W^"*k, 4~*Jt 
 
 os
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS AH
 
 CHUMLEY'S POST 
 
 A STORY OF 
 THE PAWNEE TRAIL 
 
 By 
 
 WILLIAM O. STOOD ARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF " LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN," "CROWDED OUT o' CROFIELD," 
 "WRECKED," "DAB KINZER" SERIES, "THE TALKING LEAVES," ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY CHARLES H. STEPHENS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 1896
 
 Copyright, 1886, BY J. 13. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
 Copyright, 1895, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
 ELECIROTYPED AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. IN A NEW COUNTRY . 
 II. OUT OP PRISON . 
 III. VERT DIFFERENT PEOPLE . 
 IV. A DOUBLE TRAP 
 
 V. WIPED OUT ENTIRELY 
 VI. A HICKORY TOMBSTONE 
 VII. A CALM AFTER A STORM . 
 VIII. A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE . 
 IX. THE PAWNEE OUTLAWS 
 
 X. A VERY SUDDEN LOVER . 
 XI. THE MUNRO OUTFIT . 
 XII. CHUMLEY'S POST 
 XIII. THE RED BEAUTY 
 XIV. ON THEIR OWN LAND 
 XV. A BUSY EVENING 
 XVI. WOLVES IN THEIR DEN 
 XVII. "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS" . 
 XVIII. A DOG MURDER . 
 XIX. CHANGES OF BASE 
 
 XX. STIRRING AN OLD STORY . 
 XXI. SUPPER AT CHUMLEY'S 
 XXII. ONE SECRET TOLD 
 XXIII. A MUCH SUSPECTED LEADER . 
 XXIV. A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 
 XXV. AMONG THE BUSHES .' 
 XXVI. A SCOUT IN THE DARK 
 
 2132851
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAOB 
 
 XXVII. A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD . . . 278 
 
 XXVIII. A PAWNEE PICNIC ENDED . . . .290 
 
 XXIX. MOKE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL . . 297 
 
 XXX. BRINGING AN THE WOUNDED .... 310 
 
 XXXI. DEADLY PERIL ... . 319 
 
 XXXII. A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEY'S . . .335 
 
 XXXIII. A SCENE IN A KITCHEN . . . .348 
 
 XXXIV. How THE STORY ENDED . , 363
 
 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 A STOET OF THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN A NEW COUNTRY. 
 
 
 "THAT, then, is the northeast corner of my 
 land?" 
 
 " I'll swear to it. I never made a more careful 
 survey in all my life. You'd best set a mark 
 there." 
 
 " My land lies due west and south ?" 
 
 "By the compass." 
 
 " Exactly. I own a mile square on the surface, 
 but what a fine point it must taper down to at the 
 centre of the earth!" 
 
 " Just as well it's thin at that end. I reckon land 
 isn't worth much down where that p'int is." 
 
 " They say it's a bad climate, too. Well, Mr. 
 Surveyor, I'll take your advice. I'll only drive a 
 peg now, but I'm going to set up a landmark." 
 
 l* 5
 
 6 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Good idee. My job's done, Mister. Jim and 
 I've got a long drive before us. Hope you'll have 
 good luck. Set up your landmark ; you'll run all 
 your fences right, then." 
 
 A light wagon stood near them, with a span of 
 mules in front of it, and the man spoken of as " Jim" 
 was already putting into it the tools of that finished 
 survey. The surveyor himself followed as soon as 
 he had signed a receipt for the money he and Jim 
 had earned, the mules were started upon a sharp 
 trot, and the land-owner was left alone. 
 
 He was very much alone, for his " section" of 
 prairie land and forest was in western Nebraska, 
 and there was not a ploughed field or a fence for 
 miles and miles in any direction. 
 
 He was a well-made, healthy-looking fellow, with 
 very crisp auburn hair and brown eyes, and some- 
 what more of beard and moustache than belonged 
 to one-and-twenty. He could not have been older 
 than that, but he had, nevertheless, the peculiar air 
 which surely settles upon a human being who has 
 seen much of the earth and its inhabitants. The 
 intense expression of resolute courage that marked 
 his face added to its " old" look, and he was evi- 
 dently the right kind of man for a settler in a new 
 country. He would be more so as soon as hard 
 work should improve away the softness of the pair 
 of hands he now thrust into the side-pockets of 
 his cut-away, as he slowly turned upon his heels as
 
 IN A NEW COUNTRY. 7 
 
 if studying the horizon. There was nothing east- 
 ward but rolling prairie, with here and there a 
 clump of trees, but westward, a half-mile or so, the 
 land rose into a range of forest-covered hills. It 
 was as fine a prospect as a reasonable man could 
 ask for, but it did not call any enthusiasm into the 
 sombre face of the new settler. When he had 
 swung himself completely around and was once 
 more looking northward, he fixed his eyes upon a 
 deep-worn rut not many feet from the peg he had 
 driven and remarked, 
 
 " That's the Pawnee Trail, is it ? I wonder what 
 makes it more Pawnee than any other kind of 
 Indian, when it's an old buffalo-path, after all ? It 
 goes pretty straight, from here to the woods, and it 
 comes pretty near marking the line of my land." 
 
 Wheelmarks on either side of the Trail showed 
 that it had been followed by other travellers than 
 red men or wild cattle, but the fresh spring grass 
 was growing in and over these. None would ever 
 grow in the narrow path of the bisons, for their 
 countless feet had beaten it hard as iron. It would 
 some day put unyielding clods before the ploughs 
 that were to come ; but at the present time it could 
 be trusted as indicating the very best line of march 
 for any one going through that region. 
 
 " No Pawnees for me, if you please," remarked 
 the young settler ; "but I suppose they're like other 
 human beings, and you can keep peace with them
 
 g RED BEAUTY. 
 
 if you try. Now for my landmark and some din- 
 ner." 
 
 He strode rapidly away westward along the trail 
 for some distance, and then turned to the left. He 
 was now upon his own land, and a few minutes of 
 sharp walking brought him in sight of some of his 
 other property. 
 
 There was no telling what might be contained in 
 the large, tilted wagon that had been hauled near 
 a fine spring of water, but ploughs and other farm- 
 ing implements were lying around on the grass. 
 Several very good-looking horses were feeding at 
 no great distance, all carefully tethered, but there 
 seemed to be no good reason why a pair of noble- 
 looking mastifls and a brace of tall stag-hounds 
 should also have been tethered. They were now 
 loudly declaring their pleasure at the coming of 
 their master. 
 
 " I'll take them with me this time," he remarked, 
 " and they may do all the hunting they please while 
 Fm chopping." 
 
 There was likely to be game enough in that vi- 
 cinity, but when the young settler took up an axe 
 and walked on towards the forest he made no prepa- 
 ration for sport. He seemed to be deeply, gloomily, 
 absorbingly wrapped up in thoughts which must 
 have been of an unpleasant nature. On the very 
 edge of the woods he stopped and looked at a 
 young hickory, less than a foot in diameter.
 
 IN A NEW COUNTRY. 9 
 
 " That'll do. I couldn't manage anything heavier 
 very well." 
 
 As he said that he drove his axe into the slender 
 trunk with more skill than the color of his hands 
 had seemed to promise, but at that moment the 
 voices of all four of his canine friends rang out 
 together. They had been careering in all direc- 
 tions from the moment in which they were set at 
 liberty, but now they suddenly concentrated their 
 forces. It was as if they had bayed and barked at 
 a mark and ceased as soon as they had hit it. They 
 and their master alike stood still and looked at a 
 curious figure which drew nearer rapidly. 
 
 A dingy yellow blanket covered the new arrival, 
 with the exception of his head, legs, and the right 
 arm. That arm came out through a hole in the 
 blanket and carried a rifle. The legs wore deer- 
 skin leggings, on which bits of tattered fringes 
 lingered here and there, but the crown of that 
 wardrobe was a remarkably old and shining silk 
 hat, from under which escaped tangled locks of 
 long gray hair. 
 
 " About the ugliest mug I ever saw," remarked 
 the chopper to his nearest dog, as the old Indian 
 came closer. 
 
 In another moment the rifle was transferred to 
 the blanket>covered arm, and the dusky right hand 
 was extended with the customary salutation of 
 " How."
 
 JO RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " How," said the white man, and then he added, 
 " Do you speak English ?" 
 
 Perhaps the stranger was asking him if he spoke 
 Choctaw or some similar tongue, for his answer 
 was a string of gutturals such as can be heard only 
 among the red men. 
 
 " Not one word except * how,' eh ? I'm afraid 
 I shall learn very little from you, then." 
 
 Again the stream of ragged and jagged sounds 
 poured forth liberally, and it was a pity they could 
 not have been understood. There is an idea afloat 
 that American Indians have little or no fun in 
 them, but it is a great mistake. 
 
 There stood the gray-haired aborigine, with grim 
 solemnity, applying to the young settler all the bad 
 words he knew, and he evidently knew a large 
 number. Not only the youth himself but all his 
 kindred, of both sexes, were described as animals 
 and reptiles of the most unpleasant varieties and 
 accused of all sorts of misdemeanors. 
 
 " Sorry I can't understand you," said the white 
 man. "I did say, when you came up, that you 
 had the ugliest mug I'd ever seen in all my life, 
 but I didn't guess how ghastly a phiz you had till 
 you opened your mouth. I haven't a doubt that 
 you'd murder me for fifty cents." 
 
 At least that money's worth of unmitigated 
 blackguardism replied to him from the solemn 
 countenance before him, in the tongue he had
 
 IN A NEW COUNTRY. H 
 
 never until that hour listened to, and then the red 
 man sat down upon a fallen tree, as if he meant to 
 watch the chopping of the hickory. 
 
 " I'm glad to see that," said the chopper. " Now 
 I needn't go back and watch my horses and things 
 till you're out of sight. If ever a man had a thief's 
 face, you have." 
 
 A cheerful smile and a string of hard words 
 replied to him, and he worked away with his axe, 
 not knowing that he had been assured that a squaw 
 could beat him all to pieces in handling that tool. 
 Down came the hickory speedily, however, and a 
 length of about twenty feet of its trunk was 
 trimmed clean of branches. 
 
 " I suppose," said the chopper to the Indian, 
 " that it would take a larger tree to do you justice. 
 No doubt whatever but what you ought to be made 
 an acorn of." 
 
 Serene was the smile of his hearer, although 
 wonderfully wide, and then the same voice which 
 had managed the gutturals declared in pretty plain 
 English, 
 
 " White boy heap fool." 
 
 He may have been, but he was also a man of 
 uncommonly steady nerve, for without a quiver of 
 face or voice he promptly responded, 
 
 " Just so, but I don't often get caught out quite 
 so easily." 
 
 " Come chop log. No gun. Pawnee lift hair
 
 12 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 for him some day. Hang 'calp in lodge and tell 
 squaw ' fool 'calp.' ' 
 
 " Are you a Pawnee ?" 
 
 "Pawnee heap wolf. Good Indian me. Heap 
 good." 
 
 " Do you steal much ?" 
 
 " Good Indian no 'teal. Borrow pony some- 
 time. Take good care of pony when borrow." 
 
 " Don't you horrow any of mine, then. Do you 
 see them ?" 
 
 The dogs had taken no part in the conversation, 
 but they were plainly interested in the old redskin. 
 One mastiff was sitting near enough to be patted 
 on the head, and submitted quietly ; but the canine 
 opinion of the stranger was not high, and no tail 
 among them expressed gratification as he stepped 
 from one to another, cultivating their acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 " Heap good dog," said he, with strong em- 
 phasis. 
 
 " They'll know you the next time. What name 
 do you go by ? "What's your tribe ?" 
 
 "Boy know enough now. Somebody ask him 
 who meet in woods. Boy tell all about him." 
 
 " Keep your secret, then. I'm going for a horse 
 to haul this stick." 
 
 " Got horse ? Good Indian come borrow him 
 some day, when dog all gone. Maybe Pawnee 
 come first. No horse there then. No boy."
 
 IN A NEW COUNTRY. 13 
 
 "I believe I'll take that warning about going 
 unarmed," said the new settler. "It may not be 
 so safe as the surveyor represented. I shan't be 
 alone while they're putting up the house and 
 stables. Things '11 be safer after that's done." 
 
 The Indian walked along at his side in silence 
 until he came to the horses. One was selected, the 
 harness was put upon him with a drag-chain in- 
 tended for the log, and the young man turned to 
 lead him away, when his queer acquaintance opened 
 his wide mouth again, with, 
 
 "White boy heap fool. Go leave good Indian 
 by horses." 
 
 " Never you mind, my friend. You'll have com- 
 pany," said the new settler, quietly; but the red 
 man had not seen or heard his instructions to those 
 
 Their master went for the hickory, but they did 
 not. They all lay down within a few paces of the 
 " good Indian," and looked at him. 
 
 " Ugh ! Heap trap !" was his only comment, but 
 he deemed it best to sit in a very unoccupied still- 
 ness until the owner of those horses should come 
 back. Once, when he partly arose, a mastiff rose 
 also, and something like the beginning of a growl 
 rumbled in the deep chest of one of the hounds. 
 It was best to sit down again, lest they should show 
 farther signs of dissatisfaction. 
 
 " Ugh ! Much dog. Suppose kill one, then get 
 2
 
 14 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 eat up by three. No good. Boy say horse not 
 borrow this time." 
 
 It looked so, and the young settler now returned 
 along the Trail with his hickory stick. When he 
 came within hailing distance he shouted to his dogs 
 and they bounded away, releasing the old Indian 
 from his "heap watch." He at once arose and 
 shouldered his rifle, and when the former came for 
 a spade he was ready to remark, 
 
 " Ugh ! Heap dig ? Rule good. No tell when 
 want him." 
 
 There was something ominous but not unfriendly 
 in the positive manner of his repeated warning, but 
 when he was asked, 
 
 " Are there any Indians on the war-path nowa- 
 days ?" he replied, 
 
 "Boy all alone. Got horse. S'pose Pawnee 
 want horse, nobody ever say what boy did. Ran 
 away, maybe. Take what friend say." 
 
 It was not a very cheerful saying, but it was taken, 
 and the sombre young face grew yet more cloudy 
 and at the same time more resolute. The hickory 
 pole was rapidly dragged to its destination, and the 
 spade was plied with vigor until a hole was made 
 of sufficient depth to promise firm holding. The 
 butt end of the stick was rolled over the hole and 
 then the old Indian once more said, " Ugh !" This 
 time it was in admiration of the iron strength dis- 
 played in the raising of that landmark. It went
 
 IN A NEW COUNTRY. 15 
 
 up without one pause in the steady lifting ; the earth 
 was packed in around it, and the man who had put 
 it there stepped back to look at it. 
 
 " Now," he exclaimed, " I know where the cor- 
 ner of my land is. If anybody else comes to in- 
 quire they'll have a starting-point. They'll be able 
 to say, That's Chumley's Post.' " 
 
 " Ugh !" said his companion, but the white man 
 went on : 
 
 " Odd thought ! What if a fellow could know 
 the history of all the lives that will stop here and 
 look at that post before it rots down ? If I am not 
 mistaken, some of them would beat the novelists 
 all hollow." 
 
 Very likely. If, for instance, he could have read 
 the memory of the gray-headed red man who was 
 even now repeating, " Chumley. Post"
 
 16 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 OUT OF PRISON. 
 
 AT the very hour of the forenoon when Chum- 
 ley's dogs lay down to watch the old Indian, a white 
 man more than a thousand miles away was under 
 even closer confinement. No connection could he 
 imagined between this man and the young pioneer 
 or his landmark. He was one of hundreds who 
 were at that hour variously employed in a vast stone 
 structure on the eastern bank of the Hudson Eiver. 
 He was a convict in Sing Sing prison, but he was 
 not now at any work. He stood erect in his nar- 
 row cell, looking at the door. 
 
 " At noon to-day," he said. " They will come 
 soon, and my three years of this gehenna are 
 ended." 
 
 He was a tall, fine-looking fellow, of twenty-three 
 or four years, and it seemed an awful pity to see 
 him there. His thick, black, glossy hair had been 
 recently permitted to grow a little beyond the 
 "prison crop," and his keen, brilliant eyes were 
 full of intelligence. His forehead was broad, his 
 aquiline nose well shaped, and it was not till his 
 mouth could be studied that an observer could find
 
 OUT OF PEISON. 17 
 
 much fault with his features. That was not too 
 large, but it was thin-lipped and sharp at the cor- 
 ners. Lines went out from these which partly ex- 
 plained the faint crow's-feet on his temples. It was 
 a face too selfish to serve " self" well, and its present 
 expression changed with flickering rapidity. In all 
 the changes, however, there lingered one black 
 shadow. The one thought burning within him 
 found expression in words as well as in fierce and 
 wrathful darkenings of face. His voice was hoarse 
 and low, and there was gall and wormwood in 
 every syllable. 
 
 " Free ? That's it. Out into the world again. 
 To be pointed at. CONVICT ! Served his term in 
 Sing Sing ! No. The frontier is the place for me. 
 I'll get even with this world before I die. Won't I?" 
 
 The words had almost a hissing sound, so fall 
 were they of hate and bitterness. "When a man 
 has so lived and acted that a just judge and jury 
 put him into Sing Sing, his chances for improve- 
 ment by years of association with felons, iron bars, 
 and stone walls are not very good. 
 
 " Name ?" he said, again. " I'll take any name 
 but the one I was born with. I'll pick me out one 
 when I disappear. Nobody that knows me will 
 ever see me again." 
 
 Just then there came a sound of feet towards the 
 door at which he was staring, and the cold sweat 
 
 stood upon his forehead. 
 
 b 2*
 
 lg RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " They have come !" he said. 
 
 Half an hour later he stood in what looked more 
 like a lawyer's office than a room in any prison, 
 but he was not free quite yet. He had put off the 
 striped garb of a convict for a neat, plain suit of 
 black, but he had not yet put off the prison man- 
 ner, and his bearing was of the sullen respect paid 
 by crime to force while he listened to the customary 
 formalities of liberation. These included excellent 
 words of counsel and exhortation from the prison 
 officials, but even the kindly-faced chaplain failed 
 to elicit from him anything more than disciplined 
 attention. 
 
 " Mortimer Herries," said the good man, earnestly, 
 " I pray God you may never again find yourself in 
 such a place as this." 
 
 " That is a name, Mr. Smith, by which I shall 
 never again be known, but I suppose you mean 
 me. You may be sure of one thing : I shall never 
 trouble this prison again. If I ever write another 
 man's name for mine, on a check, by any mistake, 
 it will be far enough from this." 
 
 " Change your name. Make a new name and 
 keep it clean. Be a new man." 
 
 "Made over new in Sing Sing? We will see 
 about that. I thank you all, gentlemen, but I am 
 looking at the clock and cannot talk very well." 
 
 Evidently he was a man of education and ca- 
 pacity, and even the hard-headed prison officials
 
 OUT OF PRISON. 19 
 
 remarked to one another that it must be a terrible 
 thing for him to go out among other men. 
 
 " You see," said one, " he doesn't leave behind 
 him anything but the striped jacket. He's as good 
 as branded." 
 
 " Well," replied another, " that can't be helped. 
 He should have thought of that when he forged 
 the check. I'm afraid there's all sorts of mischief 
 in him. Look at his eye." 
 
 There was nothing pleasant there to look at. 
 He seemed to be making an effort to suppress 
 every indication of feeling, and he succeeded fairly 
 well, so far as all other emotions were concerned, 
 but the sense of his degradation was evidently 
 upon him strongly. 
 
 "He needs a little more brass," said the same 
 official to the chaplain, "and it always comes to 
 'em after they've been out a day or two. He was 
 a man of good family." 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said the chaplain; and he was 
 poor enough, but when he was informed that trans- 
 portation would be given him to the city in which 
 he had been convicted, and by a railway train 
 leaving a few minutes after twelve o'clock, he 
 responded, 
 
 " New York ? Yes. I'll go there, but I shall not 
 stay there. I shall have funds provided. This is 
 the last of Mortimer Herries." 
 
 There was little more to be said or done. The
 
 20 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 turning loose of some convict whose time is out is 
 an every-day affair at Sing Sing. It is only too 
 often accompanied by a shrewd calculation as to 
 how long it will be before the man released will be 
 back again, but all were inclined to take Herries at 
 his word. 
 
 " It's a big country," they said. " He has brains 
 enough to go somewhere and do well yet." 
 
 " I don't know," was added. " He's likely to be 
 an expensive neighbor. The community he settles 
 in is not to be congratulated." 
 
 That was the opinion of a good judge, especially 
 of criminal human nature, and yet the gentleman in 
 black who entered the railway train at Sing Sing 
 was in no respect the inferior, so far as personal 
 appearance went, of any other passenger in the car 
 that carried him. Neither did any man or woman 
 there mistake him for a convict. He looked into 
 every face that from time to time was turned upon 
 him, and not one of all accused him of having put 
 off the prison stripes that day. 
 
 It was a day of marked importance to quite a 
 number of people. Towards the close of its busi- 
 ness hours a carefully dressed, middle-aged gentle- 
 man sat by a table in a down-town mercantile 
 office, with the inquiring look upon his face of a 
 man who is waiting for somebody to come. That 
 and every other meaning conveyed by the clear-cut 
 and somewhat swarthy features testified also to the
 
 OUT OF PRISON. 21 
 
 fact that he was a polished, finished, utterly self- 
 possessed man of the world. A keen observer 
 might have gathered the idea that he had prepared 
 himself for something, but if so, he had done it 
 wonderfully well. He had taken care to be alone, 
 if care had been needed, and he did not rise from 
 his chair when the door opened, although he bowed 
 to the man who came in. It was Mr. Mortimer 
 Herries, that hour arrived from Sing Sing. 
 
 " Walk in, sir. Take a seat." 
 
 " Thank you, no. My business is brief enough." 
 
 " Certainly. I received your letter. You have 
 mine. I have no questions to ask, Mr. Herries " 
 
 " Payne, if you please. You are mistaken about 
 the name." 
 
 " Beg pardon, Mr. Payne. It is better so. There 
 is the money spoken of in my letter. I do not 
 think Mrs. Herries or the young ladies are at home 
 to-day." 
 
 " They need not trouble themselves. I had no 
 intention of calling. Am I expected to thank you 
 for the money ?" 
 
 " Certainly not, if you keep your contract " 
 
 "I shall keep it. Three years in State-prison 
 have taught me some things. You will never see me 
 again or hear of me. And yet I had a father once, 
 a mother, sisters, a brother, a home." 
 
 There were years of shame and agony hi the 
 quivering voice with which the words were uttered,
 
 22 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 but the hard lips of the man of the world before 
 him parted only to reply, 
 
 " Exactly, and you traded them for a cell in Sing 
 Sing. As a man soweth so shall he reap. Do you 
 now wish to say anything more, Mr. Payne ?" 
 
 "Not one word, to you or them." 
 
 His hands had closed upon a packet of bank- 
 notes which looked like a liberal provision for his 
 proposed journeying. He stuffed it quickly into 
 an inner pocket of his coat, put on his hat, turned 
 away without offering or receiving a grasp of the 
 hand in farewell, and walked slowly out of the 
 office. The door closed, and then the gray head 
 of the man of the world and of business was bowed 
 for a moment upon the table before him. Father 
 and son had been parted forever by something 
 many degrees more terrible than mere death, and 
 human nature claimed its own with a great pang. 
 
 The man who went out seemed to have recovered 
 his equilibrium suddenly. Before he had turned 
 the first corner he remarked to himself, 
 
 " I can get my baggage together, now I've got 
 the money, in time to take the evening train for 
 the West. Mr. Payne, Mr. Edward Payne, if you 
 please, is going to Chicago." 
 
 How much farther and for what purpose in life 
 he did not say, but he at once set about making 
 purchases of clothing and other matters, sufficient 
 to pack a travelling-satchel, purchased first He
 
 OUT OF PRISON. 23 
 
 was yet busy with his preparations at the hour of 
 one scene more in which he might have taken an 
 interest if he had been present. 
 
 The elder Mr. Herries, man of the world and of 
 business, had reached his elegant home and had 
 gone at once to his own room. He was waited for. 
 A tall, aristocratic-looking lady came forward to 
 meet him. Her face was very pale, and her eyes 
 were red as if with weeping. 
 
 " Husband," she said, " did you see Mortimer ? 
 Did he come ?" 
 
 "N"o, my dear. There is no such person any 
 more. A Mr. Payne, from Sing Sing, called at the 
 office. I understand that he leaves town at once, 
 but I did not ask in what direction." 
 
 " Did he say anything ? Did he send any mes- 
 sage ?" 
 
 " Not a word, except that we should never see 
 him again or hear of him. He is gone !" 
 
 " Husband, it is awful! I know you have seen 
 him, but it seems to me that he died three years 
 ago. Oh, how I wish I could have seen him once 
 more !" 
 
 " It is better as it is, every way, Mary. Let us 
 say no more, just now." 
 
 She was a woman of the world, but for all that 
 she was a mother, and she, too, covered her face 
 and bowed her head, for she had lost a son.
 
 24 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VEEY DIFFEKENT PEOPLE. 
 
 SING SING prison is a long distance from Chum- 
 ley's Post, and so are many other spots upon the 
 earth's broad surface. One of those other spots, 
 even more distant, was elegantly furnished. It had 
 a well-set table in the middle of it, not for dinner 
 but for "luncheon," and near one end of this a 
 lady and a gentleman were standing at the very 
 time when the old Indian said " Ugh !" at seeing 
 the pole lifted so easily. 
 
 The gentleman was a broad-shouldered youth ot 
 perhaps fi ve-and-twenty, with very blond hair and 
 side-whiskers, while the lady was a very pretty 
 brunette, evidently at least three years younger, 
 whom he had twice already spoken to as " dar- 
 ling." 
 
 " Your mother will be down in a minute," she 
 said. " She has a letter from Dick this morning." 
 
 " Glad of it. Where is he now ?" 
 
 " North America, somewhere. I can't quite 
 make it out. He does not speak of you or me." 
 
 " He'll recover his senses one of these days. 
 Meantime, travel will be good for him."
 
 VERY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. 25 
 
 " Chelmsford, love, it was no fault of mine " 
 
 "We are all agreed on that point. Even Ms 
 mother says he has only himself to blame. Don't 
 speak of it, darling." 
 
 " Seems to me I was not even giddy. But he 
 talks of land and settling and remaining." 
 
 " Good sign. Mind recovering its tone. Been 
 awfully seasick several times. Nothing like it. I 
 must see the letter, though. Come, darling. That's 
 mother's voice. I'm wolfishly hungry." 
 
 He looked lovingly at his " darling" while eat- 
 ing, and he ate well, and the portly lady at the head 
 of the table talked freely about Dick and his doings, 
 but she was the only member of the trio who went 
 so far as to say, 
 
 " How I. would like to see him ! Think of it ! 
 he has been around the world since " 
 
 "ISTow, mother," interrupted the blond young 
 gentleman, " you've made Laura blush again. Let's 
 try another subject." 
 
 So they did, successfully, and Dick, whoever he 
 might be, was permitted to drop out. 
 
 It was a good time for lunch, even if one chose 
 to call it dinner. Elegance and refinement in one 
 place, rude simplicity in another, but high noon all 
 the same, and the queer old Indian at Chumley's 
 Post again said " Ugh !" with strong emphasis, 
 when his white acquaintance asked him to come 
 along and have something to eat. He still avoided
 
 26 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 giving any information about himself. His name 
 and tribe were to be for the present a kind of se- 
 cret, and he was allowed to keep it without any 
 prying on the part of Chumley. 
 
 " I wish I had a good photograph of him, hat and 
 all," he said, "and he would smile just as hand- 
 somely without any name. No, I won't quote 
 Shakespeare. He isn't like any rose I ever saw." 
 
 Nevertheless, while the fire was kindling and 
 other preparations were making, there were many 
 quiet questionings on the part of Chumley as to the 
 state of mind prevailing among the red men of 
 the Nebraska border, and this their elderly brother 
 appeared to have a very poor opinion of them, 
 taken as a whole. They were but black sheep, with 
 an especially deep coloring for the iniquities of the 
 Pawnees, and it would be well for any lonely white 
 man to keep his dogs awake, his horses well 
 tethered, and his fire-arms in good condition. 
 
 " 'Calp him some day, anyhow," was cheerfully 
 predicted. " Keep eye out and make Pawnee wait 
 a little 'fore lift hair." 
 
 " That's nice. I believe Pll do it. Coffee's ready. 
 Now I know where my land really is, Pm going to 
 put my tent up after dinner." 
 
 Rashers of bacon, with army bread, helped out 
 the coffee, but it was manifest that for some un- 
 known reason the old Indian was getting uneasy. 
 His snaky eyes were continually glancing in all
 
 VERY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. 27 
 
 directions. He ate rapidly, and had appeased his 
 hunger before his host was half done. 
 
 " What's your hurry ?" asked Chumley, as the 
 Indian arose and took up his rifle. " Stay and have 
 a smoke. Is there anybody after you ?" 
 
 " Ugh ! Maybe. Boy good friend now. Look ! 
 Lookra*/ Ugh?" 
 
 " I see you. Well ?" 
 
 " Heap lie. Never saw. Don't know. Not been 
 here." 
 
 " All right. I don't know you. Go along. If 
 any of your friends come to ask after you I'll say 
 it was some other Indian." 
 
 " Good-by. Keep eye out and take rifle every 
 time. Keep hair." 
 
 " Good luck to you." 
 
 The old man turned on his moccasins and walked 
 rapidly away eastward. 
 
 " Gone to hide himself on the prairie, has he ? 
 Well, I'll take his advice and have a rifle within 
 reach. Have I got to carry a revolver, too ? I'm 
 afraid so. Now for the tent, and the sooner those 
 fellows come and put up a log house for me the 
 better I'll be satisfied." 
 
 Chumley was busy with his dishes and things 
 while he spoke, and his next exclamation was a 
 loud one. 
 
 " The old thief! All the cold boiled ham and 
 a good pound of hard-tack. Is anything else gone ?
 
 28 RED BEAVTY. 
 
 He's a skilled workman. The hook-nosed old owl ! 
 At all events he'll be sure of a good supper. I'll 
 try for a deer in the morning, or some prairie- 
 chickens, I don't much care which, but I mustn't 
 use up all my pork." 
 
 ^The tent which he now pulled out of his wagon 
 and proceeded to put up was of the regular army 
 pattern, and promised more comfortable " quarters" 
 than the tilted wagon. There was a good camp-bed 
 to put into it, and a stool, but no luxuries were yet 
 visible. When all was completed, the new settler 
 lighted a pipe and seated himself in the door of his 
 tent, saying to one of his hounds, 
 
 "Pawnees are coming, old fellow. How'd you 
 like that ? I wonder how it would seem to actually 
 point a gun at a man, red or white, and pull the 
 trigger ? I may have it to do before long, accord- 
 ing to that marvellously ugly old thief that stole 
 my ham." 
 
 It was a lazy manner of spending the remaining 
 hours of that very beautiful spring day, but there 
 seemed hardly any other way for employing the 
 time. There was the land, all around, the best in 
 the world, but there was no farm there yet. There 
 was the spring, but with no house by it, and at last 
 Chumley aroused himself sufficiently to go and 
 take a look at that matter. 
 
 " I'll tell you what we will do," said he to his 
 dogs. " We will have our house built all around
 
 VERY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. 29 
 
 that spring, and then we can have a drink at any 
 hour of the day or night, Pawnees or no Pawnees. 
 A good log house is a kind of fort, anyhow, and 
 we'll make our house safe to live in. What do you 
 say ?" 
 
 Only one of the hounds seemed to consider a 
 reply needful, and he, not knowing what other re- 
 mark to make, put up his head and indulged him- 
 self in a short howl. 
 
 " That," said Chumley, " must be on account of 
 the ham. I shall have a lonely evening of it, but 
 for the first time in my life I shall sleep, to-night, 
 upon my own land. The trees over the tent are 
 mine. So is the spring. So is the grass. I think 
 I'll put in a claim on some deer and grouse in the 
 morning." 
 
 He had reached a journey's end in safety. He 
 and his team and wagon were a type and sample 
 of thousands that were plodding the new paths of 
 the West that day. One more of these, although 
 he knew it not, was pushing forward along the 
 Pawnee Trail towards the stick of hickory that 
 marked the corner of Chumley's land.
 
 30 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 
 
 THERE was a very good basis for Chumley's idea 
 that the old Indian believed himself followed by 
 somebody. At the same time it occurred to him 
 that his queer guest was likely to be a difficult 
 snake to catch. The man who is himself a good 
 trailer is likely to know how to keep out of the 
 reach of other men. 
 
 Where the supposed fugitive slept that night 
 nobody could have told but himself. Possibly 
 he did not do any great length of sleeping. At 
 all events the rising sun of the next morning 
 found him prowling in the vicinity of the Pawnee 
 Trail. 
 
 He paid a visit of curiosity, as it seemed, to 
 Chumley's Post, but, for some reason unexpressed, 
 he approached it very much as if he were somewhat 
 afraid of it. He looked at the hickory stick itself 
 with a suppressed grunt, and then he looked at all 
 the grass near it, from tuft to tuft. At its base 
 there was, of course, much loose earth scattered, 
 and upon this were many prints of Chumley's 
 boots.
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 31 
 
 What could there be of special interest in those 
 footmarks, that made them worth so careful a 
 study ? 
 
 The stooping investigation ended with a short, 
 sharp yell, and this was followed by, 
 
 " Five Pawnee. All fool. All step out of trail 
 to come leave track at Chumley Post." 
 
 It was a matter of course that any Indian coming 
 along that Trail should leave its beaten security to 
 examine so new and seemingly so useless an " im- 
 provement" as the landmark. It was a thing to 
 be handled, inquired into, and discussed. So were 
 the wheelmarks of the surveyor's wagon, and the 
 boot-tracks made by Chumley and by the surveyor 
 and his man Jim. It had been decided that three 
 white men and one Indian had been at work, but 
 not an idea could be had beyond that from the signs 
 recorded on the Post or the earth around it. So 
 five other pairs of feet had left proofs of their pres- 
 ence and returned to the hard-baked, remarkable 
 Trail. 
 
 The old man now studying those footprints did 
 not know that their makers had carried with them 
 one more evidence of the near neighborhood of 
 white men. Neither did Chumley know why his 
 dogs had awakened him in the dusk before the 
 dawn that morning. They had bayed and barked 
 sonorously, and he had vainly asked of them to ex- 
 plain themselves.
 
 32 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Is it a wolf, boys ?" he demanded, three times. 
 " Or is somebody coming ? What is the row ?" 
 
 He was not to know, right away, but each of 
 them in turn had sent out to listening ears among 
 the shadows the assurance that he was a white 
 man's dog, and of an uncommonly large size. 
 
 The listeners heard and grunted, but had no 
 present errand which carried them any nearer to a 
 camp so well guarded. The errand they did have 
 led them on into the prairie. The one thing which 
 had puzzled them among the " signs" near the foot 
 of the " Post" had been the traces of moccasined 
 feet, every peculiarity of which was strange to them. 
 
 " Heap big brave," they said, and Chumley had 
 noticed that his visitor of the day before wore moc- 
 casins which seemed much too large for him. If 
 these Pawnees were aware of the size of his feet 
 they may have received false tidings by way of those 
 tracks in the dirt, and he may have intended that 
 they should. At all events he now turned away 
 with a satisfied air, remarking, 
 
 " Ugh ! Pawnee heap go blind. Walk right by. 
 Wait see 'em go back. Then all safe." 
 
 He had not missed in his estimate of the number 
 of the squad of red men whose possible pursuit he 
 was dodging so cunningly, but he could hardly 
 have been aware of what might almost be termed 
 their financial condition. In all the prose and 
 poetry devoted to Indian affairs, the red warrior
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 33 
 
 is invariably depicted fully armed. He is also 
 mounted upon at least one pony, and is otherwise 
 provided for the exigencies of frontier romance 
 and reality. Such is apt to be the case, truly, but 
 savage life has its vicissitudes and its vices. Among 
 the most inveterate of the latter is gambling. It is 
 more likely to set a warrior on foot, empty-handed, 
 than is even a collision with the United States 
 cavalry. In the fever of excitement over games 
 of chance go all possessions, weapons, horses, 
 blankets, and among some tribes even squaws and 
 children may be staked and lost. 
 
 Whether or not the man they were following had 
 anything to do with their evil fortunes, here were 
 five Pawnees who had but one rifle among them 
 and no ammunition. All had knives, and two 
 carried clubs, and the absence of blankets was no 
 great -matter at that season of the year. They 
 wore instead, so to speak, cloudy and dejected 
 faces, fall of utter desperation. They were far 
 away from their proper "reservation," and the 
 annual day for presents from their " great father at 
 Washington," and for annuities, was long months 
 ahead of them. They were in precisely the state 
 of mind and pocket although they had no pockets 
 and but narrow minds in which a born horse- 
 thief and scalp-taker is most dangerous. 
 
 They were under the necessity of making a strike 
 upon the possessions of some other man or men, 
 
 c
 
 34 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 and they were now scouting along the Trail for 
 that purpose quite as much as for vengeance of any 
 sort. They were a full mile beyond the Post when 
 the fact of their passage became known to the old 
 Indian standing by it. He seemed to derive an 
 intense degree of satisfaction from the results of 
 his investigation. It was as if he had set a trap 
 and had caught something important. He walked 
 away but a few steps before he took from under his 
 blanket an old haversack, and out of that the re- 
 mains of a boiled ham, holding it by the bone while 
 he cut off for himself a slice large enough to re- 
 ward him for discovering the arrival and departure 
 of his enemies. He ate slowly, and he did not 
 know that they had been instrumental in stirring 
 up Chumley to a very early breakfast. The edge 
 of the knife had once more reached the ham-bone 
 when the carver was startled into the utterance of 
 a surprised grunt. The sound of a horse's feet was 
 very near him, and the haversack was hardly under 
 the blanket in safety before a loud, cheery voice 
 hailed him with, 
 
 " Hullo ! Tou here yet ?" 
 
 " How. Good Indian watch for Pawnee. Pawnee 
 come !" 
 
 "What did you do with my ham?" 
 
 " Ugh ! No 'teal him. Heap eat. Ham good. 
 No talk ham. Say Pawnee come ! Boy keep eye 
 out!"
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 35 
 
 There was enough in the manner of his utterance 
 to arouse some small interest, but it deepened fast 
 when he beckoned Chumley towards the Post and 
 tried to explain to him the meaning of the several 
 faint impressions in the dirt. 
 
 " That's what was the matter with my dogs this 
 morning. I guess I won't let my hunting carry me 
 far away." 
 
 ""Watch horse, better. Boy fool about deer. 
 Not know how. Old man tell him. Get plenty 
 then." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 A great deal of first-class pantomime helped the 
 red man to give Ml payment for the ham and the 
 hard-tack, in the shape of a lecture on the easiest 
 method for getting deer-meat for dinner. Not on 
 horseback in broad daylight, while the deer were 
 feeding and watching, but before dawn and armed 
 with a double-barrelled gun. Not then riding 
 around upon the great pasture aimlessly, but fol- 
 lowing the tall grass in the bed of some dried or 
 half-dried " slough." Here would the deer lie over- 
 night, and here could they be shot or pulled down 
 in the morning. 
 
 " Boy know heap now," was the hopeful finish. 
 " Old Indian come again. Boy boil ham for him 
 'nother time. Bye !" 
 
 " Come along," said Chumley. " If you won't 
 do anything worse than that you may come as often
 
 36 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 as you choose. I'll ride around awhile, though. 
 May strike something." 
 
 That he might possibly do so was freely acknowl- 
 edged by a nod of the head, and he turned his 
 horse's nose northward, while his instructor in 
 prairie methods walked off in the opposite direction. 
 
 "If they've really gone by," said Chumley to 
 himself, " my traps will be safe enough till noon, 
 anyhow. But wasn't he cool enough about the 
 ham?" 
 
 He certainly had been, and he was now consider- 
 ing a probability which had not occurred to the 
 deer-hunter. The five dismounted Pawnees were 
 the last men in the world to do any more walking 
 than their needs called for. Neither would they 
 run any especial or undue personal risks. By that 
 Trail or some other they would soon be retracing 
 their steps, whether successful or not. The old In- 
 dian therefore declared himself in need of nothing 
 but a hiding-place for the present. He speedily 
 found one, and he also found a greater need for it 
 than he had at all counted on. Less than an eighth 
 of a mile southeasterly from the Post set up by the 
 young settler, a score or so of oaks and hickories 
 indicated the presence of water. It was a widely- 
 scattered clump of trees, and the spring was small 
 and somewhat marshy, but this had encouraged the 
 luxuriant growth of bushes. Willow and hazel 
 and sumach combined with blackberry and wild
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 37 
 
 rose to produce masses of tangled leaf and flower 
 and thorn, through which the deer and buffalo had 
 kept abundant pathways perennially open. The 
 old Indian found something more like a rabbit- 
 path at one point, and it enabled him to almost 
 burrow his way to within a dozen paces of the 
 spring. It was a place of much comfort for an 
 elderly man with nothing to do, but a strong reason 
 had been given him for going there suddenly. His 
 walk from the Post had taken him to the clump of 
 trees, and he was almost half-way through them 
 when something seemed to knock him down, so 
 suddenly did he drop into the grass. 
 
 Nothing but the sound of human voices had hit 
 him, but they came from a squad of men who were 
 entering the grove upon the opposite side. Indian 
 ears could decide that the sounds came from Indian 
 tongues. It was probably too late to run away, 
 and so a bolder and more profitable mode of escape 
 was taken, although it brought the old Indian 
 within a few paces of four of the very Pawnees he 
 seemed to be escaping from. It was within hear- 
 ing distance, and he speedily learned why there 
 were four instead of five. He learned also various 
 particulars of their views of his own life and char- 
 acter, and the value of his scalp to him in case they 
 should meet him alone, upon the prairie or else- 
 where. 
 
 Still as a log, keenly catching every sound and 
 4
 
 38 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 watching every motion, the lurking fugitive lay 
 and waited for the working out of what seemed to 
 be a plot of more than ordinary cunning. He had 
 already heard enough to know that all that matter 
 hung upon the coming of the fifth Pawnee, who 
 was as a sort of chief and leader to this quartette, 
 and in whom they confided greatly. 
 
 There had not been any trouble with the Indians, 
 of any tribe along that frontier, for so long a time 
 that the government agents were quite justified in 
 assuring emigrants of its safety. Trains large and 
 small came and went unmolested, and there was no 
 fear whatever accompanying the slow movements 
 of one modest outfit that morning. It was lumber- 
 ing along the Pawnee Trail, westward. One tilted 
 wagon, drawn by four good mules, seemed to be 
 well packed with household goods, and a saddled 
 horse was haltered to the rear of the wagon, but the 
 really valuable part of the whole affair walked side 
 by side near the heads of the foremost span of 
 mules. 
 
 Three persons, every one of them as bright and 
 smiling as the spring morning on the prairie. A 
 tall, broad-shouldered, yellow-bearded man, a per- 
 fect type of the old Norsemen, the sea-kings, or of 
 such sons of the Vikings as Charles the Twelfth 
 of Sweden gathered for his famous " Yellow Regi- 
 ment." On his right walked a woman, whose erect, 
 vigorous form, rosy face, and kindly blue eyes be-
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 39 
 
 longed to the same splendid type of humanity. On 
 his left there tripped along a golden-tressed fairy 
 of the North, who had inherited from both father 
 and mother and from her ancient race their charac- 
 teristic beauty. The girl may have been thirteen, 
 but was yet completely a child, and was now glan- 
 cing around her with all a child's delight at the 
 new world they were entering. 
 
 There was something of Swedish quaintness in 
 the dress of all three, although it was of good ma- 
 terial and indicated no poverty. Mother and daugh- 
 ter wore their uncovered hair in skilfully plaited 
 braids which were all their own. Not one word of 
 English mingled with their remarks upon what they 
 saw, but no interpreter was needed when the fair 
 girl pointed forward along the path they were 
 following. The words she uttered so musically 
 meant, 
 
 " There's a man coming, father." 
 
 She should have said, "A Pawnee," for there 
 were some drawbacks to the manhood of the being 
 who was now approaching. 
 
 Objects can be seen at long distances upon the 
 prairie, "from rise to rise." The Pawnees had 
 been watching on the crest of one high roll of the 
 plain when the white tilt of the wagon loomed 
 upon another, four miles away. They watched 
 until they could say, "Ugh! One wagon," and 
 decide that it must be investigated. If it could
 
 40 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 be lured away from the direct line of the Trail and 
 plundered in peace and security, so much the better, 
 but it brought the hope of a probable new start in 
 life to five broken-down, ponyless Pawnee gamblers, 
 and it was very welcome. 
 
 " Indian, Erica," was all the reply made by her 
 father. 
 
 When they reached the spot where the dusky 
 wayfarer stood, seeming to be waiting for them, 
 two strangely opposite human developments were 
 face to face and holding out right hands of greeting. 
 
 The contrast was tremendous between the dark, 
 squalid, fierce-featured brutality of the Pawnee 
 vagabond and the sunny, open-faced, large-hearted 
 manhood of the brawny Norseman. Almost too 
 frankly unsuspecting was the greeting given by the 
 Swedes, but the quick eyes of the savage caught 
 the shiver of dislike with which Erica shrank be- 
 hind her mother. 
 
 Communication of ideas was somewhat difficult, 
 but questions and answers were helped out by signs, 
 until the Pawnee made out that this white man was 
 near the end of his journey and meant to go into 
 camp as soon as he should come to trees and water. 
 There were groves in sight, and these could not be 
 meant. It must be the "timber," now no great 
 distance westward. 
 
 The mules were pushed a little as one glimpse 
 after another was obtained of the hills and the
 
 A DOUBLE TRAP. 41 
 
 forest. The Swede turned to his wife and pointed 
 with his left hand along the Trail, and the words 
 he uttered called a flush of pleasure to her face. 
 They could have been translated, 
 
 " Our farm lies in there somewhere. We can 
 find it by that man's landmark. The surveyor said 
 he intended to put one up." 
 
 " Our farm," and Erica repeated the words of 
 that pleasant information after her mother. She 
 would say them in English some day, and they 
 were fall of ideas of plenty and peace. 
 
 " Our farm," if nothing should prevent, for 
 now their Pawnee fellow-traveller pointed in the 
 same direction, making motions as if drinking, and 
 beckoning them to follow him. He would guide 
 them to water and trees and a good place to camp 
 in, and he proceeded to do so. 
 
 During all that time Chumley had searched the 
 prairie in vain for deer. Even prairie-chickens 
 seemed to have vanished, and he turned homeward 
 with an idea that he might do better in the woods 
 that afternoon, and that, at all events, he wished to 
 see if his camp were unmolested. 
 
 Under the thick cover of the bushes by the spring 
 the nameless old Indian still lay motionless and 
 silent, listening to every word and watching every 
 movement of the wretched quartette who lounged 
 in the open space beyond him. It was plainly an 
 accustomed resting-place, for trees had been felled 
 
 4*
 
 42 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 and lay rotting, and there were traces of camp- 
 fires. 
 
 Every now and then one of the Pawnees would 
 go out and return as if awaiting a delayed arrival, 
 but a heavy wagon travels slowly through grass and 
 weeds, and it was late in the forenoon before the 
 last scout sent came back with an exclamation 
 which brought the others to their feet. In a 
 moment more all four were hidden among the 
 trees, and when their confederate marched in, fol- 
 lowed by the Swedes and their wagon, the camping- 
 ground seemed unoccupied and ready for them. It 
 was a lovely spot, and could easily be made more 
 so, and three pairs of blue eyes kindled with 
 pleasure as the suggestion passed from lip to lip 
 that it must be upon " our farm." 
 
 The mules were unharnessed and the horse was 
 unsaddled, and it did not occur to their owners how 
 strong a temptation those animals presented to the 
 dismounted thieves who were eying them from the 
 surrounding cover. 
 
 Erica's mother had frequently addressed her hus- 
 band as " Gustav" while they were on the way. 
 She now uttered the name with startled suddenness, 
 for a second Pawnee came slouching forward, she 
 knew not whence, towards the spot where she was 
 kindling a fire. 
 
 They had been successfully lured into the Paw- 
 nee trap, and it was ready to be sprung upon them
 
 WIPED OUT ENTIRELY 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WIPED OUT ENTIRELY. 
 
 THE intended victims of the Pawnees were utterly 
 unsuspicious of lurking danger, up to the moment 
 when the " trap" was suddenly revealed all around 
 them. 
 
 Erica had wandered a little from the spring, 
 gazing about her in eager curiosity, and her father 
 was leaning into the wagon after an axe. The 
 Indian who had been their guide suddenly drew 
 his knife and sprang towards Gustav, uttering, as 
 he did so, a piercing war-whoop. Erica's mother 
 arose with a loud shriek, for the second Pawnee 
 was rushing upon her, knife in hand, while her 
 swift glance told her that yet another evil shape 
 had suddenly appeared and was wolfishly darting 
 towards her daughter. Two more were just behind 
 him, and it seemed as if the trap for the destruction 
 of that family had been perfectly set and success- 
 fully sprung. Five men can easily murder one, if 
 they take him by surprise, and a woman and a 
 child can do nothing. 
 
 It was a terrible moment. So swift a change 
 from peace and security to utter horror.
 
 44 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Then came another change that was every way 
 as swift and terrible. Erica's mother was a strongly- 
 made woman. She seized her assailant by both 
 wrists and struggled with desperate strength for a 
 second of time which seemed an age. Then a gray 
 look shot across his face and a shudder went all 
 through him as he wilted out of her grasp and 
 rolled convulsively upon the grass. She hardly 
 heard or understood the rifle-crack which preceded 
 that shudder. Her eyes were seeking for her hus- 
 band and for Erica. 
 
 Gustav had turned quickly at the war-whoop, 
 and had warded well, but the knife of the Pawnee 
 had gone through his left arm near the shoulder 
 and the grapple was too close for him to use his 
 axe. He was a doomed man unless help should 
 come, for another dusky stabber was almost upon 
 him, with a fiendish yell. 
 
 Erica had had a fleeting terror-struck vision of a 
 griping left hand reached out to seize the golden 
 braids of her hair and of a right hand lifting 
 glittering steel. Then she saw a dog's white teeth 
 closing fiercely upon the wrist behind the knife, 
 while a savage whoop changed suddenly into a 
 choking gurgle. 
 
 Her father at that moment saw the Pawnee 
 beyond his first assailant spring into the air and 
 fall prostrate. The false guide with whom he was 
 grappling quivered and staggered, dropped his
 
 WIPED OUT ENTIRELY. 45 
 
 knife, and went down with a despairing whoop ol 
 agony. 
 
 The grove was ringing with swift shots, and they 
 were all aware of a man on horseback with a re- 
 peating rifle in his hands. Erica's mother after- 
 wards recalled a thought she had that he must 
 have fallen from heaven. It was not so, however, 
 either as to him or the two angry stag-hounds who 
 were now pinning down Erica's assailant. Chumley 
 had ridden towards that grove as his last morning 
 chance for deer, and the first war-whoop had told 
 him what to do. The dogs knew without any tell- 
 ing when they saw him spur so madly forward. 
 
