since you have told me so much," he challenged "you will probably have no objection to telling me the lady's name. Who is it to be?"

Silence fell upon them. Far in the distance, so far that had the white man seen he would have thought it a star, a light had come into being.

Many a time before the little roan had made this journey. Many a time he had seen that light emerge from the surface of earth. To him it meant all that was good in life: warmth, food, rest. The tiny head shook impatiently, shifted sideways with an almost human question to his rider at the slowness of the pace, the delay.

"That light you see there straight ahead is in the ranch house,"

digressed the Indian. "It is four miles away."

Again it was the warning, not a suggestion, but positive this time; and again it pa.s.sed unheeded.

"You have forgotten to answer my question," recalled Craig.

Swift as thought the Indian shifted in his seat, shifted half about; then as suddenly he remembered.

"No, I have not forgotten," he refuted. "You tell me you have already heard of Bess Landor. It is she I am to marry."

At last he had spoken, had given his confidence to this hostile stranger man; not vauntingly or challengingly, but simply as he had spoken his name. Against his will he had done this thing, despite a reticence no one who did not understand Indian nature could appreciate. Then at least it would not have taken a wise man to hold aloof. Then at least common courtesy would have called a halt. But Clayton Craig was neither wise nor courteous this night. He was a great, weary, pa.s.sionate child, whose pride had been stung, who but awaited an opportunity to retaliate.

And that opportunity had been vouchsafed. Moreover, irony of fate, it came sugar coated. Until this night he had been unconscious as a babe of racial prejudice. Now of a sudden, it seemed a burning issue, and he its chosen champion. His blood tingled at the thought; tingled to the tips of his well-manicured fingers. His clean-shaven chin lifted in air until his lashes all but met.

"Do you mean to tell me,"--his voice was a bit higher than normal and unnaturally tense,--"do you mean to tell me that you, an Indian, are to marry a white girl--and she my cousin by adoption? Is this what you mean?"

Seconds pa.s.sed.

"I have spoken," said a low voice. "I do not care to discuss the matter further."

"But I do care to discuss it," peremptorily. "As one of the family it is my right, and I demand an answer."

Again the tiny roan was shaking an impatient head. It would not be long until they were home now.

"Yes," answered the Indian.

"And that my uncle will permit it, gives his consent?" Again the silence and again the low-voiced "Yes."

Over Craig's face, to his eyebrows and beyond, there swept a red flood, that vanished and left him pale as the starlight about him.

"Well, he may; but by G.o.d I won't!" he blazed. "As sure as I live, and if she's as plain as a hag, so long as her skin is white, you'll not marry her. If it's the last act of my life, I'll prevent you!"

The voice of the white man was still, but his heart was not. Beat, beat, beat it went until he could scarcely breathe, until the hot blood fairly roared in his arteries, in his ears. Not until the challenge was spoken did he realise to the full what he had done, that inevitable as time there would be a reckoning. Now in a perfect inundation, the knowledge came over him, and unconsciously he braced himself, awaited the move.

Yet for long, eternally long it seemed to him, there was none. The swift reaction of a pa.s.sionate nature was on, and as in Bob Manning's store, the suspense of those dragging seconds was torture. Adding thereto, recollection of that former scene, temporarily banished, returned now irresistibly, c.u.mulatively. Struggle as he might against the feeling, a terror of this motionless human at his side grew upon him; a blind, unreasoning, primitive terror. But one impulse possessed him: to be away, to escape the outburst he instinctively knew was but delayed. In an abandon he leaned far forward over his saddle, the rowel of his spur dug viciously into his horse's flank. There was a deep-chested groan from the surprised beast, a forward leap--then a sudden jarring halt.

As by magic, the reins left his hand, were transferred to another hand.