 The Pawnees had been trapped and surprised, 
 and every wolf of them was down. Chumley 
 knew why as to three of them, but he was won- 
 dering who had fired the shot which had liberated 
 Erica's mother. 
 
 It was a puzzle for only a moment. A form he 
 knew came gliding out of some willows near him, 
 with a whoop as savage as that of the Pawnee 
 leader. ISTo hat was now upon the streaming gray 
 hair, as the old Indian bounded towards the Paw- 
 nee the dogs were holding. There was no time to 
 check him had anybody thought of doing so, and 
 in an instant more the death-yell of that Pawnee 
 chilled the very hearts of the pale-faces, male and 
 female. 
 
 Ohumley's face showed that even he was startled,
 
 46 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 as he looked upon the transformation undergone 
 by his recent guest. 
 
 "He's not the same being!" he exclaimed. 
 " Who would have thought that it was in him !" 
 
 Not anybody, perhaps, for all the listless, worn- 
 out old vagabond had disappeared, and a lithe, vigor- 
 ous, panther-like barbarian, with flashing eyes, 
 his hideous face more hideous than ever in its all 
 but demoniac expression, was on the war-path 
 against his personal and hereditary enemies with 
 all his wild blood " up." 
 
 Erica and her mother screamed with horror, for 
 they saw two scalps taken, while Chumley was 
 briefly examining the three who had fallen by his 
 own hand. They were all dead, but he had no 
 time for any emotion over that fact. A small, white 
 hand was on his arm, and a pleading voice, half 
 choked with grief, addressed him in a tongue he 
 did not understand. 
 
 The streaming eyes of Erica and her pointing 
 finger supplied a translation. Her mother was 
 kneeling beside Gustav, trying to stanch the blood 
 that was pouring from his arm and forehead. 
 
 "My soul! I did not know he was hurt. It 
 has all gone by like lightning." 
 
 So it had, and all the peril was over, as Chumley 
 at once discovered. 
 
 " It's a pity you can't understand me," he said. 
 " The club did his head no real damage. It's only
 
 WIPED OUT ENTIRELY. 47 
 
 a flesh wound in the arm. No artery severed. He 
 will bleed freely before we can stop it, but he's in 
 no danger. I don't believe he is hurt anywhere 
 else." 
 
 Motions, signs, smiles, dumb encouragement, of 
 every sort he could invent, accompanied the words, 
 and at last both Erica and her mother believed the 
 assurance Gustav gave them when he recovered 
 his consciousness. It was a grand thing and full 
 of new hope, to see him smile again. His wife 
 had his head in her lap, but both she and Erica 
 found themselves under a fresh embarrassment. 
 They had no words at their command wherewith 
 to express their overflowing gratitude to their 
 daring deliverer. He was a hero, a marvel of 
 unselfish courage and prowess. He had not hesi- 
 tated to charge in, single-handed, against unknown 
 odds, to rescue utter strangers. Their hearts were 
 overflowing, but they had to give it up. Erica held 
 out both hands to him. There were tears in her 
 eyes, but there was a smile of thanks all over her 
 pale, frightened face, and he knew what it meant. 
 He was in a very much disturbed state of mind 
 himself, and yet another surprise was waiting for 
 him. Gustav was fumbling in his breast-pocket 
 with the hand he could use. He now took out 
 and held up a crumpled envelope, and the young 
 settler took it. The address was plainly written 
 " Mr. Chimbly," but it had reached the right man,
 
 48 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 for it was from his acquaintance the surveyor. It 
 informed him that Ghistav Eagleson's " quarter 
 section" of prairie cornered with his own at the 
 spot where he had said he would put up his land- 
 mark. Their lines would run together for half a 
 mile southerly. They were to be near neighbors, 
 and the Swedish immigrants had intended to reach 
 " Chumley's Post" that afternoon. They were to 
 do so, although under different circumstances from 
 any they had imagined. 
 
 They were informed, with great heartiness of 
 manner, that they had already found their neigh- 
 bor, and Erica believed him the bravest, hand- 
 somest, most wonderful of human heroes. She had 
 in her mind a very vivid picture of how Chumley 
 looked on horseback, shooting down the Pawnee 
 grappling with her father. 
 
 The letter had made its appearance as soon as 
 the condition of Gustav Eagleson permitted. The 
 thoughts of all had been concentrated during those 
 swift minutes, but Chumley now turned and looked 
 around him for the unknown old Indian whose 
 presence and conduct had been so timely and yet 
 so complete a mystery. 
 
 " I owe him something now," he remarked. " He 
 may come to my place and steal ham, anything 
 but horses. Well ! I say, now. Where has the old 
 fellow gone ?" 
 
 Gustav and his wife and Erica were all asking
 
 WIPED OUT ENTIRELY 49 
 
 the same question, but there was no one in that 
 grove capable of giving them an answer. 
 
 Chumley imagined one, and it came to him with 
 a keen and strong suggestion that he himself needed 
 to exercise especial prudence. Pawnees had been 
 killed and the old Indian had helped kill them. If 
 he had any feud with these in particular it was wiped 
 out, and he did not wish to bring upon himself the 
 blood-revenge of a whole tribe by letting the facts 
 be known. He had taken two scalps for which he 
 preferred not to render any account. At all events 
 he had disappeared. Chumley searched the grove 
 in vain. He was only a mere white man, after all, 
 and very new to the ways and wiles of the red men. 
 The cunning old object of his search had but gone 
 back to the place where his " rabbit run" went into 
 the tangled mass of the bushes, and he was now 
 lying upon the very spot from which he had fired 
 at the Pawnee whom Mrs. Eagleson was then hold- 
 ing at arm's length. 
 
 "I must see to this matter," said Chumley to 
 himself. " ISTot one trace of the fight must be left, 
 and I must try and make the Swedes understand 
 that the secret of it must be closely kept. There is 
 no end of danger in it." 
 
 His next thought was that the sooner he could 
 get his new neighbors away from that place the 
 better. They were trying now to avoid as much 
 
 as possible the sight of the ghastly relics of the 
 c d 6
 
 50 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Pawnee " trap." Nothing like this had been pic- 
 tured to their minds when they left their far-off 
 northern home to cross the sea. The shock had 
 heen severe accordingly, and both mother and 
 daughter were shuddering with dread of other and 
 yet unknown horrors when their new friend came 
 back from his fruitless search. He proceeded at 
 once to harness the mules again, and it was easy to 
 explain that they were all to go to his own place. 
 
 The stunning effect of the club blow upon Gus- 
 tav's forehead had nearly passed away. He was 
 weak from loss of blood, but was able to help him- 
 self a little when Chumley was ready to put him 
 into the wagon. A great gloom seemed to pass 
 away from all of them as soon as they were out of 
 the grove, and the mules were not halted until the 
 Pawnee Trail was reached at the Post. 
 
 Gustav Eagleson, on the mattress in the wagon, 
 was aided to lift his head and look back from that 
 point over land that was all his own. His face 
 brightened cheerfully, but the shadow deepened 
 upon that of his wife. It was all very green and 
 beautiful. !N"o doubt but what it was richly fertile. 
 She had dreamed for many a long day of a home 
 on such a piece of earth's surface, but now it was 
 reached there was blood upon it. Peril and violence 
 had been her welcome. Even if she had heard or 
 read the story of the American frontier,- one long, 
 ragged line of conflict, drifting westward, it had
 
 WIPED OUT ENTIRELY. 51 
 
 never been made real to her. Now she was a part 
 of it, and one terrible episode of its bloody annals 
 belonged to her and hers. 
 
 It was easy for Chumley to get a smile from Erica, 
 and then he stirred up the team for another care- 
 fully-driven pull. The next halt was before his own 
 tent. 
 
 It was while trying to make the Eaglesons under- 
 stand that they were to occupy the tent as their own 
 for the present, that Chumley broke out into a sud- 
 den address to himself. 
 
 " Look here, old fellow, you've got to turn school- 
 master. They've all three got to learn English." 
 And then he turned to Erica, pointing at the can- 
 vas shelter and saying, sharply, 
 
 "Tent!" 
 
 " Tent," she exclaimed, with a quick comprehen- 
 sion of his purposes, and she followed him with 
 repetitions of the names he gave her of a dozen 
 other articles in quick succession. 
 
 " School's begun," said Chumley. " I'll get 
 Gustav into the tent, and then we must have some 
 dinner. It'll be a great blessing to me if his wife 
 knows how to cook. It's all a most extraordinary 
 affair." 
 
 There was no great difficulty in helping Gustav 
 out of the wagon and into the tent, with Chumley 
 on one side and Mrs. Eagleson on the other. There 
 was little wonder that she had been able to hold the
 
 52 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 hands of an undersized red-skin, for her round, fair 
 arm had in it the inherited strength of her race. 
 
 " He will be out in a few days," said Chumley. 
 " He is a handsome fellow and so is his wife, but 
 Erica is wonderful. She can't possibly keep all 
 that beauty when she's a grown-up woman." 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 
 
 A HICKOKY TOMBSTONE. 
 
 MB. EDWARD PAYNE, recently Mr. Mortimer 
 Herries and that day from Sing Sing, made his 
 purchases with rapidity, for the through express 
 train which left New York at seven o'clock P.M. 
 bore him westward. He had taken passage in a 
 parlor-car for Chicago, saying to himself, 
 
 " By the time I get there I shall know what to 
 do next. Things look differently, now the old flint 
 has been so liberal with his supplies. On the 
 whole I'm glad he didn't ask me to the house. I've 
 had humiliation enough and nonsense enough." 
 
 Of that which depraves and hardens he had 
 clearly had enough, and every word he uttered 
 justified his father in being an " old flint," if in- 
 deed he had been. Sons have duties to their fathers
 
 A HICKORY TOMBSTONE. 53 
 
 as well as fathers to their sons. Even the most 
 loving mother cannot change the fact that the way 
 of the transgressor is hard. The man who brings 
 disgrace upon his brothers and sisters cannot 
 blame them if they shrink from a sure promise of 
 more. 
 
 " Edward Payne," he said. " I must get used to 
 it, but I may need more than one. I know a pile 
 of things I did not know when I went to the 
 striped-jacket college at Sing Sing. I don't think 
 burglary or any other kind of civilized work would 
 do for me. No, not counterfeiting. It takes too 
 much capital and requires peculiar training. I've 
 had one lesson on forgery. If I should try to set 
 up in any regular business they'd manage to trace 
 my record somehow, sooner or later. I'm for the 
 borders. I want to go where they shoot a man for 
 asking foolish questions. Then I'd like to shoot 
 some men I could name." 
 
 The swift train bore him on through the dark- 
 ness. It was a long train and fall, but it was 
 empty compared to the busy brain of its ex-convict 
 passenger in the splendid palace-car. 
 
 He had memories to throng one another and 
 bring hot flushes to his face and fierce words to 
 his lips, and his black eyes glittered at times with 
 angry light. He was trying to drive away the 
 past, however, for he had left one life behind him 
 and was riding at railway speed into another. He 
 
 6*
 
 54 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 was dreaming evil dreams, wide awake, as to what 
 that life was to be. 
 
 Other young men, by the hundred, were at that 
 season of the year preparing to graduate from col- 
 leges and universities, and were filling their ambi- 
 tious young hearts and heads with visions of use- 
 fulness and honor. This young man had just been 
 graduated from State-prison, and was choosing 
 for himself a life of what he was fool enough to 
 call " adventure." He would see wild life, excite- 
 ment, lawless freedom, an utterly selfish search for 
 he knew not what of unfettered indulgence. 
 
 " Plans ?" he exclaimed, at last. " I'll go without 
 any plans and take my chances. I'll rough it. I'll 
 change my name every other day, so that no man 
 can trace me, and I'd as lief be a Sioux war-chief 
 as anything else." 
 
 Little he knew about Indians and their war-chiefs, 
 but there is a vast amount of insanity among evil- 
 doers. The railway train could be trusted to carry 
 him as far as Chicago, but there was no telling what 
 his heart and brain would do with him afterwards. 
 It was while the train was doing its best the fol- 
 lowing day, that the Pawnees by the spring received 
 the last rewards of their own devotion to " wild 
 life." 
 
 Tremendous as had been to them the excitement 
 of that forenoon, its terrible events had consumed 
 less time than the actors therein might have im-
 
 A HICKORY TOMBSTONE. 55 
 
 agined. Chumley's watch told him that it was 
 barely twelve o'clock when he "beckoned Mrs. 
 Eagleson out of the tent, where she was watching 
 by her wounded husband, led her to a fire he had 
 kindled, and with many expressive signs placed his 
 coffee-pot, frying-pan, dishes, bacon, and hard-tack 
 at her disposal. It was not much of a kitchen, but 
 she was to be queen of it. Erica came also, as soon 
 as she saw her mother at work, and with her came 
 the two stag-hounds. From the moment in which 
 they had pulled down the Pawnee, they had seemed 
 to consider themselves peculiarly entitled to culti- 
 vate her acquaintance. They had not been jealous 
 when she petted and praised the tawny mastiffs, 
 but these had each in turn lain down again, while 
 the hounds continued their attendance. Chumley 
 had taught her their names, but now he was com- 
 pelled to interfere and send them about their busi- 
 ness that their new mistress might play assistant 
 cook. 
 
 "I'll try and get something better than bacon 
 to-morrow," he said, "but my hands will be full 
 this afternoon." 
 
 Mrs. Eagleson smiled as if she understood him. 
 Then the shadow returned, for it was not easy to be 
 cheerful with such a morning behind her. There 
 might be other Indians coming. There were the 
 woods yonder, and she could not help imagining 
 perils hidden among them, ready to burst forth. She
 
 56 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 was glad to find that Gustav could eat. There 
 was encouragement in that, but she trembled, after 
 dinner, when Chumley took his double-barrelled 
 gun, mounted a horse, and rode away, leading 
 another horse. A shovel that he also carried gave 
 her the only hint she had of his errand, and that 
 suggestion brought with it shudder after shudder. 
 
 " I don't know how good a sexton I am," said 
 Chumley, as he drew near his landmark, " but I 
 won't make my cemetery near the spring. That 
 grove is their best place to build in, and I mustn't 
 spoil it for them. Right here by the Post is a better 
 place. I'll dig a hole six feet by six." 
 
 Soft as was the black earth of the prairie, that 
 meant a deal of vigorous digging, and the blue clay 
 he struck when four feet down from the surface 
 made the task yet harder. He had cut the sods 
 with unexplained care, and had laid them all in a 
 heap by themselves. 
 
 Dig, dig, dig, and time went steadily by, but at 
 last he threw his shovel out upon the grass and 
 sprang up after it, exclaiming, 
 
 " There. That'll have to do. I hardly thought 
 until this minute how awful the rest of it would be. 
 Why, it's horrible !" 
 
 He did not pause to think of it, but mounted his 
 horse and led the other towards the grove. He was 
 to have something more to think of after he reached 
 it and sprang from his saddle to the ground.
 
 A HICKORY TOMBSTONE. 57 
 
 There they lay, the five slain Pawnee vagabonds, 
 where he had left them, but there had been a hand 
 there while he was away. 
 
 All had lost their scalps now. The rifle carried 
 by one of them had before been left beside his body, 
 but it was gone now. So was every knife. 
 
 " That old Indian's been here," said Chumley. 
 " I seem to have made a friend of him somehow. 
 Glad of it. He has done all that belonged to him. 
 Now for my part." 
 
 Once more the uncommon strength of his spare, 
 sinewy frame was exhibited in the ease with which 
 he could lift a lifeless Pawnee, place him upon a 
 blanketed horse, and take him away. 
 
 Trip after trip was made, until the grove was 
 cleared of its grisly occupants. Then came another 
 long, weary pull of shovelling, and in spite of all 
 his toughness, Chumley sat down upon an ant-hill 
 exhausted, after fitting into place the last square of 
 sod. He had trodden and packed the earth as he 
 shovelled it in, and all that was left over was heaped 
 at the foot of the Post. 
 
 " An army might march by," he said, " and never 
 dream of what's under that sod. In one week's 
 time the best trailer among all their kith and kin 
 might search the grove and all this neighborhood 
 and not find a sign to help him guess what's be- 
 come of them." 
 
 Less time than that would really be required.
 
 58 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 A smart shower of rain that fell that very night 
 did all that could be asked for. When the next 
 morning came there were no stains upon the grass 
 and leaves under the trees near the spring, and the 
 neatly-fitted sods at the Post were as fresh and 
 green as if no human hand had disturbed them. 
 No suspicion was likely to search six feet below, 
 but the very unlikeliest of all things will come to 
 
 The sun was sinking low when Chumley finished 
 his dreary duty. He now arose from the ant-hill 
 and turned towards his horses. 
 
 " I'm so tired I hardly care to mount," he said, 
 but for all that he got into the saddle. Then he 
 turned and looked down and added, aloud, "It's 
 a curious thought, but it comes to me over and 
 over. If it had not been for a woman's heartless 
 folly I should not be here. If I had not been here 
 those five would not be there. I don't like to think 
 of what would have been the fate of the Eaglesons. 
 There have been immigrant families to whom such 
 devils incarnate came at an hour when there was 
 no help. It's altogether too deep for me, and I 
 give it up." 
 
 He did so with a long breath and an angry ex- 
 clamation, for he had that day seen a hand with a 
 knife in it very near the golden braids of Erica 
 Eagleson, and it seemed to him as if she alone 
 were worth all the savages he had ever heard of.
 
 A HICKOJRF TOMBSTONE. 59 
 
 He felt, and he expressed it strongly, that there 
 was no blood whatever upon his hands, although 
 he had sped three human lives since sunrise. He 
 rode slowly homeward, and a hot supper was wait- 
 ing for him. He saw Mrs. Eagleson's glance at 
 the earth-stains on his hands and clothing, and the 
 nod of intelligence she exchanged with Erica. 
 They had no need to ask questions as to his errand, 
 if they could have done so in the best of English. 
 
 It was a quiet night in that little camp. Even 
 the rain that pattered upon the tent over the Eagle- 
 sons and upon the wagon-tilt which sheltered 
 Chumley had nothing stormy in it after the terror 
 and turmoil of the day. Gustav Eagleson himself 
 slept fairly well, in spite of his bruised head and 
 the fever of his wounded arm.
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. 
 
 IN the dark before the dawn, Chumley was in 
 the saddle, determined to try for a deer before eat- 
 ing his breakfast. 
 
 " Jim and his men will be here to-day," he said, 
 " to make a beginning on the house. They'll eat 
 up all my provisions if I don't lay in an extra sup- 
 
 ply." 
 
 He got away from the camp, mounted and armed 
 as his dusky adviser had suggested, without dis- 
 turbing his guests. 
 
 " Never killed a deer in my life," he said, as he 
 rode out through the mists and shadows, "but I 
 believe I know how to shoot." 
 
 The two hounds were with him, scouring the dewy 
 grass right and left in silent industry, but it was 
 some time before they were rewarded for their 
 pains. The air was a trifle chilly, but Chumley 
 felt the hunter's fever warming fast in his veins. 
 On he rode until he came into what appeared to be 
 a long hollow. The grass was up to his saddle and 
 the weeds were extraordinary. 
 
 " This must be what he called a dry slough," he 
 said. " I'll try down it towards the open prairie.
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. gl 
 
 If it were but a little lighter now. Seems to me 
 I couldn't hit the side of a house through this 
 haze." 
 
 A faint, gray light grew slowly in the very edge 
 of the eastern horizon as he rode slowly on, follow- 
 ing the indications of the tall herbage under his 
 horse's feet. The two hounds, unused to the work 
 they were engaged in, were out in the shorter grass 
 on the higher ground to the left of the slough-bed, 
 at the moment when Chumley's heart gave a sud- 
 den thump and his gun sprang to a level as if of 
 its own accord. 
 
 An outlined shape, seen faintly through the fog, 
 bounded from the grass at his right. Three bounds, 
 while Chumley reined in his horse, and then the 
 startled buck stood still for an instant and turned 
 to look at the disturber of his morning nap. Loud 
 sounded, on the left, the sudden baying of the stag- 
 hounds catching the scent, and their first cry was 
 followed by the double report of Chumley's gun, 
 sending a hail of buckshot into the mist beyond 
 him. That buck had loomed at least ten feet high 
 in the dim light and its refraction, but the flying 
 pellets found their mark. 
 
 The smitten deer dashed wildly down the slough, 
 with the music of the hounds behind him, but that 
 race could be but a short one. In about a minute 
 more the game was down and Chumley was by it, 
 
 knife in hand. 
 
 6
 
 62 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Never shook so in all my life," he exclaimed, 
 excitedly. " A rifle would have been utterly useless. 
 Now I must do butcher work. It's to let the blood 
 out, I've read about it, but I never saw it done." 
 
 He did it, however, and then he lifted the buck 
 upon his horse. He did not try to mount, but led 
 the animal, half frightened by his unaccustomed 
 burden, all the way homeward. The sun was well 
 up before he got there. 
 
 Before leaving his camp, Chumley had raked out 
 the embers of the fire from the ashes and thrown 
 some wood upon them. 
 
 " She will know what to do when she gets up," 
 he said, referring to Mrs. Eagleson, but his two 
 mastiffs seemed to hardly know what to do after 
 they were left in charge. 
 
 It may have been their master's early absence 
 which made them uneasy, but they ranged around 
 instead of lying down. Just as the first light began 
 to crimson the eastern sky in token of the coming 
 sunrise, one of them marched to the door of the 
 tent, stood still, threw up his big head and uttered 
 an anxious howl, following it with a bark. 
 
 There was instantly a commotion in the tent, and 
 the dog wagged his tail in canine satisfaction as 
 soon as he heard human voices. 
 
 A minute or so more and Erica stepped forth, 
 quickly followed by her mother. Both of the dogs 
 danced around them eagerly, with loud barks of
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. 63 
 
 recognition of their right to be there, and then the 
 fellow who had wakened them walked gravely to 
 the tent-door and looked in. There lay Gustav 
 upon his mattress, wide awake and cheerful, but 
 under wifely orders not to move a limb. 
 
 The dog saw him, but did not appear to be en- 
 tirely satisfied with a man who lay so still. He 
 walked in and up to the bed and smelled of him, 
 but the secret of his uneasiness was out as soon as 
 his nose had told him the truth concerning Gustav's 
 bandages. A half howl, a whimper, and then a 
 great brown paw was put out for Gustav's offered 
 right hand to shake. Nobody can guess how much 
 solid common sense there is in the mental opera- 
 tions of a really high-toned dog. He left the tent 
 as soon as he had finished his investigations. 
 
 His companion had attended Erica when she 
 went to the spring for water, and they both came 
 and sat down near the fire to watch the prepara- 
 tions making for their master's breakfast. 
 
 It was as if they had understood Mrs. Eagleson's 
 repeated declaration to Erica, 
 
 "He will be sure to come back hungry. We 
 owe him so much. I do wish we had something 
 nice for your father." 
 
 She was to have her wish, even to a superabun- 
 dant supply. She and Erica came and went, visit- 
 ing the tent, looking at the horses, who were crop- 
 ping the grass their long lariats brought within
 
 64 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 their reach ; but there were glances now and then 
 at the woods and in other directions, as if memories 
 of yesterday came with a suggestion of possible 
 peril. What if the silence of that lovely and peace- 
 ful morning should be broken by such yells as they 
 had heard by the other spring ? That grove had 
 been as shady and as beautiful as Chumley's. "Who 
 could tell what might happen when one Pawnee 
 could suddenly multiply into five, each with a knife 
 in his hand and a whoop on his lips ? 
 
 That sort of thinking brought back to both of 
 them swift mental pictures of the hero on horse- 
 back, and they had an increasingly strong desire 
 to see him again. 
 
 He was coming now, at last, but so was some- 
 body else, and the dogs began to bark in two direc- 
 tions at the same moment. 
 
 Mother and daughter exchanged rapid remarks 
 in Swedish and the dogs in the mastiff tongue, 
 while the arrivals drew nearer. 
 
 Chumley reached the camp-fire first, and threw 
 down his buck as a full explanation of his morning 
 absence. From the opposite prairie now came in 
 an altogether unexplained visitor. It was the name- 
 less old Indian, and this time he was riding a very 
 serviceable-looking pony. He too must have been 
 hunting that morning, but the buck he had killed 
 was smaller than Chumley's. It lay before him on 
 the pony, and it probably had not seemed so big
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. 65 
 
 and remarkable to him through any mist as had 
 the prize taken by the young hunter. 
 
 The old Indian rode straight in, unmindful of 
 dogs or human beings, until he was near enough 
 to Chumley to say, 
 
 " How ! Boy Mil deer ? Ugh ! No. Boy find 
 him dead. Indian kill deer. Squaw want meat." 
 
 " What'll you take for that one ?" asked Chum- 
 ley. 
 
 "Big squaw have fire. Coffee. Cook meat. 
 Indian eat a heap. Indian deer for little squaw. 
 She heap handsome. Heap look like old Indian." 
 
 A truly wonderful grin distorted his features as 
 he asserted Erica's resemblance to himself, but he 
 took the deer from his pony's back and laid it down 
 before her. It was her venison, and she clearly 
 understood that this was the same warrior who was 
 a friend of Chumley's and had helped him kill the 
 Pawnees. She drew a very long breath as she 
 timidly held out her hand, and nobody could ex- 
 plain to her why Chumley was laughing. He 
 glanced from her face to that of the grim savage, 
 and the contrast gave a keen point to the dry 
 humor of the latter. 
 
 " He can't be so bad a fellow," thought Chumley, 
 " if there's humanity enough in him to admire that 
 child." 
 
 " Good old Indian. Say little squaw eat deer and 
 grow. So big, some day." 
 
 e 6*
 
 66 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He pointed at Mrs. Eagleson as he spoke, but he 
 evidently did not expect a reply in English. A very 
 good one was shortly given him in the shape of 
 coffee, bacon, and broiled venison. He evidently 
 felt somewhat at home, for he not only inquired of 
 Chumley as to the hurts of Gustav, but went to 
 the tent to look at him and say " How;" but the 
 real nature of his visit did not leak out until just as 
 he was departing, a little while after breakfast. 
 
 " Boy listen," he said. " Blue-coat come by and 
 by. Ask boy question. Say, ' See Pawnee go by ?' 
 Now, what boy say ?" 
 
 " Tell them no. I suppose you mean United 
 States Cavalry. "No Pawnees around here. Go to 
 the grove and look for 'em." 
 
 " Ugh ! Go pretty soon. Now s'pose blue-coat 
 say, ' Boy see old Potawatamy ?' what boy say ?" 
 
 " You mean if they ask if I've seen you around 
 here ? "Well, all I can answer is that there was a 
 very handsome old chap here. Don't know any- 
 thing about him." 
 
 "Ugh! Good. Boy heap fool. Can't tell lie 
 worth a cent. Old Indian great chief. Heap great 
 brave. Blue-coat call him good Indian, but want 
 him, maybe. Old chief no want blue-coat. Go 
 lie down in bushes. They come. Go away." 
 
 "I think I understand," said Chumley, as his 
 queer acquaintance rode away. " I can safely say 
 I don't know his name or tribe. He may keep out
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. QJ 
 
 of harm's way for all I shall do. That shot of his 
 was fired in the nick of time." 
 
 Erica regretted that she could not properly thank 
 the old savage for his deer, but both she and her 
 mother felt relieved when they saw him go. 
 
 He had a special errand in going, for he had 
 asked no explanation of Chumley's assurance that 
 no Pawnees were now in the grove by the other 
 spring. He went right along to find out for him- 
 self. 
 
 He went directly to the grove, across prairie, 
 following no path, and rode into it with his eyes 
 flashing rapidly, right and left. A more peaceral- 
 looking spot it would have been hard to find, now 
 that the rain had done its washing. 
 
 " Ugh ! Gone. Where gone ? Boy no fool." 
 
 Neither was he, and the feet of Chumley's pack- 
 horse had left marks which he was able to read 
 without dismounting. No other eyes, white man's 
 or Indian's, would have understood the meaning 
 of the several traces of coming and going, but he 
 had the clue. He followed the hoofmarks to the 
 Post. There was quite a mound of fresh earth at 
 the foot of it, and the veteran trailer soon detected 
 the evidences of disturbance in the neighboring 
 sod. 
 
 " Ugh !" said he. " Blue-coat no find 'em. No 
 more Pawnee come. Grass grow. All cover 
 up."
 
 68 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He turned his pony's head southerly, towards the 
 timber, and urged him into a sharp canter. It was 
 as if he had especial reasons for getting away from 
 that vicinity. 
 
 Perhaps he had. About an hour later, Chumley 
 was busily engaged in getting a prairie-plough out 
 of his own wagon, and Erica was watching him as 
 well as her playfellows the dogs would let her. 
 Suddenly they all bounded away from her with a 
 noisy announcement that somebody was coming. 
 
 " I declare !" exclaimed Chumley. " The old 
 fellow was right. They're in uniform." 
 
 So they were, and not one of them was aware 
 that their wet bivouac of the previous night had 
 been inspected or their coming announced before- 
 hand. 
 
 " Officer and six men. Well, I'll be glad to 
 know all they can tell me." 
 
 Only a few minutes more and he was exchanging 
 questions and answers with a bronzed, soldierly 
 horseman, who introduced himself as " Lieutenant 
 Ingalls, United States Cavalry," and had inquiries 
 to make about a squad of peculiarly vicious Paw- 
 nees. They were part, he said, of a larger lot, the 
 vorst of their tribe, who refused to be kept upon 
 the Reservation except by force, and were always 
 in mischief of some sort. Their main body had 
 been found and was receiving due attention. These 
 five, after a hard spree in which they had gambled
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. 69 
 
 away their possessions, had gone in this direction, 
 it was understood. They were about the only 
 Indians known to the officer from whom such 
 settlers as Chumley and his "family" need have 
 any fear. 
 
 Chumley's eyes danced a little at the mention of 
 his family, for the glances of the lieutenant had 
 gone towards the face of Erica a dozen times while 
 he was talking. 
 
 " No danger of their attacking us, I hope," he 
 said, and the lieutenant replied, 
 
 " Not if you were on your guard, but they'd cut 
 your throats quickly enough if they could do it and 
 get away. They've no idea I'm after them." 
 
 " Will they resist capture ?" 
 
 " Not for one moment. I almost wish they might 
 all get killed before I find them. Great public ser- 
 vice. Their own tribe would hardly be sorry." 
 
 " Would it not retaliate on the men killing 
 them?" 
 
 " Their own band would. Sure as you live. You 
 said you had seen nothing of them ?" 
 
 "I did not say so. May I have your word of 
 honor, if I tell you a thing which in my opinion 
 should be kept a secret from their band ?" 
 
 " Duty and the public service excepted." 
 
 " Let me ask you to dismount, then, and come to 
 my tent." 
 
 " Evidently a gentleman," said the officer to him-
 
 70 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 self, as he sprang down, and his men remained in 
 their saddles while he followed Chumley. Mrs. 
 Eagleson was in the tent-door, and as she stepped 
 aside the lieutenant lifted his cap to her. 
 
 "There," said Chumley, pointing to Gustav's 
 bandages. " That was the work of your Pawnees. 
 He will soon be well, but it is no fault of theirs. 
 He is a Swede. Her husband and Erica's father. 
 No use to question him. He does not speak Eng- 
 lish." 
 
 " "Will you tell me the whole affair ?" 
 
 " Let me saddle a horse and ride with you. It's 
 less than a mile to the spot." 
 
 Lieutenant Ingalls was all politeness to Mrs. 
 Eagleson and Erica, and he listened to Chumley 
 with studious courtesy, but he was intensely in 
 earnest about probing the matter to the bottom. 
 Chumley saddled his horse, and they rode together 
 to the scene of the skirmish. The account of it 
 was attended to with little interruption, but that 
 very fact made it impossible to conceal the part 
 taken by the unknown Indian, and at last the lieu- 
 tenant quietly remarked, 
 
 " How many did Eagleson kill ?" 
 
 " Not any." 
 
 " The dogs pulled down one. You shot three. 
 Who killed the other two ?" 
 
 " An Indian among the bushes. I know nothing 
 whatever about him."
 
 A CALM AFTER A STORM. 71 
 
 " I do, then. There's a death feud between old 
 Big Mouth and that band of Pawnees. Whether 
 he was after them or they after him I can't guess." 
 
 " Who is he ?" 
 
 " Good enough Indian. They say he was a Pota- 
 watamy chief once. Can't say just whose redskin 
 he is just now. I don't want him, unless for this 
 affair. But what became of the bodies ?" 
 
 " Had a funeral at once," said Chumley. " If 
 you'll come with me I'll show you." 
 
 The lieutenant was plainly suppressing some- 
 thing, but rode silently along until they halted at 
 the " Post" and Chumley pointed at the grass : 
 
 " Your Pawnees are down there, all five of them. 
 On my word and honor." 
 
 The lieutenant held out his hand, and his admira- 
 tion broke forth : 
 
 " Mr. Chumley, I hardly know what to say. A 
 most remarkable affair. Splendidly well done. Of 
 course I must report all particulars to my command- 
 ing officer, but you will never be hurt by it. The 
 Pawnees will never hear of their worthless bucks, 
 and that's about all there is of it." 
 
 " Glad of that." 
 
 "But isn't the little Swede a beauty? I'd kill 
 forty score of redskins before they should lay a 
 hand on her head. The miscreants !" 
 
 " You are sure we are now in no further danger ?" 
 
 "Perfectly safe, my dear sir. The frontier is
 
 72 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 thoroughly quiet. Build your house. Put in your 
 crops. You've made a fine beginning for a ceme- 
 tery. I wish the rest of their band were all in it 
 Not the whole tribe, however." 
 
 " Any of them worth saving ?" 
 
 " Certainly. Some fine fellows among them. 
 That is, except when they are out on a war-path. 
 Then they'd be as remorseless as well, as your 
 friend Big Mouth. By the way, don't call him by 
 that name if you wish to keep on good terms with 
 him. The Pawnees gave it to him. Find another." 
 
 " I may never see him again." 
 
 " Yes, you will. Those hills are said to be his 
 range. I reckon your horses are safe, so far as he 
 is concerned." 
 
 " He threatened to borrow them." 
 
 " Then he'll never touch them." 
 
 An invitation to remain and rest till after dinner 
 was politely refused, but Chumley's statement was 
 carefully reduced to writing before Lieutenant In- 
 galls led his squad of blue-coats away westward 
 along the Pawnee Trail. 
 
 Chumley strove hard to convey to his friends the 
 assurances of peace and safety given him, but Mrs. 
 Eagleson's kindly face did not at once recover its 
 sunshine. Erica's did better, with the aid of her 
 fourfooted playfellows, but the day passed without 
 the appearance of " Jim" and his log-house carpen- 
 ters. All that could be done by the young settler
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. 73 
 
 was to get out his farming tools and say to each of 
 them in turn how entirely unskilled he was in the 
 work to be performed with it 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. 
 
 A MAN thinks faster, sometimes, when he is in 
 rapid motion. The brain of Mr. Mortimer Herries 
 Edward Payne, late of Sing Sing prison worked 
 at high pressure all the way to Chicago. He 
 dreamed wilder dreams as he rode, and cast behind 
 him more and more utterly the ties of all sorts 
 which he had been born into. One thing he found 
 it impossible to throw off at once. That was a 
 quick, stinging suspicion of every pair of eyes 
 which rested upon him, lest their owner should be 
 looking through his present respectable appearance 
 and discovering the ex-convict underneath. The 
 striped garb was about the only thing of his criminal 
 life that he had put away from him when his " time" 
 was up. 
 
 Again and again he satisfied himself that the lady 
 or gentleman taking note of him had no hidden 
 thought or impertinent curiosity. He was entirely 
 safe, he said to himself. He bore no external brand. 
 
 D 7
 
 74 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 There was no fear that any pointing finger would 
 ever single him out. 
 
 He did not know that several had gone far the 
 other way, and had remarked upon him as a very 
 fine-looking young man with an uncommonly in- 
 telligent face. A little pale they said, but seemingly 
 in good health. Nervous temperament. An un- 
 pleasant expression about his eyes and mouth, but 
 decidedly a handsome fellow in spite of it. Not 
 until the train was within two hours' ride of Chicago 
 did a short, broad-shouldered, quiet sort of man, 
 with whom he had conversed somewhat in the 
 smoking-room of the palace-car, come and sit down 
 beside him. 
 
 " Soon there now," said Payne. 
 
 " "We shall make the trip on time. I shan't ask 
 you many questions, Mr. Payne. I'm one of Pink- 
 erton's men. Have you been long out, or are you 
 working up something heavy ?" 
 
 " What do you mean, sir ?" 
 
 " Didn't I say what I was ? I've been trying to 
 place you all day. Never saw you before, you 
 know, but you might as well have worn a label. 
 You'd better talk right out." 
 
 A fierce imprecation, only half suppressed, hissed 
 between the grinding teeth of the ex-convict, but 
 his common sense came to his assistance. There 
 was nothing for it but to 'show his papers and con- 
 ceal no part of his record.
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. 75 
 
 " Out yesterday. Travelling west under an alias. 
 No cause for detention known. I shall not molest 
 you. Nobody but one of our fellows would know 
 but what you were all correct. I suppose you'll 
 know what to do, now you're spotted." 
 
 " I'm going to the ends of the earth !" 
 
 " Good place to go to. We have to follow fellows 
 there, sometimes. You're not going there for any 
 good, I can see that." 
 
 " You needn't preach to me." 
 
 " Not in my line. Take your own gait. You'll 
 probably meet some of Pinkerton's men again soon 
 enough. Yours isn't a case of repentance. Good- 
 by. I'm watching some special business in another 
 car. Got a warrant to serve, you know, before we 
 pull up in Chicago." 
 
 The detective actually shook hands with him, as 
 if to help him keep his secret from the other pas- 
 sengers, but he had driven a very painful iron into 
 the soul of the ex-convict. 
 
 " My mind's made up now," he said to himself, 
 " if it wasn't before. I must go on beyond the 
 range of that sort of bloodhound. I must be 
 more quiet and self-confident in my manner, I sup- 
 pose. Still, he did say that only an expert like 
 himself would have suspected me." 
 
 It was a bitter pill to take at any hands, never- 
 theless, and it produced an immediate effect. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer Herries, alias Edward Payne, al-
 
 76 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 ready " spotted" by Pinkerton's men, arrived in 
 Chicago that night and slept at a first-class hotel, 
 but the city contained no such person at noon of 
 the following day. Neither had any person of that 
 name left the city in any direction, but a fine-look- 
 ing young fellow registered as " Bradley Morford, 
 of New York," was in a palace-car bound for St. 
 Louis. He did not know that just as the train 
 started an elderly lady on the platform turned away, 
 remarking to herself, 
 
 " "Well, he's really off. I saw him get on board. 
 The St. Louis office '11 have to keep track of him 
 after he gets there. He's bent upon something or 
 other. I can see it in his eye." 
 
 Something in the eyes of Mr. Bradley Morford 
 was making a determined effort to conceal itself 
 from other eyes and was fairly successful. It was 
 the soul of a man incessantly saying to himself, 
 
 " I am from Sing Sing, and I must appear to all 
 men tremendously self-respecting, high-toned, and 
 so forth." 
 
 Such an effort could but produce an intensely 
 strained state of mind. A man who has been dis- 
 covered and has reason to believe that he is watched, 
 without knowing by whom, is in a terribly unpleas- 
 ant kind of ambush. 
 
 " Herries Payne Morford," he said to himself. 
 " No resemblance between the names. No use to 
 try and disguise myself any other way. Is that car-
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. 77 
 
 waiter one of Pinkerton's men ? The conductor 
 has eyes like needles. I'll talk with anybody that 
 comes. It won't do to appear offish." 
 
 The sore state of his whole human nature actually 
 aided him in taking on an air of almost haughty 
 reserve which became him well, and none of his 
 fellow-passengers broke through it. He knew very 
 little of Pinkerton's men if he imagined that they 
 would continually inform him of any " shadowing" 
 they might do in his case. They would take just 
 enough of pains, and no more, to satisfy their minds 
 as to whether or not they had any business with 
 him. There was not one of them who had any 
 time to spare, as they expressed it, " in following 
 an empty wagon." 
 
 Mr. Bradley Morford's arrival in St. Louis was 
 duly noted, but he was unaware of being specially 
 attended to his hotel. Neither did he know of a 
 report carefully filed away in a pigeon-hole, the fol- 
 lowing evening, after its contents had been copied 
 in a book. Part of the report read : 
 
 " Seemed not to be in communication with any- 
 body. Not one of the Blake gang came near him. 
 Purchased a repeating rifle, navy revolver, des- 
 cription of both herewith, minute, with ammu- 
 nition. Nickel-mounted bowie-knife, buck-horn 
 handle, nine-inch blade, no marks. He took the 
 night train for Kansas City." 
 
 The law-protecting forces of civilized society 
 7*
 
 78 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 were finishing their work with this man. He had 
 long since discovered that they were too strong for 
 him. Now he knew more bitterly than ever that 
 they were too watchful, and he was fleeing from 
 them. He felt as if he were burning up with a 
 mad fever to get away from all restraint, as if it 
 were his personal enemy. In such a heated mental 
 and moral atmosphere evil purposes ripen fast. 
 
 " War it is, then," said the ex-convict to himself, 
 in his insane folly. " If every man's hand is against 
 me, I'll play Ishmael with a vengeance. At all 
 events all this nervousness will disappear when I 
 find myself on horseback riding across prairie. I 
 may as well make up my mind right here and now. 
 I won't stop at any place short of the border, and 
 I'll strike at the first chance that turns up." 
 
 What he meant by that could partly be inter- 
 preted by the evil light that came into his face 
 while saying it. A more complete rendering was 
 shortly to be given in a practical form. 
 
 Evil purposes ripened into evil deeds with won- 
 derful rapidity. 
 
 It is also true that a vigorous and healthy human 
 body soon rallies from the effects of a mere flesh 
 wound. It was only a few days before Gustav 
 Eagleson was able to sit in the door of Chumley's 
 tent and watch " Jim" and three helpers at work 
 with tremendous energy upon Chumley's log house. 
 
 The way in which that house was going up was
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. 79 
 
 a marvel only to be accounted for by a promise of 
 extra pay in case it should be finished within a 
 given time. 
 
 It was a lazy way for a new settler to spend his 
 time, and Gustav was inwardly chafing over his 
 enforced idleness. He knew that Erica and her 
 mother were away towards the woods for some 
 reason, and he knew that Chumley had mounted 
 his horse and ridden out on the prairie without any 
 apparent purpose. It was a positive pleasure now 
 to see him ride suddenly back again. How should 
 Gustav or any of the rest guess that he had come 
 for the purpose of completing a very rash and hasty 
 bargain ? 
 
 Chumley had not sold anything, but he was a 
 very young man, and he had purchased a horse of 
 an utter stranger. Such a fine animal, and so very 
 cheap. 
 
 It had all come to pass in the easiest and most 
 natural manner. Riding along the Pawnee Trail, 
 eastward, with a dim idea lingering in his mind 
 that he had much better be learning how to plough 
 prairie, Chumley had met an uncommonly agree- 
 able wayfarer. 
 
 A very gentlemanly person, well dressed, well 
 mounted, led a second horse, whose points at once 
 captured the fancy of the young settler. During 
 a ride of half a mile, side by side, and a halt for a 
 talk about the country and the prospects for its
 
 80 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 improvement, the stranger's conduct and speech 
 had been faultless. He had tendered a very recent 
 newspaper very courteously ; had refused an invita- 
 tion to take dinner at Chumley's place; not one 
 thing about him had been worthy of special note, 
 unless it had been a slight stutter and hesitation of 
 speech when he gave his name as " Mr. Mortimer 
 Herries, of St. Louis." He talked horse freely. 
 The one he rode was his preference. He meant 
 the other for a remount. Bought him two days 
 before of a man named Con over. Had not used 
 him yet, and could not say anything about him. 
 There was Conover's bill of sale and warranty, in 
 due form. Price from him, two hundred dollars. 
 
 " I'll give you fifty for your bargain," had been 
 Chumley's sudden exclamation. " Pay you the 
 gold." 
 
 " Greenbacks are as good as gold," said the 
 stranger ; " but I want two seventy-five." 
 
 "Done," said Chumley; and that was why he 
 now came back in such a hurry to get some money 
 from the box in his wagon. 
 
 He took counsel with no man, but was off in 
 less than two minutes towards the Trail. 
 
 Very off-hand and matter of course was the de- 
 meanor of Mr. Herries about so simple and every- 
 day an affair as the sale of one horse. He shook 
 hands with the purchaser and cantered away, like 
 a man who was in no great hurry but who had a
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. gl 
 
 journey before him. He was well out of Chum- 
 ley's hearing before he exclaimed, aloud, 
 
 " One name is as good as another, but that was 
 a slip of the tongue. If anybody comes to claim 
 that horse from him, he'll have a good time hunt- 
 ing up somebody by the name of Conover. On 
 the whole, my first stroke was a pretty good one, 
 but I'd better not camp any too early." 
 
 He was very quickly hidden by the forest in 
 which the Trail disappeared, but by that time 
 Chumley was back at his own tent, showing his 
 purchase to Gustav. 
 
 There is fascination enough in any newly-pur- 
 chased horse to draw a gang of men from their 
 work, pay or no pay. It was not long before Jim 
 and his three helpers were helping Gustav to ad- 
 mire that animal instead of fitting doors and win- 
 dows. All admitted that such a bay as that, six 
 years old, sixteen hands high, without a blemish, 
 was cheap at two hundred and seventy-five dollars. 
 Jim, however, had been a surveyor's assistant, and 
 he surveyed the prize very thoroughly and deliber- 
 ately. Then he took out a card of tobacco from 
 his pocket, cut off a deeper slice than was his cus- 
 tom, and remarked, 
 
 " Mr. Chumley, that's a good hoss. Did he say 
 his name was Harris ?" 
 
 " Or something like it." 
 
 " And he bought him of a man named Conover,
 
 82 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 and paid him two hundred, and you got him foi 
 two seventy-five. "Well, I don't know. Things 
 will happen." 
 
 " What do you mean, Jim ?" said Chumley, with 
 an uneasy feeling, that was fostered by the dubious 
 expression of Jim's face. 
 
 "Well, I don't know. I don't pretend to say. 
 Only I reckon Conover lost more money on that 
 hoss than Harris made on him." 
 
 " Do you know the horse ?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know. 'Pears to me I do. Old 
 Jedge Bunce, of Cross Prairie, he raised him. He 
 vallied him at five hundred. -Wouldn't have took 
 a cent less, for the jedge is forehanded. He is. 
 Conover lost money on that hoss." 
 
 " There's his bill of sale." 
 
 " Writes an extrornary good hand. Reckon it's 
 all right. I don't know any Mr. Conover." 
 
 "Do you mean to say there's anything wrong 
 about the horse ?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I don't pretend to know. 
 But if old Jedge Bunce was to come and see the 
 hoss he could tell ye a heap more than I could." 
 
 That was pleasant, but Mr. Herries was gone, no 
 man could guess whither. There was no good 
 ground yet for following him. None for detaining 
 him one moment from his travels for business or 
 pleasure. The bargain was a good one, and Mr. 
 Conover may have been in need of money. That
 
 A PLUNGE INTO WILD LIFE. 3 
 
 is, as Chumley said to himself, " unless Mr. Con- 
 over should turn out a skilful invention of Mr. 
 Herries or some other man." 
 
 Jim said as much to his helpers, but it was nearly 
 sundown before any of them knew more about that 
 bay horse. Then they all knew a great deal, for 
 Judge Bunce, of Cross Prairie, and a deputy 
 sheriff spent that night at Chumley's place. In the 
 morning they ate breakfast with him, and when they 
 rode away they led with them the uncommonly 
 good bargain. 
 
 The young settler had been taken in by a very 
 elegant and accomplished horse-thief, and all the 
 loss was his own. The owner had followed fast 
 and far upon discovering the theft, inquiring all 
 the way for a land-buyer by the name of Morford. 
 Chumley remarked with strong emphasis, 
 
 " Know him again ? I'd know his face among a 
 thousand. Handsome face, too, but there was 
 something in his eye. I'd know him !" 
 
 "Well," said Jim. "I don't know. I don't 
 pretend to know. But I reckon the next stranger 
 that comes along here with a hoss to sell '11 have 
 to prove property before he gets his money. That 
 chap's cleared out scot-free." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Chumley; "but I may meet 
 him, some day."
 
 84 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PAWNEE OUTLAWS. 
 
 A HUNDRED years, one after another, make little 
 change on a prairie or in a forest. Grass grows 
 and withers. Leaves come and go. Unless the 
 settler's plough or the woodman's axe comes to dis- 
 turb the old order of things, there are no new 
 features. 
 
 Even four years, however, will work a vast change 
 in human beings and in any landscape whereon 
 they are busy. Four full years went by after the 
 events narrated in the beginning of this story, and 
 again there had come and blossomed the brightest 
 and fairest kind of spring. 
 
 "With it had come much business and work to all 
 men, and apparently a duty of some perplexity to 
 a pair of United States cavalry officers. They were 
 discussing it together by a table in a plainly-fur- 
 nished room at the headquarters of an army post, 
 with a pile of papers before them. One wore gold 
 oak-leaves upon his shoulder-straps and the other a 
 pair of golden bars, but their uniforms gave token 
 of much active service. 
 
 "It's a rough record, captain," said the major. 
 " Indian agents, sheriffs, citizens. And yet, do you
 
 fHE PAWNEE OUTLAWS. 85 
 
 know, if we should catch Jerry McCord and turn 
 him over to a judge and jury, I don't believe they 
 could prove one of these things against him." 
 
 " My notion is that the settlers '11 hardly trouble 
 judge and jury with him. We've nothing to do 
 with that." 
 
 " Not after a sheriff relieves us of the responsi- 
 bility, but those Pawnees must be brought back 
 to the Reservation. They won't show fight. The 
 only trouble is to find them. Better strike for the 
 old Pawnee Trail, following the ranges till you 
 reach it. You'll hear of them somewhere." 
 
 " Isn't that too far south ?" 
 
 " Their last strike was up here away, north- 
 erly," said the major, with his finger on the map. 
 "I've sent the lieutenant with ten men in that 
 direction. Jerry's cunning would take him well 
 away, after such an infamous piece of business as 
 that." 
 
 " Such a man is worse than any redskin. They 
 say he was born a gentleman. Good education, 
 fine manners, good-looking sort of fellow. Young, 
 too." 
 
 " He's been the pest of this region for three years, 
 anyhow. He furnishes brains for that gang. Not 
 a white man among 'em but himself. He'll hang 
 just as well as if he were not so good-looking." 
 
 " We've no warrant for him." 
 
 " Every sheriff's deputy has. Bring in the Paw- 
 
 8
 
 86 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 nees at all hazards. Call him a Pawnee and bring 
 him in." 
 
 " If anything happens to him ?" 
 
 "Accidents will happen, captain. He's a des- 
 perado. A disgrace to the name of white man. 
 Turn him over to the civil authorities, dead or 
 alive!" 
 
 " Your blood's up about him," said the captain, 
 as he arose and took up the papers belonging to 
 him. 
 
 " Captain," said the major, " it's enough to set a 
 colder man than I am a-boiling. He may not have 
 touched man or woman with his own hands, but 
 you know what his Pawnees did. Make a thorough 
 piece of work if you can/' 
 
 " I shall do my duty," said the captain, touching 
 his hat. He and his commanding officer were evi- 
 dently close friends, but he did not deem it neces- 
 sary to say to him what he said to himself after 
 mounting his horse : 
 
 "Accidents will happen. I'm afraid there's a 
 good many accidents getting ready for Jerry Mc- 
 Cord." 
 
 A sergeant, a corporal, and nine well-mounted 
 men in blue rode behind the captain. There was 
 talk among them as they went along. They knew 
 what errand they were on. It was a sort of scrub- 
 work, they said, but there might be some excite- 
 ment in it Better than loafing around a camp.
 
 THE PAWNEE OUTLAWS. 87 
 
 At all events there was but one opinion among them 
 as to the necessity for finally rooting out Jerry 
 McCord's band of Pawnee horse-thieves. More 
 than one story passed from lip to lip of deeds more 
 evil than the stealing of horses. 
 
 The major had correctly informed the captain 
 that he had before him several days of pretty in- 
 dustrious riding and searching. He had made a 
 fairly good calculation in other respects, and it was 
 a pity he could not have sent his efficient subordi- 
 nate directly to a secluded little valley among the 
 hills of Western Nebraska. 
 
 A very pretty place it was. A sort of natural 
 " open," surrounded by a rugged country which 
 protected it from intrusion, yet not too far removed 
 from outlying settlements. Its appearance that 
 morning was exceedingly picturesque, and it was a 
 pity that no artist could seize the opportunity for a 
 sketch of it. 
 
 There were five rude huts along the bank of a 
 rivulet which ran through the valley. In and 
 around the huts were a score or more of human 
 beings, mostly males. No small children were 
 visible. The garments worn by all were such as a 
 lot of vagabond squaws and Indians could beg or 
 steal on that frontier. Perhaps the proudest squaw 
 among those lodges sat before her door in a dam- 
 aged red silk dress which had been made for a 
 much smaller woman, but her next neighbor had a
 
 88 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 red shawl and a straw bonnet, and wore a green 
 veil around her neck. A tall male redskin lying 
 on the grass near her also wore a bonnet. There 
 were bright ribbons and a stuffed parroquet upon 
 that bonnet, and some settler's wife had probably 
 missed it from her wardrobe on getting home some 
 mournful day. 
 
 It was a time of peace and utter idleness. There 
 were many horses, of various grades and values, 
 feeding upon the abundant grass of the valley, 
 and no need was of fence or hedge, for it was all 
 " commons." Except for dirt and squalor and the 
 evil faces of men and women, the remaining most 
 prominent feature of that encampment was the 
 number and apparent currish worthlessness of its 
 dogs. 
 
 And this was the home and hiding-place of 
 Jerry McCord's band of vagabond Pawnees, but 
 there was no white man in the valley that morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Perhaps the nearest member of the ruling race 
 was a man who was riding along the Pawnee Trail, 
 eastward, towards the point where it came out of 
 the wooded ranges upon level ground. He had 
 already reached a place where the forest was suffi- 
 ciently open for him to leave the Trail and push in 
 among the trees, and he seemed to draw a breath 
 of relief when he did so, remarking, 
 
 " Haven't met a man. Nobody hereaway would
 
 THE PAWNEE OUTLAWS. 89 
 
 know me, but I don't care to be seen till all my 
 scouting's finished." 
 
 He was a very handsome fellow, of less than 
 thirty years of age. His dark, sun-bronzed features 
 were fall of intelligence, and his black eyes were 
 uncommonly brilliant, while his muscular frame 
 gave promise of activity and endurance. He wore 
 his beard and moustache untrimmed, but there were 
 no signs of any neglect of personal appearance. 
 The neat blue suit, the broad-brimmed Panama hat, 
 the black silk handkerchief around his throat, the 
 well-made boots and spurs, the good horse and 
 saddle under him, all combined to give him almost 
 too jaunty an exterior for an ordinary settler of the 
 Nebraska frontier. 
 
 Just before he wheeled in among the trees he 
 halted and leaned forward as if looking along the 
 Trail. It was a sudden movement, and he may have 
 heard something. At all events his face underwent 
 a strange and instantaneous transformation. The 
 black eyes glittered with a fierce and cruel light. 
 Corrugations unnoticeable before sprang out upon 
 his broad forehead, seeming to flatten it and giving 
 the idea of a panther ready to spring. 
 
 The beauty was all gone, for this was the face of 
 a devil. Even the luxuriant growth around the 
 mouth failed to conceal the evil will expressed 
 by it 
 
 A moment more, the temporary disturbance dis- 
 
 8*
 
 90 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 appearing, a graceful, smiling horseman rode on 
 among the trees. 
 
 He did not ride more than a quarter of a mile 
 before he again halted, and now he sprang lightly 
 to the ground. As he did so, his blue frock coat 
 swung back, and prying eyes could have seen 
 enough of the glitter of silver and steel to know 
 that the man carried weapons. He fastened his 
 horse to a sapling and went forward on foot, saying 
 to himself, as he did so, 
 
 "It's a good while since I've paid a visit to 
 Chumley's place. It cost him something the last 
 time. So it did the first. That was a neat opera- 
 tion, but old Bunce got back his bay. I don't be- 
 lieve Chumley has the ghost of an idea that his 
 sorrel mare was scooped by Jerry McCord, or that 
 Jerry ever sold him a horse. I hope he's got some 
 good stock on hand this tune." 
 
 If he were now proposing to obtain information 
 upon that point, he went at it with extreme cau- 
 tion. No Indian scout could have slipped forward 
 more circumspectly than he did until the increasing 
 light among the woods beyond him testified that 
 the edge of the forest was nearly reached. 
 
 More slowly now, his black eyes flashing around 
 him in all directions, he passed from trunk to trunk 
 of the tall, primeval trees, until he could look out 
 from the last safe cover upon the open country be- 
 yond.
 
 THE PAWNEE OUTLAWS. 91 
 
 There was no reason visible why this man should 
 be afraid to meet other men face to face, and there 
 was no peril to any living thing in what he now 
 saw before him. 
 
 A substantial log form-house stood but a short 
 distance from the outermost, straggling clumps of 
 hickories. There were fenced lots on either side 
 of it, and fields of maize and grain beyond. If 
 Jerry McCord had come to inquire about quadru- 
 peds, there they were, quietly feeding in the fenced 
 lots. Only one cow was to be seen, but there were 
 several horses. One mare had a colt at her side. 
 It was a very pretty rural picture, but its present 
 observer only remarked of it, 
 
 "Just so. We'll have every hoof of 'em yet. 
 I'll set a watch to-morrow, and the first time Chum- 
 ley's away from home we'll make a haul." 
 
 There was more greed than malice in the smile 
 with which he discussed with himself his intended 
 raid, but just at that moment a sound came to his 
 ears which seemed, in a manner, to knock him 
 down. At all events it caused him to throw him- 
 self flat on the earth behind the trunk of a fallen 
 tree, through some raspberry-vines which caught 
 at his beard as he plunged among them. 
 
 He was hidden in an instant, and the sound 
 grew nearer, louder and clearer. It had been 
 sweet enough from the first, for it was a foil- 
 throated lilt of song, and the voice of the singei
 
 92 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 had in it a power and richness that is not heard 
 every day, in or out of the woods. 
 
 Jerry listened for a fiill minute, in utter astonish- 
 ment, before he exclaimed in a loud whisper, 
 
 " That's it. Why didn't I think ? It's one of 
 them Swedes. No wonder I couldn't make it out. 
 I must have a good look at her, anyhow." 
 
 There was no difficulty whatever in obtaining a 
 full view of the songstress, for she came along 
 among the trees in absolute security that she was 
 neither seen nor heard. She stood still, in her un- 
 suspecting freedom, within twenty feet of Jerry's 
 log and raspberries, and turned to send her music 
 back through the woods, as if she were studying 
 the effect of sound in such an auditorium. 
 
 She was of medium height, a perfect blonde, 
 save for a shade of reddish chestnut in the super- 
 abundance of her braided golden hair. Her cheeks 
 were fiill of color, and as she turned her blue eyes 
 towards his hiding-place, there sank into the dark 
 soul of Jerry McCord the idea that in all his life 
 he had never before seen anything one-half so 
 beautiful as this young girl from the Norse 
 country. 
 
 Something of the evil went out of his face and 
 eyes as he looked, and for one short moment this 
 expression grew almost manly. If intense admira- 
 tion of maiden beauty had been his first emotion, 
 it was followed quickly by another, and his second
 
 THE PAWNEE OUTLAWS. 93 
 
 thought stung him like an adder. The girl's face 
 wore the light of utter innocence and was lofty 
 with its pride, and these are terrible things for an 
 evil man to look upon. They are treasures which 
 cannot be his, because they shrink from his coming, 
 and they wither at his touch, unless they are strong 
 enough to repel him. 
 
 Jerry McCord's eyes flashed and his bosom rose 
 and fell. He made a slight movement as if to 
 arise, but sank back again. The song was dying 
 away in a ripple of soft music as he said to himself, 
 almost aloud, 
 
 "Why shouldn't I speak to her? Who is to 
 hinder me ? I'll do it ;" but at that moment a voice 
 a little like that of a trombone came from the edge 
 of the woods : 
 
 " Erica ? Erica ?" other words followed, and they 
 were evidently a reproving summons, but whether 
 they were Swedish or some other tongue Jerry did 
 not know. She answered them cheerily with her 
 voice and obediently with her feet, and they had 
 fully warned her hidden admirer to lie still. He 
 slowly arose, as soon as he was sure she could no 
 longer get a glimpse of him. He even scouted 
 from tree to tree after her for a little distance, but 
 then he stopped suddenly. 
 
 " If that's her father," he said, " he's a big one. 
 Chumley's with him. Glad I didn't show myself' 
 but isn't she a beauty !"
 
 94 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He seemed almost bewildered for a moment, as 
 if he had unexpectedly looked upon a being of 
 another and better world than the one he lived in. 
 Then the soul of the thief came flashing into his 
 face, and it was easy to read the already half-formed 
 determination that he would steal Erica very much 
 as if she were an uncommonly valuable horse, 
 worth trouble and risk. 
 
 " I'll find some way of speaking to her. I must 
 learn all there is to be learned, though, before I tell 
 the Pawnees what my plan is. We've got to be 
 doing something." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A VERY SUDDEN LOVER. 
 
 JERRY McCoRD turned away from watching Erica 
 and walked rapidly to the spot where he had left 
 his horse. If the purposes he had declared were 
 to be carried out, he had work before him. Both 
 the live-stock and the young lady were evidently so 
 well protected that the work would involve risk as 
 well as enterprise. It was no wonder, therefore, 
 that his handsome face should testify strongly to 
 the activity of his excited brains. 
 
 He rode to the Pawnee Trail and followed it 
 westward. It did not itself climb fast, but the land
 
 A VERY SUDDEN LOVER. 95 
 
 on either side did, becoming craggy and wooded, 
 testifying to the pioneering genius of the bisons 
 who discovered so good a pass through that range 
 of hills. He did not follow its windings among 
 them for more than four miles before he wheeled 
 to the left among the trees, and a few rods more 
 brought him into a pretty well-marked path, whose 
 junction with the Trail was scientifically covered 
 up from casual observation. It led him, for half an 
 hour's walk, through dense woods and narrow de- 
 files, and then one of these widened right and left, 
 and before him was the hidden camp of his chosen 
 associates in all its picturesqueness and brutalities. 
 
 A group gathered quickly around him as he rode 
 in and dismounted, but that was all the greeting 
 extended by rascality to its leader. The hard- 
 featured barbarians listened in stolid silence to all 
 he chose to tell them, and it was quickly evident 
 that he had hastened back to that camp to prevent 
 any of them from trying plans of their own in the 
 neighborhood of Chumley's. It was a place con- 
 taining good things for all of them, but the man- 
 agement must be left to himself, rigidly. 
 
 There were unanimous grunts of assent at the 
 conclusion of his injunctions, and he added, 
 
 " Soon as I've had something to eat, I'll ride right 
 back and see what more I can do to-day." 
 
 "Ugh!" responded a one-eyed brave. "Eat a 
 heap. Jerry all right."
 
 96 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 There was a sort of rude abundance in that camp. 
 A squaw made coffee for the hungry head-man of 
 her band, while three others broiled trout and veni- 
 son for him, and there was even a supply of army- 
 bread, but there were no vegetables. He ate 
 heartily, and then a fresh horse was brought to 
 him, and he was once more in the saddle. He left 
 behind him the idea that he should be gone over- 
 night, and rode back to the Pawnee Trail. 
 
 Genuine human love will sometimes kindle sud- 
 denly, but it rarely blazes at once to a fire of any 
 great size. The selfish greed, coveting something 
 precious which it happens to look upon, and which 
 is often mistaken for love, can reach its most 
 grasping condition in an hour or so. 
 
 Jerry McCord swore that he was in love, sud- 
 denly, desperately, with the unknown beauty who 
 had sung so sweetly. He had a strange idea that 
 his own desperate career was that of a sort of hero 
 of border romance, and now there was positive ex- 
 hilaration in the romantic nature of his present ad- 
 venture. It hardly occurred to him that he, the 
 wild, elegant, daring, dashing, and very handsome 
 rover, could fail of fascinating the bewildered girl 
 upon whom he might choose to bring his fascina- 
 tions to bear. At the same time he was keenly 
 aware that his Pawnees would be unprofitable com- 
 panions for him while he should be courting. 
 
 Scouting around among trees and bushes in a
 
 A VERY SUDDEN LOVER. 97 
 
 vague hope that a young lady may come, and 
 troubled by much doubt if she would do so, was a 
 good process for the promotion of such a fever of 
 vanity as had taken possession of Jerry. It grew 
 more and more intense all that afternoon, until he 
 felt as if it must already have had some effect upon 
 Erica. He had heard her called by that name, and 
 now he called her by it, as if practising its most 
 winning modulations, while he was preparing him- 
 self to tell his tale of love. He also settled in his 
 prudent mind what name he should give himself 
 for her to call him by. 
 
 Hour after hour went by and Erica did not come, 
 but somebody else did. This time it was not a 
 young lady, but a somewhat young and frisky 
 cow. 
 
 " That's it," exclaimed Jerry; " if I can coop up 
 that cow Erica will be likely to come for her, and 
 I'll have a chance of my own making." 
 
 It was a stroke of genius worthy of a hero of 
 romance who dared not call openly at the residence 
 of his lady-love. The mild-eyed animal who had 
 rashly ventured too far under the shade of the trees 
 was driven yet farther. She did not seem even 
 startled by so unexpected a meeting, and went 
 along peaceably enough at first. As time went by, 
 however, she unfolded the fact that she had a femi- 
 nine will of her own, and she gave more and more 
 trouble to the romantic human lover who proposed 
 B g 9
 
 98 REU BEAUTY. 
 
 to make " bait" of her. He had no rope to tie her 
 with, and it looked very much as if she was minded 
 to go to the house and report what was going on in 
 the woods. Her feelings grew yet stronger towards 
 sunset, and Jerry was compelled to all but wrestle 
 with that homesick cow. By steady persistence, 
 however, he succeeded in detaining her long enough 
 for his brilliant stratagem to work. 
 
 It was truly a gem of strategy. Other cattle 
 came in from the prairie and the pasture-lot at 
 their proper time, but Erica's own favorite heifer 
 arrived not with them. She had been seen near 
 the edge of the timber, and Chumley offered to go 
 and hunt her up. Erica laughingly refused his 
 proposal and hurried away on what she said was 
 her own errand. So it was, but so little did she 
 know of its real nature that she walked on, singing 
 a Swedish song, straight into the trap which had 
 been baited for her with that cow. She nevertheless 
 owed something to the obstinacy of the latter. At 
 the first sound of the carol the cow lowered her 
 horns and made so bold a charge at her oppressor 
 that she got past him and trotted briskly towards 
 the music. 
 
 Jerry McCord did not run, but he was forced to 
 walk undignifiedly fast in order to meet Erica 
 where her heifer did. 
 
 That was a moment of profound surprise. The 
 surprise, in fact, had already cut short the carol,
 
 A VERY SUDDEN LOVER. 99 
 
 for her first glimpse of the stranger had brought 
 into her mind the hasty question, 
 
 " He didn't mean to steal her, did he ?" 
 
 Jerry did not know that, and the suspicion 
 vanished now, as he raised his hat in a salutation 
 loaded down with the most profound respect and 
 admiration. She returned the bow mechanically, 
 but its coming then and there was a somewhat 
 startling incident in the humdrum experience of 
 an unsophisticated young lady dwelling on that 
 lonely prairie. Her cheeks crimsoned for no cause 
 whatever, and her parted lips uttered no sound. 
 She felt very much like following the example of 
 the cow, who had now started on a heavy run for 
 the house. It was not a long run, but it had con- 
 sequences of some importance to Jerry McCord. 
 He was too far away to hear Erica's mother say to 
 her husband, 
 
 " There ! There's that cow. Erica might hunt 
 her for an hour, Grustav. Go down to the edge of 
 the woods and shout for her to come home." 
 
 Gustav put down the pail of milk he had brought, 
 and moved away somewhat leisurely to obey his 
 wife. His walk, added to the cow's run, gave Jerry 
 McCord all the time he was to have, but he used it 
 with notable energy. He had feared that such a 
 first interview was likely to be brief, and he struck 
 at once. 
 
 No thought whatever concerning him had yet
 
 100 RED BEAUTF. 
 
 taken shape in Erica's mind, now that she was sure 
 that the cow was safe, but the reverential bow he 
 began with terminated, and a very good-looking 
 face put on all the expressiveness its owner was 
 master of while he exclaimed, in a voice she was 
 sure she had never before heard, 
 
 " Erica ! Erica ! I have seen the most beautiful 
 woman in the world " 
 
 " Sir !" she exclaimed, in an altogether involun- 
 tary interruption. " What ? Where did you come 
 from?" 
 
 Great as was her astonishment, there was nothing 
 unpleasant about him, and his manner was not cal 
 culated to arouse fear. Erica was very young ; she 
 was uncommonly ignorant of the wicked world and 
 its ways, and this was the most unexpected of all 
 good-looking men. 
 
 "Erica!" he again exclaimed, with passionate 
 earnestness and outstretched hands, " I will tell you 
 all about myself hereafter. My name is Edward 
 Payne. I am a gentleman. A man of honor. I 
 have seen you and I have loved you. For days and 
 days I have watched in these woods, seeking an 
 opportunity to speak to you. At last that oppor- 
 tunity has come, and you must hear me !" 
 
 He had lied more or less, and he had said noth- 
 ing about the cow, but she had heard him. While 
 doing so she had looked at him somewhat un- 
 steadily, for she was walking backward and watch-
 
 A VERY SUDDEN LOVER. 101 
 
 ing her footsteps that she might not be tripped up 
 by anything, stick or stone. Her surprise was so 
 overwhelming that it made her do the wisest thing 
 she could, for she did not reply to him by a syllable. 
 He had followed her retreat, and now he sprang 
 forward and caught her by the wrist, pleading with 
 desperate earnestness, 
 
 " Wait, Erica ! Hear me !" 
 
 She could not have denied that he was handsome 
 or that he pleaded well, and a declaration of love 
 is at any time a wonderful thing for a girl to hear. 
 It was particularly wonderful just now, coming 
 without any warning and from an utter stranger. 
 Still, the hand upon her wrist sent a thrill of fear 
 over her so sharply that she screamed aloud, 
 
 " Sir ! Sir ! I do not know you ! I I do not 
 wish to hear you. Let me go !" 
 
 " Will you not listen to me for one short moment, 
 Erica?" 
 
 " N"o, sir ! I won't hear anything !" 
 
 " I love you. Oh, Erica !" 
 
 " I don't care if you do. Let go of my hand !" 
 
 " Oh, Erica !" 
 
 Just those very words sounded at that moment 
 at the edge of the woods in the trombone voice of 
 her father : 
 
 " Oh, Erica ! The cow is home !" 
 
 " That's my father. I'll call him. I'll call Mr. 
 
 Chumley, my mother ! Sir, let me go !" 
 
 9*
 
 102 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Erica," said he, persistently, " I must leave you 
 now, but we shall surely meet again. Do not forget 
 me. I am a man of honor, but there are reasons 
 why I cannot now come to your house openly " 
 
 " Father !" she shouted, and at that word she was 
 free. She saw a blue suit disappearing rapidly 
 among the trees while she was rubbing a hand 
 which had been kissed against her will. Her first 
 romance had come to her, and she had only a 
 woman's keen natural instincts to tell her how 
 tremendously absurd it all was. Her face flushed 
 and paled, her bosom rose and fell, and she stood 
 still for half a minute to calm herself, now that the 
 intruder had disappeared. As for Gustav, he had 
 mistaken her shout for an answer to his summons, 
 and was merely waiting for her. She was glad he 
 was there, and yet she felt that he was not the pre- 
 cise person she most wished to see. 
 
 "Father," she exclaimed, "I want to see 
 mother !" 
 
 "What's the matter? Have you been frightened 
 by anything ?" 
 
 "A man! He spoke to me. He is gone. I 
 must see mother." 
 
 That brief conversation had been in pure Swedish, 
 and all slowness had vanished from Gustav's move- 
 ments. He sprang away among the trees to hunt 
 for the man who had so scared his daughter, in 
 spite of all her assurances that she did not know in
 
 A VERY SUDDEN LOVER. 1Q3 
 
 what direction he had retreated. Whatever that 
 may have been, Gustav missed it entirely, and it 
 was just as well that he did so, considering that 
 he was entirely unarmed. He returned in a few 
 minutes, convinced that a forest offers perfect hid- 
 ing-places, but he was in error about that. Jerry 
 McCord had not hidden. He had but walked away 
 rapidly towards the spot where his horse was tied, 
 and had no idea that anybody would follow him. 
 
 " I've made a good beginning," he said to himself. 
 " Of course she was startled. I expected that. Her 
 father's coming cut me short a little. She will 
 listen to all I have to say next time." 
 
 The idea was very strong upon him that he had 
 made an impression, and beyond all doubt he had 
 done so. Possibly it was not precisely what he 
 imagined, however, for it sent Erica to her mother 
 with a full account of the occurrence, while the first 
 thing done by Gustav on reaching the house was to 
 take down a double-barrelled gun from its hooks and 
 shake his head over it with a deep-chested growl 
 which boded buckshot for some unknown " game." 
 
 On the whole, there were promises of obstacles 
 to be in the way of future meetings between the 
 romantic horse-thief and the beautiful object of his 
 self-confident devotion. It is an old proverb that 
 the course of true love itself never did run smooth, 
 and in this case it might be made to apply to the 
 counterfeit.
 
 104 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. 
 
 HUNDREDS of travelling parties, cavalcades, mi- 
 grations, moccasined or booted, hoofed or cloven- 
 footed, had from time to time trodden the ancient 
 pathway known as the Pawnee Trail. Not many 
 among them, however, had been more worthy of 
 note than one which plodded along, almost but not 
 quite in sight of the wooded western hill ranges, 
 on the second day after Erica and her cow had so 
 romantic an adventure. 
 
 It was also the second day of June, and the 
 weather was warm. 
 
 The outfit to be remarked upon consisted of four 
 large, tilted wagons, each drawn by four yoke of 
 well-to-do oxen. "With these as a sort of main body, 
 it also consisted of half a dozen cows that followed 
 the wagons ; two women on horseback that followed 
 the cows ; one mounted man on each side of the 
 train and one in advance ; one large dog well in 
 advance of that foremost horseman ; a parrot in his 
 cage, swinging from the tilt of the head wagon; 
 and a huge, gray Thomas cat who sat on the seat 
 under the parrot, as if keeping an eye on the oxen. 
 
 Only the rearmost wagon contained passengers.
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. 1Q5 
 
 Every now and then a voice came from it that 
 seemed to call for attention to a discontented matron 
 whose eight Berkshire pigs refused to keep still. 
 Her appeals from time to time called jocular re- 
 marks about "Jemima and her family" from the 
 ladies on horseback, and now and then one of 
 these rode nearer to see if all was well in " the 
 cabin." 
 
 Those women were a remarkably bright and 
 healthy-looking pair, black-eyed, black-haired, brisk 
 and tidy. The younger may have been nineteen, 
 and promised to be the very pattern of her mother ; 
 and the latter may have been forty, but had not lost 
 her roses, and had an air of being where she was in 
 the rear because of having energy enough to drive 
 that entire outfit right along before her. 
 
 It needed driving, for the oxen were fat and heavy 
 fellows that showed no signs of the long journey 
 behind them. Excellent care had been given them, 
 but it could not have been by the long, lank, take- 
 the-world-easy kind of man whose loose legs dangled 
 on either side of the horse to the left of them. 
 Neither was there much of a business appearance 
 about the rider on the right, for he was looking 
 through a huge pair of green goggles at all the world 
 around him, but never at the oxen. They plodded 
 on so steadily, perhaps, as a matter of habit ; per- 
 haps because they knew of that black-eyed woman 
 behind them; perhaps because the foremost team
 
 106 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 was lazily following the movements of the horseman 
 ahead and the big dog. Every now and then, as 
 the wagon that he adorned gave a lurch, the parrot 
 would balance himself or take a swing, and shout 
 queer English at the cat or the oxen : 
 
 " Me-a-ow ! Yow ! Hip, haw, gee, g'lang ! 
 Pretty Polly! Oh, don't!" 
 
 Prairie travelling excited him even more than 
 it did Jemima, but the cat took it all in dignified 
 repose. 
 
 The ladies, older as well as younger, seemed to 
 be continually on the watch for objects of interest, 
 and their glances went behind as well as forward. 
 
 "Mother," suddenly exclaimed the latter, "just 
 as I said." 
 
 " Man coming ?" 
 
 "Man on horseback. He's hidden by a knoll 
 now." 
 
 " There he comes, Jessie ; I see him. I hope 
 he'll turn out to be somebody that knows something 
 about the country. Your father and your uncle take 
 things too much for granted." 
 
 " Everything's as beautiful as it was painted so 
 far. There " 
 
 Her mother was at that moment looking at her, 
 and not at the landscape or the coming rider. If 
 her eyes correctly presented the thought in her 
 mind, it might have been translated, 
 
 " And the most beautiful thing here, after all, is
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. 107 
 
 the daughter we have brought out to hide her in 
 this frontier solitude." 
 
 One horseman came galloping after them along 
 the Trail, and no more female heads turned to see 
 him come. He left behind him something which 
 had escaped all the eyes in that train as it went by 
 a reedy, weedy hollow, behind a high roll. Until 
 the train had gotten well beyond it there had been 
 four men in that hollow, all dismounted, and there 
 had been strange talk among them before either of 
 them was again in the saddle. Now three of them 
 were out of sight of the train, making a long de- 
 tour to the left, but riding as if they had an ap- 
 pointment to keep with somebody, and of those 
 three not one was a white man. 
 
 The horseman who left his companions to follow 
 the immigrant train sobered his pace as he drew 
 nearer, remarking to himself, 
 
 " Ladies, eh ? Glad of that. I can learn all I 
 want to from them." 
 
 At that moment Jessie said to her mother, 
 
 " He is very near us now." 
 
 " Ride on and tell your uncle to come back and 
 talk with him. I'll speak to your father." 
 
 Both errands were begun at the word, but Jessie's 
 was delivered first. 
 
 " Uncle John, somebody's coming." 
 
 " Coming ? Yes, well, suppose there is. I'll 
 have a talk with him. Only we don't know the
 
 108 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 character of the people we meet. So far as I've 
 seen, it's all a kind of mutual admiration society 
 and there isn't a sinner on the whole prairie." 
 
 " He has almost caught up. Mother is speaking 
 to father about him." 
 
 So she was, and she was saying, 
 
 " Now, husband, I want you to get all the infor- 
 mation you can out of him. Be particular and 
 make him tell all he knows about Mr. Chumley. 
 It's very important that we should know what sort 
 of a man our next neighbor is." 
 
 " My dear, the agent and the surveyor spoke of 
 him very highly indeed." 
 
 " So they did of everything and everybody. I'd 
 like to hear the other side." 
 
 " Perhaps we can get some of it. Here he is." 
 
 Only a minute and a half elapsed after that 
 before the solitary horseman had introduced him- 
 self as Mr. Edward Payne, and had discovered that 
 all these people bore the name of Munro. 
 
 Mrs. Munro's piercing black eyes had criticised 
 him from head to foot. They had also taken in- 
 stant notice that he seemed almost unable to re- 
 move the gaze of his own from the face of Jessie. 
 He was a dashing, handsome fellow, well dressed, 
 well mounted, and overflowingly polite. 
 
 " Did he know the country ?" 
 
 Certainly. All of it. He owned property farther 
 west, and was now on his way home. He was there-
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. 1Q9 
 
 fore in some haste, lest lie should not get there 
 before night. 
 
 " Mr. Payne," said Mrs. Munro herself, after 
 her husband had neglected to ask, " do you know 
 a man by the name of Chumley? Our land joins 
 with his." 
 
 " Yes," said Uncle John. " What's his charac- 
 ter?" 
 
 " I can't say I know him," said Payne, slowly. 
 " I know of him. I'd rather not speak of him. It 
 isn't safe to say what one thinks of some men." 
 
 "I see," said Uncle John. "Violent and all 
 that." 
 
 " My life wouldn't be safe for a day, I'm told." 
 
 " You may depend upon our silence," said Mrs. 
 Munro. "Is there really anything against him? 
 "Will he be a bad neighbor ?" 
 
 " Madame," said Payne, bowing very respectfully, 
 " I know nothing whatever against Mr. Chumley. 
 I do not know why his wife does not live with him. 
 I do not know why men are afraid to quarrel with 
 him. I do not know but what he obtained all his 
 property honestly. Nobody could prove by me 
 that he ever played a game of cards in his life. 
 Nobody on this prairie ever knew where he came 
 from, or anything about him." 
 
 " That's not a good character for any man to 
 have," said Uncle John, thoughtfully, and Payne 
 
 added, 
 
 10
 
 HO RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " I Jo not see how he could fail to live at peace 
 with such neighbors as he is about to have." 
 
 That bow was at Jessie, and was so pointed and 
 full of expression that it brought the color to her 
 face. 
 
 During a full half-hour the stranger was detained 
 by a cross-examination concerning men and things 
 on that frontier, and Mr. Munro finally declared to 
 him, 
 
 "We are greatly obliged. You have told us 
 more than we knew about a great many important 
 matters. Call and see us after we get settled." 
 
 " I shall do so with pleasure," replied Payne, 
 with a powerful glance at Jessie ; " but I must hurry 
 forward now." 
 
 Once only, during that time, had the advance- 
 guard of the Munro outfit ridden back for a look 
 at the stranger and to be introduced as Mr. Perry 
 Munro. The dog did not come back and was not 
 introduced. 
 
 Perry could hardly have been " of age," but 
 Payne was justified in saying to himself, " This is 
 the captain, or I'm mistaken. Unless his mother 
 is." 
 
 At all events he had attained a height of full six 
 feet and an uncommon breadth of shoulder. His 
 black moustaches were as yet soft and downy, and 
 his rosy cheeks were smooth. His wide-brimmed 
 felt hat rested upon a profusion of jetty curls. IJjs
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. 
 
 merry black eyes were as searching as his mother's 
 and as brilliant as those of Mr. Payne, and they 
 added to his other tokens of energy and force a 
 strong suggestion of a quick and fiery temper. He 
 and Payne looked one another smilingly in the face 
 for a minute or so, while he asked questions about 
 the nearest good spot to camp in, and then he rode 
 back to his place behind the dog. To him he re- 
 marked, 
 
 "Bob, we shall reach that grove before noon;" 
 and to himself he added, " I can't guess what it is 
 that makes me distrust that fellow. If he ever 
 comes around our place I shall watch him." 
 
 Bob the dog was an English mastiff of the 
 largest size, and just the fellow to have around in 
 case there should be anybody to watch. Tawny, 
 deep-chested, and lion-faced, he was as handsome 
 as his master. 
 
 Mr. Payne swung his hat cheerily as he now 
 galloped past Perry and shouted, 
 
 " You'll be on your own land by night. Hope 
 you'll find it all you could ask. Good-day." 
 
 " Good-day," said Perry. " Wish you a pleasant 
 journey." 
 
 Nevertheless he was dimly aware that the man 
 Payne had understood the glance of dislike with 
 which that farewell was accompanied. 
 
 There were no disparaging remarks made about 
 Mr. Payne by the other members of the Munro
 
 112 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 family, but it was quite natural that they should 
 discuss the news he left behind him rather than 
 himself. It was not long before they were all back 
 in their customary places, and now even Uncle 
 John urged the oxen. The sun indicated that the 
 time for a mid-day halt was nearly upon them. 
 
 That country is full of capital camping-grounds, 
 and the bisons who marked out the Pawnee Trail 
 knew every spring and grove. Payne had assured 
 Perry that it led into that sort of a place quickly, 
 and now a large and promising group of oaks was 
 visible, right on their line of march. It seemed to 
 call for Bob's investigation, and he at once dashed 
 forward. He paused under the first oak to send 
 back a deep " woof," in token that he was pleased 
 with what he had found, and in two minutes more 
 he and Perry were looking down into a fine pool 
 of water fed by a capital spring. 
 
 " You are right about it, Bob," said Perry. " It's 
 just the spot. We'll rest here awhile, and we'll 
 get to Chumley's Post long before sundown." 
 
 The sight of the grove had summoned Jessie 
 forward also, but she had reined in her horse at the 
 side of Uncle John to ask him, 
 
 " What are you staring at now, Uncle John ? Do 
 you see anything new ?" 
 
 " Nothing yet, Jessie. I think I shall wear my 
 blue glasses this afternoon. There is almost too 
 much green."
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. H3 
 
 Jessie's answering laugh and the lift of her bridle 
 sent her horse forward to the side of her brother. 
 
 " Jessie," said he, " I wish we could pick up this 
 place, spring and all, and put it down again on our 
 own land." 
 
 " So do I. This is lovely." 
 
 " Well, if the land agent didn't lie, we shall have 
 all the timber we need, and water too." 
 
 " Mr. Payne said so. But, Perry, isn't it disgust- 
 ing that we are to have such a man as Chumley for 
 a neighbor ?" 
 
 " A chap that can't live with his wife ?" 
 
 " Horrid old fellow !" exclaimed Jessie, sharply, 
 evidently imaging some unpleasant, middle-aged 
 reprobate. The strength of her impression even 
 added needless energy to her independent way of 
 dismounting and of caring for her own horse and 
 her mother's while the latter kindled a fire. It was 
 wonderful how quickly the sticks came into order 
 and blazed up. There was a good glow by the 
 time Uncle John had examined the pebbles by the 
 spring and had decided that they were " mostly 
 limestone." 
 
 The cat sprang down from his perch and darted 
 away on a hunt of some sort, and the parrot from 
 his shouted " water, water," after the oxen, as Perry 
 unyoked them and led them away to pick grass for 
 themselves under the guardianship of Bob. 
 
 Jessie was yet busy with her own equine favorite 
 
 A 10*
 
 114 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 when a series of loud complaints from two of the 
 wagons seemed to be especially addressed to her, 
 and she replied to them, 
 
 " You needn't squeal like that, Jemima. This is 
 your last day's ride. You'll be rooting on your own 
 land to-morrow. Polly, you keep still. You can't 
 have one mouthful till you've said Pawnee." 
 
 " Hip, hip !" screamed the parrot. " Me-a-ow. 
 Poll want cracker." 
 
 Jemima's time for attention had not come, al- 
 though she repeated her demands ; but in a minute 
 or so Jessie stood on the tongue of the wagon, in 
 front of Polly's cage, with no one to tell her how 
 pretty she looked as she insisted, 
 
 " Say it, you old rascal !" 
 
 " Old rascal," echoed Poll. 
 
 " Pawnee ! Pawnee !" urged Jessie. 
 
 " Paw, me-a-ow, rascal !" squawked the parrot, 
 angrily. 
 
 " Pawnee !" 
 
 "Poll want cracker. Pawnee, pawnee, paw- 
 nee, me-a-ow !" 
 
 " You've got it. I heard you practising it along 
 the road. You obstinate old bird !" 
 
 The bits of " hard-tack" cracker which rewarded 
 him were received with a mosaic of squalls and syl- 
 lables which did him credit, only that some of 
 them sounded as if his education had been begun 
 on shipboard.
 
 THE MUNRO OUTFIT. H5 
 
 It was a sort of family picnic, under very favor- 
 able conditions. By the time all the animals were 
 attended to and even the voice of Jemima ceased to 
 plead, the smell of coffee boiling and bacon frying 
 arose and floated off among the trees to the nose of 
 every human being there. It told of a noonday 
 meal very quickly prepared, but the cat had beaten 
 Mrs. Munro. Away in the edge of the grove he 
 had found and slain an infant rabbit and was already 
 eating his dinner. 
 
 There was a very merry picnic there, noisy with 
 talk about land and neighbors and good times to 
 come, but there was an altogether different gather- 
 ing little more than half a mile away. 
 
 The polite horseman who had so fully answered 
 all their inquiries about Chumley and the region 
 around about was still in the saddle, and so were 
 three Pawnees who were listening to what he had 
 to say. He was giving them a very accurate ac- 
 count of the Munro outfit and its immediate destina- 
 tion, and when he had finished it a dusky barbarian 
 nodded his head and replied, 
 
 " Ugh ! Good. No take 'em now. By and by 
 no lookout. Dog die. Get all horse then." 
 
 That this was the general opinion of the future 
 fate of a part at least of the Munro quadruped 
 property was signified by a chorus of grunts. The 
 four rode along in company, and the red men had 
 no means of guessing the nature of that part of the
 
 116 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 treasure which Jerry McCord-Payne had not re- 
 ported to them. He said to himself concerning it, 
 " Her mother called her Jessie. She is as beau- 
 tiful as Erica. The most perfect pair of opposites 
 that could he made. A fellow could not be in love 
 with two blondes at the same time, but a blonde and 
 a brunette, that's different. I can call and see Jes- 
 sie again at any time, but I suppose I must look out 
 for Chumley. His time is coming. He is the only 
 man in all this tract of country that can spot me. 
 That's enough to settle his fate for him." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OHUMLEY'S POST. 
 
 many miles beyond the grove in which the 
 Munro family were taking their noonday meal, the 
 Pawnee Trail came to a spot where there was little 
 to tempt anybody to stand still. On the summit 
 of a gentle knoll, a little to the left of the Trail, 
 stood about twenty feet of what had once been the 
 trunk of a young hickory-tree. It seemed a sort 
 of landmark, and at the base of it there was a very 
 curious collection of antiquities. Somebody had 
 taken the pains to make that post uncanny. That
 
 CHUMLErS POST. 117 
 
 person or persons had brought a lot of old, weather- 
 whitened buffalo skulls and skulls of horses and 
 other animals such as every old prairie road abounds 
 with, and had heaped them around the foot of the 
 hickory. Among these, without any human help 
 whatever, flying seeds had fallen and rooted and 
 grown, until now a mass of briers and thistles had 
 risen to prosperity, with the old horns and bones 
 peeping out here and there among them. 
 
 To the right, the unbroken prairie swept away 
 for half a mile in green rolls, to the borders of a 
 line of timber, with hilly and broken-looking land 
 beyond it. To the left, there was forest within a 
 quarter of a mile. Nearer than that, however, 
 there were fences and growing corn, and over these 
 arose the roof and chimney of a human dwelling. 
 
 Right past the queer landmark the Pawnee Trail 
 went on in nearly a bee-line until it lost itself 
 among the trees, but before it did that it came to a 
 man. He was well but roughly dressed ; a strongly- 
 built fellow of about twenty-five or, it might be, a 
 little more. His face was deeply marked, and just 
 now it was decidedly cloudy. It was crowned by 
 crisp, brown hair, and his steel-gray eyes looked 
 out under jutting brows. His shortly-trimmed 
 beard and moustaches did not conceal the iron de- 
 termination expressed by his mouth. In fact, his 
 jaws and lips had set themselves together with a 
 firmness which suggested the idea that it would
 
 118 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 require an effort for him to get them apart wide 
 enough for his next speaking or eating. 
 
 Such an effort he now made, and as he did so, 
 he half affectionately patted the butt of a silver- 
 mounted repeating rifle, the barrel of which lay in 
 the crook of his left arm. His eyes were glancing, 
 with a glitter in them, along the Trail towards the 
 prairie. A party of men was coming from that 
 direction, and had reduced the speed of their 
 horses from a gallop to a walk as soon as they 
 came in sight of him. If they were consulting as 
 to any course of action they might be about to 
 take, so was he. 
 
 " Four of you," he said, aloud, " and the glass 
 told me who you were. I'll stand still and see if I 
 can't find out something more." 
 
 Not a step did he move as they drew nearer, and 
 they did not hear him say to himself, 
 
 " Jerry McCord and three of his Pawnees." 
 
 Every redskin of them nodded his head and said 
 " How" as he went by, and the handsome white 
 man in the blue suit lifted his Panama with mock- 
 ing courtesy of manner, but the stern man on foot 
 did not move a muscle or utter a sound. His 
 glittering gray eyes looked full into the face of 
 Jerry McCord, while his own features grew gray 
 rather than red. They expressed an intensity of 
 feeling which could hardly be accounted for by the 
 loss of live-stock, irritating as that may be, and yet
 
 CRUMLEY'S POST. 119 
 
 the first words uttered, after the four riders went 
 by, were, 
 
 " It's a fact. Jerry McCord and Mortimer Her- 
 ries are the same man. That isn't all. I know 
 now who it was that lay in wait for Erica. He'd 
 have killed me dead on the spot if he had dared, 
 for he now knows that I know him. I think he 
 will come this way once too often." 
 
 He paused a moment, and then he suddenly ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 "Erica? What have I to do with her ? What 
 is she to me ? What am I to her ? No ! A thou- 
 sand times no. I shall never again care for a 
 woman, but I could not leave Erica at the mercy 
 of such a miscreant as Jerry McCord. I'll protect 
 her as if she were my own sister. I hated the idea 
 of having near neighbors until this very hour, but 
 I'm glad of it now. Women coming as well as 
 men, and it's better for her, better for me. I'll 
 sell out and run away as soon as I can after things 
 are safe." 
 
 He was evidently excited about something, and 
 his glances after the retreating horsemen followed 
 them till they disappeared under the trees. 
 
 A quick ear could have detected curious modu- 
 lations and intonations in the deep voice. There 
 was a sort of music here and there, and something 
 of exactness in pronunciation not common among 
 prairie settlers. The moment Jerry and his Paw-
 
 120 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 nees were out of sight, lie turned and walked rap- 
 idly away towards the house, with a springy, elastic 
 step which spoke well for his health and for the 
 generally good condition of his muscles. 
 
 Had his eyes heen even more piercing than they 
 seemed, they could not have told him what was 
 going on heyond the line of forest. The four men 
 who had ridden past him were halted among the 
 shadows and were discussing both him and the best 
 way of dealing with him. 
 
 The faces of the three Pawnees were all uncom- 
 monly bad, but not one among them seemed at that 
 moment to express so much evil as did that of their 
 white associate and leader. Every line and wrinkle 
 of it had deepened and every vein and corrugation 
 stood out, under the pressure of the strong wicked- 
 ness within him, in a manner which made the read- 
 ing of it as plain as print. He spoke rapidly and 
 stormily, and when he had finished there was silence 
 for a moment. Then one of the Pawnees pointed 
 back along the Trail and said, 
 
 "Ugh! know Chumley. Shoot quick, straight. 
 No touch him now. Kill him behind tree, some 
 day. "Wait. Day come, sure." 
 
 " Ugh !" went around from lip to lip of the trio, 
 with words which indicated that Chumley had 
 somehow acquired a name for skill and promptness 
 in the use of weapons. 
 
 Jerry's turn to speak again came to him.
 
 CHUMLEFS POST. 121 
 
 " You are right about it. No hurry. But we 
 will fetch Chumley yet," he said, with a freezing 
 smile. " What you and I want is horses. We can 
 wait till the new settlers are all there. No use in 
 doing anything that will put them on their guard." 
 
 " Chumley do that," said an Indian. 
 
 " Maybe not. Maybe they won't believe him in 
 a hurry. It's a good while since we've done any 
 business near here. You ride on now, and I'll 
 take a scout around. I want to see that outfit go 
 into camp." 
 
 "Ugh!" went the rounds, but other comments 
 were few and brief, and the Pawnees rode onward, 
 leaving Jerry McCord alone to take his further ob- 
 servations and develop more perfectly such plans 
 as his love of other men's horses and the divided 
 nature of his admiration for women might require. 
 He at once rode in among the trees and dismounted. 
 
 11
 
 122 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 THE RED BEAUTY. 
 
 THE gathering under the oaks by the spring was 
 entirely a family party. Even the parrot gained 
 extra crumbs, while watching the other eaters, by 
 loudly announcing himself as " Polly Munro," while 
 Bob Munro, out on the prairie, was now and then 
 compelled to transfer his bone from place to place 
 as his cows and oxen fed away from him. 
 
 It was plain that a large amount of enthusiasm 
 was kindling over the fact that their new " land" 
 was so near them. Judging from all that they had 
 seen, it must be good land, and it had been painted 
 to them as a square mile of Eden. 
 
 They were hastily finishing their meal, with an 
 avowed opinion that the horses and cattle had eaten 
 and rested sufficiently to last until the journey's 
 end should be reached, when they were startled by 
 the sound of a human voice. All it said was the 
 one word, 
 
 "How!" 
 
 "I declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Munro. "It's an 
 Indian ! Where did he come from ?" 
 
 Every head had turned instantly, as if pulled by 
 the same wire, and all saw that she was correct. Be-
 
 THE RED BEAUTY. 123 
 
 tween the front wheel and the tongue of the nearest 
 wagon, the parrot's, and much as if he had 
 just arisen from crawling under it, stood the most 
 undelightful-looking person they had ever seen. 
 Tangled gray hair streamed down around a dark 
 face of hideous ugliness, in the centre of which an 
 enormous nose projected above a wide mouth. A 
 red and black checked calico shirt was supplemented 
 by two pairs of white man's trousers, a leg from 
 each, one of army blue and one of greasy yellow. 
 Pistol and knife in belt and a rifle in his left hand, 
 with an evident assumption of vagabond dignity, 
 the stranger held out his right hand palm upward, 
 and again said " How." 
 
 Red warrior as he was, his first reply seemed so 
 nearly in his left ear that he turned his head for 
 another piercing squawk from Poll, and this was 
 followed by, 
 
 " Pawnee ! Pawnee ! Me-a-ow !" 
 
 "Devil! Ugh!" exclaimed the astonished in- 
 truder ; but Poll knew that word also very well, and 
 sent it back at him : 
 
 " Devil ! Hip ! Pawnee ! Devil ! Polly Munro, 
 hurrah !" 
 
 " No Pawnee. Potawatamy." But at that point 
 the red man recovered his equilibrium and turned 
 towards Perry Munro, who had sprung to his feet 
 instantly and was now advancing. The others also 
 arose and came, but Perry was the first to say
 
 124 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " How" and offer his hand. Uncle John did not 
 stir until he had informed himself audibly, 
 
 " It is our best policy to cultivate friendly rela- 
 tions with the savages." 
 
 At that moment Perry and the rest were obtain- 
 ing the information : 
 
 "Red Beauty great chief. No Pawnee. Pota- 
 watamy. Friend. Want eat. Want smoke. Very 
 handsome brave." 
 
 Poll turned a complete somersault on his swing, 
 as if he knew what it was that set Jessie's eyes 
 dancing when she heard that, but Perry kept his 
 face and said, 
 
 " All right. Come and have a cup of coffee and 
 a pipe. Mother, fry him a slice of bacon, please. 
 He's just the man." 
 
 "Glad he come? How know? Bad Indian. 
 Kill a heap. 'Teal a horse. 'Teal young squaw. 
 Kill devil in wagon, call him Pawnee." 
 
 " He's an original !" exclaimed Mr. Munro. 
 "John, he's a character. It almost looks as if 
 there was fun in him." 
 
 " I am always interested in types and specimens 
 of humanity," responded Uncle John, " but I never 
 before saw such a bilious-looking face." 
 
 "Devil! Hurrah!" came from the cage in the 
 wagon, but the Red Beauty gravely seated himself 
 near the fire and waited for his rasher of bacon, 
 while Perry and Mr. Munro, and even Mrs. Munro,
 
 THE RED BEAUTY. 125 
 
 after a little, plied him with questions. He an- 
 swered with a voluble use of English which told 
 of much dealing with pale-faces, hut he appeared 
 inclined to take gloomy views of the world he lived 
 in and of the people he knew. 
 
 " Is it a good country ?" asked Perry. 
 
 " Ugh ! Bad land. Grass all dry up, pretty soon. 
 Grasshopper come. Big snow." 
 
 " Is it healthy to live in ?" 
 
 " All shake. Cow die. Young squaw turn yel- 
 low. Old squaw lose teeth." 
 
 " Are there many settlers ?" asked Mrs. Munro. 
 
 " !N"o pale-face. Some come, a day. Bad w'ite 
 man. 'Teal. Lie. Go drunk. Pawnee all around 
 for 'calp. Burn house." 
 
 A smothered squeal and grunt from Jemima's 
 wagon caught his quick ears, and he was on his 
 feet in a second. Not another word did he speak 
 until he had been for a look at her and her family. 
 He returned to say, 
 
 " Ugh ! Pawnee 'teal 'em all." 
 
 " Do you know a man named Chumley ?" asked 
 Mr. Munro. 
 
 "Ugh! Know him. Yellow-heads go to him 
 now. Kill 'em all and take mule. Bad man. Red 
 Beauty there a day." 
 
 "Is he so bad as that?" asked Mrs. Munro, in 
 some dismay. 
 
 " Bad man. Run away with young squaw. Take 
 11*
 
 126 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 old squaw with him. Kill 'em both. Come back 
 and say, lost 'em." 
 
 "You are right," said Uncle John, positively. 
 " The man is a character. I don't believe all the 
 medicines in my box would cure him of lying. 
 Keep him a going, Perry. You may learn some- 
 thing." 
 
 The bacon was ready, and from the minute of its 
 offering until it was gone the Red Beauty had no 
 words to throw away, even when Polly again called 
 him a devil and a Pawnee. 
 
 Perry and his father went off to gather and water 
 and yoke the oxen, and Jessie saddled her own 
 horse and her mother's. Red Beauty took note of 
 everything that went on, but he made no comment 
 until Bob came in from guarding the cattle and 
 walked up to smell of him. 
 
 " Big dog, ugh !" he remarked. " Snow come, Mil 
 him then. Good eat Better than fat hog. Red 
 Beauty want to be there when squaw cook dog. 
 Eat a heap !" 
 
 Peals of laughter answered him, but Bob had 
 made his investigation and he now gravely held up 
 a paw. The Indian as gravely took it, but the ex- 
 pression of his face changed. 
 
 " Dog know heap," he said, gruffly. " Red 
 Beauty good Indian all time now. .Not lie any 
 more. Talk straight. Go get pony. Ride along. 
 Tell about Pawnee."
 
 THE RED BEAUTY. 127 
 
 He walked away quickly, accompanied somewhat 
 watchfully by Bob, and returned in a few moments 
 upon the blanketed but unsaddled back of a ser- 
 viceable-looking mustang. He had evidently hid- 
 den him at the western edge of the grove that he 
 might creep in undiscovered. 
 
 While he was gone for the pony it had been 
 thoughtfully remarked by Jessie, 
 
 " Mother, that's what we've read about. He came 
 in like a snake. He might have killed us all." 
 
 " Bob was away, my dear, and the rest of us are 
 not good watch-dogs, especially in the daytime." 
 
 " Anyhow, they said all the Indians were gone 
 away and the country was peaceable, and now this 
 old Indian tells us " 
 
 " Tells us lies, Jessie," said Uncle John, peering 
 into her face through the blue goggles with which 
 he had replaced his green ones. " The old fellow is 
 a character. He can He as fast as a horse can trot. 
 The agent told us there were no bad neighbors." 
 
 It was not long, now, before they were all on the 
 trail again, and for once the ox-teams had drivers 
 who seemed inclined to push them. The train had 
 just one more odd feature, for the Red Beauty 
 seemed disposed to linger in the rear and devote 
 himself to the two white squaws. He declared him- 
 self bound to tell them the truth, as he had become 
 their " friend." No doubt he made an effort, but 
 if all that he told them was true, especially about
 
 128 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 himself, Jessie's remark to him was only a faint 
 expression : 
 
 " You are the most wonderful Indian I ever met." 
 
 " Great white chief at fort gave name. Said 
 Red Beauty to him. Handsome brave. Had nine 
 squaw." 
 
 "What became of them?" asked Mrs. Munro, 
 unwisely. 
 
 " Some die. Some run away. Trade some for 
 pony. Only got two now. Buy another some day. 
 How much take for her ?" 
 
 Jessie gave her horse a sudden fillip and dashed 
 away towards the front, bowing her face to his very 
 mane in crimsoned merriment and disgust over hei 
 first direct " proposal," but Mrs. Munro replied, 
 
 " Hundred ponies, big wagon, much pig, blan- 
 
 " Ugh ! So. Cost a heap. Red Beauty want a 
 one-pony squaw." 
 
 " I guess so," said Jessie's mother, but her father 
 and brother and uncle heard the story quickly and 
 the fan of it lasted for a full mile. 
 
 The distant line of forest drew nearer, and still 
 the green undulations of the grassy plain promised 
 fertile farming land, and the groves and clumps of 
 bushes occurred more frequently. At last the wind 
 from the west brought back a great shout from 
 Perry, who had ridden ahead, and then they could 
 distinguish the words which eagerly followed it :
 
 THE RED BEAUTY. 129 
 
 " Chumley's Post ! Here we are !" 
 
 The cattle had to pull now, and the Red Beauty 
 galloped on to the landmark reached by Perry, 
 followed by Jessie and her mother. Bob was there 
 already, pawing among the old bones as if he meant 
 to discover why all the human members of his 
 family should stare so at that lonely stick of hickory. 
 
 It marked, as the Munros had been informed, the 
 corner of Mr. Chumley's land. The Pawnee Trail 
 followed the dividing line pretty nearly, and all the 
 prairie to the right, as they stood, was their own. 
 
 "I am satisfied," said Uncle John. "I knew 
 from the face of that agent that he was telling me 
 the truth." 
 
 " I must say," remarked Mrs. Munro, " that for 
 this once you may have been right. There is a 
 great load off my mind." 
 
 She had drawn a very long breath and she felt 
 better, visibly, but at that moment a voice from the 
 wagon behind her shouted, 
 
 " Pawnee ! Devil ! Polly Munro ! Hurrah ! Me- 
 a-ow ! Pawnee !" 
 
 " Off to the right, father," said Perry, excitedly. 
 " You follow with the teams and I'll gallop ahead 
 and pick out a spot to camp on." 
 
 " Wait a moment, Perry," exclaimed his mother. 
 " Somebody's coming. That must be Chumley's 
 house." 
 
 " Him come," said the Red Beauty.
 
 130 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 So it was, but he did not come on any pony. 
 Not a horse owned by the Munro family could 
 compare with the splendid thoroughbred which 
 came bounding towards them bearing a horseman 
 whose very seat in the saddle was something 
 pleasant to look at. 
 
 " He rides well," said Jessie, but her brother re- 
 plied, 
 
 " Don't I wish I owned that horse, though ! If 
 there were really any Indians around here, they'd 
 have stolen him long ago." 
 
 Perhaps, but now he brought his rider close to 
 them, and again they had a small surprise. 
 
 " Sir," said he to Perry, who was nearest, " and 
 ladies, Mr. Richard Chumley. I did not get the 
 name of my new neighbors." 
 
 He said it with so graceful a bow that the same 
 thought flashed into every mind in the circle : 
 
 " Why ! He's a gentleman !" 
 
 Even Bob understood it perfectly, being a gentle- 
 man dog himself, but Poll squawked fearfully and 
 said " devil." 
 
 Perry was hardly as polished as the new arrival, 
 but he did fairly well. 
 
 " My father, Mr. Munro. My uncle, Mr. John 
 Munro. My mother, Mr. Chumley, my sister. I 
 am Perry Munro." 
 
 A second low bow went to the ladies, but the 
 muttered words on the iron lips were not audible.
 
 THE RED BEAUTY. 
 
 They were curiously made up of, 
 
 "What a splendid girl! Magnificent mastiff! 
 Old red vagabond !" 
 
 Before his head was lifted, the mouth belonging 
 to the only pair of eyes which had read his flashing 
 glance added, 
 
 "Bad man, Chumley. Kill a heap. 'Teal a 
 horse. Eat dog." 
 
 Not a muscle of Chumley's face lost its com- 
 posure, and he spoke now to Mr. Munro. 
 
 " I'm glad you came through all right. I know 
 every inch of the land you've bought. If you will 
 let me, I'll pilot you to the best spot on it for a 
 homestead. High ground, trees, and running 
 water." 
 
 "Much obliged to you. Just the favor I was 
 wishing for," said Mr. Munro, and his wife ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 "I'm so glad! Thank you ever so much, Mr. 
 Chumley." 
 
 "Keep eye on him," growled the Red Beauty. 
 " 'Calp squaw. No pig left pretty soon. All gone 
 to Chumley kettle."
 
 132 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 
 
 AT the hour when Red Beauty came out from 
 under the wagon in the Munro camp, there were 
 two squads of United States cavalry very hard at 
 work. That is, they were travelling vigorously in 
 search of Jerry McCord and his vagabond Paw- 
 nees. Each squad was attended by scouts of high 
 reputation and by trained redskin trailers, whose 
 ability to excel any bloodhound in following human 
 game was beyond dispute. Each commanding offi- 
 cer had excellent reasons for believing himself 
 upon the right track, and yet they were more than 
 two hundred miles apart. They could not both be 
 close behind the same man, for the captain was 
 going south and the lieutenant was riding north- 
 easterly, and was the more confident of the two 
 that he was about to collar those Pawnees and lead 
 them back to the reservation to study farming. 
 
 "I'd follow them to the North Pole," said the 
 lieutenant, zealously. 
 
 " I'd search the Pawnee Trail for him from end 
 to end," remarked the captain, " if I only knew he 
 was on it.*'
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 133 
 
 Neither of those energetic public servants was to 
 be any wiser that day. They did such an amount 
 of searching, nevertheless, that they were compelled 
 to pull up and go into camp at an early hour, if 
 only to be sure of having horses under them next 
 day. 
 
 During all that time the objects of their search 
 were attending to their own affairs, in ignorance 
 that any special messenger was coming after them. 
 Their dashing leader had been to all outward seem- 
 ing a peaceful and unarmed man when he was Mr. 
 Payne and was talking with Jessie and her mother. 
 At that time one of the Pawnee quartette, away on 
 the prairie, had been carrying two rifles. Now 
 that man had but one, and Jerry himself was once 
 more a rifleman. 
 
 That region was rich in game of many kinds, 
 and it was no wonder at all that the four red men 
 who rode westward should stir a buck from his 
 covert and send him dashing away from a hasty 
 shot which did not hit him. It was an every-day 
 occurrence of any hunter's life that the same buck 
 should continue his frightened race until he came 
 out among the trees where Jerry McCord had 
 hitched his horse and stood by him taking inward 
 counsel as to his next best thing to do. 
 
 The buck stopped suddenly after the foolish 
 manner of startled deer, and Jerry's ready rifle 
 
 was at his shoulder in a twinkling. A flash, a 
 
 12
 
 ]34 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 report, a great bound, and as the buck came down 
 among the twigs and leaves, a new idea came 
 brightly into the mind of Jerry McCord. 
 
 " I can tell them a good enough story. At all 
 events I won't miss a good chance to see her again. 
 I'd like to have a talk with Erica. Jessie must 
 have seen that I am no common man, but I had to 
 keep my coat buttoned." 
 
 That was a fact only mournful because in con- 
 cealing knife and pistol a gorgeous gold chain sug- 
 gesting the elegant watch at the end of it was also 
 hidden. Personal vanity had sacrificed something 
 to prudence, but it was desirable that the beautiful 
 brunette he admired should understand him as 
 belonging to the high kind of men who wear gold 
 watches. 
 
 Jerry lifted the buck upon his horse and led him 
 away to a hiding and hitching place, nearer the 
 edge of the forest, but in a direction well away 
 from Chumley's line. After that the course of 
 events on the open prairie had an observer. 
 
 There was much going on there. The sun was 
 nearly two hours high when Chumley led the 
 Munro train away from the Pawnee Trail and 
 across their own land. He seemed to be leading 
 them in the direction of an outreaching curve of 
 the line of trees. Perry and his father were dis- 
 posed to give their entire time and industry to the 
 ox-teams, but Uncle John and Mrs. Munro and
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 135 
 
 Jessie rode ahead with their neighbor and guide. 
 At a little distance behind them rode the Red 
 Beauty, and now and then his lips opened in curi- 
 ous comments upon the existing state of affairs. 
 So did the hooked beak of Polly Munro, who 
 seemed, for some reason, to be in a state of excite 
 ment if not of wrath. 
 
 Away in advance of all the train and of its guide, 
 with increasing rapidity of trot or canter, went the 
 great mastiff. How the animal creation gets its 
 impressions has been a matter of deep study with 
 many acute men. Get them they do, and all the 
 acute men have declared themselves finally puzzled 
 as to the methods. The oxen had tugged the 
 wagons only half a mile before Perry Munro and 
 his father saw Chumley suddenly raise his hand 
 and point at something ahead of him. They could 
 not hear him say, 
 
 " There, Mrs. Munro, do you see that dog ? He 
 is waiting for you on the very spot where I believe 
 you will decide to build your house." 
 
 " How came he to select it?" exclaimed Jessie. 
 
 " It selects itself," said Chumley. " The brook 
 is just beyond that knoll, and there are trees 
 enough for shade. There's open ground between 
 that and the woods, and that's worth something." 
 
 " How so ?" asked Mrs. Munro. 
 
 " It's of less consequence now than it used to be, 
 but when I built my house I took good care there
 
 136 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 should not be anything very close to it that an 
 Indian could creep up under cover of. You'll 
 have two hundred yards of open." 
 
 " I thought you said that they were not danger- 
 ous any more," said Jessie. 
 
 " They are not. White men like Jerry McCord 
 are more dangerous than any Indians." 
 
 " Who is he ?" asked Mrs. Munro. 
 
 " A gentleman who is quite likely to call and see 
 you. You must tell me what you think of him 
 after he has done so. I would not say a word 
 about him, but you do not seem to have any horses 
 to spare. I shall kill him some day, if he and his 
 Pawnees do not kill me first." 
 
 Jessie looked wonderingly into the chilled-iron 
 calmness of his face as he said that, and all the 
 smile faded out of her own. She saw and felt that 
 he thoroughly meant what he said. He intended 
 and expected to kill Jerry McCord, whoever he 
 might be, and had no emotion whatsoever concern- 
 ing the matter. It was a new revelation to a young 
 girl from a quiet Eastern village, and it was almost 
 as much so to Mrs. Munro. 
 
 Instantly there flashed upon their memories the 
 remarks made by the dashing Mr. Payne as to the 
 history and personal character of their mysterious 
 neighbor. They had thought of them when he 
 met the train, but his kindly heartiness had put 
 them away until now.
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 137 
 
 TMs man, who spoke so calmly of a feud between 
 himself and other men, was precisely as he had been 
 represented. Mr. Payne had told the truth, and 
 Chumley was a bad man to quarrel with. Where 
 did he come from ? How did he make his money, 
 and why was his wife not living with him ? Mr. 
 Payne had said of all those important questions 
 that as for himself he did not know. 
 
 "Woof-oof-oof!" came the deep musical sum- 
 mons of the mastiff from the site for the new 
 homestead, and in a few minutes more the four 
 wagons were wheeled into place. The oxen were 
 turned loose, the horses were picketed, and then, 
 for the first time, as it seemed, the men and women 
 found voices and words to express themselves. 
 They had reached their journey's end. They were 
 about to begin a new life in a new home, and there 
 had been something silent and wonderful about it 
 all. Even the parrot was now quiet and looked 
 about him anxiously, but the cat sprang down and 
 began to investigate the surroundings. 
 
 The trees were grand old oaks and maples, and 
 from them the land sloped gently to the border of 
 the narrow, deep-running brook, full of trout, as 
 Chumley said, and there was little left for a settler 
 to ask for. 
 
 " Mother," suddenly exclaimed Jessie, " let's get 
 out the pails and milk the cows. I shall almost 
 feel at home when we've done that." 
 
 12*
 
 138 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " So shall I," said her mother. " Perry, how 
 about Jemima and her family ? There's no use in 
 keeping them in the wagon, is there ?" 
 
 "Not a bit, I declare! Just hear her squeal! 
 Come on, father." 
 
 "I'll help," said Chumley. 
 
 " So will I," said Uncle John. " That sow is a 
 character. She has peculiarities that distinguish 
 her. I am fond of the study of animals." 
 
 It was easy to pick up the little pigs and land 
 them safely on the grass, but the removal of Je- 
 mima was an undertaking. She felt that it was so, 
 and expressed herself strongly as her feet were 
 tripped from under her. Yet more eloquent was 
 she when she found herself dragged to and sliding 
 down upon an inclined plane of boards. At the 
 bottom of it she lay for half a minute and grunted 
 her doubt as to whether she were really upon the 
 earth, but a glimpse of her pigs in the grass aroused 
 her and she got up to follow them. 
 
 " They'll be a fortune to you some day," said 
 Chumley. " No transportation for pork now. Not 
 till the railways come nearer. I've done nothing 
 with it." 
 
 " Have you cattle ?" said Mr. Munro. 
 
 " I sold all but a few last winter. I had then 
 
 some idea of changing my location " he paused 
 
 and suddenly changed the subject. " I'll say one 
 thing more, Mr. Munro. Eagleson, the Swede that
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 139 
 
 lives with me, is a very good carpenter. He owns 
 the quarter-section east of mine, but isn't working 
 it now. He's a capital hand with an axe. You'd 
 better trade work with him. We'll come over and 
 help you get out your logs and put up your house. 
 Then you can help him with his, for he's about 
 ready. Hands are scarce." 
 
 " Done !" said Mr. Munro. " Glad to do it," but 
 Uncle John pointed at one of the wagons and re- 
 marked, 
 
 " Chumley, do you see that ? Something better 
 than a log house." 
 
 It was a wide wagon, whose axles were farther 
 apart than usual, fore and aft, and whose tilt was 
 loftier. 
 
 " How so ?" asked Chumley. 
 
 " There's a house in it, all ready to put up. Doors, 
 windows, roof, everything. It's a patent." 
 
 " Kind of shell," said Chumley. " I've heard of 
 'em. They're first rate till there comes a wind." 
 
 " What then ?" said Uncle John. 
 
 " What then ? Why, if it's a wind such as we 
 have here sometimes, there goes your house." 
 
 " Fifteen feet by twelve," said Uncle John, per- 
 sistently, " and a perfect house for the size of it, 
 but of course there will have to be a strong under- 
 pinning. We can put it up in one day, if we all 
 take hold." 
 
 " Something in that," said Chumley ; " but give
 
 140 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 me logs. Will you come over to my house to 
 supper ?" 
 
 That was addressed to Mrs. Munro, and she hesi- 
 tated a little before she replied, 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Chumley, but I am all in u 
 fever. We've everything to look out for. We'd 
 better put up our tents and take supper here." 
 
 " That's so, mother," said Perry. " Why, Mr. 
 Chumley, I don't want any sleep to-night. I just 
 want to unload. The lumber must be out of that 
 wagon." 
 
 Chumley bowed politely, but his iron mouth did 
 not smile. He said, 
 
 " All right. Then I'll ride home, but we'll all 
 be over in the morning." 
 
 He added a sharp, peculiar whistle, and his horse, 
 which had for some minutes been wandering around 
 loose, making acquaintance with the Munro horses 
 and with Bob, came obediently up to be mounted. 
 His rider sprang into the saddle amid a rain of ac- 
 knowledgments of his kindness and good judgment 
 iu selecting that spot for his new neighbors, but he 
 rode away without any more remarks. Hardly was 
 he out of hearing before Uncle John took off his 
 hat and said, as if addressing the entire party, 
 
 " Now, that man is a character. There is some- 
 thing about him very unusual. You can see it in 
 his face, and I'm glad we are to have him for a 
 neighbor. Just look at that cat !"
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 
 
 It was only a change of subject from one remark- 
 able person to another, for Tom had captured a 
 very young prairie-chicken and was returning to 
 camp with his game. There was enough of fresh 
 meat on that bird for his own supper, and his human 
 associates were to be provided in a most unlooked- 
 for way. 
 
 The Red Beauty had been a silent Indian from 
 the moment when the wagons halted. He had dis- 
 mounted from his pony and had fastened him to a 
 wheel, and then it was as if he had undertaken to 
 stare through the canvas tilts, one after another. 
 The wagon with the house in it was open at both 
 ends, and its contents had fascination in them. Of 
 all the loads ever brought by any train of immi- 
 grants, that was the most mysterious to the eyes of 
 the old Potawatamy. Never before had he seen a 
 patent house, packed up for transportation, and his 
 lingering around it had peculiar consequences. 
 
 Chumley disappeared beyond the rolls of the 
 prairie. Mrs. Munro was busy around her fire and 
 Jessie with her milk-pails, while even Uncle John 
 pulled Jemima's trough out of the wagon and car- 
 ried it carefully to the place where she was rooting. 
 She had not had her nose in the earth for days 
 and days, and she worked as if determined to know 
 what was hidden under all that grass. 
 
 "Father," said Perry, suddenly, "look yonder. 
 Somebody's coming."
 
 142 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "I declare! It's Payne. How did he get so 
 close in on us without heing seen by anybody ?" 
 
 The coming man had been seen, but not by any 
 member of the Munro family. For some reason or 
 other, Red Beauty had been for several minutes 
 entirely hidden behind the wagon which contained 
 the object of his curiosity. 
 
 " It is Mr. Payne," said Jessie in her turn, and 
 she had more than one echo. He carried before 
 him upon his horse the carcass of the buck which 
 had come to him to be shot. 
 
 Under cover of the trees he had watched the ar- 
 rival of the " outfit," and the departure of Chumley 
 had removed any obstacle there might be in the 
 way of his accepting the invitation given him to 
 call. 
 
 Red Beauty cowered yet more closely behind the 
 wagon as the now smiling adventurer rode in, and 
 he listened gravely to every word of the salutations 
 exchanged and the explanations given. 
 
 Payne had met a couple of his neighbors who 
 were hunting among those hills. It was his inten- 
 tion to camp with them that very night, instead of 
 pushing on homeward. They were in no need of 
 the buck he had chanced to kill, and its only chance 
 for being eaten was with and by the Munro family. 
 Nothing could exceed the frank, free-hearted neigh- 
 borly kindness with which he pressed upon them 
 the gift he had ridden back to bring.
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 143 
 
 Mrs. Munro, in accepting it with thanks, was 
 compelled to receive the bearer to an apparently 
 better acquaintance, and it looked as if Jerry 
 McCord were progressing finely. 
 
 Jessie was admiring the general appearance of 
 the buck as it lay upon the grass, and Perry was 
 talking about game with the man who brought it, 
 when a croaking voice at the elbow of the latter 
 astonished him with, 
 
 " How ! Red Beauty good friend.'* 
 
 Jessie Munro had glanced at the stranger's face 
 at that moment, and Uncle John and her brother 
 had been looking straight at him. They all saw a 
 remarkable expression shoot swiftly across it. Some- 
 thing it was of a surprised and startled whiteness, 
 and yet demon-like, that was followed by a forced 
 and very imperfect smile. 
 
 " How !" he said. " You here ?" 
 
 " Good Indian. Love Payne. Know Payne very 
 well. Good man. Give Bed Beauty a dollar." 
 
 With a laugh that rang somewhat hollow, the 
 handsome hunter pulled some pieces of silver from 
 his pocket and handed them to the queer collector, 
 who at once added, 
 
 " Chumley gone home now. Come back right 
 away. Chumley love Payne. Give him big present 
 first time see him. Chumley got two young squaw 
 now. Give one to Payne." 
 
 He pointed at Jessie as he spoke, and the expres-
 
 144 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 sion of her face did not indicate that she loved the 
 Red Beauty. 
 
 "I shall have to decline your hospitality, Mrs. 
 Munro," said Payne, turning towards his horse 
 " It won't do for me to lose myself in the woods in 
 the dark. The Red Beauty is an acquaintance of 
 mine." 
 
 " He is a character," interjected Uncle John. "I 
 am deeply interested in him." 
 
 " Good Indian," said the character. " See Chum- 
 ley when he come. Tell him Payne been here to 
 see young squaw. Think she like him." 
 
 "I hope she will," laughed Payne. "Never 
 mind his tongue, Miss Munro. Nobody can stop 
 him. I hope to see you all again some day, but 
 it's time for me to be off. Red Beauty, ride with 
 me as far as the woods. I'll give you something." 
 
 "Red Beauty good company. Want another 
 dollar. Good Indian. Never lie. Go right along." 
 
 So he did, and the two were hardly out of hear- 
 ing before Uncle John drew a long breath and 
 said, 
 
 " I am very much mistaken if Mr. Payne himself 
 is not a character. His face is remarkable." 
 
 It was just about then that the Red Beauty turned 
 on his pony to say to his companion, 
 
 " How Pawnee ? All right ?" 
 
 " All safe. You take care of your mouth when 
 you go back, if you know what's good for yourself."
 
 ON THEIR OWN LAND. 145 
 
 " Red Beauty good Indian. Know a heap. Lie 
 straight for white Pawnee. Look out Chumley. 
 Shoot quick. Bound to kill Jerry McCord." 
 
 " He may Well, I won't say anything just now. 
 You look out for yourself, that's all." 
 
 He spurred his horse to a gallop and disappeared 
 among the trees along the trail, but it was evident 
 that Chumley's declaration of intention concerning 
 him had reached the ears of the old Indian. He 
 was silent for a moment, and then remarked, as if 
 to the vanished leader of the loose Pawnees, 
 
 " Ugh ! Red Beauty know heap. Know Jerry. 
 Know Pawnee. Blue-coat come for 'em some day. 
 Jerry better keep away from Chumley. Put him 
 in a hole and cover him up. White Pawnee ! 
 Ugh!" 
 
 There was deep disgust in that last ejaculation. 
 
 13
 
 146 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A BUSY EVENING. 
 
 THERE were three entirely distinct sets of very 
 busy minds that evening within short walking 
 distance of Chumley's Post. 
 
 The first set included the entire Munro family. 
 They had venison for supper, thanks to their new 
 friend, and Red Beauty came back to get a share 
 of it. He ate remarkably for a human being of 
 his size, and he ate in dignified silence until Perry 
 Munro asked him, twice, 
 
 " What sort of a fellow is this man Payne ? You 
 seem to know him." 
 
 " Payne very good man. Pray a heap. Preach 
 some. Give Red Beauty dollar. Say young squaw 
 handsome. Say he come back 'teal her some day. 
 Say boy green. Know more when learn some- 
 thing." 
 
 The laugh was a little against Perry this time, 
 but he persisted : 
 
 " Where did you meet him before ?" 
 
 " Boy ask too many question. Red Beauty not 
 know so much as that. Good old Indian. Great 
 chief. No tell lie. Sure lie if talk."
 
 A BUSY EVENING. 147 
 
 u I guess he's right there," said Mrs. Munro. " I 
 don't believe we've heard him speak the truth yet." 
 
 "Just so," said Uncle John. "I don't believe 
 he can. He is a character, and I'm interested in 
 him." 
 
 They gave up questioning the old Indian, but the 
 supper was finished rapidly. One " army tent" was 
 already up, and another quickly followed. The 
 moment the last peg was driven, Uncle John 
 came back from Poll's wagon shouting, 
 
 " Hold on a moment." 
 
 " What is it?" asked Perry. 
 
 " Here ! Before you do anything else. The first 
 thing to be done on settling in a new country like 
 this is to take a dose of quinine. Five pills of two 
 grains each will do. Say ten grains, or twelve. 
 You'd better take blue pill with it, and a table- 
 spoonful of McQuinzy's Blood Restorer and " 
 
 "Not a pill for me," said Perry, with energy. 
 " You may eat them all." 
 
 "I do not need them," said Uncle John. "I 
 have been doctoring myself faithfully all the way. 
 You'll all be sorry if you do not take precautions." 
 
 "Red Beauty take 'em. Drink anything got. 
 Good Indian." 
 
 He was the only mortal in that camp with whom 
 Uncle John succeeded, and even he held back until 
 the precise dose he wanted was measured out. 
 
 The eager " doctor" remarked, as he did so,
 
 148 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " I am a temperance man, and it's against the law 
 to give whiskey to Indians ; but in a case like this 
 and as a medical prescription " 
 
 He stopped there, and neither he nor anybody 
 else knew precisely what went down the old Pota- 
 watamy's hardened throat with that glass of liquor. 
 The rest of the party paused a moment to see it 
 done, and Perry remarked, 
 
 " Jessie, I think that knoll yonder by the brook 
 would be a good place." 
 
 "For the house? Oh, no! Right in there 
 among the trees " 
 
 " No, not for the house. I mean a place to bury 
 the old Indian. Uncle John's got him." 
 
 So it seemed, but there was a mistake somewhere. 
 Uncle John had seen the Red Beauty swallow, with 
 sincerity and simplicity, and yet, not many minutes 
 later, the dosed savage was holding out to Bob a 
 hand with many pills on its palm. 
 
 " Take 'em. No kill dog. Make him feel good." 
 
 The mastiff held out his great paw in a way that 
 scattered the pills in the grass, but turned away his 
 head as he did so. 
 
 "Dog know. Red Beauty safe, anyhow. Got 
 whiskey." 
 
 The liquid medicines he had actually swallowed, 
 whatever they might be, but he had escaped the 
 quinine and mercury and iron and the like with 
 the sleight of hand of a conjurer.
 
 A BUSY EVENING. 149 
 
 Two hours of toiling at the wagons followed, 
 and the grass was strewn with lumber and other 
 matters, but Mrs. Munro declared that it was time 
 to get some sleep. It was settled that Perry should 
 sit up and watch for the first half of the night, 
 although Bob's presence seemed to render it need- 
 less, and the rest were soon under cover of the 
 tents. The Red Beauty curled up on his blanket 
 at some distance from the camp-fire, where Perry, 
 with a rifle across his lap, sat still and dreamed 
 waking dreams of the future before him in that 
 part of the " Far "West" land of American promise. 
 Before doing so he had made a careful round of the 
 camp and the cattle, and he meant to make another 
 in due season, but his dreams got the better of 
 him. He saw, as he went on among them, a 
 stately mansion arise among those trees, with a 
 stone bridge over the brook and a telescope 
 mounted on the roof, and the entire section under 
 cultivation, and a herd of prize cattle, and a new 
 town only a few miles away. He was just begin- 
 ning to think of the speeches he would make 
 when the time should come for him to run as a 
 candidate for Congress, when he was called back 
 to the present time and the bare prairie by a warn- 
 ing growl from his faithful Bob. He sprang to his 
 feet, rifle in hand, but Bob was away in the dark 
 there somewhere, calling for him with yet another 
 growl. 
 
 13*
 
 150 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Something's up !" lie exclaimed, as lie hurried 
 forward, and so it was. 
 
 The Eed Beauty was up and was standing still, 
 ahout ten feet from his own pony, with Bob posted 
 between the two, as if he did not propose to let that 
 redskin leave the camp unceremoniously. 
 
 " What's the matter ?" asked Perry. 
 
 " Woof-oof-oof," said Bob. 
 
 "Want pony," said the Red Beauty. "Dog 
 devil. Say no ! Ugh !" 
 
 " Take your pony, if you're going," said Perry. 
 " Be still, Bob. What's your hurry ?" 
 
 " Medicine feel bad. Good Indian, Red Beauty. 
 No take any more. Boy keep dog ?" 
 
 "He won't hurt you, now I'm here. Shake 
 hands. Friend ?" 
 
 " Good friend," said the old vagabond, offering 
 his hand. " Boy hold tongue if know something ? 
 Shut mouth ?" 
 
 " Never say a word," said Perry. 
 
 "When Payne come again, boy say to him 
 'Payne!' When boy think of him, think 'Jerry 
 McCord 'teal horse.' He shoot Red Beauty for say 
 that. Bad man, White Pawnee. Take 'calp." 
 
 There was an intensity of meaning in the old 
 Indian's face that almost convinced Perry he was 
 telling the truth. At all events he saw no reason 
 why his red visitor should not mount his own pony 
 and ride away. Bob felt differently about it. Red
 
 A BUSY EVENING. 151 
 
 Beauty was wrapped in his blanket, and evidently 
 meant to ride barebacked, without strapping it in 
 its usual place as a saddle. Bob was yet closer to 
 him as he now stepped forward, and made a sudden 
 rush, just as the great and good and truthful Pota- 
 watamy lifted the hand that held his rifle and took 
 in the other the bridle, ready to mount. 
 
 Red Beauty was instantly on the back of his 
 pony, but Bob held in his mouth the folded ends 
 of a blanket which had travelled for many days 
 with the Munro wagons. 
 
 " Ugh ! Where dog get blanket ?" 
 
 " Never mind," said Perry. " I rather expected 
 you'd try to steal something. Come again, any 
 time. Bob and Pll watch you." 
 
 " Good Indian," replied Red Beauty. " Dog 
 'teal blanket. Tell Medicine John for old chief, 
 he come again. Eat pill. Whiskey make him 
 sick." 
 
 The pony bore him away into the darkness, and 
 Perry Munro felt that all the blankets in camp 
 were safer. At all events there came no further 
 disturbance until about sunrise the next morning. 
 
 All the minds there were less busy than they 
 had been, but none of them guessed what had been 
 working in that of the man to whom they were 
 indebted for their venison supper. 
 
 Before parting from Red Beauty, Jerry McCord 
 had heard whatever that worthy chose to tell him
 
 152 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 of the Munro family and of their visit from Chum- 
 ley. Much of it was reasonably near the truth, 
 and the " "White Pawnee" was plainly unaware of 
 the old Potawatamy's real feeling towards himself 
 and his associates. He was keenly aware, however, 
 that a great and very sudden change had come over 
 his own feelings in one important particular. 
 
 It is said that if a wolf is following one sheep 
 and comes across the fresher trail of another, he 
 will leave the first and follow the second. Up to 
 the hour when Jerry joined the Munro train that 
 day, he had believed himself madly in love with 
 Erica Eagleson, and he now declared that such was 
 still the case, and that he meant to risk all sorts 
 of things for a chance to tell her so once more. 
 
 Now, however, and in spite of all his romantic 
 passion for the singer who had charmed him in the 
 forest, he suddenly drew his rein and halted on the 
 Pawnee Trail to exclaim, 
 
 " Jessie Munro ? She is the most lovely being I 
 ever saw ! What glorious dark hair ! What mag- 
 nificent black eyes ! If that old Potawatamy tells 
 them any nonsense about me, I'll shoot the top of 
 his head off." 
 
 His dark face was flushed and his eyes were 
 dancing with fierce, vindictive flashes. He hurled 
 hard words at Chumley and at all the world whose 
 self-protecting ways interfered between him and 
 the utter freedom of his miserable will. There
 
 A BUSY EVENING. 153 
 
 was no doubt but what, as Red Beauty might have 
 expressed it, he was ready to " 'teal" either or both 
 of those remarkable young white squaws and run 
 away with them. It was a case of " character" 
 study for Uncle John, or rather it was a case of 
 fickle selfishness every way worthy of a " White 
 Pawnee." 
 
 It was too late for any more courting of any 
 sort to be done that evening, and Jerry rode on 
 westward, full of thought. 
 
 Chumley himself rode homeward from the Munro 
 camp with an uncommonly busy mind. The horse 
 under him was compelled to travel slowly, in spite 
 of repeated lashings out and efforts at a dash for- 
 ward. His rider curbed him with a strength and 
 skill which had not been unnoticed by the new 
 acquaintances he had just parted from. His face 
 wore several times an expression of even savage 
 determination. 
 
 "Kill him!" he said between his set teeth. 
 " "Well, he must keep away from Erica. Am I in 
 love with her? No, but he shall not have her. 
 With me ? No, I'm not conceited enough for that. 
 I hated all women, and yet here they are, here I 
 am. I cannot help myself, but what a remarkable 
 resemblance it is. The same hair, eyes, features, 
 alike in all but the expression. Ah, my lady, she's 
 as beautiful as ever you were, and I don't believe 
 she's as hollow-hearted. She's as fresh as a rose,
 
 154 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 and she was never spoiled by society, confound it 
 Look here, my boy, what's got into you ?" 
 
 The last inquiring remark of Chumley was ad- 
 dressed to his own inner man, but his horse seemed 
 to believe himself spoken to. He threw up his 
 heels with a sharp whinny, and his forward bound 
 was unchecked. Very few minutes of that rate of 
 speed were required to "bring the rider to the gate 
 of the enclosure which contained his house. The 
 gate was shut, but there was no waiting for some- 
 hody to open it. Chumley's thoroughbred went 
 over it without touching, and the feat was so well 
 performed as to draw forth exclamations of admira- 
 tion from three pairs of lips. It was worthy of 
 note that the comments of Gustav Eagleson and his 
 wife, though made with fair correctness, were 
 marked with a strong accent, while the few words 
 uttered by Erica were good, crisp English. Four 
 years, even in that sort of frontier schooling, had 
 done wonders for her. 
 
 If Chumley had been to any extent her instructor 
 or not, she seemed to stand in some awe of him. 
 She at once went back into the house and busied 
 herself around a neat and well-set supper-table, 
 carrying with her a peculiar air of trying not to 
 sing and of doing many things mainly as a means 
 of suppressing the exuberant music in her. 
 
 Chumley dismounted in front of the house, and 
 his horse, like a dog, followed him around the cor-
 
 A BUSY EVENING. 155 
 
 ner of it to the right. A one-story structure of ex- 
 cellent log-work was that house, and it occupied 
 three sides of a hollow square. In the middle front 
 was the large room where Erica was smiling around 
 the supper-table. To the left of this were two bed- 
 rooms, and back of them was a kitchen. To the 
 right of it was another bedroom, and back of this 
 the side of the square was lengthened unduly, for 
 there were the stables of Chumley's horses. 
 
 They could all be locked up at night, and were 
 under his own roof as important members of his 
 family. A pair of setters and four very fine stag- 
 hounds made up the list of members and added 
 materially to the security of the other live-stock. 
 Supper was ready by the time the master of the 
 house came back from the stables, and he ate it 
 with an excellent appetite, but all his efforts at cheer- 
 fulness and all the vivid description he gave of the 
 Munro family failed to conceal the fact that he had 
 something on his mind. The deep interest taken 
 by the rest in their new neighbors did it for him, 
 and Erica's assent to an early call on Jessie was 
 eagerly given. 
 
 " I hope she will be company for you," said Chum- 
 ley, " and I think you will like her mother." 
 
 " We shall like them very much," said Mrs. Ea- 
 gleson, but Chumley had finished his supper and 
 he at once disappeared through the door at the right. 
 This, then, was his own room, and it had another
 
 156 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 door on the stable side. Beyond a doubt it was the 
 only room of its exact kind in all that region of 
 country. Not more than twelve feet square, it was 
 a bedroom, an arsenal, a library, a kind of fort, 
 while the fiddle and the French horn hanging on 
 the wall testified that it might also be a music-room. 
 Rifles, fowling-pieces, pistols, hunting-knives, fish- 
 ing-rods and tackle, testified to Chumley's sporting 
 proclivities, and the small but well-stocked book 
 case intimated that he could and did read. Erica 
 may also have had the benefit of those books. 
 There was one window, with a heavy outer shutter 
 and one as heavy inside, and all the other rooms 
 of that house were similarly well guarded. It was 
 as if the country had been unsafe at some time, or 
 that Chumley had enemies and meant to be ready 
 for them if they should come to see him. 
 
 He was not thinking of them now, but entered 
 the room with a moody, abstracted air, as if his 
 mind were busy with persons and things at a dis- 
 tance. His hard mouth seemed to grow yet harder, 
 and his chest heaved and fell with strong breathings. 
 He stood still in the centre of the floor, staring out 
 of the window for a moment, and then said to him- 
 self, hoarsely, 
 
 "A man a fool. A woman a hollow-hearted 
 cheat. A ruined life ? Is it so ? Here I am, and 
 as I am instead of what I might have been. Here 
 I must not stay, though, unless about long enough
 
 WOLVES IN THEIR DEN. 357 
 
 to kill Jerry McCord and some of his Pawnees and 
 make the place safe to live in. It isn't easy for me 
 to look into that girl's face, but I must go over 
 there again in the morning." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WOLVES IN THEIR DEN. 
 
 THE lieutenant commanding the squad of cavalry 
 two hundred miles away northward went to sleep 
 saying, 
 
 " They're up hereaway somewhere." 
 
 The captain, only a day's march from the Pawnee 
 Trail, at the same hour remarked to his orderly 
 sergeant, 
 
 " We must go slow to-morrow or we shall go by 
 them somewhere." 
 
 The evening's occurrences at the Pawnee outlaw 
 camp among the hills began early. Two more In- 
 dians rode in, and there were indications that these 
 were not Pawnees, but renegades from some other 
 tribe. At all events they were of the kind of In- 
 dians who cannot long be kept upon any " reserva- 
 tion" after the regular government annuities and 
 presents have been distributed. 
 
 14
 
 158 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 This pair of dusky vagabonds had a dangerous 
 cargo strapped upon the back of a pony they were 
 leading. The pony was one that his owner had 
 missed three days before, and the pair of five-gal- 
 lon kegs he carried had been filled in some manner 
 unknown to the trader claiming the evil " barrel." 
 
 Ten gallons or so of " blue ruin," infernalism, 
 crime. The liquid form in which the Enemy of 
 men commonly appears nowadays, and it was very 
 much as if he had come to his own when that 
 whiskey was carried into Jerry McCord's camp. 
 
 It is not well to even try and imagine the wooden 
 stupidities and other wretchednesses of a savage 
 orgy, but this one had a peculiarity of its own. 
 The stolen poison was dealt out with jealous fair- 
 ness and regularity, without quarrelling, and only 
 a mere trifle was given to any squaw. It was ap- 
 parent that all those born and bred rascals were 
 under a strong law and discipline of their own, 
 and were trying to observe it rigidly. 
 
 There was one inevitable result, and that was 
 the helplessness of the entire party before midnight. 
 It was another consequence, just as inevitable, that 
 any lurking, cowardly mischief in any evil bosom 
 among them would either be laid asleep or aroused 
 to insane activity. All but one went to sleep. 
 Even the tall warrior whose turn it was to " stand 
 guard" sat down for that purpose at the foot of a 
 tree, and fell against it shortly. His slumbers were
 
 WOLVES IN THEIR DEN. 159 
 
 as deep as those of any other victim of strong drink 
 in that camp. There was but one brain among 
 them all which had not been overcome, and even 
 this one had lost all but a single, overwhelming, 
 inherited passion and faculty. That is, there was 
 one Pawnee whose inborn thirst for killing had 
 not been drowned by the fire-water. This human 
 wolf half-way awakened, with a dreamy determina- 
 tion to murder somebody, but without any definite 
 hate or purpose against one more than another of 
 his fellow-outlaws. 
 
 By the light of the smouldering fires he saw the 
 drunken sentry slumbering against the tree. In 
 an instant the wild beast within him had found an 
 object, and he was crawling through the grass in 
 the direction of the shadows behind that tree. Not 
 another pair of eyes in camp was open when his 
 dark, demoniac visage gleamed close to the earth 
 at the side of the tree-trunk. Something was lifted 
 that glittered as it rose. A dull, faint thud told of 
 a knife driven to the very hilt. There, was a arasp- 
 
 / O -t 
 
 ing gurgle as the blade was withdrawn, but the 
 dead sentry whose heart had been cloven never 
 altered his position between the roots and against 
 the trunk. The human wolf was satisfied, and 
 crawled away without leaving a trace behind him, 
 although it was quite likely that in the morning he 
 might remember what he had done. All he said 
 now was,
 
 160 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "Ugh! One more. N"o take 'calp this time. 
 Bull- Joe great chief." 
 
 Even vanity had something to do with his thirst 
 for blood. 
 
 Jerry McCord must have loitered on the way, for 
 it was an hour later before he entered the little 
 valley. Dogs barked as he drew near, but no human 
 being came to see who he might be or on what er- 
 rand. He was surprised only until he had examined 
 one prostrate form and exclaimed, 
 
 " Where did they get it, I wonder ?" 
 
 He turned his horse loose and made the rounds 
 of the camp until he knew the full extent of the 
 matter, and the last drunkard he took note of was 
 the sentry at the tree. He had seen him before, 
 indeed, for all around him had gathered nearly a 
 dozen of such mongrel curs as infest such a com- 
 munity. They were watching him as if puzzled, 
 or as if some remnant of their own original wolf- 
 ishness had been stirred by such a presence. 
 
 Jerry McCord leaned forward and laid his hand 
 upon the shoulder of the seemingly sleeping Indian, 
 but he instantly withdrew it. 
 
 " Dead ? Murdered ? There has been a fight !" 
 
 Loud, shrill, angry, piercing, was the Pawnee 
 war-whoop with which he startled that camp. No 
 Indian among them could have done it better, and 
 every soul with life enough left to hear sprang up or 
 staggered up at once. That meant all the squaws
 
 WOLVES IN THEIR DEN. 
 
 and four or five sodden, listless warriors, among 
 whom was not the one who had slain the sentry. 
 They came to stand around among the dogs and 
 listen vaguely to Jerry's storm of wrathful question- 
 ing, and to grunt their own stupid and ignorant 
 astonishment. Not one of them could tell how the 
 thing had happened. Even the sober squaws de- 
 clared it a mystery, but they sat up afterwards while 
 the "braves" went off to sleep again, the latter 
 muttering threats against somebody or other in the 
 morning. 
 
 Jerry himself did not even sit down. He strode 
 slowly back and forth among the shadows and the 
 dull, dying fire-glows, as if he had something upon 
 his mind. 
 
 All around him were the last and worst results 
 of selfish savagery, even to the corpse at the tree. 
 He was among them and of them, and he was a 
 white man. Young, strong, handsome, intelligent, 
 capable, a white Pawnee and a horse-thief. It 
 would have been wonderful if there had not come 
 to him at least one flashing imagination of two fair, 
 innocent girl faces, looking at him scornfully, as at 
 something unutterably beneath them. 
 
 Just a glimpse, perhaps, but it burnt him, and he 
 clinched his hands desperately. 
 
 "I'll take Jessie Munro," he said, "and I'll get 
 out of this. I've had enough of it. I'd better put 
 
 one of the bucks on the trail of that old Pota- 
 l 14*
 
 162 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 watamy before his tongue does any harm. Chum- 
 ley's time has come if he interferes. No more 
 nonsense. Erica? I love her as much as ever. 
 She is a beauty, but she'd not be so good a match 
 as the Yankee girl. Nobody can prove anything 
 against me. I'll get rid of all I've got out yonder, 
 and that '11 give me enough for a start. Then I'll 
 take Jessie and turn farmer. I'd like it, though, 
 if these fellows would all kill each other and make 
 an end of the gang. They've begun well." 
 
 The first faint light of dawn was climbing the 
 easterly tree-tops when Jerry McCord's disgust 
 with his associates came to help settle his determi- 
 nation. He confessed to himself that he had been 
 often in love before, but never so tremendously as 
 now. He also declared, in several other forms, that 
 he was sick of his vagabond life and was quite 
 sure of being able to hide its record, provided 
 Chumley could be killed before he could come be- 
 tween him and the good opinion of the Munro 
 family. He would only stay in that camp long 
 enough to get breakfast, and he would then set out 
 upon the prosecution of his new plans, courtship 
 included. Strange to say, he actually considered all 
 this as some sort of reformation. It was a little 
 mixed with proposed deceit, lying, cheating, and 
 murder, but he did not look into that part of his 
 improved state of mind too closely. 
 
 At about the same hour of the morning Bob
 
 WOLVES IN THEIR DEN. 163 
 
 Munro came and poked Ms great, kindly, lion-like 
 head into the tent where Perry was lying, and a 
 glance told him that his master was waking up. 
 Mr. Munro lay sleeping soundly under the same 
 canvas, but Bob's errand was not to him. He 
 came to see if he could find some method of tell- 
 ing Perry that Jessie was already out of her tent, 
 studying the situation, and that Uncle John, whose 
 turn it was to play watchman, was acting that 
 character with his eyes shut and his mouth open. 
 
 Perry could not understand the whine, but he 
 was eager to be up and doing. He felt as if there 
 was a new farm to be opened and a house to be 
 built that very day. He did not disturb his father, 
 but in half a minute he was out of the tent and far 
 enough from it to see Jessie beckoning to him. 
 
 " Perry," she said, as he drew nearer, " do come 
 and look at Uncle John." 
 
 That was not precisely what she meant. Uncle 
 John was there, sure enough, on a blanket spread 
 not far from the ashes of the fire, but he was not 
 alone. There would have been nothing worth com- 
 ing to see if he had been alone. Just beyond him, 
 and so near that one of her hoofs all but touched 
 him, lay a cow. At his feet had settled Jemima, with 
 her children around her. The cat lay, purring, close 
 against the arm he had thrown out. Take it alto- 
 gether, they made a picture of mutual confidence 
 and esteem, but Perry sarcastically remarked,
 
 164 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " There's no danger in him now. All his pills 
 are in his box." 
 
 Jemima may have heard, but certainly she saw, 
 and her loud good-morning grunt disturbed both 
 the cow and Uncle John. They awoke at the 
 same instant, and his first movement swept away 
 the cat. 
 
 " I declare ! I must have fallen into a doze. 
 Perry ? Jessie ? Do you see this ? There is some- 
 thing remarkable in the instinctive fondness of 
 domestic animals for the human race." 
 
 " Just so," said Perry. " If Pawnees had come 
 they could hardly have gotten at you without step- 
 ping on one of them. Bob was awake, too. He's 
 worth all the rest of us for a sentinel." 
 
 Then Jessie heard for the first time the story of 
 Red Beauty and the blanket, and she and Perry 
 set themselves at work to get as much camp-keep- 
 ing done as might be before their father and 
 mother should open their eyes. The fire was well 
 agoing before the sun looked in above the rim of 
 the prairie. 
 
 Before that time there had been a great disturb- 
 ance among Mr. Chumley's dogs. All six of them 
 began to bark or bay at the same moment, as if 
 some kind of canine alarm-clock had been sprung 
 in each dog's throat. 
 
 There was a rustling inside of the house, and 
 then a sort of bung was removed from a hole in
 
 WOLVES IN THEIR DEN. 165 
 
 the front door. A rifle could have been shoved 
 through that hole, but all that came out of it now 
 was a deep voice inquiring, 
 
 " Well ? What are you here for now ? Is any- 
 thing up ?" 
 
 " Chumley want UP. Red Beauty good Indian. 
 Hate Pawnee." 
 
 That word seemed to be enough. The gray- 
 headed old wanderer sat on his pony by the gate, 
 in patient silence, until Chumley came out to ask 
 him the fall meaning of so early a call. Of course 
 it meant breakfast, but any one familiar with In- 
 dian ways could tell that it meant more. 
 
 " He can't speak the truth to save his life," said 
 Chumley to himself, " but I may learn something." 
 
 That was just before he put out his hand and 
 said, 
 
 "How! Get down. I'll give you and your 
 pony a feed. What about the Pawnees ?" 
 
 " Jerry McCord kill Red Beauty if he know." 
 
 " He'll never know. Trust me." 
 
 "Know Chumley. Lie a heap. Good friend, 
 all same. Jerry McCord say he kill Chumley 
 pretty soon. 'Teal squaw, too." 
 
 He made a pointing motion in the direction of 
 the Munro camp as he spoke, and Chumley's eyes 
 flashed fire as he sharply asked, 
 
 " Has he been there already? Did you see him?" 
 
 " Chumley go there. Ask who bring deer. Tell
 
 166 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 him * Payne.' Red Beauty know Payne. Chumley 
 know him. All bad. Pawnee come pretty soon. 
 Take horse. Take 'calp. Take squaw. Jerry 
 McCord big devil. Mean to kill Eed Beauty. 
 Keep his mouth shut." 
 
 The keen eyes of the old Potawatamy had read 
 the outlaw's face as if it had been a book, and his 
 present errand had in it more than a little of the 
 cunning of self-preservation. 
 
 " That's it, is it ?" said Chumley. " Well. We'll 
 have some breakfast and then we'll go over. Did 
 you tell the Munros ?" 
 
 " 'Poke to boy. Old man fool. Other old man 
 too much medicine. Boy young brave. Red Beauty 
 keep away. Jerry come shoot him. No fool to 
 get kill." 
 
 " That '11 do," said Chumley. " I'll see about 
 Jerry's business. It's time somebody put daylight 
 into him. All I want is a good reason to give a 
 jury." 
 
 The Indian understood him, for he responded, 
 without moving a muscle of his face, 
 
 " Tree no tell. Stand all round and say nothing. 
 Big tree keep mouth shut. Bush cover hole. Put 
 Jerry in. Stay there. Nobody ask where gone, 
 so he no come back." 
 
 " Just so," said Chumley. " You can come in. 
 I'll attend to my stock while they're getting break- 
 fast ready."
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 167 
 
 The voices in the house announced that all were 
 stirring, and Gustav was quickly out attending to 
 his share of what country people call " chores." 
 There were indications that some of the stock was 
 his own, and that he was not so entirely employed 
 by Chumley that he was not preparing to occupy 
 and use his own land in due season. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 
 
 JERRY McCoRD's Pawnees awoke slowly that 
 summer morning, thief after thief being stirred up 
 roughly to find that the alcoholic cloud was yet 
 pressing upon such brains as he might have. All 
 the poison which had not been consumed the 
 previous evening was now securely hidden, and 
 coffee had to be taken instead. There were plain 
 reasons for a belief that the surrounding country 
 was safe from any mischievous activity of that gang 
 for at least a day or so. One after another they each 
 went and took a long look at the dead sentry. 
 Every "brave" said "Ugh !" in his regular turn, but 
 nothing more until the murderer himself finished 
 a stupid stare and then asked of Jerry McCord, 
 
 " Kill him 'cause he go drunk and sleep hard ?"
 
 168 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Ugh !" " Ugh !" " Ugh !" again went the 
 rounds of the dusky circle, but a moment's medi- 
 tation put away the idea as untenable. Jerry was 
 not that kind of disciplinarian, and the murdered 
 man had been one of his warmest supporters always. 
 
 They were all detectives as well as thieves, but 
 that case was too much for them. The deed had 
 been so utterly without apparent motive that there 
 were no traces leading up to it, and the actual doer 
 of it was safe behind the wooden stolidity of his 
 own unwitnessing features. 
 
 All that could be done by Jerry was to leave or- 
 ders for a burial, eat his own breakfast, and ride 
 away, with his disgust for vagabond red men made 
 stronger than ever by a thought which came to him : 
 
 " That suspicion may take root. If it does, I 
 shall be found dead at the foot of some tree or other 
 and no man will know how. It's about time for 
 me to get married and settle down. They'd murder 
 me for a pipe of tobacco." 
 
 If he had added " or for nothing," he would have 
 expressed the truth exactly, and their camp was not 
 the only place where his life was likely to be an 
 insecure possession. 
 
 During all that time the sun had not paused for 
 a moment, and the morning had grown busy at 
 other places. " Chores" and breakfast were over at 
 Chumley's, and preparations were making to spend 
 the day with the Munro family.
 
 " HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 169 
 
 The Red Beauty made no preparations. He filled 
 his pipe for the second time with the tobacco given 
 him, and sat down on the doorstep as if he knew 
 no happier place on earth. 
 
 " Come," said Chumley. " Get pony." 
 
 "No. Ugh! Red Beauty stay here. No see 
 medicine man any more. Give him too much pill." 
 
 He was but dimly understood, but Chumley 's 
 thoughts recurred correctly to Uncle John. He 
 responded, 
 
 " What can you do here ?" 
 
 " 'Teal Chumley horse. Kill dog. Burn house. 
 Milk cow. Keep eye open nobody come. Red 
 Beauty not want Jerry McCord find him. Jerry 
 keep away from Chumley house. Good Indian all 
 safe. Not go to pill man." 
 
 " Stay, then," said Chumley. " You won't do 
 any mischief. Watch the ranch. Look out for 
 Pawnees." 
 
 " Chumley heap fool." 
 
 " What for ?" 
 
 " Not shoot Jerry. Not shoot Pawnee." 
 
 " Don't want to be hung," said Chumley. 
 
 "No hang. Say Indian do it. All white man 
 say 'good.' No hang good Indian just for little 
 kill and 'calp." 
 
 " Something in that," said Chumley, " or you'd 
 have been hung long ago." 
 
 " Ugh ! Red Beauty no fool. Try shoot first 
 H 15
 
 170 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 every time. Chumley wait. Stand 'till. Jerry 
 shoot first. Send Pawnee for Chumley 'ealp 
 maybe." 
 
 Chumley's mouth gave signs that the counsel 
 was by no means lost upon him. He left his re- 
 markable garrison in full charge of the premises. 
 He also left a setter and a stag-hound in charge of 
 the red garrison, and took but four dogs with him 
 to visit Bob Munro. 
 
 Bob had no idea that he had company coming, 
 but his human fellow-immigrants were very much 
 exercised about the help they were to have in put- 
 ting up their patent house. In the excitement of 
 the previous evening not a great deal had been said 
 about their neighbors, but now that they expected 
 to see them soon it was different. 
 
 " Mother," said Jessie, " what do you think of 
 Mr. Chumley?" 
 
 " He was a great surprise to me, after what we 
 had heard." 
 
 " He was to me. He seemed to wish to be polite 
 and neighborly." 
 
 "Jessie," said Mrs. Munro, emphatically, "I 
 don't know what to say. He is a very young man. 
 Too young to have been married and separated 
 without something dreadful. I'm in doubt how to 
 treat him." 
 
 ""We do not know one thing. Mr. Payne said 
 he didn't and nobody else did."
 
 "HOLD UP FOUR HANDS." 171 
 
 " Neither do we, my dear, but we can watch our 
 conduct carefully. I suppose the Swedish family 
 work for him. Immigrants of the ordinary, coarse 
 kind." 
 
 " Erica is a pretty enough name." 
 
 At that moment Perry came to take a part in that 
 conversation, and his first question was, 
 
 " Jessie, what's your idea about Payne ?" 
 
 "He's a handsome fellow, but I don't like his 
 face. Mother doesn't." 
 
 " She needn't, then, nor you either. I mean to 
 ask Chumley about him. I believe he's a rascal." 
 
 " Not Mr. Chumley !" 
 
 " No, indeed. There's a good ring in that man's 
 voice. Guess he'll be a good neighbor. Wouldn't 
 like to quarrel with him, though." 
 
 Jessie paused a moment, for an idea of something 
 hard, obstinate, overbearing, relentless, came into 
 her mind as she thought of Chumley. It was not 
 an attractive idea, but it was not weak or mean or 
 false, and she said to her brother, 
 
 " Ask him about Payne, then. Pd believe 
 him." 
 
 Perry remembered his promise to the Red 
 Beauty just in time to not reveal the source of his 
 own evil impressions, and turned away to the spot 
 where Mrs. Munro was now telling her husband 
 and his brother precisely how and where the house 
 was to stand.
 
 172 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Even Uncle John had worked tremendously 
 that morning. There was one door of the house, 
 for instance, which he had turned over ten times in 
 an effort to ascertain its inner character, as belong- 
 ing to the front or rear, and had finally concluded 
 that it would work better as a side door. It was a 
 comfort to him that the window-sashes were all 
 alike, and his mind grew more and more easy until 
 an idea flashed upon him. It came too suddenly 
 to be suppressed or adjusted, and it sprang from 
 his lips in the very unlucky form : 
 
 " Maria ! We brought no cellar !" 
 
 Perry heard him and shouted, 
 
 " Hurrah for Uncle John ! I'll ask Chumley if 
 he hasn't got an old cellar he can lend us." 
 
 " Mistakes of expression will at times arise un- 
 avoidably," said Uncle John. "What I mean is 
 that we have no time to dig one under this house. 
 Excavation ' ' 
 
 " Chumley says logs are the thing, and I believe 
 him," said Perry. " We'll have a cellar under the 
 log part of our palace. Look out yonder ! They're 
 coming. What a lot of dogs ! The women have 
 come, too. Now there'll be a time !" 
 
 It was a day for enthusiasm. Something of the 
 sort showed itself in the way in which the hounds 
 and the setter came racing forward to investigate 
 the Munro train, and in the depth and vigor of 
 Bob's sonorous welcome. It was a grand thing to
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 173 
 
 have neighbors; and he was answered by throats 
 as deep as his own and even more musical. 
 
 " Splendid fellows !" exclaimed Perry. " Jessie, 
 I like Chumley better than I did, now I've seen 
 his dogs. There isn't a cur among them." 
 
 Bob and his neighbors were upon good terms at 
 once, and he seemed disposed to show them all 
 there was of the Munro outfit. Then he led them 
 down to the brook, and every dog of them took a 
 drink and seemed to approve the quality of the 
 water. Not one of them was so lacking in good 
 sense as to have preferred a beverage fit only for 
 horse-thieves and vagabond Pawnees. 
 
 Mrs. Munro's fine black eyes saw a great deal at 
 any time, and she took especial note of the perfect 
 skill with which Chumley performed all the pro- 
 cesses required to make his Swedish friends at 
 home with their new acquaintances. It was kindly 
 well done, and so finished that Jessie found herself 
 in charge of Erica without an effort on her part 
 that she was aware of. At the same moment it 
 was manifest that the Munros were an astonished 
 family all around. Jessie's mother, for instance, 
 was inwardly exclaiming, 
 
 " Swedish immigrants ? Why, Mrs. Eagleson 
 is a noble-looking woman, and her daughter is 
 beautiful !" 
 
 Perry's eyes betrayed his opinion for him, but 
 
 did not fail to note that the iron melted away a 
 
 16*
 
 174 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 little from Chumley's mouth when he saw how his 
 friends were received. 
 
 Jessie led Erica away upon a sort of tour of 
 inspection, and for all the rest of them there lay 
 the house. It was all numbered, ready for use, 
 except the side-rear-front door which had so puzzled 
 Uncle John. This was one of the first important 
 matters pointed out to Chumley, and he re- 
 sponded, 
 
 " Measure and see where it fits." 
 
 " I'll do it," said Uncle John. " I never thought 
 of that" 
 
 He did so, with scientific exactness and great 
 rapidity, for him. In about a minute and a half 
 the problem was solved, for Uncle John arose, rule 
 in hand, to remark, 
 
 " This door is too large ! It belongs to some 
 other house!" 
 
 " Never mind," said Chumley. " "We can cut it 
 down to the right size. That isn't the first thing. 
 What you want now is a good post for each corner. 
 Sink 'em in the ground, you know. Something 
 for the house to stand upon." 
 
 "Exactly," said Uncle John. "I suppose my 
 brother and I could dig those holes." 
 
 " Eagleson is a first-class axeman. He and Perry 
 and I had better go to the timber at once. Get the 
 holes ready while we're gone." 
 
 So was it done, and every dog followed the squad
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 175 
 
 of post-cutters into the timber. Perry Munro had 
 as yet hardly said ten words to Erica Eagleson, but 
 the thought in his mind as he set off was, 
 
 " Glad she isn't coming. I wouldn't like her to 
 see how I bungle with an axe. What eyes, and 
 what magnificent hair !" 
 
 He was a pretty good hand with tools for his age, 
 but it somehow seemed, curiously, as if such blue 
 eyes as Erica's ought to look only upon perfection. 
 At least in anything done by Mr. Perry Munro. 
 
 They were to look upon something very imper- 
 fect before long, but just now they were following 
 those of Jessie among the half-unpacked treasures 
 of Yankee housekeeping. 
 
 " No breakages yet, Jessie," said Mrs. Munro. 
 "It is really wonderful. I was afraid that that 
 china cream-jug would lose its nose, but it hasn't." 
 
 " Erica," said Jessie, " do you know the English 
 names of all these ?" 
 
 "Not all," said Erica, with a merry, musical 
 laugh. " Mr. Chumley taught me all I know. 
 Books, too." 
 
 " He must be a good teacher." 
 
 "Best friend. So very good, kind, always 
 thoughtful " 
 
 " Are you afraid of him ?" 
 
 " Afraid of Mr. Chumley ?" she was almost grave 
 for a moment, and then she added : "I suppose so. 
 Not wish him to be angry."
 
 176 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " That's what I thought. But then you like 
 him?" 
 
 " Oh, very much !" and the earnest frankness of 
 her answer had in it something all but enthusiastic. 
 It should have been heard by Jerry McCord, to 
 have encouraged him in killing Chumley to secure 
 Erica's good opinion. 
 
 All there was as bright and cheery as the June 
 sunshine, but away in under the trees of the forest 
 there were shadows. One very dark shadow was 
 upon the face of a rider who drew his rein and 
 looked and listened and then took from his pocket 
 a double spy-glass. He made a thoroughly careful 
 survey of the Munro camp, and then remarked to 
 himself, 
 
 " Perry is gone. That is probably his axe that 
 I hear. Dog is with him of course. There are 
 Mr. Munro and his brother. Mrs. Munro. Jessie. 
 Two other women. Yes, that's Erica ! What shall 
 I do now ?" 
 
 A more perplexing question could hardly be pro- 
 pounded to a handsome young man who was des- 
 perately in love with two women and preferred to 
 court them separately. 
 
 Again and again he studied the situation, through 
 his glass, and the more he looked the more com- 
 pletely did his vanity and his double-headed passion 
 get the better of him. The cunning of some ser- 
 pents is very coarse-fibred and shallow, and gets
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 177 
 
 them into difficulties. Otherwise it would be more 
 difficult to catch and kill snakes than it now is. 
 
 " It won't be a bad thing to see them together," 
 he said to himself. " Erica won't dream of saying 
 anything awkward before Jessie and her mother. 
 She will see that I am on good terms with the 
 Munros, and that '11 help. If I could get Jessie 
 jealous of Erica it would be a good thing to do." 
 
 There was a vast amount of confidence in his own 
 power to please hidden under that crude idea. At 
 all events, his handsome face wore its most taking 
 smile when he rode in. He sent a hearty hail to 
 the two men digging post-holes, and then he swung 
 his hat to the ladies in a sweeping bow and sprang 
 lightly to the ground beside them. His whole man- 
 ner was that of an accepted friend of the family, to 
 Erica's astonishment, and her mother did not guess 
 who the stranger might be until she looked at the 
 fair girl's painfully burning face. 
 
 Neither Jessie nor Mrs. Munro had noticed that, 
 for they were replying to the salutations of Mr. 
 Payne, while Erica had shrinkingly stepped back a 
 pace or two. She responded by no syllable to the 
 greeting sent her over their shoulders by the man 
 she had met so romantically under the greenwood 
 tree. 
 
 Mrs. Munro had eyes and thoughts which worked 
 rapidly, and in another instant they told her some- 
 thing.
 
 178 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Chumley and lie are enemies," she said to her- 
 self. " Erica knows it. The meeting is unpleasant 
 to them." 
 
 Nevertheless she said to him, 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Payne, you are acquainted with 
 Mrs. Eagleson and her daughter, Erica. I need not 
 take the trouble to introduce old settlers." 
 
 " I have met Miss Erica," said Payne with his best 
 manner, just as Mrs. Eagleson bluntly put into 
 words the meaning of a slight flash that was rising 
 in her blue eyes. 
 
 "No," she said, "I do not know him. Erica 
 knows him not. You tell me who he is." 
 
 The whole situation was dreadfully tangled in a 
 moment. The girls were not in the least jealous 
 of each other as yet, but neither of them knew 
 what to do or say. To Mrs. Munro it was a further 
 tangle that she knew nothing of Chumley or his 
 Swedish friends, and that would have been worse 
 bat for the honest faces of Erica and her mother. 
 
 " Mr. Payne," she said in her dilemma, " I wish 
 you would go and talk with Mr. Munro for a 
 moment." 
 
 She had help just there, for the two diggers had 
 left their work and were close at hand. 
 
 " How are you to-day, Mr. Payne ?" said Uncle 
 John, heartily, and " Howd'ye do, Payne ? Didn't 
 look for you again so soon," said Mr. Munro, but 
 their frank greetings came too late.
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 179 
 
 The suspicious vanity of Jerry McCord had taken 
 fire, and he almost forgot that he was Edward 
 Payne, the land-owner, free hunter, the lover, as he 
 fiercely exclaimed, 
 
 " Who has been slandering me ? Who has dared 
 to say a word against me ?" 
 
 "Nobody," promptly replied both Mrs. Munro 
 and her husband, while Uncle John added, 
 
 " I have not heard a breath against your char- 
 acter. What is the matter with you ?" 
 
 There was a professional sound in that, and the 
 symptoms denoted feverish excitability, aggravated 
 by the fact that Erica had drawn farther away and 
 that Jessie instinctively fell back with her. 
 
 " I wish to speak with Mrs. Eagleson, Mr. Payne," 
 persisted Mrs. Munro, and it seemed that he re- 
 tained some traces of early training if not of worldly 
 wisdom, for he permitted himself to be left with 
 the two men. There was not a lady, young or old, 
 within twenty feet of him, when something oc- 
 curred altogether new and unexpected. 
 
 The axe listened to by Jerry before he left the 
 woods had been chopping its last chips of its set 
 task. It does not take long for a good axeman to 
 fell a couple of slender young pines, and for him 
 and two others to cut from them four five-feet long 
 corner posts. The work in the timber had been 
 rapidly completed, therefore, and each of the chop- 
 pers took up a post to return. The broad shoulders
 
 180 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 of Gustav were none too heavily laden with two, 
 and the patent house would now be sure of having 
 feet to stand upon. 
 
 The approach of the post-bearers had been alto- 
 gether unnoticed, or the women might have seen a 
 thing that astonished Gustav and Perry. 
 
 Chumley had been in a most neighborly frame 
 of mind apparently, and had even made efforts to 
 laugh, with some success. They were all walking 
 along leisurely and chatting about houses, when 
 suddenly a sharp exclamation hissed from Chum- 
 ley's lips, and he went forward as if he had been 
 sent for. 
 
 "What's up now?" said Perry, but no answer 
 came back to him, and he and Gustav could but 
 follow. At the very moment when Mrs. Munro 
 said to Mrs. Eagleson, 
 
 " We met him on the road as we came. I wish 
 you would tell us anything that you know about 
 him." 
 
 Erica's mother's one hand was upon her shoulder, 
 and she was pointing with the other towards Jerry, 
 asking, 
 
 " He ? Erica, speak ! Was it he ?" 
 
 Uncle John was remarking, 
 
 " Now, Mr. Payne, let them talk. If you've any- 
 thing you want to say to Joe and me, say it right 
 out.'* 
 
 Just then, as if the entire situation had been
 
 "HOLD UP YOUR HANDS." 183 
 
 iii Jessie's face was in her eyes. All the rest had 
 fled in terror from the awful idea presented by the 
 levelled pistol and the raised hands of Jerry Mo- 
 Cord. 
 
 The latter rode slowly away for fifty yards, halted, 
 shook his clinched fist, and shouted, 
 
 " Your blood is on your own head from this day 
 forward !" 
 
 " Very well !" was all the reply, but the words 
 seemed to have bodies, so dense were they with 
 meaning. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mrs. Munro. It was abso- 
 lutely necessary. That fellow must never come 
 here again." 
 
 She could hardly believe her eyes or ears. Chum- 
 ley was under no excitement whatever. He was 
 actually smiling and his voice was full of apologetic 
 modulation. 
 
 " Do you suppose he will do as he says ? "Will 
 he try to kill you ?" 
 
 " Certainly, unless he and his gang find the 
 country too hot for them and clear out. I've noti- 
 fied the authorities till I'm tired of it." 
 
 " Why did you draw a pistol ?" asked Perry 
 Munro, with a dissatisfied air. 
 
 " That, now, is a fair question," said Chumley. 
 " Because the fellow is a coward and was on the 
 point of pulling out his own. He is enough afraid 
 of me to have used it at once. If he had been one
 
 184 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 of his own Pawnees I'd never have dreamed of 
 showing a weapon. You never can tell what a 
 coward will do and call it courage. Half the mur- 
 ders on the border are done out of fear, and the 
 other half out of whiskey." 
 
 " There is philosophy in that explanation," said 
 Uncle John, and Chumley changed the subject; 
 
 " Is my apology accepted, Mrs. Munro ? Are you 
 satisfied, Perry ? Then let's put the posts right in." 
 
 There was something masterful about the man, 
 and Uncle John replied, 
 
 " I wish I had another hole ready dug for these 
 two other corners." And Perry at once picked up 
 a spade as if he meant to make one. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A DOG MUKDER. 
 
 RED BEAUTY was worthy of all the confidence 
 reposed in him by Chumley, and as soon as the 
 latter was out of sight he proceeded to obtain a 
 clear perception of its amount and degree. 
 
 The front door stood wide open, and the Pota- 
 watamy garrison walked in as if entering his own 
 property. 
 
 In the middle of the room stood the dining-table,
 
 A DOG MURDER. 185 
 
 but it was bare, save for a box of smoking tobacco, 
 thoughtfully left out as " supplies." 
 
 Swift glances around discovered nothing else ex- 
 cept the customary very plain furniture and a 
 double-barrelled gun, which was resting its muzzle 
 lazily against the wall in one corner. This had to 
 be examined, of course, and the discovery by Red 
 Beauty that it was loaded brought forth the re- 
 mark, 
 
 " Chumley heap shoot. Good gun." 
 
 He had company now, for both the setter and the 
 stag-hound saw him enter and came bounding along 
 to know what was going on. They danced all 
 around him while he examined the gun, whining 
 their desire for a hunt and their doubt whether or 
 not it was their duty to make him put it down. 
 
 He turned to the door of Chumley's own room 
 and tried it, but it was locked and the setter growled. 
 He crossed to the door of the other bedroom, and 
 barely ascertained that it was also locked before the 
 hound took his turn for a growl. Both dogs seemed 
 entirely satisfied when he walked out into the open 
 area back of that room and through it to the kitchen 
 on the left. An ample dinner for the garrison lay 
 covered by a pan on the kitchen table, but nothing 
 else was lying around loosely. 
 
 " Good dog," said Red Beauty, as he gave them 
 each a scrap. " Old chief keep dog from 'tealing. 
 Chumley house heap poor." 
 
 16*
 
 186 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He did not say " Ugh !" again with any special 
 energy until he had tried the stable-doors and dis- 
 covered that they were barred on the inside in a 
 peculiarly strong and troublesome way. 
 
 " Horse no got gun," he said. " Jerry McCord 
 Pawnee take axe." 
 
 He had no purpose of using one, but he looked 
 around as if to see if any such tool were available 
 in case of need. Not one was to be found, and 
 again the Red Beauty remarked upon the poverty 
 of Chumley's house. He seemed to have a further 
 curiosity as to how the stable-doors could be fas- 
 tened on the inside, but his fumbling inquiries were 
 now rewarded by a double growl of dissatisfaction. 
 
 He studied the situation in silence for a moment, 
 and then went out for a look at four mules belong- 
 ing to Gustav Eagleson which were feeding in the 
 pasture lot. 
 
 " Chumley lock up three horse. Leave out mule. 
 Bring in mule, lock 'em up in house ? No. Ugh ! 
 Pawnee 'teal mule some day. Red Beauty find a 
 male good many time. Good Indian, no 'teal." 
 
 The front room now seemed to have a peculiar 
 charm of its own. For the first time in his peculiar 
 life the old Potawatamy had a house to himself, and 
 he made the most of it. He drew a chair to the 
 table, filled his pipe again, lighted it, sat down, and 
 seemed to be thinking. The table carried one other 
 evidence of civilized ownership besides the box of
 
 A DOG MURDER. Ig7 
 
 tobacco. Not many men on that frontier could 
 have made more out of that small, plainly bound 
 volume than did the strangely visaged Indian who 
 now picked it up, remarking, 
 
 " Book. Talk to Chumley. See if talk to Red 
 Beauty. Heap devil. Big lie. Tell how make 
 gun, maybe. Say where go find whiskey. Look 
 a long time." 
 
 He had evidently obtained, in some way, the 
 idea that books required to be " studied" before 
 they would speak, and he was willing to give to 
 that copy of Homer's Iliad, in the original Greek, 
 all the study required to make it tell him what it 
 knew about anything. 
 
 He studied it right side up, wrong side up, out- 
 side, inside, sidewise, and from cover to cover. 
 Every now and then a disappointed grunt testified 
 to his deficiency in Greek literature. It was an 
 uncommon case of the pursuit of knowledge under 
 difficulties, and a vast amount of patience was ex- 
 hibited as time went on. The dogs regarded that 
 sort of amusement as entirely innocent, and went 
 out to patrol the enclosure. 
 
 The ears of the dusky student were of a kind 
 that is always on duty, and at last they brought 
 him a warning that made him lay down the book. 
 
 " Ugh ! Horse foot come. Shut door. Nobody 
 in house." 
 
 He closed the door quickly, and pulled out the
 
 138 liED BEAUTY. 
 
 " bung" from the hole in the middle of it, just as 
 the voices of the dogs announced the nearer ap- 
 proach of a horse and his rider. 
 
 "Ugh! Jerry McCord! Come say 'Payne.' 
 Know Chumley gone. Find Red Beauty here, kill 
 him. Nobody here. House dead." 
 
 It was Jerry, fresh from his terrible experience at 
 the Munro camp, and red-hot with vengeance. He 
 himself could hardly have explained why he had 
 ridden around by way of Chumley's house, unless 
 it had been with a vague idea of burning it, with 
 all that it contained. He reined in his horse for one 
 moment at the gate, and the two beautiful animals 
 on the inside arose with their forepaws on its bars, 
 barking at him in the most friendly manner. They 
 were glad to see somebody, and may have been 
 telling him that their master was away. 
 
 There are depths of meanness and cruelty in the 
 hearts of some beings who are nominally human. 
 Jerry McCord believed himself unseen, or he would 
 have considered the matter before acting. As it 
 was, he drew his revolver, took deliberate aim, and 
 shot the stag-hound through the head. In another 
 instant the setter lay beside him, and a wretched 
 act of cowardly spite was completed. 
 
 " I'll serve your master in the same way yet !" 
 he shouted, shaking his fist at the house, but at 
 that moment something moved in the middle of 
 the door. It came out farther, pointing straight at
 
 A DOG MURDER. 189 
 
 him. It was the muzzle of a double-barrelled gun, 
 and Jerry's horse bounded away under a sudden 
 dig of spurs that sent him galloping up the road. 
 He was out of range in a moment, and the gun 
 did not go off. At the other end of it the Red 
 Beauty was exhausting his supply of English words 
 in an attempt to express his opinion of Jerry Mc- 
 Cord. 
 
 "Heap devil! Shoot dog! Dog himself! White 
 Pawnee t'ief ! 'Calp a mule ! Ugh ! Red Beauty 
 no shoot him. Kill him other time, sure. See 
 Chumley gun, not know him. Not show him Red 
 Beauty rifle, tell him who here." 
 
 That was the fact, and Jerry rode away without 
 a suspicion concerning the garrison of Chumley's 
 house. He only carried with him a vivid under- 
 standing that he had narrowly escaped a charge of 
 buckshot, dangerous at fifty yards, and that Chum- 
 ley would know who had killed his two dogs. 
 
 " He will raise the country on me now," he said. 
 "He can gather a score of men if he tries, and 
 they'd make short work of us. Most of 'em have 
 lost horses one time or another. "We must move 
 out of this, short order, but I'll come back for her. 
 Chumley '11 die about that time, or I'm mistaken. 
 No time to lose in moving our camp." 
 
 It came out disjointedly, and mingled with pro- 
 fane explosions of vengeful bitterness, as he rode 
 along, but that was the sum and substance of it.
 
 190 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "War had been openly declared upon both sides, 
 and there could be no doubt as to the determina- 
 tion with which it would be carried on. 
 
 For a few minutes after Jerry's departure, Chum- 
 ley was able to direct the attention of Mr. Munro 
 and Perry and Uncle John to the posts and holes, 
 mainly because they were like him and wished to 
 collect their ideas in silence. 
 
 Then they broke out in a storm of questionings 
 concerning Indians, horse-thieves, and other pests 
 of the border, and there was more than a little to 
 tell. It was a curious fact, but the manner in 
 which Jerry had wilted before Chumley's derringer 
 had fully established their confidence in the latter. 
 They were ready to credit whatsoever he might 
 tell them. 
 
 Ghistav Eagleson had not said a word, neither 
 had he as yet done anything especial for the new 
 house. He had fully comprehended that this driven 
 thief was the stranger who had accosted Erica in 
 the forest, and the blood of the sea-kings was play- 
 ing fire in all his veins. A fall supply of it was in 
 his face, and its expression of intense wrath was 
 worth looking at. He was a man of peace and 
 knew not how to swear, but he was an exceedingly 
 angry father, and the very curls of his tawny beard 
 seemed to bristle with a purpose of no good to 
 Jerry McCord. 
 
 There had been genuine delicacy in Chumley's
 
 A DOG MURDER. 191 
 
 leaving the ladies by themselves, and they promptly 
 made the distance greater between them and the 
 group of men. 
 
 " Jessie," said her mother, " we shall know all 
 Chumley tells them. Come along. This is dread- 
 ful!" 
 
 Mrs. Eagleson was even eager to tell all she knew, 
 while Erica hid her innocent face in her hands. 
 Jessie heard with kindling eyes, and all Jerry's 
 ideal prospect of creating jealousy between her 
 and Erica had vanished by the time she was 
 mentally ready to exclaim, 
 
 " Is it possible ! And he a horse-thief!" 
 
 Jerry lost the entire teaching of the shudder sent 
 after him by the two beautiful beings with whom 
 he was in love, and it was a pity, considering how 
 deep a lesson it had for him. 
 
 That was a moment of mutual confidences, and 
 even for hasty speech, since Mrs. Munro herself 
 suddenly asked, 
 
 " Where does Mrs. Chumley live ?" 
 
 Erica looked at her with inquiring amazement, 
 but her mother flushed hotly and responded, 
 
 " We live with him four year. No wife at all. 
 Good young man." 
 
 " There ! It was one of that rascal's miserable 
 falsehoods. Don't you see, Jessie ? He tried to set 
 us against him." 
 
 " He is wicked !" exclaimed Erica, but Jessie was
 
 192 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 silent. It was not easy to reconcile such a depth of 
 depravity and meanness with so much easy polite- 
 ness and personal good looks. Jessie was young 
 yet, and this was her first discovered villain. 
 
 She had read of such instances, but had an idea 
 that they existed only in the heated imaginations of 
 the men and women who write novels. Now she 
 had seen one, and also, for the first time, she had 
 seen a weapon levelled by one man at another in 
 deadly earnest, and that fact came to her lips in a 
 general question addressed to nobody in particular : 
 
 " Would Mr. Chumley have killed him ?" 
 
 " Jessie," said her mother, " would you have had 
 him get out his pistol and shoot Mr. Chumley ? It 
 would have been no murder if he had " 
 
 " Oh, mother !" 
 
 No doubt it was something dreadful to think of, 
 and there was more to be said by all, but right in 
 the middle of it they saw Chumley go and get his 
 horse and mount him and ride away, sending them 
 only a silent bow as a good-by. Before doing so 
 he had said to the other men, 
 
 " Now you all work along. I want to see how 
 matters are going on over at my house. Nobody 
 is there but Red Beauty." 
 
 " That is," said Perry, " if he is there. I hope 
 you didn't leave any blankets lying around." 
 
 " I feel pretty sure that he wouldn't steal from 
 me. As for your blanket, that's nothing against
 
 A DOG MURDER. 193 
 
 him. He really could not help it. Long habit is 
 too much for even the best of men." 
 
 He laughed almost merrily, and strode away to 
 where his horse was waiting to be saddled. In a 
 minute or so more he was riding swiftly homeward. 
 He had seen Jerry gallop off towards the woods, 
 but the thought had come to him that there was no 
 certainty of his continuing in that direction. As 
 he drew near his house he noted instantly its shut- 
 up and deserted appearance, and exclaimed, 
 
 " Where is that old red rascal ? Where are the 
 dogs ? He cannot have stolen them. They would 
 not follow him a rod. He must have shut them 
 into the house and gone away. I can't see his 
 pony." 
 
 That animal was securely hidden behind the 
 house, between the stable and the kitchen, and in a 
 few moments more Chumley knew why his dogs 
 did not come to meet him. He sent his horse over 
 the fence with a long bound and wheeled him for 
 a look at the two favorites, lying side by side on the 
 bloody grass. He had not uttered a sound when 
 the door of the house opened and the Red Beauty 
 stepped out ' 
 
 " What does this mean ?" he demanded, in a voice 
 that was husky with suppressed passion. 
 
 " Mean Jerry McCord. Put gun through door 
 and scare him away. No see Red Beauty. Only 
 
 see double gun. Ride off." 
 i n 17
 
 194 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " "Why didn't you Mil him ?" 
 
 "Ugh! Not kill him here. Not by Chumley 
 house. Somebody come, ask old Indian who kill 
 him ? What for ? Only for kill dog ? Then have 
 to hold up hand and say * Chumley did it.' Bad for 
 Chumley. Go hung for shoot. Meet him 'nother 
 place, some time." 
 
 Chumley's reason folly approved of the old man's 
 prudence, whatever he might think of having a 
 murder sworn upon himself. 
 
 " Either of those dogs was worth a dozen of him. 
 Tell me all about it. I'm glad you waited till I 
 came." 
 
 Red Beauty gave a foil account of Jerry's visit, 
 and explained his own impression that his life was 
 of about the value of a pipe of tobacco in any con- 
 venient meeting with Jerry or his Pawnees. 
 
 "Red Beauty good Indian. Too good. Kill 
 him like dog if nobody see. Chumley just so. See 
 dog? Ugh! Chumley that one, when Jerry 
 McCord see his back." 
 
 " You're right there. He won't be here again 
 to-day, anyhow. Will you stay here till sundown ?" 
 
 " 'Tay all while, plenty eat. Plenty smoke. 
 Plenty book." 
 
 "Book? What's that?" 
 
 He had already dismounted, and now led the 
 way into the house. His first glance fell upon the 
 volume of Homer, but he was still too angry to
 
 CHANGES OF BASE. 195 
 
 laugh. He took the matter soberly, and told the 
 Eed Beauty to read as much Greek as he had a 
 mind to. After that he only remained long enough 
 to start a fire in the kitchen stove. 
 
 " Good. Ugh !" said the Potawatamy. " Jerry 
 not kill dog if saw smoke when he came." 
 
 Chumley nodded, for he had in that matter neg- 
 lected one of his customary precautions. He sprang 
 into the saddle once more, and it was not long 
 before the eyes of Jessie and Erica and the rest 
 were blazing with indignation over the account he 
 gave them of the cruel cowardice of Jerry McCord's 
 revenge. Doubt as to his " character" had utterly 
 disappeared. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CHANGES OF BASE. 
 
 THE entire western country, as fast as it can oe 
 surveyed, is cut up on the government maps into 
 " sections" of one mile square. Each of these is 
 supposed to contain six hundred and forty acres, 
 and would do so if it were not for the errors of sur- 
 veyors and for the fact that the earth is round and 
 has its own way with all attempts to draw straight 
 lines upon it.
 
 196 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 The Munros had bought a section of laud to 
 prosper on, and it began, as Chumley's did, at the 
 Post, running side by side with it into the forest. 
 He had vaguely mentioned other tracts of land 
 owned by him, adjoining at the south. The 
 " quarter section" owned by the Eaglesons also 
 claimed the Post as a corner landmark. 
 
 The spot selected for the Munro camp and home- 
 stead was nearly in the middle of their square mile 
 of fertility, and for that reason there was a pros- 
 pect before their visitors of a pleasant walk home 
 after supper. That meal was made as bright a 
 picnic as possible, after the toil and excitement of 
 the day. Jessie and her mother did their best to 
 make Chumley forget the fate of his dogs, but it 
 was Perry who decided in his own mind that hos- 
 pitality demanded of him to see his guests safely 
 home. 
 
 " Chumley will ride, of course. It'll just be a 
 nice walk," he said to himself, and when he men- 
 tioned the idea to Jessie, she replied, promptly, 
 
 " The very thing we ought to do. I'll walk with 
 Erica." 
 
 There was something of sly mischief in that re- 
 sponse, but the evening walk shaped itself differ- 
 ently. The shadows were reaching out into the 
 prairie more and more duskily, when at last Chum- 
 ley whistled to his horse and remarked to Mrs. 
 Munro,
 
 CHANGES OF BASE. 197 
 
 u Guatav and Mrs. Eagleson have started. Erica 
 and I will be glad of company." 
 
 The horse came up with a ready obedience which 
 testified that he was in no need of bridle or spur. 
 He was quite capable of following his master at a 
 short distance, and knew exactly the way to his own 
 stable door. His master was every way equal to 
 the occasion, for the camp was only a few rods be- 
 hind them before Jessie found herself walking in 
 advance with Chumley, while her brother followed 
 with Erica. Behind them marched the horse, 
 and all around them raced the dogs. 
 
 Perry Munro did not walk far before he dis- 
 covered several facts concerning his companion, for 
 she was utterly free of speech, and seemed to re- 
 gard him altogether as a neighbor and a desirable 
 addition to the population of that prairie. He 
 found that she had formed a girlish enthusiasm for 
 Jessie and a great admiration for his mother. Also 
 that before either of them came she had learned to 
 regard Mr. Chumley as a man superior to other 
 men, to be looked up to by them as well as by 
 herself. Perry had as yet seen nothing wonderful 
 about him, except pluck and good horsemanship, 
 and was only able to give a polite assent to what 
 she had to say. She listened with keen intelligence 
 to his story of the village home he and his family 
 had left behind them in the East. She had a start- 
 ing-place to speak of, much farther away, and 
 
 17*
 
 198 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 neither of them knew how deftly Jessie had been 
 defeated in an effort to draw from Mr. Chumley an 
 idea of some place or places he had seen before he 
 saw that prairie. She could find no fault with any 
 of his replies, but they told her nothing whatever, 
 and left her curiosity in a state of unconsciously 
 increasing activity concerning the history he had 
 so plain an intention of concealing. She gained a 
 dim idea that he had travelled and that he was well 
 read, and another, yet more dim, that he was read- 
 ing her as they walked. He said as much to him- 
 self: 
 
 " I'm a stranger to her yet. There's more than 
 that in her mind about me. She will make a 
 splendid woman yet. How that strange resem- 
 blance does grow on me ! Only skin-deep, but I 
 wish it had not come. "Why should my bitterest 
 memory settle down on the next section to haunt 
 me here ? It isn't her fault, I suppose." 
 
 His thoughts were dealing, as they often seemed 
 to be, with some irritating experience of his old 
 life. However they were connected with her face, 
 an expression of them crept into the cool politeness 
 of his manner, and when she said, 
 
 " Do you never feel lonely out here, in such an 
 utter absence of society ?" 
 
 He replied with needless brevity, 
 
 " Never !" and it was a full breathing spell before 
 he added : " I cannot say, however, how glad I now
 
 CHANGES OF BASE. 199 
 
 am to have neighbors. I trust that we shall he 
 good friends." 
 
 " Is not this the Pawnee Trail ?" she remarked, 
 striving to conceal an unaccountable feeling of vex- 
 ation. 
 
 " Yes. Did you ever see a string of beads ?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 "Well, this is a string, then, with wild stories 
 all along it as thick as beads." 
 
 " Terrible tales, no doubt. I'm not sure I wish 
 to hear them. Anyhow, it is the border of our 
 land." She hesitated one second, and he filled up 
 the sentence calmly : 
 
 "And you will not venture into the unknown 
 country called Chumley's land until to-morrow? 
 We shall expect you at supper-time." 
 
 " Thank you, we have quite a curiosity about 
 your log house. I was never in one." 
 
 At that moment Perry and Erica joined them, 
 and four voices instead of two went through the 
 ceremony of separating for the night at the barrier 
 drawn by the old buffalo-path. 
 
 Chumley and Erica walked on homeward, and 
 he had little to do but to listen to her comments 
 upon her new friends and the great and small 
 events of the day. 
 
 Jessie was almost glad that her brother seemed 
 disposed to silence. There had been talk enough, 
 and she was trying to put into shape the cloudy
 
 200 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 unpleasantness which hovered over her ideas of 
 Chumley. 
 
 Perry was also busy with a cloudy unpleasant- 
 ness. He was very young, and he had never before 
 seen any girl one half so beautiful, in his eyes, as 
 Erica Eagleson. Young men have a faculty all 
 their own for the manufacture of angels out of 
 very human material, and Perry had seen his 
 angel walk away from him with the man she had 
 been so enthusiastically praising. 
 
 So it was that they told each other they were 
 tired, and said almost nothing more. 
 
 They had by no means forgotten Jerry McCord, 
 although he still came up in Jessie's mind as a very 
 good-looking bad man named Payne, but they had 
 no idea how much in his thoughts they themselves 
 had been and were likely to be. 
 
 When Jerry galloped away out of range of the 
 gun which looked at him through Chumley's front 
 door, he did not ride alone by any means. There 
 was no second horse, but with him on his own there 
 sat a shape which he had been visited by before. 
 He had put it away, he had refused to see it, and 
 now here it was, looking at him with every pair of 
 human eyes he had seen that day, while it whispered 
 hissingly in his ears the awful fact that he was to 
 all intents and purposes a "branded man." He 
 had been putting brands upon himself from boy- 
 hood, and now they had been publicly pointed out.
 
 CHANGES OF BASE. 201 
 
 Chumley had pointed at them, before Jessie and 
 before Erica, with a levelled derringer to emphasize 
 the bitter sincerity of his pointing. Jerry had no 
 power of profane speech to express his hatred of 
 that man, and he gave it up with grinding teeth 
 and writhing body. 
 
 " An outlaw ?" he said at last, pulling his horse 
 to a walk. " Not so bad as that. They can prove 
 nothing against me. I must move the band farther 
 south. "We could be found too easily where we are, 
 now Chumley's blood is up. It's too near, anyhow, 
 if I'm to make a strike." 
 
 What kind of a strike he was meditating did not 
 yet take on a perfect form in his tumultuous mind. 
 
 The very stab given to his vanity in the presence 
 of those four women had stirred another emotional 
 depth remarkably. He had been in love, first with 
 Erica, then with Jessie, with both of them, in a 
 fever of fickle selfishness, but in a way that would 
 have admitted of an easy remedy. A prettier face ; 
 a richer inheritance ; a brief absence among other 
 affairs; an attack of fever and ague; might have 
 relieved him entirely of his sudden romance. 
 
 It was not so now. His love was no more the 
 same, for it had been down into the depths of his 
 disgrace and wrath with him, and was thenceforth 
 as deep as was his fiery defiance of the ruin he had 
 brought upon himself. It was a passion of his 
 entire corrupt being, and strong as life. Vanity
 
 202 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 might lead him after this to pretend love to Erica, 
 in spite of the look of scorn she had sent him, hut 
 Ms real feeling centred stormily upon Jessie 
 Munro. Her look, in the moment of his "branding, 
 had been one which he could easily misinterpret, 
 for she had not had Erica's entire confidence in 
 the correctness of Chumley's conduct. She had 
 been frightened lest " Payne" should be shot down, 
 and she had felt for him as in a terrible position. 
 Her face had strongly disapproved of the derringer, 
 and Jerry easily persuaded himself that its owner 
 had inwardly taken his part. All was black within 
 him and about him except that one red light of 
 passion, and it was the best thing of which he had 
 left himself capable, for as a man is so must be his 
 love for woman. 
 
 Jerry rode on to his own camp without stopping, 
 for his plans required prompt action. The report 
 he rendered on arriving was sufficiently interesting 
 without being too exactly truthful. His account of 
 his adventures in the Munro camp included a diffi- 
 culty with Chumley, but omitted his own obedience 
 to that gentleman's forcible dictation. The group 
 of red listeners were well prepared to believe Jerry's 
 statement that the settlers were devising evil against 
 them. They all said, "Ugh! Good!" when he 
 advised an immediate removal. The killing of 
 Chumley's dogs was approved, with suggestions as 
 to all the other canine settlers near the Post. His
 
 CHANGES OF BASE. 03 
 
 or any other horses and house would be easier of 
 approach after the completion of the work Jerry 
 had begun so well. At the same time the fort-like 
 construction of that home and stable was evidently 
 understood. 
 
 As to removal, there was no reason for lingering 
 in one valley rather than in another, and they were 
 now all sober enough to hear arguments based upon 
 angry frontiersmen out after horse-thieves. 
 
 JSTo further mention was made of the brave so 
 mysteriously "wiped out." Whoever had killed 
 him, it was not a matter of sufficient importance 
 for further investigation. Dead and buried and for- 
 gotten was he, and what other record could there 
 be of the end of such lives as his and theirs? He 
 had not even been the owner of a squaw, and his 
 comrades could divide among themselves his other 
 chattels, with some help from a pack of cards. 
 
 Jerry insisted that even the " braves" should 
 work, and the lodges went down while the squaws 
 were " packing," but two rude huts were left stand- 
 ing. The entire party was following the Pawnee 
 Trail westward before the middle of the ^afternoon, 
 and it looked well for the settlers at Chumley's 
 Post. It also looked as if Jerry and his Pawnees 
 were riding to suit the United States authorities 
 and cavalry commanders, until they suddenly left 
 the Trail and turned southerly among the woods 
 and hills. Their camp that night was a reasonably
 
 204 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 close copy of the one they had left, and no more 
 easily to be discovered. 
 
 " I can strike Chumley just as well from here," 
 said Jerry McCord to himself; " but I won't bring 
 Jessie here. I've money enough. If I'm not mis- 
 taken, she'll agree with me that we had better make 
 a trip to the settlements and leave all this thing be- 
 hind us. I'll sell stock and get things together, and 
 buying land is easy enough." 
 
 Very remarkable stuff were his dreams made of, 
 but they set his blood on fire and made his wild 
 heart beat strongly, for the worst of men is never- 
 theless a man. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 
 
 THE very demon of work had possessed the 
 Munro family during that first day of house-build- 
 ing, and seemed likely to remain among them. 
 There was not much of the patent house, but all 
 its parts were there, ready to be fitted, and they 
 w^ent together as if by magic. Five men and four 
 women had made somewhat too strong a force for 
 so narrow a field of operation. The women could 
 bring boards and other wood-work faster than the
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 05 
 
 men could find out where to put them. Gustav 
 Eagleson had proved himself a master of his tools, 
 and had entered into the spirit of the thing with a 
 cheerfulness which made his white teeth visible 
 half the tune. Uncle John had been so carefully 
 guided that he had actually done no harm whatever. 
 
 When the promised form of the whole structure 
 began to appear, Chumley had been justified in 
 remarking, 
 
 " It's big enough for a kitchen, but all your other 
 rooms had better be of logs. When this is fastened 
 to 'em it won't blow away." 
 
 There had been a general assent to that as well 
 as to Gustav's assertion, 
 
 " It ees too small for so many." 
 
 It had not been ready for any one to sleep in 
 that night. 
 
 When Chumley and the Eaglesons reached the 
 house in which they intended to sleep, they found 
 something waiting for them. The house indeed 
 was empty, but the Potawatamy garrison had 
 amused himself in his own way before moving out. 
 
 Even when the noonday sun had informed Red 
 Beauty that it was dinner-time, it had found him 
 busy with a new idea. 
 
 He had made coffee before, and there was nothing 
 wonderful in his putting the coffee-pot upon the 
 stove in the kitchen. He had, however, seen the 
 
 dinner-tables of pale-faces in his day. He had sat 
 
 18
 
 206 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 by more than one after better skill had furnished 
 it, but now it was necessary for his dignity that the 
 table in the front room should be set, and his own 
 hands had to set it. 
 
 It was set uncommonly, for he transferred to it 
 every article of crockery that he could lay his hands 
 on. There was no disputing but what he had pro- 
 duced a strikingly effective table when he had 
 finished his work. 
 
 The ample supply of cooked victuals left for him 
 was all there, sitting beside the coffee-pot upon a 
 brightly colored hearth-rug. The pipkins and other 
 earthenware had an air as if they were asking of 
 each other, 
 
 " Are we in a lunatic asylum or are we not ?" 
 
 JN"o smile nickered on the lips of the old Indian, 
 even after he had pulled to the table all the chairs 
 in the room and sat down in one of them. 
 
 " Ugh !" he said. " Great chief. Heap eat." 
 
 The eating of that solitary meal was a prolonged, 
 grave, and dignified performance, and so was the 
 smoke which followed it, but Red Beauty was aware 
 that the work of clearing away belonged to squaws 
 only. He had condescended to put those things 
 where they were, but he would lower himself no 
 further. 
 
 " Great chief no stay in house after heap eat," he 
 said. " Go look for Pawnee." 
 
 His pony had also fed well and was ready for
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 207 
 
 activities. In a few minutes Chumley's garrison 
 was transformed into a scouting expedition, can- 
 tering towards the woods. 
 
 That was the reason why even Chumley was 
 compelled to join Gustav and his wife and daughter 
 in the fun they had the moment they lighted a 
 candle and could see what was before them in the 
 front room. 
 
 Night and sleep came to every house and camp 
 on the prairie and among the hills, but the June 
 darknesses are short, and the morning came quickly 
 with new experiences. 
 
 Perry Munro had one that was all his own. 
 Bob had been left on guard, with Chumley's assur- 
 ance that no other would be needed so soon after 
 unmasking the reality of " Mr. Payne," and all of 
 Bob's weary human friends had slept pretty well. 
 He came with the earliest daylight to stir up Perry, 
 and the cat was the only other person awake when 
 the young man stood by what there was of the 
 patent house and looked around him. 
 
 " It seems to me," he said to himself, " as if I'd 
 been in a sort of dream ever since we set out to 
 come "West. I'd hardly believe it was real now if 
 it wasn't for what I see. Here's the house. There 
 are the horses and cattle. Glad they're all there. 
 The wagons and Jemima and the pigs. I know 
 who are in the tents, and I know we chopped in that 
 timber. All the rest is a good deal like a dream
 
 208 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 yet. Chumley, and Jerry McCord, and Red 
 Beauty, Pawnees, horse-thieves, pistols, deer, 
 there'll be venison for breakfast, too. Erica ? Oh, 
 but isn't she beautiful ! She's too good for such a 
 man as Chumley." 
 
 Bob stretched himself and yawned just then, 
 and his master remarked to him, 
 
 " Lost your sleep, did you ? Well, you can rest 
 all day. We're all going over to Chumley's by 
 and by, and we'll know more about him and his 
 way of living." 
 
 That thought and another concerning breakfast 
 helped make the world around him yet more real, 
 but all the peculiar enthusiasm of Western life was 
 beginning to bubble up within him, and he felt the 
 magic of the prairie without knowing as yet what 
 it might be. By the time he had attended to his 
 live-stock and set the fire agoing, the rest of the 
 family were up and busy. 
 
 So were Erica and her mother, over at Chum 
 ley's. They were to spend the day at home while 
 Gustav should be at work on the new house. 
 Chumley himself awoke with a feeling of some 
 curiosity as to what had become of Red Beauty, 
 but no guess of his hit the exact whereabouts of 
 the old Indian. 
 
 There was as yet only a dusky glimmer of light 
 upon the hills above the secluded valley where the 
 camp of Jerry's Pawnees had been, when some-
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 209 
 
 thing like a shadow began to pass from tree to tree 
 and from bush to bush. 
 
 " Time for dog to bark. Ugh ! No dog. Paw- 
 nee gone ? Heap fool stay. Jerry say go." 
 
 On he went from one cover to another, patiently 
 awaiting and hearkening the voices of the canine 
 watchers who were not there to watch. His con- 
 viction of the facts of the case must have been 
 strong to have nerved him to such an intrusion, 
 and he gave a great grunt of relief when at last 
 they were justified. He consumed, even then, a 
 full half-hour of the stealthiest creeping and dodg- 
 ing in perfectly satisfying his mind that Jerry and 
 his fellows had departed and in what direction. It 
 was easy to follow the traces they had left, out to 
 their disappearance in the well-trodden ruts of the 
 Pawnee Trail. That work securely done, the Red 
 Beauty gave vent to his suppressed feelings in a 
 series of ear-splitting whoops, and trudged rapidly 
 back through the woods to the spot where he had 
 hidden his pony. There was no more need for 
 hiding, and he galloped back to Chumley's in time 
 to tell him, 
 
 " Say to young white squaw Jerry McCord gone. 
 Payne gone. Pawnee gone. Come 'teal her some 
 time. Red Beauty eat a heap." 
 
 He explained himself fully, and Mrs. Eagleson 
 declared, in Swedish, that she would cook for him 
 
 till noon to pay for such news as that, 
 o 18*
 
 210 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He had already earned an appetite by it, but 
 greater results were to come. 
 
 Chumley had something worth while to carry 
 to the Munro camp, and he reached it on horse- 
 back before Gustav got there on foot. There was 
 a distinct variation in the tone and manner of every 
 greeting given him, and every shade of heartiness 
 or reserve meant more than he knew, for nobody 
 had told him of any report concerning his past or 
 present. 
 
 Uncle John himself expressed the uppermost 
 curiosity of that camp. 
 
 " Mr. Chumley," he asked, " have you heard 
 anything more of your friend Payne ?" 
 
 " Pawnee devil Potawatamy," came from 
 Poll's cage, hanging near, and the highly-com- 
 plexioned bird had introduced the next subject of 
 general interest. 
 
 "Hullo, Poll," said Chumley, "you've learned a 
 new word. No, Mr. Munro, but I've good reason 
 to hope that he and his gang have moved away. 
 All the horses are safer if it is so." 
 
 " Hope he's gone," said Uncle John, and it saved 
 the rest from making farther remarks while Chum- 
 ley dismounted. 
 
 Poll alone persisted in repeating, 
 
 " Potawatamy," and the syllables fitted his 
 leathery throat precisely. 
 
 Mrs. Munro said quietly to Perry,
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 211 
 
 " He's not going to tell all he knows. I can see 
 that in his face. Maybe he will say more to you." 
 
 " I don't know whether I like him or not," said 
 Perry. " Too bossy altogether." 
 
 The half-satirical smile of his mother expressed 
 her comprehension of the fact that Chumley was 
 not the only " positive character" at hand. 
 
 He had now come nearer, and she asked him, 
 
 " Have you seen Red Beauty ?" 
 
 " Early this morning, but I can't say where he is 
 now. He brought the news from Jerry and sent a 
 message to Miss Munro." 
 
 " What is it, Mr. Chumley ?" Jessie had joined 
 them just in time to get the Potawatamy's queer 
 prophecy, faithfully, word for word. Before she 
 had fully recovered from the assurance that she 
 would some day be stolen by the Pawnees, and 
 while she was considering what to say, the messen- 
 ger himself managed to bury the whole subject in 
 some remarks to Perry about farming affairs, in- 
 cluding prairie hay and ploughing. 
 
 Gustav arrived, and Mrs. Munro walked away to 
 hear what he proposed to do with the patent house, 
 just as Perry responded to some suggestions re- 
 lating to live-stock : 
 
 " That's all very well, Jmt what's the use of rais- 
 ing horses and mules to have them run off by 
 thieves ? You couldn't even sell the hay after they 
 were gone."
 
 212 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " I've been looking out for that," said Chumley. 
 " I've promised Red Beauty to feed him all next 
 winter if he'll scout around between this settle- 
 ment and any molestation. Never mind about 
 that blanket business. Treat him well." 
 
 " But can you trust him ?" said Perry, thoughts 
 fully. " He's an Indian." 
 
 " You mean that he will lie and steal ? Well, he 
 will and he won't. He's an old scalper, and you 
 mustn't ask too much of him. I've known him a 
 long time. One thing in him you can trust, he 
 hates a Pawnee, and he believes Jerry McCord 
 intends to have him killed. Besides, he is fond of 
 tobacco, and will keep on good terms with my 
 caddy-full." 
 
 " He ought to be a good scout." 
 
 " I don't mind telling you and Miss Munro. He 
 was actually in Jerry McCord's camp before sun- 
 rise this morning. He found that it had been 
 abandoned last evening. That's one reason I'm 
 here to-day and not away raising a squad of men 
 to clear out the gang." 
 
 " Mr. Chumley," said Jessie, " will you tell us, 
 frankly, is there any real danger ?" 
 
 " I think not. Surely not so much as formerly. 
 Five men are safer than two. When I came here, 
 four years ago, the cavalry had to do some pretty 
 sharp work." 
 
 Jessie colored deeply as she responded,
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 213 
 
 " Red Beauty said you killed a man and scalped 
 him and buried him under Chumley's Post." 
 
 She was looking him in the face as if she more 
 than half believed it, and what she saw there aston- 
 ished her, so strong a shudder went over him and 
 so sudden a whiteness came under the healthy 
 bronze. 
 
 " You must have misunderstood him, Miss 
 Munro, but the truth of that matter is no secret. 
 Ask Erica. Now you've heard part, you may as 
 well know all. I did not scalp anybody, but 
 Chumley's Post is a sort of tombstone. There's a 
 graveyard all along the Pawnee Trail." 
 
 " How was it?" asked Perry, bluntly. 
 
 " Let Gustav tell all he knows, or Mrs. Eagleson. 
 Pd rather not say much." 
 
 " Was it so very terrible ?" said Jessie. 
 
 "Did they tell you about the grove and the 
 spring, where their house is to be built ?" 
 
 " I'm going over there with Erica as soon as 1 
 have time." 
 
 " She may tell you how it was when you get 
 there. I had to carry, with a horse to help me, 
 out of that grove to the hole I dug at the Post 
 five dead bodies, all scalped and bloody. Now, is 
 that a pleasant thing to remember? I've seen a 
 scalping-knife lifted over Erica's head. Jerry 
 McCord killed one of the very dogs that saved her. 
 I've seen Mrs. Eagleson wrestling with a Pawnee
 
 214 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 while her husband was being murdered before her 
 eyes." 
 
 " He wasn't murdered !" exclaimed Jessie. 
 
 " It was near enough. But I'd as lief not talk 
 about it just now. It was the very last thing of 
 the kind in this region. They were in camp and 
 I'd just got here. All would be peaceful enough 
 but for such white devils as Jerry McCord." 
 
 His desire to change the subject was strongly 
 evident, and the deep feeling of respect for him 
 which grew upon them rapidly was aided by his 
 refusal to recite exploits of his own doing. 
 
 " I'm almost sorry we came," said Jessie, with a 
 half shiver. 
 
 "No need of that," replied he. "The village 
 you came from was Indian ground once. Perhaps 
 there are Jerry McCords in it now. You'd never 
 know them. I must be off." 
 
 " Didn't you mean to stay and keep us company 
 to-day ?" said Perry. 
 
 " I'm not needed. I wanted to tell you the news 
 and make sure you were coming to supper. Mrs. 
 Eagleson and Erica are making preparations." 
 
 He had a knack for getting away from disagree- 
 able subjects, and he did not mean to face Mrs. 
 Munro and her husband and Uncle John upon the 
 history of the graveyard at the Post. His move- 
 ments were more brisk than usual until he was 
 once more on horseback.
 
 STIRRING AN OLD STORY. 215 
 
 " Jessie," said Perry, " I wonder what on earth 
 is the matter with that fellow ? He's no common 
 sort of man." 
 
 " He doesn't look exactly like a bad man." 
 
 " Guess he can shoot straight. I'll be good to 
 Red Beauty. I want to hear his part of that story. 
 Five dead bodies ! Must have been an awful fight. 
 I believe I could " 
 
 "Nonsense, Perry!" she exclaimed, as he hesi- 
 tated. " You don't need to kill anybody." 
 
 Nevertheless her sisterly eyes admired his stal- 
 wart proportions and resolute face none the less 
 because they made her also " believe that he could," 
 in case of need. Curiously enough, however, there 
 came between his face and hers a flashing memory 
 of the day before, of two men facing each other. 
 One held a derringer pistol, into the muzzle of which 
 the other looked, and Jessie understood that even 
 the outlaw had not been " cowed." He had ridden 
 away from certain death, but would have preferred 
 fighting if any chance had been given him. She 
 was learning some things about men and manhood 
 which she had never even thought of up to that 
 hour. She had no time for much dreaming before 
 Perry said, 
 
 " "Whatever else I do I'm going to practise rifle- 
 shooting. Yes, and every other kind of shoot- 
 ing " 
 
 " So will I," interrupted Jessie.
 
 216 fiED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Father can hardly use a gun, and Uncle John 
 '11 never kill anybody unless he does it profession- 
 ally." 
 
 " I could learn to shoot as well as any man, 1 
 know I could." 
 
 " Of course. It's easy enough. But we must ask 
 Gustav about the fight in the grove." 
 
 It was dinner-time before he gave them an op- 
 portunity to do that, and then they were disap- 
 pointed. Either he could not, or believed Chumley 
 wished him not to do so, and all they obtained was 
 an assurance that he was stabbed with a knife and 
 knocked down with a club and did not kill anybody 
 or know anything of what was done. 
 
 " Chumley put me in wagon and bring me away. 
 I get well. Then I get mad when he pay me for 
 work. I do something for that man some day."
 
 SUPPER AT CRUMLEY'S. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 STJPPEK AT CHUMLEY'S. 
 
 CHUMLEY was in no apparent hurry to reach, his 
 own house. He seemed even willing to ride to the 
 woods and back, along the Trail, as if he needed to 
 do some thinking in the saddle. He brought his 
 horse to a walk as he wheeled out of the tree- 
 shadows to return, and there was a pained, doubtful 
 look upon his face. 
 
 ""Women," he said to himself, "have curious 
 notions about such matters. I've known women 
 who would have called it murder. "What is it to 
 me, anyhow? No, all that is too late now. It 
 would be if she were ten times more beautiful. 
 Besides, women go for handsome men. Fellows 
 like Jerry McCord. Or for rank and station and 
 titles and big incomes. Don't I know ? I've had 
 my lesson. No more gall and wormwood for me. 
 I've had enough." 
 
 There must have been some in his mouth at that 
 moment, if a just opinion could be based upon its 
 bitter expression. He said something more about 
 the graveyard at the Post and about the story Jes- 
 sie would hear from Erica, and about his murdered 
 
 K 19
 
 218 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 dogs and their value as compared with Jerry Me- 
 Cord, and then he rode slowly on homeward. 
 
 There was more than usual activity in Chumley's 
 kitchen that morning, for Erica and her mother 
 expected critical eyes to look upon their house- 
 keeping, and their pride applied spurs. The whole 
 house had so particular a look before dinner-time 
 that Red Beauty refused to smoke in it, and took 
 his continuous pipe out of doors. He knew that 
 there was a feast coming. The table for supper 
 would surely be set without his assistance, but no 
 consideration would have prevented him from re- 
 maining to see how it would look. He was also 
 aware that a mysterious amount of pale-face cookery 
 was going forward, taxing to the uttermost the re- 
 sources of the kitchen stove. He had himself con- 
 tributed some prairie-chickens, and Chumley had 
 added some quail, although it was not yet " the sea- 
 son" for either. The old Indian knew what these 
 were for, but he could not guess what the two white 
 squaws were doing with so much flour and water 
 and fire and all the odd materials that were on the 
 table. There were hiding-places he had not thought 
 of in and under that house, and out of these, that 
 afternoon, came crockery and table furniture which 
 had waited long for " company." Some of it sug- 
 gested prosperity quite pointedly, but the two 
 women were hardly prepared for another sugges- 
 tion that was at last made.
 
 SUPPER AT CRUMLEY'S. 219 
 
 Red Beauty followed Chumley into the house 
 while they were setting the table and pointed at it. 
 
 "Ugh! Good !" said he. " Where Chumley 'teal 
 'email?" 
 
 " Found them," laughed Chumley. " Got them 
 of some Potawatamies." 
 
 " Ugh ! Young black eye squaw come. See 
 table. Say Chumley 'teal a heap." 
 
 " I hope they will come," said Chumley. " If I 
 stay here, I'll have the right kind of house, some 
 day, and of dinner-table. If the railway comes, 
 and markets, and I can get all my land under cul- 
 tivation." 
 
 He did not say that directly to the Indian, and 
 received only " Ugh !" for answer, but there was 
 something stirring him up. He was, just then, 
 looking forward for the very " civilization" whose 
 arrival he had hitherto dreaded. He also appeared 
 to sympathize with Mrs. Eagleson's housewifely 
 anxiety concerning the success of what Red Beauty 
 called his " heap eat." 
 
 There was no doubt as to the coming of the 
 Munro family. One and all they had become 
 infected by a strong curiosity concerning their 
 neighbor and his possessions. 
 
 Uncle John, in particular, had been dwelling 
 upon what he had heard and seen until some of 
 his ideas tripped each other up and impelled him 
 to say to his brother, but in the hearing of all,
 
 220 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " No doubt Payne is a horse-thief, and I'm sorry 
 for him, but it is plain to me that Chumley is jeal- 
 ous of him. Payne is by all odds the better-look- 
 ing man of the two, but the Eagleson girl should 
 have some common sense. Now Payne is driven 
 off there will be nobody in Chumley's way, and 
 I'm glad of it." 
 
 Uncle John often said funny things, but he had 
 rarely been rewarded with more laughter than 
 replied to all that wisdom. 
 
 Jessie laughed without knowing why, and noticed 
 that Perry laughed very hard indeed and seemed 
 to do so with an especial effort. She did not give 
 Uncle John an opportunity for further improve- 
 ment of his text, but remarked to her mother, 
 
 " It's about time for us to go. Shall we ride or 
 walk?" 
 
 " "Walk, of course," exclaimed Perry. " Who 
 wants a horse for such a distance ?" 
 
 Walk they did, but when they reached the Paw- 
 nee Trail they found themselves waited for. It was 
 Red Beauty's first meeting with Perry since the 
 affair with Bob and the blanket, but the old Indian's 
 dignified " How" evinced no disturbing memory of 
 any such trivial incident. He spoke to each in turn 
 with a shake of the hand as if he were their host, 
 bidding them welcome. Then he waved his hand 
 southerly, remarking, 
 
 " Chumley land. Long walk."
 
 SUPPER AT CHUMLErS. 221 
 
 " He has more of it fenced in than I thought for, 
 father," said Perry. " Corn, oats, clover, vines, 
 young orchard, pasture-land. It's all one man need 
 care for." 
 
 "He spoke of selling out and moving farther 
 west, Perry." 
 
 " Ugh ! " exclaimed the old Indian. ' ' No go. All 
 Munro come. Chumley stay now. Heap land, 
 water, tree, house, no go. Yellow-hair land away 
 there. Black-hair land there. Two young squaw 
 come to Chumley Post some day, fight hard, say 
 1 no come on my land.' All that land Chumley 
 land. Way off. Own tree. Own hill. Ownprain^ 
 Long time ago, Indian own 'em all." 
 
 "I suppose that's so," said Jessie; but he had 
 more to say on the land question. 
 
 "Red Beauty hear big heap preach one time. 
 Know what come some day. All Indian come back. 
 Own all land again. Potawatamy come. Pawnee 
 come. Potawatamy kill him. Sioux come. All 
 tribe come. White man all go. Plenty buffalo 
 then. No more heap devil." 
 
 It was not exactly clear what he had or had not 
 heard from some Agency missionary, but he evi- 
 dently believed himself uttering sound doctrine. 
 
 At some untellable future time the red men were 
 to have their own again and a little more, with 
 plenty of game and no pale-face interlopers. The 
 expression of his own face when he mentioned the 
 
 19*
 
 222 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Pawnees was a suggestion of some things which 
 might occur in the " Happy Hunting-Grounds" in 
 the absence of United States cavalry, but no argu- 
 ment was attempted by his hearers, and they walked 
 on with him towards the house. 
 
 As they drew near and saw its owner standing in 
 the door- way Red Beauty asked of Mrs. Munro, 
 
 " Two young white squaw. S'pose Eed Beauty 
 take one, Jerry McCord one, what Chumley do ?" 
 
 It was an embarrassing conundrum, but he had 
 more in him, for now he pointed from Jessie to her 
 brother with, 
 
 " Nobody give pony for white squaw. Boy get 
 pony, by and by. Go get one, two, four Pawnee 
 squaw. Give pony for 'em. Bring 'em home. Say 
 old woman no more work. Got squaw for do work 
 now. Sit still in house." 
 
 All could laugh at that except Red Beauty, 
 although Mrs. Munro had never before been called 
 an old woman. Her healthy cheeks looked even 
 healthier, however, over the idea of Perry's four 
 Pawnee wives doing her housework for her. 
 
 " Go in house," said Red Beauty. " See table. 
 Yellow-hair work all day. Fix heap for boy. Boy 
 look at yellow-hair and break plate." 
 
 At that moment Chumley's own welcome helped 
 Perry decidedly, and the quizzical old savage did 
 not have another chance for rude fun for some time. 
 His next came in a general pause after the greetings
 
 SUPPER AT CHUMLEFS. 223 
 
 of the ladies, old and young, had been exchanged, 
 and while the eyes of the visitors were making 
 inquiries. 
 
 " Look !" he said to Uncle John, pointing around. 
 " All door in house open. 'Teal anything John like." 
 
 It had not been so when he was left as garrison 
 of the house, and now, while Mrs. Eagleson re- 
 turned to the kitchen, Erica showed Jessie and her 
 mother every room but Mr. Chumley's own. At 
 the door of that she paused, saying whose it was, 
 and they had but a glimpse of its interior, although 
 Chumley had led the men through it on their way 
 to examine the stable. 
 
 They saw much in that one glimpse, and their 
 neighbor was more an object of curiosity than ever. 
 
 "Now," said Erica, "if you will be seated, I 
 must go and help mother." 
 
 So she did, and Perry Munro re-entered the 
 dining-room in time to hear his mother whisper, 
 
 " Jessie, you never can tell. Uncle John may be 
 right. She is young yet, but she would look 
 splendidly as lady of the house." 
 
 " She is tall for her age," said Jessie, and at that 
 moment they heard Uncle John remark, coming 
 through Chumley's bedroom, 
 
 " Joseph, do you suppose you have forgotten how 
 to fiddle? I'm glad Mr. Chumley has one. A 
 horn, too. Do you sing, Mr. Chumley ?" 
 
 " I think I can safely leave that to the ladies,''
 
 224 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 he replied, but Uncle John was fond of music and 
 continued, 
 
 "I should be glad to hear you after supper. 
 You could accompany yourself on the horn." 
 
 " Hardly," said Chumley, and the laugh stirred 
 up by Uncle John seemed to do him good. It 
 brought into his eyes the first twinkle of out and 
 out fun Jessie had seen there. 
 
 Supper was ready now. Red Beauty drew up a 
 chair, but before sitting down he pointed gravely to 
 one article after another and asserted, 
 
 " Chumley great brave. 'Teal a heap. Hide all 
 'calp take and say ' Chumley good man.' Heap lie." 
 
 His host knew him perfectly well, and responded 
 to the ladies, 
 
 " "When Red Beauty was in his prime, his repu- 
 tation stood very high. He was called the best 
 horse-thief in his tribe." 
 
 " Red Beauty great chief!" was the prompt ac- 
 ceptance of that bit of glory. " Good Indian. 
 Take 'calp. 'Teal horse. Have heap squaw. 
 Heap pony. All gone now." 
 
 There was enough of pathos in the slow utter- 
 ance of the last words to prevent a laugh over his 
 picture of a good Indian, and they all sat down to 
 thoroughly enjoy a capital supper. Perry Munro 
 sat where he could see the " shot-hole" in the front 
 door, however, and before supper was over he had 
 heard Red Beauty vividly explain why it was there.
 
 ONE SECRET TOLD. 225 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 ONE SECEET TOLD. 
 
 Two separate commanders of mounted Pawnee- 
 hunters ordered a halt at about the middle of that 
 afternoon. 
 
 The lieutenant who was searching for Jerry Mc- 
 Cord and his runaways at the northward came to 
 the bank of a river and could find no reason for 
 crossing it. Neither was there any reason for fol- 
 lowing the bank of its winding channel either 
 down or up. 
 
 "Leftenant," remarked the best scout he had, 
 " this 'ere trail's busted." 
 
 " Seems to have petered out," remarked the offi- 
 cer, with a reddening face and a bead of perspiration 
 on his forehead. 
 
 " Guess we're follerin' a wild-goose chase. There 
 ain't no use in breakin' down another hoss. Thar's 
 no track to go by. All the sign we had is used up." 
 
 " That's so," said his beaten commander. " Boys, 
 it's 'bout face. We've missed catching Jerry Mc- 
 Cord this time." 
 
 " About face" it was, and there were many weary 
 and dejected miles of hot-weather riding before 
 them, on their return to report failure. 
 P
 
 226 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 It is part of the continual life and duty of United 
 States troops acting as police in the Indian coun- 
 try. 
 
 Far away to the southward, the other squad of 
 men in blue also drew rein while their captain 
 wiped his face also and studied the situation. He 
 had scouts and he had trailers, but his orderly ser- 
 geant was his prevailing counsellor, and now the 
 sergeant spoke : 
 
 " I'd say go west for a couple of days. Some of 
 them ranch men buy hosses of him, they say, and 
 we may get a hint of some sort." 
 
 " "Not from the men he deals with," said the cap- 
 tain, shaking his head. 
 
 " There's always some fellow 'round a ranch 
 that'll sell his soul for five dollars or a plug of ter- 
 baccer." 
 
 "All right. We won't go south another mile, 
 anyhow. If nothing turns up we can try back 
 along the Trail clean through the hills." 
 
 No river had stopped them. Only some old ruts 
 and a buffalo-path, beyond which they did not care 
 to go. Their camp that night was some miles 
 nearer sunset, and just as many farther away from 
 the camp of Jerry McCord's Pawnees. In this 
 latter hiding-place, however, there was at that hour 
 no Jerry. The plans with which his heated brain 
 was teeming had carried him away, no man knew 
 exactly whither.
 
 ONE SECRET TOLD. 227 
 
 The cavalry squads were not alone in their delays 
 and defeats. 
 
 Perry and Jessie Munro felt that it would be out 
 of order for them to ask questions concerning 
 local history of either Erica or her mother in 
 Chumley's presence. The very perfection with 
 which he performed his duty as host compelled a 
 postponement of their curiosity, although the con- 
 tents of his house, particularly of his bedroom, 
 had stirred it to undue activity. 
 
 Not until the darkness had settled over the 
 prairie did Chumley's guests depart, and he went 
 with them mainly because Erica insisted on a walk 
 with Jessie. It seemed a matter of course that 
 Perry should be with them, and Chumley made it 
 appear unavoidable that he should go on in advance 
 with Mrs. Munro and her husband and Uncle John. 
 
 Hardly were the three young people out of hear- 
 ing of the others before Jessie's long pent-up in- 
 quiry burst forth. 
 
 " Erica," she exclaimed, " Mr. Chumley tells 
 us you were almost scalped once. His dogs saved 
 you." 
 
 " Dogs ? Yes, the dogs pulled down the Pawnee, 
 but it was Red Beauty killed him. Scalped him, 
 too. He shot one more. Mr. Chumley killed all 
 the rest. Oh, it was so terrible! He was splen- 
 did!" 
 
 " He did not scalp them ?" was Jessie's confused
 
 228 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 exclamation, and Erica turned upon her indig- 
 nantly : 
 
 "He? Mr. Chumley? You don't know how 
 brave he is. He was all alone. There were five 
 Pawnees. He rode right in. I was a little girl, 
 but I see him now on his great horse that reared 
 so when he fired his rifle. They went down and 
 rolled and struggled on the grass, and Red Beauty 
 came out of the bushes. That's why he does as he 
 pleases at our house. Says anything. Nobody 
 cares what he says. He shot the Pawnee that took 
 hold of mother." 
 
 The Potawatamy's freedom of speech and action 
 was accounted for, and Erica's indignation was 
 much appeased by Perry's enthusiastic declara- 
 tion, 
 
 " Chumley was grand ! Tell us all about it. He 
 said you would. He told us a little ai\d wouldn't 
 say any more." 
 
 Erica had enough to say now, and the skirmish 
 by the spring lost very little of its weird interest in 
 her narration. Perry felt that Chumley would 
 never again be the same man to him, but his sister 
 was conscious of a strong sense of repugnance 
 which did not spring altogether from the mere idea 
 of bloodshed. One man against five was magnifi- 
 cent, but one man burying five was grisly and 
 horrible. She shuddered as she thought of the 
 scalped and bloody corpses and the awful courage
 
 ONE SECRET TOLD. 229 
 
 and nerve of the unflinching sexton by whose own 
 hand three of them had fallen. 
 
 Erica's account had been given with all the 
 rapidity of intense earnestness, and did but last 
 until the Pawnee Trail was reached and the older 
 people waited there for the younger. 
 
 The good-nights were exchanged all around, 
 and then Perry once more saw Erica take Chum- 
 ley's arm and walk away homeward, while Jessie 
 remarked in his ear, 
 
 " See that, Perry ? It's no wonder she should 
 think so much of him. He saved all their lives." 
 
 " I wish I'd been there." 
 
 " He didn't need any other help but Red Beauty. 
 I shall treat him better after this." 
 
 " Mother and father and Uncle John must know 
 all about it," said he, and that was the key-note of 
 a talk which lasted long after they reached their 
 own camp. Very nearly the last strong point of it 
 was made by Uncle John, when he said, 
 
 " I do not at all understand the operation of tak- 
 ing a scalp. I must get Red Beauty to explain it 
 to me." 
 
 " Uncle John," said Perry, " good-night. I hope 
 you will never be called upon to perform that oper- 
 ation upon anybody in this settlement." 
 
 It was bedtime, but it was hardly sleep-time, and 
 even Perry finally dropped off in the midst of an 
 effort to imagine the sound and effect of an Indian 
 
 20
 
 230 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 war-whoop. No sleeper in either of the two house- 
 holds dreamed who had or had not passed along 
 the old highway of the bisons before the sun rose, 
 but Jessie awoke with an instantaneous recalling 
 of the story she had heard the evening before, and 
 it seemed as if she had but one thing to do that 
 morning. 
 
 " Perry," she said, " I'm going to ride over after 
 breakfast and get Erica, and make her go and 
 show me that place. Will you go ?" 
 
 " Where the fight was ? No, I can't quit work 
 for an hour. I'll see it some other time." 
 
 She was vaguely glad of that answer, and did 
 not guess how glad he was to have work to plead 
 as an excuse for not seeing Erica Eagleson that 
 morning. At least, not at Chumley's house, and 
 then to see him come with her as a matter of course. 
 He overstrained the unpleasant idea a little, for 
 that was what Chumley did not do. Jessie rode 
 over and her approach was seen, and Erica awaited 
 her at the gate with a smiling welcome, but no 
 Chumley made his appearance. As Erica quickly 
 explained for him, 
 
 " He is out in the woods beyond your land, pick- 
 ing out trees for logs for your house. Father '11 
 be ready to go at them to-morrow." 
 
 Jessie expressed strongly her sense of such 
 neighborly kindness, and her invitation for a ride 
 sent Erica away in haste for her horse.
 
 ONE SECRET TOLD. 231 
 
 She led out a very pretty animal, and replied to 
 Jessie's admiration of it with, 
 
 " She is so gentle, too. She will follow me any- 
 where. Mr. Chumley trained her himself before 
 he gave her to me. He knows more about horses 
 than anybody else does. He is splendid !" 
 
 "You've a perfect right to think so," laughed 
 Jessie, and if her words meant any more than 
 " because he killed those Pawnees," Erica answered 
 that meaning with enthusiasm, 
 
 " I'll take you right there, and you'll see how it 
 was. It's a beautiful place, too, and we're going 
 to build our house there." 
 
 She was in the saddle as a bird alighting, and in 
 another moment they were racing away, side by 
 side, along the Trail. They pulled up when they 
 came to the Post, and Jessie remarked, 
 
 " I see no trace of any graves." 
 
 " Mr. Chumley says he took care to prevent that. 
 None of the other Pawnees know what became of 
 these. He said I might ask you to say nothing 
 about it to anybody. They might come for revenge, 
 and he means to speak to Mr. Munro." 
 
 The grass was level there, and they rode on to- 
 wards the grove where the Eagleson family had 
 been " trapped." 
 
 There was a trap there now. Among the thick 
 bushes a horse was hidden, and by him stood a 
 man dressed in a neat suit of black. He looked
 
 232 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 even more gentlemanly and business-like in that 
 than in blue, for he was saying to himself, 
 
 " The fact that I can ride right into a settlement 
 and keep a bank account shows that I am correct. 
 I can drop Jerry McCord at any time, and nobody 
 can prove one thing against Edward Payne." 
 
 Vicious self-indulgence can obtain the keenest 
 possible idea of the uses of money, while such a 
 life as he was then leading offered few opportunities 
 for squandering ill-gotten gains. There was noth- 
 ing exceptional in the fact that he had found a 
 suitable place of deposit for all of these against the 
 time when he should need them. He knew the 
 ways of the world and of its business, and the 
 nearest " National Bank" was but two days' hard 
 riding distance northeasterly, wild and thinly set- 
 tled as was the region around Chumley's Post. 
 
 There had been no immediate need for resting 
 his horse in that grove, but there he was. He had 
 no knowledge of its history, nor any small hope 
 that any face he wished to see would be drawn to 
 it, but the growing power of his wild passion had 
 kept him there, for three long hours, brooding with 
 a burning bitterness over the fact that he could not 
 hope for a favorable reception at the Munro camp. 
 
 Now, as he looked out over the grassy slopes 
 beyond, almost choking with wrath yet nearly ready 
 for departure, he saw what led him to hide both 
 himself and his horse more carefully.
 
 ONE SECRET TOLD. 233 
 
 "Both of them? Oh, if it were Jessie only. 
 "Why did they both come ? Now I cannot speak to 
 either, unless they wander in here; I could not help 
 it, then." 
 
 If he had not been deeply, genuinely in love, 
 after his kind, his vanity might have led him into 
 some imprudence. He saw the two girls ride in, 
 and their unchecked conversation fully explained 
 for what cause they were there. Erica pointed out 
 minutely the topography of her terrible adventure. 
 There stood the wagon, and by it she had seen her 
 father fall. There her mother struggled with the 
 Pawnee who came to kill her. Out of those bushes 
 glided Red Beauty. 
 
 " I was standing right here, Jessie, when the In- 
 dian took both braids of my hair in his hand. Mr. 
 Chumley's hound caught him by the wrist of the 
 other hand that had a knife in it. The other hound 
 took him by the throat. Then I saw Mr. Chumley 
 among the trees, there, on horseback, and they all 
 went down, one after another." 
 
 She had more to tell, and Jessie had questions to 
 ask, never dreaming that a listener in the bushes 
 said to himself, in astonishment, 
 
 " They told me about the strange disappearance 
 of those five braves. Now I can tell them where 
 they all went to. Buried by the Post, are they ? 
 No need for me to touch Chumley now. The whole 
 band '11 attend to his business. It's worth a great 
 
 20*
 
 234 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 deal to me. But oil, how wonderfully beautiful she 
 is ! I thought Erica was the loveliest being on earth 
 till I saw her. I'm willing to settle down, even, for 
 her sake." 
 
 He said it as if he were describing the last sacri- 
 fice which man could make for the love of woman, 
 just as Jessie exclaimed, 
 
 " Come, Erica. I want to get away. It's a 
 dreadful place. Tell me the rest as we ride along." 
 
 " There isn't any more to tell," said Erica, as 
 they wheeled and rode out of the grove. Little 
 she imagined how very much she had already told 
 or to whom she had told it. The moment they 
 were out of sight, a man on horseback galloped 
 away in an opposite direction, and he carried in 
 his head and heart a new and deadly peril to the 
 man who had so boldly rescued the Swedish immi- 
 grants from the Pawnee trap long years ago.
 
 A MUCH SUSPECTED LEADER. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A MUCH SUSPECTED LEADER. 
 
 THE broad acres of the Munro " section" found 
 their western boundary-line a quarter of a mile 
 deep among the trees of the forest, and Chumley 
 was now walking slowly from trunk to trunk of 
 his neighbor's best timber. He had an axe in his 
 hand, and every now and then he cut a chip from 
 a tree of nearly a certain girth, remarking, " That 
 will do for one more." 
 
 He was marking trees to build log walls with, 
 and he was thinking of the people who were to 
 live within the walls so to be builded. 
 
 " Seems to me," he said, " as if I'd known them 
 for years instead of days. I don't know if I'm 
 exactly fair with Jessie. I hate to do it, but I will, 
 as soon as I get to the house." 
 
 All that was a riddle until he had finished his 
 self-appointed task and had walked slowly and 
 moodily to his own home and room. He closed 
 the door behind him and stood for a moment 
 before his writing-desk as if irresolute. 
 
 " It's there," he said, " but it is fall five years 
 since I have looked at it. I think it would be fifty
 
 236 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 more before I should wish to see it or its original 
 if it were not for Jessie Munro's face." 
 
 A key was put into the lock and a lid was lowered. 
 Then another key went into the lock of a drawer, 
 and a little velvet case was in his hand. He held 
 it for a full minute before he touched the spring 
 and it flew open. His lips came together very 
 tightly and his forehead showed its furrows at their 
 deepest, but he looked long and intently before he 
 said, aloud, 
 
 " I see more than I ever did before. I was not 
 mistaken as to their being counterparts, but the 
 camera will not lie. I could not read her living 
 face then as I can her photograph now, or I should 
 not have been made such a fool of. How easily a 
 man can throw his life away ! Ko wonder I cared 
 little how I risked mine after that. It was hardly 
 worth saving. Jessie Munro doesn't guess what it 
 cost me to be neighborly to her. "WTiat is it, now, 
 in this picture, that no photograph of her would 
 show? It's a deep study." 
 
 So he seemed to find it, until he closed the case 
 and put it away. Even then he walked out into 
 the open air with a preoccupied look upon his face 
 which did not disappear until two young women 
 on horseback came racing to the very gate. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Ohumley," said Jessie, 
 cheerily. "I've brought her safe home again. 
 We've been to the scene of your exploit."
 
 A MUCH SUSPECTED LEADER. 237 
 
 " I told her all about it," said Erica, " and she 
 agrees with me." 
 
 " Will you dismount and walk in, Miss Munro ?" 
 said Chumley. 
 
 " I must hurry home, thank you." 
 
 " Don't let that dismal story give you wrong 
 notions about danger. It was a rare case then, and 
 four years have worked improvements." 
 
 "And there are fewer Indians and more white 
 people. I wish there were thousands coming right 
 along." 
 
 " They will come." 
 
 He was opening the gate, but Erica was already 
 on the ground without help and led her horse in, 
 while Jessie seemed averse to further conversation. 
 She herself could hardly have explained how 
 strongly or why, and she rode away as if in fear 
 of being too late for something or other. She had 
 much to relate to her mother when she reached the 
 patent house, in which a small cook-stove was 
 already at work, but among her first sayings was, 
 
 " Mother, it did seem to me as if I could not 
 speak about it to Mr. Chumley. There he stood, 
 by the gate, and I suppose I ought to have compli- 
 mented him." 
 
 " Leave all that to Erica, my dear. It's an old 
 story to him." 
 
 Chumley was receiving unknown compliments 
 at that hour, for Jerry McCord, as he galloped
 
 238 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 along across prairie, on an errand whose direction 
 he alone knew, expressed himself with great energy 
 as to the prowess described in his hearing by Erica. 
 
 Few men were better qualified to form an opinion, 
 and his respect for Chumley was all the greater 
 because of Erica's neglect to state that not one of 
 the slain braves carried a revolver. Jerry had taken 
 the pistols for granted. He had left behind him a 
 lot of precisely such Pawnees, and there was no 
 immediate danger that any destroying horseman 
 would ride rashly into their camp. 
 
 There they were, all that day, with the exception 
 of a few who were lazily looking for the game they 
 were sure of finding. The kind of life they led 
 required little effort to sustain it, and they were the 
 most completely at their ease of all the inhabitants 
 of that region. They were sure of being main- 
 tained at public cost whenever they might choose 
 to be captured and taken to the Reservation. 
 Meantime they had no need for even such pleasant 
 work as thieving, and were quite willing to lie 
 around listlessly day after day, waiting the return 
 of the white man whose busy brain devised their 
 more profitable excitements. 
 
 They were not to be stirred up by him for several 
 days. He camped on the prairie that first night, 
 as much at home there as any Indian. 
 
 The sloughs and streams were running low at 
 that season, and he seemed to know the best fords.
 
 A MUCH SUSPECTED LEADER. 239 
 
 One more night came, but he passed it in a settler's 
 cabin, and at noon of the third day he rode leisurely 
 into a railway town and dismounted before a build- 
 ing over the door of which the sign read " First 
 National Bank." 
 
 It was the first of its kind in that place, and it 
 might be long before another would be needed, 
 but there was an air of solid respectability about it. 
 So there was about the old gentleman in the presi- 
 dent's room, who welcomed Jerry McCord as his 
 well-known depositor, Mr. Edward Payne. 
 
 " Come to draw on us for some more purchases, 
 Mr. Payne ?" 
 
 " N"ot exactly. I've sold to very good advantage 
 this last trip. I've got something to leave with you 
 for a while, but my next purchases will be lands. 
 I'm out of the cattle trade." 
 
 " Going to farm it, eh ? Going to get a wife and 
 settle down. That's a good idea. Which do you 
 mean to pick out first, wife or land ?" 
 
 " Guess I've looked around enough now, Mr. 
 Bunker," laughed Jerry, and there was a digni- 
 fiedly merry exchange of worldly wisdom between 
 them concerning land speculations, cattle-raising, 
 pork, and railway improvements. The depositor 
 declared himself in some haste to get away at 
 last. 
 
 "Waiting for you, is she?" said Mr. Bunker. 
 " Well, give her my compliments, and tell her she
 
 240 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 has caught the man who can write the neatest sig- 
 aature on my books." 
 
 There was no occasion to write it now, and the 
 banker gave his customer no slightest sign of any 
 further interest in him than belonged to the fact 
 that he kept his money in that institution. The 
 cashier and the teller were equally polite and non- 
 committal, and it was not until Jerry had mounted 
 and ridden away that Mr. Bunker, standing behind 
 the counter, remarked to both of them, 
 
 " Gentlemen, it's none of our business. I sup- 
 pose our vaults are actually safer with a good deal 
 of money in them belonging to that kind of men. 
 Nobody can forge his signature." 
 
 " I'd hardly feel so safe about him and another 
 man's," dryly responded the cashier. " Queer we 
 can find out nothing whatever about him. He's a 
 king-pin somewhere." 
 
 " I know a town in Illinois," said Mr. Bunker, 
 " that never had a horse stolen within twenty miles 
 of it. Some of its well-to-do citizens never oper- 
 ated too near home." 
 
 " We are all right, then, on that theory. At all 
 events I don't care to make an enemy of Mr. Ed- 
 ward Payne." 
 
 They were cautious men, clear-headed, careful of 
 their own interests, and they did not say too much, 
 even to each other. Nevertheless it was made plain 
 that the regular cattle dealers and traders of that
 
 A MUCH SUSPECTED LEADER. 241 
 
 border were well known to them, and that from 
 these very men they had learned that no " Edward 
 Payne" bought and sold in their fraternity. The 
 bank president went back into his room and sat 
 down, with a cloud of thought upon his respect- 
 able face. 
 
 "I don't care to know too much," he said to 
 himself. "He is not the only odd stick on our 
 list. Liquor-men, gamblers, sports, well, money 
 is money. He answers the description perfectly. 
 Almost too well. It seems impossible, so well- 
 bred, so fine looking, and yet he may be Jerry 
 McCord for all that." 
 
 Concealment is less easy, anywhere, after a man's 
 deeds have earned for him a name and fame, and 
 Jerry was probably unaware how good a " descrip- 
 tion" of him was in circulation. 
 
 " I can bring Jessie right here," he said, as he 
 rode along, on his return. " We can make a tour 
 East. I've money enough to do it in style. I'd 
 like to show her to one lot of people in New York, 
 but that would hardly do. There is a chapter 
 there she must never open. I'd shoot man 01 
 woman that told her about Sing Sing. It isn't like 
 these matters here." 
 
 No romance of the border could beautify a con- 
 vict's striped suit or light up the cell of a felon, and 
 he was aware that women had prejudices. 
 
 Jessie had, but all the ideas of human life to 
 L 21
 
 242 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 which she had been educated were undergoing a 
 change. Jerry himself might have been gratified 
 if he had known how often her thoughts reverted 
 to him during those days, or how feverishly she 
 studied and re-studied all she could remember of 
 his face. He was a mystery to her, a riddle she 
 could not solve, and in all her pure mind there was 
 not enough knowledge of evil to interpret him as 
 a revelation of cultivated human depravity. 
 
 " I do not wonder," she said to her mother, " that 
 he fell in love with so beautiful a girl as Erica." 
 
 "I think Mr. Chumley is quite able to protect 
 her, my dear, unless too many Pawnees come at 
 once." 
 
 " He does not believe they will ever come, but 
 we must keep that old matter secret." 
 
 " Certainly, Jessie, and I hope Erica will come 
 over often. It isn't so easy for us to go there." 
 
 She did not say why, but it was precisely so, and 
 Jessie's answer took it for granted when she said, 
 
 " I wish she would come every day." 
 
 It was a wish that seemed likely to be gratified, 
 at least so long as Erica's father was at work among 
 Mr. Munro's logs, and there was one unaccount- 
 able feature about her coming and going. Chumley 
 also came frequently, on foot or on horseback, but 
 in either mode he was sure to come alone and to 
 go away early. Upon Perry therefore fell a social 
 duty he did not fail to perform. He accompanied
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. 243 
 
 Erica home invariably, to be forced by Mrs. Eagle- 
 son to stay to supper. Just as invariably he came 
 away more deeply convinced that Erica was the 
 most beautiful girl on earth, and that Uncle John 
 was right when he said, 
 
 "I don't know what to make of Chumley. He 
 is a very remarkable character." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A MYSTEKIOTJS DISAPPEAKANCE. 
 
 THE summer days went by, one by one, till there 
 came a peculiarly hot and sultry noon, under whose 
 blaze a six-mule team with an army wagon behind 
 them halted wearily at about the point where the 
 captain and his men turned westward along the 
 Pawnee Trail, to hunt for Jerry McCord in the 
 wrong direction. 
 
 A mounted man not in uniform drew rein at the 
 side of the wagon, and to him the teamster re- 
 marked, 
 
 " Quartermaster, we're on time, and we haven't 
 any waitin' to do." 
 
 " No, sir-ree. There they come, and they haven't
 
 244 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 fetched along any Pawnees. Jerry's ahead of 'em 
 
 yet." 
 
 " Reckon he's likely to be." 
 
 It was true enough. The captain and his men 
 were even then in sight. Half an hour later he 
 was reading a despatch from his commander, handed 
 him by the quartermaster. 
 
 " Supplies, eh ? And the lieutenant has failed, 
 and I'm to keep up the search in this direction till 
 I find 'em and bring 'em in. Quartermaster, the 
 nearest water is down the Trail a mile. We'll 
 camp there to-night. "We'll push eastward in the 
 morning." 
 
 There was a strong contrast between the arid 
 level where the cavalry met their supplies and the 
 comparatively cool, delicious shade of the wooded 
 valley where Jerry McCord rode in, at that same 
 mid- day, to be swarmed around by his uncomely 
 followers. 
 
 The cavalry captain received little news besides 
 his orders, but the red men learned something 
 altogether new before Jerry McCord completed his 
 report. So far as they were given to understand, 
 he had been upon a prolonged " scout," devoted to 
 their peculiar interests, and in the course of it he 
 had solved a mystery for them. They knew now 
 what Chumley and Red Beauty had done for their 
 five missing warriors, four years since, and where 
 the lost braves were buried. Thenceforth some-
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. 245 
 
 thing stronger than Chumley's best horses was 
 likely to draw them after Jerry in any plan he 
 might make relating to his private loves and re- 
 venges. 
 
 He had plans, moulded in the red heat of his 
 disturbed, disorderly soul, through all the long 
 miles of his return ride. This preparation of the 
 dire hatred of his band for Chumley was a needful 
 beginning, that he might have their more perfect 
 acquiescence, in the absence of trustworthy rule or 
 discipline. All the fire within him, however, for- 
 bade his lingering in that hiding-place one hour 
 longer than was absolutely necessary, and he an- 
 nounced an immediate departure upon another 
 errand in the neighborhood of Chumley's Post. 
 He had passed it in the night prudently, with no 
 better reminder of Jessie Munro than the deep- 
 toned warning Bob had sent him through the dark 
 for riding a little too near instead of keeping in 
 the Trail. 
 
 Jerry had told his story well, and all his present 
 explanations of purpose were listened to without a 
 grunt of dissent, but he had talked to men who 
 watched all other men habitually. There was 
 something in his manner they did not understand, 
 save that it indicated something, upon his mind 
 which he had hidden from them. Their nature 
 and their way of life had made them all one tinder 
 of suspicion, and it needed but a spark to kindle 
 
 21*
 
 246 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 it. The swift thoughts in their hearts went round 
 from group to group among them while Jerry ate 
 his dinner and during the long nap his weariness 
 made compulsory afterwards. 
 
 Suspicion stirred suspicion, and the hate he had 
 kindled aided the process with subtle virulence. 
 Before he was again awake, his Pawnees were in 
 doubt if he had not known from the beginning all 
 he now revealed concerning the graves at Chum- 
 ley's Post. A story so improbable was of itself a 
 suggestion that yet another hand had helped the 
 Swedes besides those of Chumley and the old Pota- 
 watamy. Perhaps it was Jerry's own. "Who could 
 tell ? How else did he really get hold of the facts 
 so minutely? Chumley must be killed. Red 
 Beauty must lose his scalp. !N"o doubt was ex- 
 pressed upon those points from the first, but before 
 the discussion was ended they had fully determined 
 that their further dealings with Jerry McCord 
 would depend upon the results of a close watch 
 now to be kept upon all his motions. Even the 
 slain sentry at the tree in the old camp was made 
 use of to increase the general cloudiness of the 
 situation. Prompt action followed, and a pair of 
 the readiest and most excited braves caught their 
 best ponies at once and galloped away eastward. 
 They would be among the scenes of Jerry's pro- 
 posed scout before he would, and they left behind 
 them the entire gang doubly ready to follow,
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. 247 
 
 whether he or they should send word, or even if 
 none at all should be sent. 
 
 Jerry awoke at last, and the presence or absence 
 of any two of his followers called for neither thought 
 nor comment. He took a fresh horse, and a good 
 one, but when he mounted him he wore his blue 
 suit, with whatever the loose frock-coat might con- 
 ceal, and carried a repeating rifle. The blanket 
 rolled and strapped behind the saddle informed all 
 observers that bivouacs might be before his return. 
 
 He had already received an account of all there 
 had been to tell of the laziness transacted in his 
 absence, and cared little for what else might take 
 place until he should again be heard from. His 
 departure was accompanied by no ceremonial what- 
 ever, save that an unanimous " Ugh !" was uttered 
 as his horse bore him out of sight among the trees. 
 
 There had been no hint given him concerning 
 the two embodiments of distrust who were already 
 far in advance of him on the rugged road which led 
 to Chumley's Post. 
 
 That pair of Pawnees had a hard ride before 
 them, for they were under a necessity of not being 
 caught up with, and they knew that Jerry McCord 
 was a rapid traveller. They were well mounted, 
 well armed, with something like Red Beauty's claim 
 to be called good-looking, and they did not dis- 
 mount and hunt a hiding-place among some bushes 
 until utter darkness took possession of the country.
 
 248 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 The first dawn of light, next morning, found the 
 investigators debating the day's work before them 
 as they ate their breakfast. They then pushed on 
 again, as if with an idea that Jerry might be gaining 
 upon them. With an eye to the fact that they were 
 far away from the Reservation and did not wish to 
 meet chance passengers, they kept away from the 
 Trail as much as the nature of the ground it led 
 through permitted. With a further eye to the vague 
 errand of watchfulness before them, they divided 
 their forces and the field of action as soon as they 
 had passed one narrow gorge. The warrior who 
 went into the woods at the left of the Trail looked 
 suspiciously after his fellow, and wished that he 
 could follow him unseen. The brave who wheeled 
 to the right glanced back at his brother on the left 
 with a perfect assurance that he was not to be 
 trusted alone or to tell the truth when they two 
 should meet again. This was to be at noon, at the 
 point where the path to their former camp of hiding 
 branched away from the Pawnee Trail. Firmly 
 they had agreed upon such a result, but even the 
 most positive contracts, made by the most honor- 
 able of thieves, are not always perfectly kept. 
 
 The warrior on the left had, in fact, a great 
 mystery before him. He met not a living soul in 
 the woods as he rode watchfully onward, and would 
 have had nothing worth telling if he had met the 
 other Pawnee at noon.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. 249 
 
 He was upon the spot himself at the hour, ready 
 to say that he knew no more than in the morning, 
 but his mate had not arrived. It was wearisome 
 work to sit still upon a pony and wait, and so, 
 after a little while, he rode back along the Trail to 
 meet the belated comer or to find out why he did 
 not come. A mile and a half of disappointment 
 brought him to a discovery. He knew every hoof- 
 mark of the pony ridden by that other Pawnee, 
 and here they were, clearly marked upon soft 
 ground and turning away towards the right. Evi- 
 dently the rider had deemed it well to go deeper 
 into the woods, and his red " brother in arms" fol- 
 lowed the trail he had left. It was easy to do so, 
 and before long it led, for some rods, close to the 
 edge of a wide, perpendicular-sided ravine, cleft 
 through the limestone to a depth of fifty or sixty 
 feet by some ancient torrent now dwindled to a 
 mere brook at the bottom. 
 
 " Ugh ! What for ?" asked the discontented pur- 
 suer as he pushed on, studying those hoof-marks. 
 He had not noted them particularly up to a point at 
 the head of the gully, and may have missed some of 
 their indications, but here he paused, exclaiming 
 again, "Ugh! What for?" as he sprang to the 
 ground. 
 
 He did this because he saw that the other brave 
 had done so there, and he stooped to examine 
 tracks of human feet. They were so faint that a
 
 250 REV BEAUTY. 
 
 white man's eyes would not have found them, but 
 a closer look was followed by a loud exclamation, 
 a whoop, and a bound upon his pony. The fierce 
 gutturals of pure Pawnee that he uttered as he 
 pushed forward contained a strange assertion : 
 the foot which made those tracks was one he did 
 not know, and only one pair had been near the 
 solitary pony ridden by his comrade. Could it be 
 possible that such a brave as he knew that brave to 
 be could have been changed into another brave as 
 he rode along ? It was highly improbable, but the 
 hoof-marks led on and on for a mile more, and 
 then it was very difficult to suppress the whoop that 
 struggled in the pursuer's throat. 
 
 There was the pony, neatly tied to a sapling, 
 near the edge of a great, flat ledge of gray lime- 
 stone, and not a human being was near him. It 
 might be an ambush or it might not, and caution 
 was employed in approaching the tethered pony. 
 
 It was all needless, for neither sight nor sound 
 was added to the pony's own whinny, save that a 
 well-known rifle lay upon the grass beside him. 
 Not a solitary track of any human foot led away 
 from the foot of that sapling. Could the pony 
 have eaten his rider and then tied himself? 
 
 That also was highly improbable, and there was 
 no hint to be had until a closer inspection of the 
 animal himself set the long-suppressed whoop vigor- 
 ously free.
 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 251 
 
 There was blood on the bridle ! 
 
 That was enough. One Pawnee and two ponies 
 hurriedly left a place so fall of mystery and possi- 
 ble peril, and they did not pause again until they 
 had reached a secluded spot, deeply hidden among 
 the crags of the hills, where a bewildered red 
 wanderer could eat his dinner and smoke and 
 wonder what had become of the ordinary course 
 of human events. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 
 
 JERRY McCoRD rode on towards the scene of his 
 proposed undertaking with no idea whatever that 
 he had scouts in advance. He was entirely pos- 
 sessed, moreover, that he could shape certain com- 
 ing events to suit himself, and that men could be 
 put aside and that woman's will could be made to 
 yield to his own. 
 
 He had company. Company that seemed to con- 
 verse with him, and which at times made him break 
 out into dreadfully profane language. People 
 seemed to come out of years long past and ride 
 beside him, and some of their memorial sugges- 
 tions made him squirm in the saddle. They may
 
 252 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 have been, some of them pretty surely, such as he 
 would not have wished to ride in any manner by 
 the side of Jessie Munro, telling her what they 
 knew of him. 
 
 That he also thought of her was evident, for her 
 name burst from his lips with passionate vehemence 
 more than once. 
 
 " They may have set her against me," he said, 
 aloud. " I will fix all that. Mine she shall be !" 
 
 There had been much to set the mind of Jessie 
 against the dashing, handsome stranger who had 
 ridden with her along the Pawnee Trail. Never- 
 theless it might have stirred his vanity if he could 
 have known how much and how inquiringly she 
 had thought of him. Had she failed to do so she 
 would have been more or less than human, since he 
 had broken in upon her quiet life as a visible, 
 tangible embodiment of an entirely different mode 
 of existence. He represented to her surprised, 
 confused perceptions every crude idea she had of 
 the wild, the adventurous, reckless, perilous, violent, 
 and she was not entirely able to associate him with 
 crime because she knew nothing about crime. One 
 day when she was riding with Erica and they met 
 Red Beauty, they halted for a chat with him, only 
 to be told by that grimly humorous old savage, 
 
 "Ugh! Jerry McCord come for squaw some 
 day. Bring Pawnee. Say want two squaw, same 
 as other chief. Ugh !"
 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 253 
 
 The grin with which his wide mouth drew out 
 towards his ears as he looked at their reddening 
 faces lost him their further conversation, for they 
 lashed their horses and rode onward, leaving him 
 to shake his head and chuckle, 
 
 "Jerry McCord good-looking Pawnee. White 
 squaw no like him. Hope Chumley kill him. Red 
 Beauty make hole in him some day." 
 
 He was entirely correct in his prophecy about 
 the intended coming of Jerry McCord, and its ut- 
 terance added to the certainty that he would not he 
 long absent from the thoughts of Jessie Munro. 
 He and his Pawnees taken together made up for 
 her a dim phantom of peril ; a sort of shadow on 
 the loveliness of that prairie and forest in the day- 
 time and a reason for listening quickly to any growl 
 or bark of Bob's after nightfall. 
 
 " Could it be," she asked herself at times, " that 
 a man of Mr. Payne's appearance should be really 
 such a monster of wickedness ?" 
 
 Some light upon that question came to her from 
 her memory of his face when he was looking into 
 the muzzle of Chumley's derringer. She might 
 have obtained more if she could have watched the 
 same face as he rode along upon his present errand. 
 He spent a night in the woods, as the brace of Paw- 
 nees had done, and the following forenoon found 
 him in his old camp. 
 
 "It will do very well," he said, "if I have to 
 
 22
 
 254 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 bring her here, but it would be better to go East at 
 once." 
 
 That inspection made, he returned towards the 
 Trail, and rode on under cover of the forest with a 
 feverish flush of eager determination upon his face, 
 and it became him well. As he went farther he 
 paused from time to time and listened. 
 
 " No chopping," he muttered. " None of them 
 at work in the timber. I'll hide my horse and scout 
 along the edge of Chumley's woods." 
 
 So he did, passing on after he reached them from 
 tree to tree in Indian style, without any peril of 
 being seen from the house. He looked long and 
 searchingly at it and its surroundings, shaking his 
 clinched fist more than once, as if at the man whom 
 he did not see. There was smoke rising from the 
 chimney. Horses were feeding in the pasture-lot. 
 All things indicated occupation, but no human 
 being was visible. 
 
 " Now for Munro's," he exclaimed, but he re- 
 doubled his precautions as he turned in that direc- 
 tion. There was more likelihood of meeting some 
 stray member of that family, simply because there 
 was a larger number to stray. The trees and bushes 
 enabled him to creep within a very convenient spy- 
 ing distance, and his exclamation of surprise was 
 as if he had borrowed it of a Pawnee. 
 
 " Ugh ! A house ! Stable ? Fence around them ? 
 How they have worked ! And there's Perry Munro
 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 255 
 
 and his oxen breaking prairie. Going to put in 
 winter wheat, I suppose. They're bound to be a 
 rich family at this rate. There's a hog-pen. That's 
 Mr. Munro at work on the fence. If the doctor 
 isn't helping him ! I'd no idea he could be of any 
 use." 
 
 The male members of the Munro family were all 
 accounted for, and an immense amount of hard 
 work by both men and women also accounted for 
 the marvellous change in the appearance of that 
 piece of prairie land. 
 
 Jerry might well repeat, 
 " If they keep it up they'll be rich." 
 He added, inwardly, a thought that it would be 
 a prosperous thing for him to reform into such a 
 family, with a wife who would some day own half 
 of that rapidly improving property. The kind of 
 love he was affected with is apt to have such symp- 
 toms, no matter what may be its other accompani- 
 ments. 
 
 Jerry had found a good ambush in a mass of 
 hazels, where his only companion was a rabbit, who 
 believed himself also to be perfectly hidden. 
 
 The rabbit was entirely unable to read the mean- 
 ing of a sudden change in the expression of the 
 human face he was watching, or he would at once 
 have known more than any other living rabbit. 
 Jerry's glass enabled him to study with trying 
 closeness a tiny drama which produced a tremen-
 
 256 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 dous effect upon Mm. Both Jessie and Erica came 
 out of the "patent" part of the house, and they 
 were closely followed by Mrs. Munro. She too 
 must have been interesting, as a woman who might 
 some day be a mother-in-law, but Jerry's gaze was 
 focalized upon the pair in front of her. He could 
 be quite sure they were not talking of him, for 
 they were laughing merrily, and Bob came up as 
 if to ask what it was about. Mrs. Munro handed 
 Erica a parcel, very much as if saying, 
 " There, my dear, take that to your mother." 
 Erica took the parcel and walked away leisurely, 
 while Perry Munro turned from his plough to wave 
 his hat, and Uncle John dropped a fence rail on the 
 toes of his brother Joseph. 
 
 Jessie turned and went back into the house with 
 her mother, and her hidden observer lowered his 
 "binocular" without uttering a sound. He had 
 been spoken to again, but not by Remorse or Re- 
 pentance; only by fierce, absorbing Passion, and 
 mingled with the overmastering counsels of that 
 voice had been utterances most searching and most 
 galling. He stood there as a spy in a thicket ; an 
 outlaw; a branded man; an ex-convict; a felon 
 once driven from the presence of those very women 
 as unfit for their society; and these withering 
 memories came to converse with him while he 
 looked upon the radiant face of the girl he was in 
 love with. They came to say to him, " It might
 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 257 
 
 have been," and when he replied, with an oath, 
 " It shall be," they pointed at the record of his evil 
 life and asked him, " What about this ? "Will she 
 not surely know some day ?" 
 
 The strange perversity of blunted human nature 
 enabled him to reply and to believe it, " She will 
 not care after we are married. Any woman takes 
 her husband's part." 
 
 Still, there was gall and wormwood in the social 
 fact that he dared not walk on to the house and 
 make a lover's visit to Jessie. He hardly sent a 
 thought after Erica. He had only been in love 
 with her for a few days, and all her beauty was 
 nothing to him now. It was a marvel how 
 thoroughly all the forces of his emotional nature 
 had become concentrated upon one object, and 
 there was no one to explain it to him. 
 
 It had an easy explanation. He had by no 
 means lost the capacity for loving, and beyond a 
 doubt he was in love as utterly as was at all possi- 
 ble for him. Jessie represented to him all his idea 
 of womanhood, but that was not all. It was as if 
 in her he saw the social standing, the honor, the 
 entire world of human life and hope that he had 
 thrown away, and as if in obtaining her he might 
 regain it, in defiance of the laws which govern 
 human events. 
 
 Otherwise, his mad vanity and self-worship told 
 him he was a wronged, persecuted man, with a 
 
 r 22*
 
 258 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 vengeful right to destroy whatever or whoever 
 might prevent. There was murder in his heart 
 and in his face as he drew back among the hazels. 
 The rabbit believed himself sought for and sprang 
 away in needless haste, but Jerry followed him 
 slowly, saying to himself, 
 
 " I wonder if that old Potawatamy is around yet. 
 He'd be in the way, if he is, and I must have him 
 wiped out." 
 
 He hardly imagined how perfectly the "old 
 Potawatamy" understood his relations to Pawnees 
 in general, and to that lot of them in particular. 
 
 A good look at him, only a little while after 
 Jerry had turned away from studying Chumley's 
 house, might have conveyed valuable information. 
 
 Chumley had not been seen, simply because he 
 was inside of the house, in his own room, sitting 
 at his writing-desk as if writing a letter, with 
 another letter open before him. 
 
 He had just said, seeming to read what he had 
 written, 
 
 " Many thanks for the draft, but my plans are 
 undergoing a change. I do not say what they are, 
 but " 
 
 There he stopped, for he heard a sound in the 
 other room. 
 
 " Ugh ! House ! Where Chumley ?" 
 
 "Are you back again? Come in. What's up 
 now?"
 
 1 What is it? Who?"

 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 259 
 
 Red Beauty stood in the door-way, having made 
 his stealthy way in unseen, and the very dogs knew 
 him so well that they made no fuss in broad day- 
 light over his comings or goings. It might have 
 been another thing after dark, for dogs have even- 
 ing notions of their own. The old Indian "did not 
 seem to have changed a hair of his head or a stitch 
 of his raiment, and his weird face had an abso- 
 lutely wooden expression as he drew aside his 
 blanket and took out something it had hidden. 
 
 Chumley was not so wooden, for he sprang to 
 his feet exclaiming, almost excitedly, 
 
 "What is it? Who?" 
 
 " Ugh ! One more Pawnee. Bed Beauty great 
 chief. Find other one pretty soon. Good ! Chum- 
 ley keep eye open. Pawnee come." 
 
 " Where did it happen ?" 
 
 " Ugh ! Chumley ask too much question. Some- 
 body ask him some day. He say 'Don't know.' 
 Chumley heap fool. Not know how lie." 
 
 " I won't be fool enough to ask how you got that 
 scalp, then. The blood on it is hardly dry yet. 
 Does it mean danger coming ?" 
 
 " One danger gone. See ? Ugh ! More come. 
 Chumley 'calp loose now. Go off pretty soon. 
 Keep eye open for knife." 
 
 That was a grisly warning, with a ghastly illus- 
 tration, but there was wisdom in giving up the 
 hopeless task of questioning Red Beauty. It was
 
 260 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 really just as well not to know the particulars and 
 incidents of an ancient feud among the unforgiving 
 red men. Such feuds exist and always have been, 
 from the oldest days of savage life. They are 
 bloody types of the centuries-old hates between 
 great nations of semi-civilized white men calling 
 themselves also Christians and inventing wonderful 
 engines for the better destruction of human life. 
 Red Beauty was a secretly proud Indian that day, 
 but Chumley made him go and hide that scalp 
 away, somewhere, and wash his hands before he 
 would give him anything to eat. He was rewarded 
 by the renewed assertion, 
 
 " Chumley heap fool. Jerry McCord 'calp him 
 pretty soon. Red Beauty got ONE !" 
 
 He ate as a man with a clear conscience and who 
 had had neither breakfast nor dinner that day, and 
 was making up for both. His host said to him- 
 self, 
 
 " I do believe he has earned it, but I wish I knew 
 how near the living rascals were. Probably they 
 will never know what has become of this one." 
 
 That was quite likely, but if they had been near 
 enough to him, about an hour before noon of that 
 day, they would have been able to explain the en- 
 tire puzzle concerning the conduct of his pony. 
 The Pawnee whom they were never to see again 
 had turned to the right, just as the hoofinarks of 
 his pony indicated, and had ridden slowly along till
 
 AMONG THE BUSHES. 261 
 
 he came to the border of the ravine. Just there a 
 rifle cracked among the trees beyond him, and a 
 bullet struck him so truly between the eyes that he 
 fell to the earth without a sound or a struggle. In 
 a moment more Red Beauty was kneeling at his 
 side, remarking to him, 
 
 " Ugh ! Bad Pawnee. Know him long time. 
 No more 'teal horse. No more kill Potawatamy." 
 
 In another moment the trophy had been taken 
 and the body thrown over into the ravine. Every 
 visible trace of the whole affair was patiently ob- 
 literated before Red Beauty left the spot. Even 
 then his next errand was down into the ravine, to 
 pile stones and brush over the ghastly remnant of 
 humanity. After that he followed and caught the 
 Pawnee's pony, mounted and rode to the place 
 where he deemed it best to leave him. It was easy 
 to tie him to the sapling, to climb from that to a 
 larger tree, monkey-like, and to drop from an out- 
 reaching branch of that upon the flat ledge of rock 
 whereon moccasins left no footprint for any eyes 
 to follow. 
 
 As for the pony, Red Beauty gave him up with 
 deep regret, but with an inward assurance that 
 whoever was next found upon him would be in- 
 quired of concerning his late owner. He did only 
 justice to the trailing capacity of his enemies, 
 however, when he said, 
 
 " Pawnee find him. Ask him, ' Where brave ?'
 
 262 RED BEAUTY, 
 
 Pony no tell. Brave gone. Devil got him. Paw- 
 nee take pony 'calp if want to. No find Red 
 Beauty on wrong horse." 
 
 CHAPTER XXYL 
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DAKK. 
 
 WHEN Red Beauty entered Chumley's house, 
 Erica was on a visit with Jessie, Gustav was in the 
 forest getting out rails for the Munro fences, and 
 his wife was in the cornfield. She returned with 
 an apron-fall of roasting-ears in time to make 
 coffee for Red Beauty, but would hardly have 
 poured it out so smilingly if she had known what 
 work he had been at to give him such a voracious 
 appetite. Still, to her at least, his killing of an- 
 other Pawnee would not have been so dreadful a 
 stain upon his private character. She had been 
 very glad to hear the report of his rifle once, and 
 could easily have forgiven him for using it in like 
 manner again. Not a syllable did he breathe to 
 her, however, about his latest exploit, and took to 
 his pipe in silence after dinner. 
 
 Chumley brooded long and deeply over the news 
 and its indications. He finished his letter and sat
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 263 
 
 down for another council with his thoughts, and 
 before long he said to himself, 
 
 " I think at least Perry should be told, but I dis- 
 like to alarm Jessie and her mother. I must go 
 over there." 
 
 At that moment Red Beauty came gliding in to 
 say, 
 
 " Ugh ! Go find more. Come tell what find." 
 
 " You're off on another scout, are you ? That's 
 right. Seems to me I'd like to know a little 
 more." 
 
 "Ugh! Chumley shut mouth. Wait Red 
 Beauty got ONE. Find if any more in woods. 
 Chumley keep eye open all time. Got four dog 
 left." 
 
 There was some consolation in that, so far as 
 night-watches were concerned, but something more 
 than dogs could do might now be demanded. 
 
 The old Indian left the house and went away 
 through the cornfields, hidden all the time from 
 the eyes of any possible observer in the edge of 
 the forest. No man could guess what direction he 
 would take after disappearing in the tall, green 
 luxuriance of the maize. 
 
 Chumley went out and took a look at his horses 
 in the pasture-lot, but there seemed no immediate 
 reason for bringing them in. Then he went back 
 to his room and inspected his very good supply of 
 arms and ammunition.
 
 264 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " I hope I shall not have to try my skill on any 
 human being," he said to himself, " but Jerry and 
 his gang must keep away. Their blood is on their 
 own heads if they come prowling around here. 
 No danger of Erica taking a fool's fancy for such 
 a fellow, but I won't have her annoyed by him. 
 Jessie ?" 
 
 He paused there, for some sudden thought which 
 he did not put into words brought a flash to his 
 eye and made him half pick up a revolver. He 
 drew back his hand more quietly and added, " My 
 house is a sort of fort, and they would hardly think 
 of an actual attack nowadays. Not unless they could 
 creep in at night, like any other burglars. The 
 Munros have two log rooms. Wish all the rest 
 was up and finished. It will be before winter, no 
 doubt, and all their stabling, but Bob is their best 
 friend just now, so far as their horses are con- 
 cerned. I'll wait till I see Red Beauty again before 
 I say anything to Perry. If those outcasts really 
 come around, they'll try for me, sure as you live. 
 Better keep my eyes about me. Open prairie is 
 safer for me than the timber." 
 
 If he was thinking of the Munro family, one 
 part of it was also thinking and speaking of him. 
 
 Erica had done so while she was with them, and 
 it may have been some idea she left behind her 
 that caused Mrs. Munro to remark, 
 
 "I'm older than you or Erica, Jessie. To my
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 265 
 
 mind Mr. Chumley wears a look, especially at 
 times when he's not speaking, that makes me feel 
 as if he'd seen trouble. He's a young man, my 
 dear, and he hasn't gotten over it yet." 
 
 Jessie was silent for a moment and drew a long 
 breath before asking, 
 
 " What kind of trouble, mother ?" 
 
 "Something pretty deep, I should say. We're 
 getting well acquainted with him and he's been 
 here a great deal, and yet he has never said one 
 word about his family or friends, or the part of the 
 country he came from." 
 
 Jessie had not failed to take note of such a fact 
 as that and to wonder at it exceedingly, but all she 
 now said was, 
 
 " Home trouble, you mean, mother ?" 
 
 "It is really not our business, my dear, except 
 that he is our only near neighbor and I wish we 
 knew more about him." 
 
 More was said, and all of it was as nothing com- 
 pared with the unspoken thoughts of those two 
 women, and both were aware of it. 
 
 The neighborhood was very small, and all the 
 gossip was necessarily intensified by concentration. 
 
 Long before supper-time Mr. Munro and Uncle 
 John ceased making fence because they had used 
 up all the rails on hand, but Perry toiled away at 
 his ploughing persistently. 
 
 " G'lang now !" he shouted to his oxen. " Seems 
 
 M 23
 
 266 & ED BEAUTY 
 
 to me I'd like to see the whole prairie turned over 
 before sundown." 
 
 If anything upon his mind were goading and 
 driving him, he turned its inner operation to good 
 practical account, externally, and the hroad ribbons 
 of sod curled over and lay down ready for the 
 wheat that was to come. 
 
 Supper-time came at last, but nothing came with 
 it or followed it to mark that day from other days 
 until after the last traces of sunlight had vanished. 
 
 The first thing to occur after dark which was 
 worth noting was not taken note of by anybody. 
 Away beyond the brook running through the 
 middle of the Munro "section" a man rode out of 
 the forest in a northerly direction, remarking, 
 
 " I'll make a long circuit, if it's only to kill time. 
 Maybe I'll pick up something new." 
 
 Jerry already knew about the Munro improve- 
 ments all that could be seen from the forest, and 
 he was familiar enough with Chumley's place, but 
 lurking under trees was wearisome work for a man 
 who had so very much and of such a sort in his 
 heart and brain. He was out on an all but aimless 
 hunt, but he took precautions. He did not ride 
 near enough to the house to announce his coming 
 to the keen ears of Bob, but he might have ridden 
 nearer without doing so, for Bob was just then in 
 the stable with his master. 
 
 Perry's ploughing should have wearied him suf-
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 267 
 
 ficiently to keep him quietly at home that evening, 
 but it had failed to do so. He could hardly have 
 told what was the matter with him if he had been 
 asked. Something was, and other members of the 
 family had spoken of it. 
 
 Uncle John had gravely mentioned malaria, and 
 had suggested quinine and five other remedies. 
 Mrs. Munro had shaken her head dubiously in 
 reply, and so had Jessie, and it was to the expres- 
 sion of their faces and not to Uncle John that Mr. 
 Munro replied, sharply, 
 
 " He may be lonely. Perhaps he is, but he is 
 not discontented. Let him alone. I had just such 
 turns when I was of his age. I got to writing 
 poetry once, and it stuck to me for six months. 
 He isn't as bad as that yet, by any means. Let 
 him alone." 
 
 So they did, and when he said he guessed he 
 would take a ride, nobody interfered or told him 
 what an odd idea it was. Jessie was even more 
 considerate, and said he had taken a night for it 
 when the stars were splendid. 
 
 That was true, but it was dark enough on the 
 prairie, in spite of all that the stars could do. A 
 man on foot, or even a horse, could not be seen at 
 twenty paces distance. That was the estimate made 
 by Jerry McCord when he dismounted upon the 
 Pawnee Trail, a little later, at a place on a line from 
 the Munro house to Chumley's. He could see the
 
 268 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 faint glimmer of a light in the latter, and lie added 
 a savage remark about dogs to the words, " All at 
 home, I suppose. We shall hardly get at him there. 
 I don't know why I should go any nearer, but I 
 will." 
 
 There was a wide reach of untouched prairie 
 grass between him and Chumley's nearest fence, 
 and into this he rode on and dismounted. A lariat- 
 peg stamped into the ground was left to hold his 
 horse for him while he went nearer the house which 
 contained Erica, and to the stables and yard wherein 
 so many desirable horses and mules were gathered. 
 He might have thought more graspingly of either 
 at an earlier day, but his love for Erica had been 
 driven out by a stronger passion, and he had not for 
 years felt so little like taking another man's horses. 
 He would have given more for a safe shot at Chum- 
 ley just then than for the best animal owned by 
 either of them. 
 
 The night was warm, and as the prowler drew 
 stealthily nearer he saw that the door stood wide 
 open. All of that household who were at home 
 were too much at peace to be in fear, and they 
 had no dream of prying eyes out there in the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Nearer drew the bitter-hearted spy, as near as he 
 might without a certainty of rousing Chumley's 
 dogs, and now a glass was helpful in bringing the 
 interior of the house before him. The very lamp
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 269 
 
 upon the table seemed to send out a whiter and 
 brighter glow because of what it shone upon. 
 
 Chumley was not there, and Gustav Eagleson 
 was reading to his wife and daughter from a huge 
 leather-bound volume with heavy brass clasps. It 
 was some massive book that he had brought with 
 him over sea from the fatherland of the Norse- 
 man. 
 
 Jerry McCord had never looked upon just such 
 a scene before, and he gazed in silence till the read- 
 ing ended and the reader and the listeners all knelt 
 down. 
 
 " If that isn't awful !" burst hoarsely from the 
 lips of the outlaw. " They're praying. They be- 
 lieve in God, and there isn't any." 
 
 He had hardly repeated the felon's creed when a 
 trampling near him made him suddenly turn and 
 then crouch low among the grass and weeds. He 
 was not any too prompt, although the eyes which 
 might have discovered him were otherwise intently 
 occupied. Perilously near the crouching thief in 
 the grass sat a man on horseback, gazing with ab- 
 sorbed earnestness upon the family group, the up- 
 turned bearded face of the father, the bowed head 
 of the mother, and the golden hair of the daughter, 
 upon which the light of the lamp streamed so joy- 
 ously as if taking a pleasure in doing so. 
 
 Perry Munro had brought a double-barrelled gun 
 with him, without any assignable reason whatever, 
 
 23*
 
 270 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 but he was not at all likely to look for any mark 
 down there among the shadows. He looked until he 
 saw what Jerry now could not see. All three there 
 in the house arose and stood together between the 
 table and the door, and in a moment even the 
 prowler felt a thrill from head to foot. It seemed to 
 him, just as it did to Perry, that he had never in his 
 life heard music more wonderful than that Swedish 
 evening hymn, sung by those voices. Had he been 
 nearer he could not have understood the words, 
 but it was all the same. Some subtle meaning in 
 them floated out across the prairie and found him 
 and went down into his darkened soul, searching 
 for some memory to which it was akin, and it found 
 one. That forgotten thing in Jerry's mind was 
 very faint and formless, but enough of life was 
 stirred in it to make it whisper to him, 
 
 " If there is a place hereafter, where all is light 
 and beauty and holiness and peace and wonderful 
 song, you will never look into it except from some 
 place reserved for evil beings, away outside, in the 
 dark. You do not belong by the Book and all 
 that cleanness." 
 
 Stabbed into him again was the bitter assurance 
 which had been haunting him all day, and again 
 the hot blood surged to his heart in a deadly de- 
 termination, expressed in hisses of inaudible pro- 
 fanity, that he would do any violence, commit any 
 crime, dare any peril, that he might break through
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 271 
 
 the social wall which he perceived to be shutting 
 him out. He was more than ever possessed, as by 
 a demon, with the delusion that the owner of a 
 large and well-stocked farm, the husband of such 
 a beautiful wife as Jessie Munro, himself fine-look- 
 ing, educated, and of uncommon abilities, would 
 be no longer Jerry McCord the white Pawnee, but 
 Mr. Edward Payne and a very different kind of 
 human being, in his own eyes and in the eyes of 
 all men. So he was more in love than ever. 
 
 Perry Munro had no such trouble on his mind, 
 but he had an uneasy feeling that he was all but 
 playing the spy. He did not turn his eyes away, 
 however, and when the hymn was ended Erica 
 came to the door and looked up at the stars. 
 Whatever answer they made her, she turned back 
 into the house, and Perry rode away. He had 
 seen and heard enough for one evening, and yet 
 his adventures were by no means over. Neither 
 were those of Jerry McCord. 
 
 "No man, red or white, could long remain quiet 
 under such circumstances as had that day been dis- 
 covered by the survivor of the pair of Pawnee 
 spies. He had both lost his comrade and found 
 the lost brave's pony while spying after the move- 
 ments of Jerry McCord, the distrusted captain of 
 his own band. He had found a safe covert after- 
 wards and had eaten a late dinner there, but even 
 while eating he had been thinking profoundly.
 
 272 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He now again recalled the brave who had been dis- 
 covered by Jerry at the foot of the tree in the 
 camp, with no man to tell how he came to be dead. 
 
 "Ugh!" he said. "Jerry know. Now other 
 brave gone. Keep eye open for Jerry. Heap 
 snake." 
 
 It looked badly, considered by a plains red man as 
 circumstantial evidence of something wrong, and 
 he picked up his rifle with a gloomy shake of his 
 head. 
 
 " Ugh !" he exclaimed. " Go find what Jerry 
 do. Look out heap !" 
 
 He sprang upon the back of his pony and rode 
 away, leading the other, but the plan he followed 
 was thoroughly Indian. It led him to watch near 
 the old camp, but not in it, until he witnessed 
 Jerry's arrival and departure. After that, every 
 step of the latter was witnessed at a safe distance, 
 up to the dusky moment when he rode out from 
 under the trees. All that he had seen of the im- 
 provements and the settlers had also been seen by 
 the Pawnee, but he was of more importance than 
 they, and it was a bitterness to lose sight of him. 
 A man on foot can hardly chase with success a man 
 on horseback in the daytime, and it is even a 
 more tedious affair at night. Nevertheless the 
 Pawnee did follow, longing for his pony and won- 
 dering vastly what his " captain" might be up to. 
 The prairie around Chumley's Post was therefore
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 73 
 
 in a fair way to be thoroughly patrolled that night, 
 and no man could guess with what consequences. 
 
 Perry Munro felt that his evening ride had suc- 
 ceeded wonderfully. His ears and eyes were fall 
 of what he had seen and heard, and as he rode 
 slowly away it came to him strongly that there 
 could not he a safer place on earth than the thresh- 
 old upon which Erica Eagleson had finished her 
 evening hymn. 
 
 Very likely he was right, considering what frail 
 material merely human safety consists of, and he 
 did not dream of what had been lurking among 
 the rosin weeds while he had looked and listened. 
 Neither did Jerry McCord himself know all, al- 
 though well aware of his own presence and Perry's. 
 A mounted man scouting after dark does not ride 
 rapidly, and a Pawnee warrior can see a light as 
 far as another. 
 
 Gustav Eagleson's lamp had guided more than 
 one pair of feet, and when Jerry McCord felt sure 
 that Perry was far enough for safety and arose to 
 go for his horse, a human form which did not rise 
 but that travelled well on all fours followed him at 
 a moderate distance. That Pawnee was obtaining 
 a higher opinion of Jerry, however, for he dis- 
 cerned that he was performing precisely the work 
 he had outlined beforehand. It looked very much 
 like " business," and yet the watcher again asked 
 himself,
 
 274 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Got pony, where brave gone ? No find Jerry 
 there." 
 
 That was so. He had seen no trace of Jerry's 
 presence in that affair, nor of any other man. All 
 he had found was a mysterious disappearance and 
 a pony with blood upon his bridle. At all events 
 he was sure that Jerry had now remounted and was 
 riding towards the Pawnee Trail, and that he had 
 not spoken to the other white horseman. That 
 man's presence had also been a sore puzzle to the 
 Pawnee until an idea came to him. 
 
 " Ugh !" he said. " Come 'teal young squaw. 
 Old man there, old squaw there. Young squaw 
 put head out and tell him ' can't come;' he go away." 
 
 That had not been precisely the meaning of 
 Erica's appearance in the door-way, but the Pawnee 
 did not understand Swedish customs. 
 
 Perry Munro had ridden slowly, as if his horse 
 felt solemn about something, but it did not take 
 him long to get very near Chumley's Post 
 
 A low whinny of another horse asking a question 
 of his own made him suddenly lift his head and 
 peer forward into the gloom. The starlight re- 
 vealed to him a sort of a mounted shadow close by 
 the thin ghost of the hickory landmark. 
 
 It seemed to Perry as if all the wild stories he 
 had heard since he came upon that prairie flashed 
 through his brain in one hot warning of danger. 
 His blood tingled to his very heels as he dug them
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 275 
 
 into his horse's ribs, and as the astonished beast 
 sprang forward he heard his rider demand, 
 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 " Halt !" came back for answer. Perry had never 
 before known any words of his own to sound so 
 marvellously deep, ringing, threatening. It was for 
 that reason that they had not been recognized, and 
 the response had been deeper and sterner, and with 
 it he saw the starlight glitter upon a levelled line 
 of polished metal. He drew his rein with sudden 
 strength, checking his horse not more than two 
 lengths from the mouth of a double-barrelled gun. 
 
 " Perry Munro ?" 
 
 " Chumley !" 
 
 " Thank God that I did not fire !" 
 
 There was a world of intense feeling in that ex- 
 clamation, and it occurred to Perry that if an enemy 
 had been there instead of a friend his own rashness 
 would but have thrown his life away. He had not 
 so much as thought of his gun, so complete had 
 been his surprise. He was altogether raw to the 
 methods and exigencies of any kind of warfare, and 
 all he could now say was, 
 
 " What's up ?" 
 
 " Ride closer. No man can guess whose ears are 
 around. What brought you out ? Have you seen 
 anything out of the way ? Have you met anybody ?" 
 
 "Haven't seen a thing. Haven't met a soul. 
 I was out for a ride. Is there anything going on ?"
 
 276 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "I'm trying to find out, and we'd better keep 
 still about it until we know more. Red Beauty 
 will be back from the timber in the morning." 
 
 " Yes, but what is it all ?" asked Perry, half ex- 
 citedly. 
 
 " Some of Jerry McCord's Pawnees are back 
 again. How many or what for I don't know. 
 Most likely he is with them, or if he isn't he will 
 be." 
 
 " How do you know ? Are you sure of it ? Have 
 you seen them ?" 
 
 " Keep a secret, Perry ? On honor ?" 
 
 " I will. On my honor." 
 
 " Well, then, I haven't seen a single Pawnee, but 
 I have seen a scalp of one of them, taken since 
 breakfast. I didn't take it, and you'd better only 
 guess who did." 
 
 " I can guess." 
 
 "Your place is safe yet, and so is mine." 
 
 "The dogs were quiet when I rode by. !Nonn 
 of our folks are in bed yet." 
 
 " Go to the house and have a nice evening of it. 
 I'll scout around." 
 
 "I guess not," said Perry, indignantly. "It's as 
 much my duty as it is yours. I'd scout all night to 
 come across one of those " 
 
 " Hark !" rasped Chumley. " Get your gun 
 ready. Ride ! Keep together. Ha ! Hear that ?" 
 
 Galloping hoofs had gone past them in the dark-
 
 A SCOUT IN THE DARK. 277 
 
 ness and were now beyond them, as their horses 
 bounded forward, side by side. Seconds only 
 elapsed before somebody fired a shot, and the re- 
 port was followed by a yet more thrilling sound rail 
 of evil omen. 
 
 " Perry," said Chumley, " that was a Pawnee 
 war-whoop. They are here. Shoot at anything 
 you see." 
 
 Whoever heard was likely to understand that 
 warning, for it rang out with a sharpness which 
 Perry remembered respectfully afterwards and 
 spoke of to Jessie when he met her. At that 
 moment he obeyed with a promptness which be- 
 longed somewhat to his very rawness and inexpe- 
 rience. He may or may not have seen a moving 
 shadow or heard a rustle in the grass. Up came 
 his gun all the same, and the buckshot of one 
 barrel went hurtling into the night. 
 
 " Hold your other load ! What did you see ?" 
 
 " I can't say." 
 
 " It was right to let drive anyhow, if only to let 
 them know we're out after them and mean business. 
 I suppose you needn't pull trigger on Jerry McCord 
 at sight, but I must." 
 
 " After what happened at our place ?" 
 
 " And what he did at mine. One of us has got 
 to go under." 
 
 " Mr. Chumley, if I get a chance I think my gun 
 
 would go off again." 
 
 24
 
 278 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " I hope you'll hold straight, then, for Jerry Mc- 
 Cord is a good shot. Pull up. It's of no use to 
 follow farther in the dark. We only heard one 
 horse. Better go back to the Post." 
 
 CHAPTER XXYIL 
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 JERRY McCoRD crouching low in the grass, with 
 his deep sense of being cast out, had recognized 
 Perry Munro, but had sent out towards him no 
 tendril of good-will as a possible brother-in-law. 
 He was the rather stung by a keen perception that 
 Perry was a perfect type of the men of rectitude 
 whose unyielding ideas of manly honor spurned 
 him away. He was part of the wall around Jessie, 
 and stood between her and her lover now in the 
 grass. He was hated exceedingly for that reason, 
 but was safe from present harm for the sake of 
 prudence. 
 
 " He's had a good look at Erica," said Jerry to 
 himself, " but so have I. I wonder what he's out 
 on horseback for at this time o' night? It can't 
 be that they've smelt danger and are keeping up a 
 patrol. I must follow him and find out."
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 279 
 
 That was the reason why he was so quickly 
 mounted. He kept at what seemed to him a safe 
 distance behind so very green a hand as Perry 
 Munro must be, until he was startled by the gruff 
 hails exchanged between him and Chumley. It was 
 instantly evident that something uncommon was 
 going forward, but it was a mistake to move too 
 fast in trying to discover its nature. 
 
 Yet another complication came suddenly in at 
 this moment. The Pawnee on foot had been able 
 to come as closely as concealment permitted, while 
 the leader upon whose conduct he was spying 
 watched the scene at Chumley's house. He be- 
 lieved that he understood all, and when Jerry 
 remounted he followed him again without any 
 blundering until he also caught a glimpse of the 
 pair of horsemen at the Post. That sight drew 
 from him an astonished " Ugh !" and Jerry heard 
 the sound, a little at his left and behind him, with 
 a startled exclamation. The two incautious utter- 
 ances reached the ears of Chumley together, just 
 as Jerry spurred out of what seemed to him a 
 kind of trap. He drew a pistol as he did so, and 
 fired wildly at something human on foot which 
 bounded forward at the same moment, and was 
 answered by a war-whoop. He was no novice, 
 however, in the ways and wiles of prairie warfare. 
 While yet he had a start of his pursuers he wheeled 
 at right angles with the course upon which he had
 
 280 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 first ridden, and then, at the foot of the first roll 
 over which he galloped, he suddenly reined in his 
 horse and dismounted. His left hand was on the 
 animal's nose to prevent a sound, and his right held 
 a revolver. It was a very picturesque posture of 
 horse and man, had there been light enough to do 
 it justice, but its main beauty for Jerry was in the 
 fact that Chumley and Perry rode past him within 
 a short distance without imagining that they had 
 done so. The adventure, as a whole, had don*e 
 Jerry some good, for it had thoroughly convinced 
 the Pawnee he had shot at that his distrusted cap- 
 tain was at war with that lot of pale-faces. 
 
 "Ugh! Good. No see Pawnee. No hit him. 
 Where gone now ? Ugh !" 
 
 His keen ears told him that the sound of Jerry's 
 horse's hoofs had ceased too soon, and he prowled 
 on like a wolf until he heard those of the two re- 
 turning riders. 
 
 "No find Jerry. Ugh! Good. Pawnee find 
 him. Say all right." 
 
 An Indian could find something to admire in an 
 escape like that, while Chumley and Perry found it 
 only mysterious and vexatious. By the time they 
 were back at the Post, Jerry McCord felt secure in 
 remounting, and, as he did so, there arose from 
 the earth close by him the same piercing, thrill- 
 ing sound which had replied to his random pistol- 
 shot
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 281 
 
 "There!" he exclaimed. "I thought I knew 
 that whoop. Black Wolf?" 
 
 "Ugh!" responded a dark form which came 
 stalking near to hold out a hand. " Black "Wolf 
 come help Jerry. Leave pony in woods. What 
 do now ?" 
 
 " Come along. Back to the woods. All these 
 people keep their eyes open." 
 
 "Ugh! What for? Think Pawnee come? 
 Jerry want more Pawnee, that all. 'Teal heap 
 horse. Get mule. Jerry all right now. Black 
 Wolf go tell all brave come along." 
 
 He was well able to keep up with a walking 
 horse, and the two wolves went on towards the 
 woods together. 
 
 That second war-whoop had been uttered just as 
 Perry Munro and Chumley reached the Post, and 
 the latter remarked, 
 
 "Do you hear that? Whoever they are they 
 have given it up for to-night. They've made up 
 their minds we're wide awake. We can do no 
 more out here in the dark. Come on to my house 
 and then go to yours. Keep still about that scalp." 
 
 " I will. Do you think there is any danger of 
 their making a night attack ?" 
 
 " Not th6 least in all the world. These fellows 
 are mere horse-thieves and cowardly highwaymen. 
 The Pawnee tribe is at perfect peace, and gets its 
 annuities regularly. This is a lot of vagabonds; 
 
 24*
 
 282 RED BEAUTY 
 
 runaways ; outlaws. They've no notion of being 
 shot at from behind logs. Indians are the poorest 
 kind of burglars. They'd hardly make a living at 
 anything if it wasn't for what your government 
 does for them." 
 
 Perry noted, half unconsciously, the expression 
 " your government," but his reply was, 
 
 "I suppose they do better guided by a sharp 
 white man like this fellow McCord." 
 
 " Of course they do. Dismount and come in 
 with me for a minute when we get to the house. 
 You hardly know what a fort it is." 
 
 " I will, and we'll make some improvements on 
 ours." 
 
 " Fences and stable doors and another dog like 
 Bob," said Chumley. 
 
 They had ridden rapidly while talking, and it 
 was not long before all the dogs tied up at his 
 house loudly announced that they had heard the 
 approaching hoofs this time. As the pair of horse- 
 men drew nearer the gate, the three inmates came 
 hurriedly out, and it was also evident that they had 
 first untied the dogs. 
 
 " That kind of noise," said Chumley, " is warn- 
 ing to any kind of thief. It tells him his coming 
 is known." 
 
 Perry sprang to the ground and fastened his 
 horse while Chumley led his own through the gate, 
 and the former determined to let the latter tell the
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 283 
 
 story of their adventure, as much or as little of it 
 as he might choose. 
 
 It was made somewhat brief, but all Chumley's 
 care could not conceal the fact that there were 
 enemies in the neighborhood. Gustav showed 
 his fine range of white teeth, and his blue eyes 
 glittered. He may have been a forgiving man, but 
 something he said indicated that he had an account 
 to settle with the tribe of Pawnees yet, in spite of 
 the little graveyard down at the Post. He and his 
 wife exchanged glances, and the shake of her head 
 indicated that she understood him. Something in 
 Erica's face, as she listened, might easily have been 
 interpreted : 
 
 " We need not be afraid. "We shall be perfectly 
 safe with so much protection as we have." It was 
 full of enthusiastic confidence in the prowess of at 
 least one member of that " patrol." 
 
 Chumley's invitation to Perry must have been a 
 mere subterfuge, for he and Gustav walked off to 
 the stables and Mrs. Eagleson followed them, leav- 
 ing Perry alone with Erica. It was on his mind 
 that he ought to say something reassuring, if he 
 could find the proper shape to put it in, and she 
 also was silent for a moment as if hunting the best 
 words for a difficult thought. 
 
 They came to her after a fashion, and she looked 
 at him earnestly as she asked him, or herself, the 
 question,
 
 284 R ED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Perry, I did not think of it while Mr. Chum- 
 ley was talking, what if the Pawnees killed you ?" 
 
 " No danger of that, I guess. They might kill 
 Chumley, too." 
 
 " No danger ?" she exclaimed, as if the idea grew 
 upon her. " They shoot ! They murder ! Did I 
 not see them once ? It was horrible ! They meant 
 to kill us all." 
 
 " Chumley can shoot better than he could then," 
 said Perry, with an effort at cheerfulness. He 
 thought her face was more than ordinarily beautiful 
 in its keen expression of anxiety for the present 
 and of horror at that black memory. She now 
 arose from the chair in which she had been sitting. 
 
 " I must speak to Mr. Chumley," she said. " He 
 must let you ride home at once. They may have 
 followed. What if they had, Perry ?" 
 
 " Don't worry about me, Erica. It isn't easy to 
 hit a man on horseback in the dark," replied Perry, 
 but he was aware of an extremely pleasant sensation. 
 He had not thought, up to that moment, how very 
 nice it might be to have a young woman anxious 
 about him. 
 
 She went for Chumley without another word, but 
 he agreed with Perry that the ride home would be 
 entirely safe. They all stood in the door and on 
 the step to bid him good-night, but the last words 
 he really heard were, 
 
 " Ride fast, Perry. Please do !"
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 285 
 
 She had sent him out of the house and compelled 
 him to go home, but he nevertheless rode away 
 with a strong feeling that he would like nothing 
 better, that night, than to ride around after Paw- 
 nees and kill a few and get himself wounded a 
 little in defence of at least a part of the contents 
 of Chumley's house. 
 
 That gentleman quieted the excitement of his 
 household as speedily as he could after Perry's de- 
 parture. He compelled the Eaglesons to go to 
 their own rooms, tied up all his dogs, and took a 
 last look at the doors and windows of the house 
 and stable. Then he put out his own lamp and lay 
 down, rally dressed, upon a rug of wolf-skins in 
 the middle of his front-room floor. 
 
 " Somehow or other," he said to himself, " I feel 
 better here than on my bed. It's an eccentricity." 
 
 It was not so much that as the one evidence he 
 had given of being under any excitement whatever, 
 and not made of wood or iron. It was perfectly 
 safe for him to sleep soundly until he should hear 
 from his dogs or from daylight, and before long he 
 was doing so. 
 
 Of all in that house, however, Gustav was asleep 
 first and Erica last, and even after her eyelids closed 
 they came apart again, as if she were trying to keep 
 them open and listen. 
 
 Perry Munro went home with an expectation of 
 finding his family all abed and asleep and only Bob
 
 286 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 sitting up for him, but he was mistaken. The 
 windows, as he rode up, looked as if every lamp 
 in the house were lighted, and he was loudly hailed 
 by Uncle John from the stable door : 
 
 " Is that you, Perry ?" 
 
 " What's the matter, Uncle John ?" 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure, but I wish I had loaded 
 this gun before I left the house. Have you been 
 anywhere ? Is there anything up ?" 
 
 He was plainly disturbed, but he failed to ex- 
 plain why, and it was not until Perry reached the 
 house that he was made to comprehend the situation. 
 
 The disturbance was in great part the work of 
 Bob. He had been shut up in the stable uninten- 
 tionally by Perry, when that somewhat absent- 
 minded young man rode away, and had behaved 
 himself so quietly that nobody knew or cared 
 where he was until about an hour, or less, before 
 his master's return. Then, all at once, the entire 
 Munro family had been led to exclaim, as with one 
 voice, 
 
 " What can be the matter ?" 
 
 They all knew that Uncle John replied correctly 
 when he added, 
 
 " That's Bob. Something has disturbed him. 
 We had better get up and ascertain what he means 
 by it." 
 
 Bob did not know or say. He had a clear idea 
 that wickedness of some sort was sneaking around
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 287 
 
 his premises, and lie hurled out at it the utmost 
 vehemence of his canine denunciation. His least 
 snarl, as he tried to paw his way out of that stable, 
 threatened ruin to somebody, while his loudest roar 
 of barking offered a study of expressive sound. It 
 meant all that could be said by a large and angry 
 watch-dog shut up. 
 
 Mr. Munro and Uncle John should have dressed 
 more rapidly, for before Bob grew at all quiet a lady 
 in a very white dress unlocked the stable door and 
 let him out, and he sprang away with a savage 
 growl to search and patrol all the darkness at all 
 near the house. Mrs. Munro had been followed by 
 the rest of the family, and afterwards Uncle John 
 had gone out with his empty gun, but Bob did not 
 reappear until he heard Perry's whistle. He 
 obeyed that promptly enough, whatever may have 
 been his regret that he had nothing to fetch in 
 with him. Such, for instance, as a wolf or a stray 
 Pawnee, for something evil had been around that 
 house, and Bob would have given many bones to 
 have known precisely what it was. 
 
 Jerry McCord could have told him, for he had 
 warned his red associate not to scout too near the 
 Munro house, and not to create the very state of 
 suspicious watchfulness that was now sure to result. 
 That Pawnee had an inadequate idea of Robert 
 Munro's nose and ears until he was forced to ex- 
 claim,
 
 288 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "Ugh! Heap loud dog. Ugh! Heap mouth 
 go off! Black Wolf no want him." And with that 
 assurance deepening in his mind he had hurried 
 
 Bob was now apparently satisfied that the cause 
 of his temporary excitement had left the neighbor- 
 hood. He took Uncle John's place at the stable 
 door without any gun, but such weapons as he had 
 were in first-rate fighting order. 
 
 Mrs. Munro told Perry all she knew, and asked 
 him, with an anxious look into something very new 
 in his face, 
 
 " What could have made Bob so very furious ? 
 Have you any idea ?" 
 
 " Mother," he replied, slowly, " I can't say. It 
 may have been Jerry McCord and it may have 
 been a Pawnee, but I can tell you one thing, I've 
 heard a Pawnee war-whoop !" 
 
 Uncle John was in the very act of taking up a 
 cartridge to put into his gun, but all the rest had 
 been getting more and more calm until they heard 
 that remarkable assertion. Mrs. Munro sharply 
 exclaimed, 
 
 " Oh, Perry ! My son !" 
 
 Jessie sprang to her feet and came close to her 
 brother to ask him, 
 
 "A Pawnee? Where was he? What did he 
 do ? Did you see him ?" 
 
 Mr. Munro walked straight across the room after
 
 A DISTURBED HOUSEHOLD. 289 
 
 the boots he had just kicked off, but Uncle John 
 very deliberately inquired, 
 
 " A war-whoop ? How do you know it was a 
 war-whoop ? How could you distinguish the 
 whooper's tribe ?" 
 
 "I didn't, but Chumley did. He's heard one 
 before." 
 
 The story was begun now, and he told it all very 
 well, so far as it related to anything or anybody 
 but Erica Eagleson. He remembered his promise 
 of secrecy as to the deeds of Red Beauty, but he 
 spoke very strongly of Chumley and all his works. 
 
 When the narrative was ended, the faces around 
 him told him that he had failed to give the situa- 
 tion an air of peace and security. All assurances 
 from Chumley that they were living in a quiet 
 neighborhood had a hollow sound. Still, they 
 agreed with Uncle John when he observed, 
 
 "I do not really see that we can do anything 
 more about it to-night." 
 
 " I don't believe we shall do any sleeping," said 
 Mrs. Munro. " Why, husband, this is dreadful !" 
 
 " So it is, my dear," said he. 
 
 " Chumley says it isn't," persisted Perry. " You 
 all go to bed. I'll lie down, but I won't undress. 
 Bob is the only fellow that needs to keep awake." 
 
 "As if any of as could close our eyes!" said 
 Jessie, indignantly ; but for all that every one of 
 them did so in due time, even Bob. 
 N t 25
 
 290 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 A PAWNEE PICNIC ENDED. 
 
 BOB'S deep-voiced warning to Jerry McCord and 
 Black Wolf that they were too near him had drawn 
 from the former but one comment, 
 
 " That dog must be got rid of, and so must 
 Chumley's." 
 
 As to any other small incidents of that night's 
 ride, he had no thoughts to spare for them. He 
 had already given up the problem of how the set- 
 tlers had been stirred up to do any patrolling, and 
 was dealing with another. What could be the real 
 meaning of the unexpected presence of Black Wolf? 
 Direct questioning was likely to be hopeless work, 
 but skilfully managed roundabout lying on both 
 sides enabled Jerry to get an idea that his own 
 Pawnees believed him to be a man worth watching. 
 The story of the disappearance of the other brave 
 was so deep a puzzle that he determined to look 
 into it in the morning. The look of things was 
 anything but promising, and he could but wish that 
 he and Jessie were already eastward bound upon a 
 bridal tour. He did not know that she was lying 
 wide awake, thinking of him. 
 
 He and Black Wolf made their way to their old
 
 A PAWNEE PICNIC ENDED. 291 
 
 camp. They made no fire, but each expressed his 
 lack of confidence in the other, and perhaps a 
 memory of the dead sentry at the foot of the tree. 
 The Pawnee lay down first and seemed to fall asleep 
 very quickly, and then Jerry did the same some 
 paces away from him. Before a great while Black 
 Wolf silently arose and glided away into the dark- 
 ness. Some minutes passed before Jerry himself 
 stealthily followed so instructive an example. Each 
 went for a safer spot to sleep on, saying in his sus- 
 picious heart, 
 
 " I'd rather not be knifed in the night." 
 
 Morning came and breakfast, and Jerry returned 
 to the subject of the missing brave. His duty to 
 all the band, he said, required that he should in- 
 vestigate that matter thoroughly. Black Wolf 
 heard in silence, but it grew upon him that his own 
 good name and safety were involved, and at last he 
 arose and beckoned Jerry to follow him, saying, 
 
 " Ugh ! Jerry come. Leave horse. Walk. 
 Show him where found pony." 
 
 Both carried their rifles as if they had an idea 
 of finding sudden use for them, and it was not a 
 long walk to the trail of the " lost brave." 
 
 Two men on foot could follow it better and more 
 searchingly than could one on horseback. When 
 they came to the spot where their friend had so 
 suddenly fallen from his pony, the precautions taken 
 by Red Beauty to hide it proved insufficient. There
 
 292 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 was enough of disturbance of leaves and grass, in 
 spite of all care, to induce a careful study. Then 
 the Black Wolf exclaimed " Ugh !" and pointed at 
 a dark spot upon a stone, and Jerry at once said 
 " Yes, blood." 
 
 Just then a sound like the bark of an angry dog 
 came up from the deep ravine beside them, and 
 they peered over the precipitous edge. It was not 
 a dog, but a solitary coyote, pawing viciously at a 
 heap of stones and rubbish at the bottom of the 
 ravine. A hasty shot from Jerry's revolver missed 
 the wolf, but sent him galloping down the ravine 
 and out of sight. It was not many minutes before 
 Jerry and his Pawnee were busy at that very heap 
 of rubbish, both in removing it and afterwards in 
 putting it back again. 
 
 Each was acquitted of that murder by what the 
 other saw. Jerry knew that one Pawnee might 
 Mil another in a quarrel, but it was impossible that 
 he should scalp him. On the other hand, the Paw- 
 nee knew that the work done upon his friend's head 
 had been performed by some red man, he could not 
 guess of what name or nation. All that now re- 
 mained was to pilot Jerry to the spot where the 
 pony had been found tied, and they wondered to- 
 gether over the fact that no trail led away from the 
 foot of that sapling. 
 
 The escape of the Red Beauty had been admir- 
 ably well performed, and would have remained a
 
 A PAWNEE PICNIC ENDED. 293 
 
 mystery had not the quick eye of the Pawnee dis- 
 covered a tree-branch bending down unnaturally 
 low. A further inspection led all the way back to 
 some twisted twigs upon the sapling, and the Paw- 
 nee exclaimed, in a tone of deep respect, 
 
 " Great chief do all that. Heap snake. See ? 
 Big brave. Say Pawnee find pony, no find who 
 kill. Only care for 'calp." 
 
 That obvious fact made the whole transaction 
 respectable in Indian eyes. Some old feud had 
 been relentlessly followed up to a bloody conclu- 
 sion. Revenge had been skilfully taken, and the 
 avenger had escaped in a manner which rendered 
 detection or pursuit impossible. 
 
 The Pawnee studied the matter very much as a 
 connoisseur in painting would study a suddenly 
 discovered "old master," or as an acute lawyer 
 might follow the perfect handling of a difficult 
 case. Jerry himself shuddered as the idea grew 
 more clear to him that the brave now lying under 
 the stones in the ravine had never known what hurt 
 him. It may have strengthened him in a suddenly 
 ripened purpose which made him send away Black 
 IVolf at once with orders to the rest of the gang 
 to come and take revenge for both of their slain 
 companions. It was as easy to say two as one, and 
 by sending the messenger he was left unencum- 
 bered to carry out any private plan in his own way. 
 The Pawnee was quickly upon his pony's back, 
 26*
 
 294 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 galloping westward. He left behind him a bad 
 white man in an uncommonly disturbed state of 
 mind. 
 
 "The devil's against me!" he exclaimed, as if 
 with a burst of fierce resentment against a well- 
 served and ungrateful master. " Everything went 
 along well enough until I set out to reform and get 
 married and settle down." 
 
 That was a curious description to give the pre- 
 cise plan he now had on hand, and it sounded as 
 discordantly when he quoted, 
 
 "'The course of true love never did run 
 smooth.' " 
 
 He hoped that his Pawnees, or some of them, 
 would come, but he was not half sure what they 
 would do with him or he with them after their 
 arrival. 
 
 Just such a doubt had been as busy as a bee 
 among his own Pawnees ever since they saw him 
 ride away. It was true that they had two spies 
 sent ahead to watch their dashing leader, but who 
 should watch those two spies ? It worked like an 
 oversupply of yeast in a "tin" of flour. The 
 fermentation was rapid, and half the remaining 
 braves were already so soured and jealous that 
 they were riding hard along the Trail, bent upon 
 arriving in time somewhere, they knew not exactly 
 where, to be sure of their share of they could not 
 pretend to say what. The very secluded place of
 
 A PAWNEE PICNIC ENDED. 295 
 
 refuge they left behind them contained, therefore, 
 only half a dozen of the laziest braves, more than 
 twice as many squaws, and a varied collection of 
 live-stock, when it was called upon to receive un- 
 welcome visitors. 
 
 The dogs of that camp barked readily, and the 
 fact that they all went off into fits of noise together 
 was not of itself cause for general perturbation in 
 broad daylight. Nevertheless, long before Black 
 Wolf halted for his mid-day rest, many long miles 
 away, and before he had met his coming kinsmen, 
 an unknown disaster fell suddenly upon all of them. 
 The camp-dogs knew that something was coming, 
 and said so vehemently, and one brave aroused 
 himself to cuff a squaw and bid her go and see 
 what was the matter. 
 
 He should have bidden her go at once and re- 
 move the rocky ledges behind that camp, which 
 shut it in and prevented a swift retreat from it. 
 She would hardly have had time for more than she 
 actually performed before the trouble foretold by 
 the dogs was distinctly visible. The yell she 
 uttered was a sort of spark to touch off every 
 other yell and whoop in that little valley, and all 
 these were replied to by the stirring notes of a 
 cavalry bugle. 
 
 It was all too late for anything but noise. The 
 last Pawnee to leave his camp that morning had 
 fallen into the hands of blue-coated Philistines,
 
 296 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 and now the captain and his men came galloping 
 in, sabre in hand. 
 
 The bugle and the blue uniforms were quite 
 enough, so far as winning a victory was concerned, 
 for not a Pawnee vagabond there had a thought of 
 making fight. Their only anxiety seemed to be to 
 convince the captain of their peaceableness, general 
 good purposes, and great love for him and all other 
 WMte Chiefs. 
 
 Would they go at once to the Reservation ? Of 
 course they would, and take all the squaws and 
 ponies with them, and tell him where to find all 
 the other Pawnees and that very bad white man, 
 Jerry McCord, who had induced them to leave the 
 Reservation and that honored friend of theirs, the 
 Agent. 
 
 " Sergeant," said the captain, " you and four men, 
 with two of the scouts and the quartermaster, will 
 be guard enough for these fellows." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the sergeant, saluting; but a 
 scout not in uniform had a looser tongue. 
 
 " Guard, captain ? They'll go right in, so's not 
 to get punished and so they can claim a bigger 
 sheer of these yere critters, 'fore the others are 
 fetched in." 
 
 " Take all their arms away, anyhow. Move them 
 at once, sergeant. I must push right on. There's 
 mischief prepared for somebody, or Pm mistaken." 
 
 Every squaw was ready to catch horses and pack
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 297 
 
 up, for long experience had taught them the futility 
 of any argument with an army officer carrying out 
 his instructions. As one middle-aged red pony- 
 packer briefly expressed the matter, 
 
 " Blue-coat heap devil. Speak once ; next time, 
 no speak, shoot." 
 
 "No shoot squaw," remarked her next friend. 
 " Want Jerry. Go find him now. Ugh !" 
 
 Their picnic was ended, but the captain still had 
 work before him, and within an hour he was out 
 of that valley. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 
 
 THERE was something the matter with Perry 
 Munro the morning after he heard his first Pawnee 
 war-whoop. He was always up and out early 
 enough, but he attended to his stock now with a 
 strange feeling that not quite so much of him had 
 ever before arisen. His overflowing energies put 
 him on horseback before breakfast, and the rest sat 
 down without him. His very absence added to the 
 vigor with which they discussed all they knew of 
 the events of the previous evening, and kept them
 
 298 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 at the table longer than usual. They had not risen 
 from it when his rapidly returning horse-hoofs 
 called them out to learn where he had been and 
 what for. 
 
 " Chumley says we're all right," he almost 
 shouted. " Red Beauty has come in and gone out 
 again. Not a trace of danger, and if there is he 
 will let us know." 
 
 That was somewhat more than Red Beauty had 
 actually reported to Chumley, and the old Pota- 
 watamy had not returned to the forest without 
 some small hope of getting another shot at some- 
 body. He had made sure of but one thing, and 
 that was that if any considerable number of Paw- 
 nee perils were coming, they had not yet arrived. 
 
 The only evidence that Perry had seen Erica 
 Eagleson was a message from her to Jessie that she 
 was coming over early for a horseback-ride. 
 
 For all that, however, Chumley had been actually 
 seen to chuckle inwardly that morning. Almost 
 his last words to Perry had been, 
 
 " By and by you and I had better make a scout 
 of our own. I'd like to look along the Trail for a 
 mile or so myself." 
 
 " I'll be ready," shouted Perry, as he mounted 
 his horse and rode away, but an anxious questioning 
 look grew fast upon the face of Erica. 
 
 " Mother," she said, " I don't believe they'd find 
 anything if they went."
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 299 
 
 " I hope very much not," was Mrs. Eagleson's 
 emphatic response ; but Chumley's 
 
 "I shall be hardly satisfied till I do," was an- 
 swered by Erica, 
 
 ""Well, Red Beauty can find out more than you, 
 and he won't get himself hurt, and Perry couldn't 
 find out anything, and you'd better take Eed Beauty 
 if you go." 
 
 There came in Chumley's quiet perception of 
 something, and Erica walked out into the kitchen, 
 leaving her mother and father to finish that con- 
 versation. 
 
 " It may look useless," he said to them, " but it 
 isn't. The surest way to send Jerry's Pawnees 
 about some other business is to show them that we 
 are watching for them." 
 
 That was Perry's explanation of it to his own 
 family circle, and Uncle John remarked, 
 
 " I suppose he understands their character better 
 than we do." 
 
 Jessie's eyes were pugnaciously bright when she 
 added, 
 
 "I wish I were a man and could go with them." 
 
 " You and Erica can scout around on the prairie," 
 said Perry. " I guess there won't be much farm 
 work done to-day. !N"ot till we know more about 
 the whooping and shooting." 
 
 " I wish I had heard it," said Jessie. 
 
 " It was evidently of a hostile character," said
 
 300 RE ^ BEAUTY. 
 
 Uncle John, and the rest of that morning at the 
 Munro homestead had so much to do with arms and 
 ammunition that they were all astonished when 
 Chumley rode over apparently unarmed. It was 
 very nearly provoking that he carried no gun, and 
 to find him so cool and unconcerned, but Jessie 
 found herself looking at him almost too intently 
 while she said to herself, 
 
 " He has killed three Pawnees. I wonder if he 
 ever killed anybody else, or if Mr. Payne ever did." 
 And she turned her head away with a strong con- 
 viction in her mind that Chumley at least would 
 not hesitate about doing whatever he might deem 
 needful with any weapon in his hand. He did not 
 dismount, but rode right on, telling Perry he should 
 stop for him on his return. 
 
 " He won't find me here," exclaimed Jessie, and 
 that was where the mischief of that day began. 
 
 She saddled her horse at once and rode over to 
 Chumley's house for Erica, only to meet that young 
 lady half-way, in every inch as excited a condition 
 of mind as herself. 
 
 " Perry and Mr. Chumley were at the Post," she 
 said, " when all those Pawnees passed them. Let's 
 go and look at it." 
 
 " Nobody there now," said Erica. 
 
 " But we can look around, and we can visit your 
 grove." 
 
 Off they went, as if to examine some old battle-
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 3Q1 
 
 ground and refresh historic memories; and there 
 was no reason why a ride in that direction should 
 not he entirely safe. A ride in another might not 
 he, however, and all of Chumley's icy calmness 
 vanished at once on his return from what may have 
 been a patrol and an inspection of the line of forest. 
 He was told of Jessie's departure just as Perry 
 mounted his horse. 
 
 " Gone ?" he said, with sudden energy. " "We 
 must get to my house before they start, Perry. 
 They must run no risks. Quick, now." 
 
 Perry had not thought of peril to his sister or 
 Erica up to that moment, and he galloped after 
 Chumley with a fierce something burning hotter 
 and hotter around his heart, such as he had never 
 felt before. Not a glimpse did they obtain of the 
 objects of their anxiety, and before they reached 
 Chumley's gate he turned and shouted to Perry, 
 three lengths behind him, 
 
 " Not there. They have gone already." 
 
 A glance along the Trail towards the prairie 
 seemed to convince him that they had not gone in 
 that direction. They would be yet in sight if they 
 had, he thought, and he added, almost savagely, 
 
 " The woods ! They are crazy ! Full of devils 
 for all we know." 
 
 Erica's father was in the door-way, as if to ask 
 the news, and to him the next words went : 
 
 " Gustav, my rifle ! On my bed." 
 26
 
 302 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " "Want a revolver ?" 
 
 " No, my belt is on. Quick." 
 
 Gustav's movements were swift enough, and the 
 question in his eyes as he handed the repeater over 
 the fence was answered with, 
 
 " I'm afraid the girls have gone into the timber. 
 We must catch up with them right away. No 
 need of your coming." 
 
 Perhaps, but Gustav went at once for a gun and 
 to saddle a horse ready for action if need should 
 be. 
 
 Perry had his double-barrel with him, and if 
 Jessie and Erica had really been in the timber, they 
 would shortly have had a formidable escort home 
 again. 
 
 It was all a mistake, and that which had already 
 come to pass in the woods made it more complete. 
 
 Black Wolf had not ridden far upon his errand 
 before he met another of his kind to tell him that 
 the rest were coming without waiting to be sent 
 for, and the pair turned back together to hunt for 
 Jerry McCord. They were reasonably ready to do 
 his bidding, but his own mind was yet more than a 
 little perplexed as to what that bidding should be. 
 The problem before him was one of extreme diffi- 
 culty, for it involved revenge on Chumley taken in 
 such a manner that Pawnees only should be charged 
 with its performance, while all the fire in his selfish 
 heart demanded the winning of Jessie Munro.
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 3Q3 
 
 More and more did she seem to Mm to include all 
 the hope remaining to him, and it never so much 
 as occurred to him to consider whether or not her 
 own happiness would be served by her becoming 
 his property. Again and again did his cunning 
 assure him, nevertheless, that whatever might 
 happen to Chumley or anybody else must in no 
 manner be traced to him, and he was keenly on 
 the watch for some such set of circumstances as 
 actually came. 
 
 Before they came, however, the state of his mind 
 grew more and more savagely perplexed. Another 
 scout along the edge of the timber gave him an 
 assurance that it was no place for him. 
 
 " I can do absolutely nothing without the Paw- 
 nees," he exclaimed, aloud. " Luck is against me." 
 
 Waiting was terrible work under such conditions, 
 but he sought a cover of dense underbrush, near 
 the line of the Trail, to fume and curse and grow 
 more bitter in. His horse was in a yet more re- 
 tired hiding-place, but not too far away to be 
 quickly reached if need should be. From such a 
 post of observation he could do little more than 
 make sure of the fact that there was little or no 
 travelling at that time along the Pawnee Trail. 
 
 Two passengers came, after a while, from the west- 
 ward, and Jerry's first glimpse of them brought to 
 his lips an exclamation of profane astonishment, 
 and to that he added,
 
 304 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "Black "Wolf already? One-eyed Sam with 
 him ? That means that they are all on the road. 
 Ha!" 
 
 The last explosive whisper came from him as he 
 glanced from the pair of Pawnees along the Trail 
 to the eastward. 
 
 " What if they Mil Perry also ?" he said to him- 
 self, as he almost instantly levelled his rifle through 
 the thick cover. " I can't help it if they do. I'm 
 afraid he's almost as much in my way as Chumley 
 is. Hope he'll kill one of them first, and I can 
 kill the other, or both of them. Just the yarn I'd 
 like to have to tell Jessie and the old folks. My 
 luck has come." 
 
 All the devil in him was at work, at all events, 
 as if other devils were stirring him up to the 
 murderous plot that had flashed upon him. His 
 breath came hard and slowly drawn, but his hand 
 was steady and his black eyes glared like coals as 
 he waited the yet nearer approach of the unsus- 
 pecting horsemen. 
 
 The mistake made by Perry Munro and Chum- 
 ley as to the direction of Jessie's and Erica's morn- 
 ing ride sent them galloping towards the timber 
 the moment Gustav handed the rifle to the latter. 
 
 " They can't have gone far, Perry, and we shall 
 catch up before any harm can come to them." 
 
 " Perhaps they didn't come this way." 
 
 " We must find out. My blood's all on fire, but
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 3Q5 
 
 I could shoot straight. Red Beauty is in here 
 somewhere." 
 
 They rode more slowly after entering the forest, 
 sending swift glances right and left, and listening 
 as if some voice might come to them from among 
 the green shadows. 
 
 None came, and they had already pushed on as 
 far as they could think it likely the girls would 
 venture, when they saw something which instantly 
 stirred anew their fading anxieties. 
 
 "Two of Jerry's Pawnees, Perry! No other 
 Indians around here." 
 
 "Will they fight?" 
 
 "Not off-hand. "We must meet them friendly. 
 Leave it to me. Be ready for quick work." 
 
 At that instant Perry turned on his saddle with 
 a great spasm of dread sweeping over him. His 
 eyes had been upon Chumley's face, and he saw it 
 change suddenly, as the report of a rifle rang out 
 beyond them. The hand which held Chumley's 
 repeater cast it away with a convulsive motion, but 
 there was yet a grim smile upon his resolute lips 
 when he reeled into Perry's outstretched arms. 
 The latter's foot had slipped from the stirrup, and 
 the weight he had grasped forced him completely 
 off his horse. He managed to prevent Chumley 
 from falling to the ground, and bore him with des- 
 perate strength into the bushes on the right. The 
 Pawnee war-whoop was ringing in his ears as he 
 
 u 26*
 
 306 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 did so. Black Wolf and his mate had fired no 
 shot, but instantly caught the meaning of the one 
 fired, and they saw the fall of the man upon whom 
 they had come to work revenge. The fact that 
 they saw hoth of the white horsemen go down, 
 seemingly, led them to dash forward with a rash 
 haste unbecoming warriors of their tribe and train- 
 ing. 
 
 Perry Munro had dropped his gun to catch his 
 falling friend, but he was now leaning across the 
 body he had rescued, and in his hand was a cocked 
 revolver. The first Pawnee that recklessly pulled 
 in his horse to see what had become of those two 
 fallen white men was but ten feet from the muzzle 
 of that revolver when it went off. He uttered but 
 one yell as he pitched forward to the earth. His 
 companion wheeled with Indian swiftness just as 
 the crack of yet another rifle came to Perry's ears, 
 and he saw this Pawnee also throw up his hands 
 wildly. Three bounds of the pony and he was 
 riderless, but it was yet a puzzle who had made 
 him so. 
 
 " Chumley's done for," growled Jerry McCord, 
 savagely, in his ambush, " and Perry will swear the 
 Pawnees did it. Sorry they did not kill him. He's 
 quick on the trigger, but who fired that other shot ? 
 It's my warning to lie low and slip away while my 
 chance is good." 
 
 No brave in his band could have followed that
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 3Q7 
 
 advice more snakily, and in doing so he made it 
 easier for another performance of the kind to be 
 accomplished. Perry Munro knew that the two 
 Pawnees he had seen were accounted for, hut he 
 could not guess how many more were near whom 
 he had not seen. It might he sure death to go for 
 his gun or Chumley's rifle. He thought of that; 
 he looked at Chumley's white face; then there 
 came burning into his brain a hot thought of his 
 sister and of Erica. 
 
 " I must find them or die !" he shouted, as he 
 bounded out upon the Trail and picked up the 
 weapons. 
 
 His horse and Chumley's had run but a little dis- 
 tance among the trees, but before he could go for 
 either he heard behind him a short, sharp, yelping 
 cry, and it made him turn again towards Chumley's 
 body. 
 
 " Red Beauty !" he exclaimed. 
 
 " Boy, come back ! Quick. Devil in bushes kill 
 Chumley. Shoot boy next." 
 
 Quite another thought than one of personal safety 
 took Perry again under cover. 
 
 "Red Beauty, where is my sister? Where is 
 Erica ?" 
 
 "Not in woods. Old Indian watch around all 
 day. Squaw no come. Boy kill one Pawnee. Red 
 Beauty kill one. Rifle in bushes kill Chumley. 
 No see him. Think Jerry McCord."
 
 308 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 He and Perry were kneeling at the side of their 
 wounded friend, and he was hastily making a sort 
 of surgical examination while he made his com- 
 ments on the situation. 
 
 " You are sure they did not come ?" 
 
 " Squaw no come at all. Chumley fool and come. 
 Boy fool come, but shoot heap good." 
 
 He had torn open the shirt and undershirt while 
 speaking, and Perry's face whitened and his heart 
 sank. It was well to be assured of the safety of 
 his sister and of Erica, but he was now looking 
 upon his first bullet-wound. According to his 
 ideas of surgery, a man shot through the body 
 must be mortally hurt, as if all the space enclosed 
 by the ribs were occupied by heart and lungs, 
 upon which the touch of flying lead is certain 
 death. 
 
 "Ugh!" said Bed Beauty. "Boy help turn 
 Chumley over." 
 
 They did so, with silent care, and Perry shook 
 his head mournfully. The bullet had turned to 
 the right in its passage, but it had not paused ; it 
 had gone clean through. 
 
 The blood was flowing freely, and they strove to 
 stanch it, and while they were doing so a sort of 
 shudder went over the body. Perry thought he 
 felt it in every corner of his own frame, and just 
 then the eyes of the man he thought killed came 
 slowly open. He was looking into the face of Red
 
 MORE BLOOD ON THE PAWNEE TRAIL. 3Q9 
 
 Beauty, and there was much meaning in his ques- 
 tioning : 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Chumley dead. No speak. Red Beauty kill 
 one Pawnee. Boy kill one. Ugh ! No talk." 
 
 " Can you speak, Chumley ?" asked Perry, in 
 spite of the interdiction. 
 
 " I'd best not. He says so. He knows. Where 
 am I hurt ?" 
 
 " Through the body. Badly." 
 
 " Are any bones broken ?" 
 
 " No," said Perry, in some surprise. " I should 
 say not any." 
 
 " I'd better be taken home, then. I find I can 
 breathe." 
 
 He was in perfect possession of his senses, at all 
 events, and understood what was further said of 
 the situation. 
 
 "Boy watch by Chumley," said Red Beauty. 
 " Old Indian go for help. Boy see Pawnee, no ask 
 question, shoot quick. Shoot Jerry." 
 
 " I'll shoot quick enough," said Perry. " Go 
 right away." 
 
 The Potawatamy had not waited for any assent 
 or dissent. He was master of his own movements, 
 and these were marvellous. Perry was not sure at 
 what precise spot he lost sight of him, so deftly 
 did he disappear through the underbrush and 
 among the trees.
 
 310 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "The girls?" came from Chumley's lips in an 
 agonized whisper. 
 
 " Red Beauty says they have not been in the 
 woods." 
 
 " Thank God ! They are safe. I don't care one 
 straw now. If this kills me you may tell them so." 
 
 He shut his eyes again, and Perry crouched by 
 him, gun in hand, sending swiftly searching glances 
 in all directions and listening for the slightest sound. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 BKINGING IN THE WOUNDED. 
 
 JERRY McCoRD slipped away from his ambush 
 with an inward assurance that part, at least, of his 
 present purpose had been remarkably accomplished. 
 He had seen Chumley fall, and he was satisfied that 
 the death of the two Pawnees sufficiently covered 
 his own share in the murder. "While regretting 
 that he might still have a brother-in-law or even 
 worse in Perry Munro, he felt that a great advance 
 had been attained. Among the difficulties yet 
 before him was the pretty certain arrival of the 
 remainder of his own band, but a man of genius, 
 desperately in love, could turn even such an incon-
 
 BRINGING IN THE WOUNDED. 31 1 
 
 venient circumstance to his profit, and he believed 
 he saw a way opening. It was obviously well, 
 however, that he should at once get away from the 
 scene of the tragedy and nearer any possible op- 
 portunity for adventurous love-making. Immedi- 
 ately after reaching his horse he led him by a long 
 detour to a covert he had before made use of, in 
 full view of the Munro homestead. Some other 
 important things took place while he was so doing, 
 and preparations of which he knew nothing were 
 made for occurrences yet to come. 
 
 "When Jessie and Erica rode out along the Trail, 
 full as were their minds of the occurrences of the 
 previous evening, they had but faint perceptions 
 of any possible peril near them in broad daylight 
 Pawnees and other terrors might come around 
 after dark, but the sunlight was upon the prairie 
 now, and it had never looked more entirely at 
 peace. 
 
 There was a contrary suggestion, truly, when they 
 reached the Post, and recalled the fact that the five 
 red men buried there had set their fatal trap in the 
 daytime. Even that bit of frontier history, how- 
 ever, had its influence upon their riding on at 
 once to the grove where the Eagleson camp had 
 been so suddenly turned into a battle-ground. 
 
 " Seems to me," said Jessie, as they reached it, 
 " as if the trees were closer together than when I 
 saw them before, and cast a deeper shadow."
 
 312 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 It was only the shadow of what had been done 
 there, but they had hardly reached the spring 
 before Erica looked around her with a shiver and 
 exclaimed, 
 
 " Let's go, Jessie. I don't want to stay here one 
 minute. What would have become of us all if it 
 had not been for Mr. Chumley ?" 
 
 " He was splendid," said Jessie, as she wheeled 
 her horse after Erica's ; " but I'm glad I was not 
 here to see him do it." 
 
 " It was what Red Beauty did that was dreadful 
 to see, and the whoops and yells were awful." 
 
 " "We'd better go home. They may have learned 
 something new." 
 
 All the news they already had was responsible 
 for their feverish and excited states of mind, but it 
 was nothing at all to what they now galloped along 
 the Pawnee Trail to receive. 
 
 "Jessie," suddenly exclaimed Erica. "Look! 
 Red Beauty ! "What is he running for ?" 
 
 Jessie's only reply was a lash to her horse in 
 imitation of Erica, and they reached Chumley's 
 gate at the same moment with the old Potawatamy. 
 Gustav, too, had been on the lookout, and was there, 
 ready to mount and ride, but the first words of Red 
 Beauty to him were, 
 
 "No horse. Fight behind tree, maybe. Send 
 young squaw for father. All come fight Pawnee." 
 
 " "Where is Perry ? Where is Mr. Chumley ?"
 
 BRINGING IN THE WOUNDED. 313 
 
 Two excited female voices asked him that ques- 
 tion as one utterance. 
 
 "Jerry shoot Chumley. Boy shoot Pawnee. 
 Red Beauty kill one." 
 
 "Mr. Chumley killed?" 
 
 That was Erica's voice, for Jessie in vain strug- 
 gled to utter a sound. Gustav seemed to he grinding 
 his teeth, and his wife now stood close behind him, 
 her face pale enough but her blue eyes flashing fire. 
 
 Red Beauty was verbally defective as a story- 
 teller, but he was great in pantomime, and in a 
 minute more they all had vivid mental pictures of 
 the occurrence in the woods. The old Indian 
 crouched in the grass to show them how Perry was 
 now watching by the wounded man, surrounded, 
 it might be, by creeping enemies. He also very 
 bluntly explained to them the cause of the disas- 
 trous ride into the forest, and the girls clearly un- 
 derstood that Chumley had fallen and Perry had 
 risked his life in an effort to rescue them from sup- 
 posed perils. 
 
 " "We go at once," said Gustav. 
 
 " No," said Red Beauty. " All come. Bring 
 Chumley. Young squaw RIDE !" 
 
 Jessie felt as if she needed that peremptory com- 
 mand to arouse her from a sort of amazement. In 
 an instant more she was lashing her horse across 
 prairie homeward, but it was all in vain to try and 
 
 make it seem real. 
 
 o 27
 
 314 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 There had been quite enough of excitement 
 among the older members of the Munro family to 
 make sure that they would all be out to receive a 
 maiden who came with her astonished horse on a 
 run under her ceaseless whip. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" shouted Mrs. Munro, as 
 the animal stopped at the very door-step. His 
 breathless rider leaned forward white yet wrathful, 
 to exclaim, 
 
 " Jerry McCord and his Pawnees have murdered 
 Mr. Chumley. Perry and Red Beauty killed two 
 of them. Perry is alone in the woods guarding 
 Chumley's body. Father ? Uncle John ? Gustav 
 and Red Beauty are waiting for you !" 
 
 There was good stuff in the Munros. Those two 
 men had never been in a fight in all their lives, but 
 neither of them said one word now while they 
 went for their weapons. Knitted brows, clinched 
 teeth, rapid movements, while Mrs. Munro's ques- 
 tions drew out all else that was known to Jessie. 
 
 " My son !" she said, at last. " I'm glad he was 
 there. God keep him ! Husband " 
 
 " I'm ready, wife. Good-by." 
 
 " Joe," said Uncle John, " it's a surgical case, 
 and we don't know its character yet. Chumley's 
 own mattress is a narrow one. We'd best get that 
 and take it to bring him home on." 
 
 There was cool courage under that professional 
 thoughtfulness, as well as in the steady persistence
 
 BRINGING IN THE WOUNDED. 315 
 
 with which the idea was afterwards carried out, but 
 when the squad of four was fully gathered at Chum- 
 ley's gate and moved forward towards the scene of 
 the skirmish in the woods, it was plainly under the 
 command of the old Potawatamy. 
 
 " Mother," said Jessie, as soon as Mr. Munro and 
 Uncle John were gone, " what are we to do ?" 
 
 " "We can't stay here. I'll get my horse. If 
 they " 
 
 "What, mother?" 
 
 " My daughter ! My daughter ! If Perry is 
 killed and the Pawnees come, all the rest of us had 
 hetter he together in one house. It's dreadful !" 
 
 Their very ignorance of the facts made it more 
 so, and suspense made them silent as they hurriedly 
 finished such preparations as were needed. 
 
 They had mounted and were riding away, when 
 Mrs. Munro turned for a look at the house, ex- 
 claiming, 
 
 " Jessie, it may all be burned down before we see 
 it again. We may all be murdered. There is no 
 excuse for permitting such things. They ought all 
 to be hung !" 
 
 " Who, mother ?" 
 
 "White men like Jerry McCord and red men 
 like his Pawnees." 
 
 It was almost a pity that such an expression could 
 not have been heard by a man who was at that 
 very moment staring at her and Jessie through a
 
 316 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 binocular glass and pouring forth bad language 
 concerning their departure from home. Jerry had 
 been ready to shout over his good luck when he 
 saw the two men hurry away and knew that the 
 women were left alone. Now, however, it was the 
 house that was left alone, and his changed opinion 
 of his luck was finding expression. 
 
 " No use," he said, as they rode away. " I must 
 keep still awhile and see what'll turn up. One 
 thing is dead sure. If the rest of the band come 
 along and find those bodies on the Trail, their blood 
 '11 be up. I could save Jessie, but I couldn't do 
 much more." 
 
 He knew his friends and associates, and his judg- 
 ment of them could be relied upon. Things were 
 looking dark for the little settlement at Chumley's 
 Post. 
 
 During all that time Perry Munro kept his watch 
 by the side of the wounded man with feverish vigi- 
 lance. It seemed an age, crowded full of fearful 
 imaginings of horrors which might come, or even 
 that might already have come. Here was one. 
 Could Red Beauty be sure that the girls had not 
 ridden into the woods ? Perhaps the houses were 
 already attacked and their inmates butchered. 
 
 Terrible as were the possibilities, the thought of 
 them did not interfere with the use of his senses, 
 and his gun at last turned as if of its own accord 
 towards a slight sound near him among the bushes.
 
 BRINGING IN THE WOUNDED. 
 
 " No shoot ; Red Beauty " 
 
 " Come along. Where are the rest?" 
 
 The Potawatamy made his appearance and ex- 
 plained himself very much to Perry's satisfaction. 
 He had halted his three white privates behind some 
 fallen trees, while he, their red chief, had scouted the 
 woods for quite a distance beyond the place where 
 Perry was waiting for him. He had thus made 
 sure that there was no ambushed Pawnee near 
 enough to do any immediate mischief. He now 
 arose and gave three short, shrill yells, a signal 
 agreed upon with Mr. Munro, and the three came 
 forward at a run that brought them up hot and 
 panting. Uncle John was instantly kneeling by 
 Chumley, and Perry asked him anxiously, 
 
 " How long can he live ? It went clean through." 
 
 " Is that so ? Glad of that" 
 
 " I thought so," said Chumley, faintly but firmly, 
 and Uncle John exclaimed, 
 
 "Hurrah! He can breathe and he can speak! 
 I never saw but one shot-wound, but I've read 
 enough about them. He bled well. That's a good 
 sign. He must be handled carefully, and he will 
 be laid up for several weeks." 
 
 "Ugh!" said Red Beauty. "Glad he not go 
 dead. Get well, kill Jerry." 
 
 The mattress, left for a few moments behind the 
 logs where they had waited, was now brought along 
 by Gustav, and a " stretcher" was easily improvised 
 
 27*
 
 318 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 with two saplings and some cross-pieces. Chumley 
 was lifted with slow care and laid thereon, and, 
 while his four bearers took their places, the old 
 Potawatamy went about a task that was all his own. 
 
 Perry's horse submitted to be captured, and the 
 ponies of the slain Pawnees were quietly feeding 
 at a little distance ready to be caught, but Chum- 
 ley's own favorite threw up his heels at the old In- 
 dian's approach in a way that suggested prudence. 
 
 " He come anyhow," said Red Beauty. " Kick 
 Pawnee. Ugh !" 
 
 He was right about the independent coming home 
 of that horse, but the choice he might make as to 
 the right tribe of Indians to kick was not quite 
 certain. He avoided the reaching hand of the old 
 Indian only to take his place behind the stretcher 
 which bore his master, very much as if he were try- 
 ing to copy some military funeral he had witnessed. 
 If so, the "procession" moved on, leaving Red 
 Beauty to his own devices, and these included other 
 matters besides horses. There were two good rifles 
 and sundry other weapons to be gathered, but the 
 spoils of war included very little money. Instead 
 thereof were a couple of well-seasoned brierwood 
 pipes. So far all was well, but Red Beauty was an 
 Indian brave to the backbone, and all the wild 
 blood in his veins forbade him leaving the scalps 
 of his enemies behind him. That he must hide 
 them, and the taking of them, from his white
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 319 
 
 friends did not prevent him from adding them to 
 the net results of his lingering behind. 
 
 The mattress with Chumley on it was a light 
 weight for four strong men, and the bearers strode 
 freely along, feeling reasonably secure from any 
 attack in the rear, for they had a vast deal of confi- 
 dence in their Potawatamy " rear-guard." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 DEADLY PEEIL. 
 
 FOUR women at Chumley's house waited for news 
 from the woods with terribly sufficient reasons for 
 anxiety, but not one of them fully comprehended 
 the feelings of either of the others. Each had a 
 widely varying stake in whatever might then be 
 going on among the trees, and neither of them was 
 willing to put her own into any form of verbal ex- 
 pression. It was Erica who at last exclaimed, 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Munro ! Oh, Jessie ! Oh, mother, 
 mother, what if not any of them should come 
 back alive !" 
 
 No words replied to her, but Mrs. Eagleson at 
 once arose and walked out into the kitchen. She 
 came back carrying two axes and a carving-knife, 
 and remarked, in a hard, hoarse tone,
 
 320 RED 
 
 " Gustav loaded all the guns. Your dog is here. 
 So are Mr. Chumley's. I untied them now." 
 
 Jessie and her mother had each brought a 
 revolver with her, and when all the weapons were 
 spread out upon the dinner-table they made a for- 
 midable-looking array. 
 
 " We can bar the doors and windows," said Erica. 
 " They are strong." 
 
 " Indians use fire," said Mrs. Munro. 
 
 "I'll die before they shall get in," exclaimed 
 Jessie. "I'd rather be burned up a thousand 
 times." 
 
 The several comments upon that remark fore- 
 boded a desperate defence of that log house against 
 any assailants likely to come, but, in the absence 
 of immediate signs of danger, they all went out 
 and stood in front of the house, staring at the 
 forest and wondering how long was to be their 
 hour of suspense. 
 
 It was yet to have its moment of especial excite- 
 ment, for Red Beauty and his horses travelled much 
 faster than did Chumley's " procession." He caught 
 up with it and passed it, saying as he did so, 
 
 " Ugh ! Bring Chumley home. Old Indian go 
 tell squaw." 
 
 "That's right," said Mr. Munro. "Say the 
 danger is all over." 
 
 That would hardly have been true, and it was 
 not at all what he did say. He hastened the move-
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 321 
 
 ments of his quadrupeds by mounting one of the 
 captured ponies, and the moment he was out of the 
 woods he urged them all to a gallop. At that pace 
 he came dashing along the Trail towards the gate 
 Mrs. Eagleson swung open for him. He had not 
 heard Jessie's terrified exclamation, 
 
 " Erica ! He is running ! Where can all the 
 rest be ? Are they killed ?" 
 
 "This is agony!" groaned her mother, and it 
 was Mrs. Eagleson who now asked, 
 
 " Where are they ?" 
 
 "All 'calp," said Red Beauty. "Pawnee come 
 for white squaw now." 
 
 " Speak the truth," almost screamed Mrs. Munro, 
 for even the hideous solemnity of his face had in it 
 something to suggest such a demand. 
 
 " Pawnee no 'calp 'em. 'Teal 'em. Jerry Mc- 
 Cord come right away. Pawnee come 'calp poor 
 old Potawatamy." 
 
 " Jessie," said Erica, " what does he mean ?" 
 
 "Yellow-hair see boy horse? Boy lose 'calp. 
 Yellow-hair no like him, 'cause got no 'calp. 
 Come show head pretty soon. Say ' how.' ' 
 
 " That's it, is it," said Mrs. Munro, with a great 
 sigh of relief, for the last attempt at savage humor 
 was accompanied by such a grin as no other face 
 could make. " Perry is safe, Erica. Mr. Chumley 
 must be the only person hurt. Poor fellow ! " 
 
 "Chumley dead," said Bed Beauty. "Bring
 
 322 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 him home, bury him. Black-hair squaw say, 
 * Poor fellow, glad he got kill; wait for Jerry.' ' 
 
 Not much more could be gotten out of such a 
 news reporter, and before long they saw the bearers 
 and their load come out from among the trees. 
 
 "All four of them!" shouted Erica. "Oh, 
 Jessie, they're all there !" 
 
 So they were, but after they reached the gate 
 there was a difficulty. It seemed impossible to let 
 those men pass through without kissing them for 
 joy that they had returned, and it seemed impossi- 
 ble to keep Chumley's dogs from jumping upon 
 the stretcher to see what was the matter with their 
 master. A sort of compromise was attained through 
 the necessity that all the women were under to re- 
 strain the dogs, and Chumley was carried into the 
 house without being dropped or trodden under 
 friendly feet. 
 
 Once he was placed in his own room, Uncle John 
 turned out everybody but Mr. Munro, and Perry 
 was in the hands of his mother and sister. 
 
 Mrs. Eagleson had already led away Gustav to 
 hear his account of what he had seen and heard, 
 und hardly had they entered the kitchen before a 
 self-satisfied voice from its outer door asserted, 
 
 "Very good old Indian. Kill Pawnee. Eat a 
 heap. Heap fine squaw. Handsome." 
 
 " Come in ! Come in !" said Mrs. Eagleson, 
 eagerly. "Eat all you want. Tell me about it,
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 323 
 
 G-ustav, but he's earned his dinner. Must be 
 hungry. Not a mouthful all day." 
 
 He was likely to get all he needed now, to judge 
 from the manner in which things came upon the 
 kitchen table. 
 
 Erica listened to her father with an inner assur- 
 ance that Jessie was hearing a more interesting 
 story from Perry, but that nobody had a right to 
 break in upon it so long as his mother was making 
 such a fuss over him. 
 
 A captious historian of that fight might have 
 observed that Chumley's share in it had been to 
 get hit and fall from his horse, but Perry's praise 
 of him went back to the furious interest he had 
 taken in the safety of the girls, and he repeated 
 what the wounded man had said in his first dim 
 moments of half-returned consciousness. It threw 
 a sort of heroic light upon his entire conduct, but 
 it failed to detract one iota from the estimate 
 formed by Mrs. Munro of the courage and prowess 
 of her only son. She felt almost indifferent to the 
 possible nearness of more Pawnees. If they should 
 come to the house to be disposed of, here was Perry. 
 He too, however, was unromantic, like Red Beauty, 
 and a suggestion that he was hungry came at the 
 end of his narrative like a punctuation mark. 
 
 " Of course you are. Jessie, wait here to know 
 if they want anything for Mr. Chumley. Come, 
 Perry."
 
 324 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 The last word was spoken in the very door-way 
 leading to the kitchen, and was followed by, 
 
 " Mrs. Eagleson, Perry is hungry !" 
 
 " Oh, dear me ! Bring him in. I cook for him 
 all day. Coffee ready now." 
 
 Perry was close behind his mother, and Jessie 
 was almost unceremoniously left alone. She felt 
 no regret whatever, for some reason, and her eyes 
 fastened themselves upon the latch of the closed 
 door of Chumley's room. Beyond that door lay a 
 man whose present suffering came to him largely 
 on her account. She added, "and Erica's," but 
 instantly there was a light in her eyes, for her 
 thought went further and grew higher and better, 
 and she said to herself, 
 
 " Any woman ! He and Perry would face Paw- 
 nees to defend any woman in the wide world !" 
 
 That was it, and her ideal of Chumley escaped 
 being hurt by any taint of selfish considerations. 
 He and her brother had behaved like men, and 
 when Chumley was hurt Perry had remained by 
 him regardless of consequences. She felt a glow 
 of enthusiasm all over her, and when (Jncle John 
 put his head out of the door she sprang to her feet 
 full of eagerness to do something. 
 
 " What is it, Uncle John ?" 
 
 He came all the way out and shut the door be- 
 hind him. 
 
 " Jessie," said he, " I think Mr. Chumley may
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 325 
 
 recover. There will be fever, of course, and I 
 cannot discern the precise internal character of the 
 wound. The fact that the ball is not in him re- 
 lieves me very much, but there are some things in 
 my leather case " 
 
 " Where is it, Uncle John ?" 
 
 " On the shelf, at the house." 
 
 "I'll go for it. There is no danger whatever. 
 I'll come right back." 
 
 She was off before there was any time to consult 
 with another soul, and Uncle John was too utterly 
 absorbed in his first great surgical case to feel any- 
 thing but satisfaction over the fact that he was to 
 have his instruments and things as quickly as 
 might be. Jessie sprang upon her horse and 
 dashed away, and Perry Munro had nearly finished 
 his hasty meal before his father, in Chumley's room, 
 inquired of Uncle John, 
 
 " Did Perry go for your instruments ?" 
 
 "I don't know whether Jessie went herself or 
 whether " 
 
 "Jessie? You don't mean it! There is no 
 danger, but then ! I must go and see about that." 
 
 He did, and in half a minute more Perry Munro 
 was mounted, gun in hand, riding away to escort 
 his sister safely back, scolding her rashness as he 
 went, but still without any strong persuasion that 
 she had run any risk in going. He would have 
 felt differently if he could have been advised of 
 
 28
 
 326 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 what was then going forward under cover of the 
 forest and along the Pawnee Trail. 
 
 Black Wolf had met one jealous Pawnee and 
 brought him to where he could be readily wiped 
 out, but the fact of that brave being ahead of them 
 had been a sort of mild spur to the zeal of a round 
 dozen more, and they had not been a long march 
 behind him when he ceased pony-riding forever. 
 Taken all as one, they had also operated as a spur 
 to the keen sense of duty felt by the captain of 
 cavalry. As he expressed it to the corporal now 
 riding near him, 
 
 " Corporal, I can't guess what mischief Jerry 
 and his coyotes are up to, but we must try and 
 catch up before they have a chance to finish it." 
 
 " One of the squaws let out that they had gone 
 for scalps." 
 
 " More likely horses, but they wouldn't mind a 
 little murder. It's right in their line." 
 
 If indeed the squaw had confessed a truth, about 
 the first discovery made by her kindred was that 
 scalps had been lost and not won. Before Perry 
 Munro mounted his horse there had been a fiercely 
 excited group gathered around the two corpses yet 
 lying by the Pawnee Trail. It was plain to them 
 all that there had been a sharp collision with some- 
 body, and that the hand of at least one red man 
 had been at work. If a collection of rugged sylla- 
 bles uttered by several of them could have been
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 327 
 
 translated, it may have been the title assigned by 
 them to Red Beauty. Equally clear was their 
 understanding of hoof- and boot-tracks and of the 
 fact that a dead or wounded pale-face had been 
 carried away. They read it that their comrades 
 had been outnumbered. Had they been decoyed 
 into some trap ? If so, had it been done by Jerry 
 McCord ? 
 
 Suspicion was already kindled, and this mystery 
 blew its fire briskly. That was no time or place 
 for lingering, and the wrathful gang was quickly 
 pressing forward along the Trail, determined to 
 discover a solution. They had no plan except that 
 free mention was made of Chumley as well as of 
 Jerry and of the old Potawatamy. It was a blind 
 rush for revenge, and was as likely to be wisely 
 conducted as the " Amok" run of a frantic Malay. 
 As they rode out from the forest they descried one 
 horseman cantering across the prairie, and in an 
 instant four yelling Pawnees were after Perry 
 Munro. 
 
 He had seen, and the first thought in his mind 
 was a question that did not relate to his own safety. 
 
 " Can I warn them all at Chumley's ? Ought I 
 to be there ? No ! They'll have warning enough. 
 Can I reach our house before they catch up ? If I 
 lose this race what will become of Jessie !" 
 
 His brain seemed a mass of fire, and the good 
 steed plunging along under him appeared hardly
 
 328 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 to move, but lie might have felt a madder heat if 
 he could have seen further into the peril threaten- 
 ing his sister. 
 
 Jessie rode fast from the start, and for all that 
 she could see there was not a human being on that 
 prairie to note her going or her coming. She 
 could not look through the log walls of her own 
 home and know that on the opposite side stood a 
 saddled horse at the door-step, and by him a hand- 
 some, dark-eyed man, in a neat suit of blue. 
 
 " If the wrong people should come," Jerry had 
 said to himself, " all I've got to do is to ride away. 
 It won't be Chumley, and I don't mind old Munro 
 or his brother." 
 
 That was on his arrival, and after he had assured 
 himself that the house was unoccupied. Just now 
 he had withdrawn from a peering glance around 
 the corner of the house and exclaimed aloud, 
 
 "Jessie coming? All alone? My luck hasn't 
 left me yet. So much for pushing right ahead. 
 It looks almost as if I had sent for her." 
 
 So it did, and the unsuspecting girl rode up to 
 the door nearest her and dismounted. She opened 
 and entered, and there was as yet no sign or sound 
 to occasion her the slightest uneasiness. She was 
 even permitted to seek and find Uncle John's case 
 of instruments, and she held it in her hand when 
 the north door of the house opened suddenly and 
 a man stood before her exclaiming,
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 329 
 
 " Jessie, my love, I have come to save you. The 
 Pawnees !" 
 
 " Mr. Payne ? Jerry McCord ! You and your 
 Pawnees! Oh, God!" 
 
 The syllables heaped up with fear and agony as 
 they followed each other, but they made no im- 
 pression upon the unabashed villain before her. 
 He did not at once come near her, for he had some 
 prudence of cunning, and to his mind her instant 
 horror must be of the savages. His vanity forbade 
 an idea that she could shrink from him with all 
 that loathing. His tongue worked on eloquently, 
 for he was in no immediate haste. He knew she 
 could not get away. Her very home had served as 
 a trap to catch her in, and he made the best of his 
 opportunity to tell her all the story of his passion 
 and of his plan for her escape. According to him, 
 the Pawnees already surrounded Chumley's house. 
 Not a soul could leave it without death, if indeed 
 one could by any possibility ever escape. The 
 savages would be here also before long, and he who 
 loved her had risked his life to come to her rescue. 
 She must flee with him, and he by no means omitted 
 setting forth in romantic outline his well-prepared 
 arrangements for a wedding, an Eastern tour, and 
 a return to a happy future to be shared by her with 
 him. He was wasting precious time, for he had 
 not the slightest idea how much truth he was tell- 
 ing. He knew not how nearly he had hit the facts 
 
 28*
 
 330 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 in his fiction concerning the nearness of his own 
 gang. Still less did he dream what thoughts con- 
 cerning himself were in them. Jessie heard in 
 silence, because as long as he should talk she could 
 think, but the moment he paused and took one 
 step nearer, her voice sounded even in her own 
 ears like a shriek of despair. 
 
 " Back ! Back ! I know you ! You are worse 
 than a Pawnee ! You murdered Mr. Chumley !" 
 
 Even Jerry McCord could shrink before such an 
 appalling response as that. She knew ? How did 
 she know ? Could he have been seen to fire that 
 felon shot ? 
 
 He was repelled for a moment, but all the lost 
 soul in him was being stirred to its depths. The 
 fair girl's face of scorn looked into his as if from 
 some plane of life ineffably above him. There was 
 justice and judgment in it, and so there was power, 
 but it was power against which the evil of his 
 nature rebelled with determined bitterness. 
 
 " Jessie ? Jessie Munro ?" 
 
 She sprang towards the door, exclaiming, 
 
 " I'd rather be killed by a Pawnee, I hope thev 
 are coming." 
 
 " You shall not escape me." 
 
 He had seized her by her arm, but at that 
 moment shrill, piercing, thrilling came down 
 upon the wind a sound which he knew better than 
 she did, for the brave nearest behind Perry was
 
 
 " You shall not escape me." 
 
 Page 330
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 331 
 
 whooping his wrath over the fact that the latter 
 was gaining. Jerry could but pause and listen to 
 such a surprise. 
 
 "Fact!" he said, and in that breath of hesitation 
 she wrenched her arm from him and threw open 
 the door. 
 
 "Perry! My brother!" she screamed. "And 
 they are after him !" 
 
 It was too much. For one brief moment her 
 brain reeled and she staggered against the wall, 
 while her enemy stepped past her for a glance at 
 the situation. It needed but a look to bring from 
 him a bitter blasphemy, and he turned towards the 
 door beyond which he had left his horse. 
 
 " Jessie," he said, as much a liar and a rascal as 
 ever, " come ! It is your last chance for either 
 yourself or your brother. Say 'yes* and I can 
 save you both. Quick, or his blood is on your 
 head and your own too." 
 
 " Never ! Go ! Murderer !" She recovered her 
 thought and will as she hurled the words at him 
 and sprang to the door, shouting, 
 
 " Perry, I am here ! Save me !" 
 
 That was what he had come for, but the outlaw 
 laughed a laugh of triumph as he answered her cry 
 with, 
 
 " I shall have both of you in my power in three 
 minutes." 
 
 He did not know what good generalship a woman
 
 332 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 will sometimes exhibit without thinking. What he 
 called his prudence, or it may have been his "luck," 
 led him to make two steps beyond the threshold 
 for his rifle, which had leaned against the side of 
 the house to rest while he did his love-making. Like 
 a flash went a female form across the room, and 
 the door was slammed behind him. The wooden 
 bar standing by it for such uses seemed to jump 
 into its iron loops, and while the angry ruffian so 
 shut out strained and swore against the sudden 
 barrier between him and his prize, Perry Munro 
 sprang from his horse on the other side of the 
 house. 
 
 " Quick! Perry! Come in. I'm not hurt." 
 
 " We can hold the house." 
 
 That door also banged and its bar went up. The 
 side-door leading into the " patent house" kitchen 
 addition was quickly closed and braced with the 
 table. 
 
 " The windows, I can shoot him from one of 
 them. There they come. What's that? Listen!" 
 
 The sound of arriving hoofs had been followed 
 by yells and whooping and angry voices, among 
 which for one moment sounded that of Jerry Mc- 
 Cord, and then there were shots and curses and 
 more whooping, and Jessie and her brother looked 
 from the window upon a finished work of strange 
 and bloody retribution. 
 
 Jerry McCord seemed to his Pawnees to have
 
 DEADLY PERIL. 333 
 
 come out of the very house their intended prey 
 had escaped into. He came to meet them, calling 
 upon them to help him capture it, only to be ac- 
 cused of being in league with their enemies for 
 their destruction. The very frenzy of disappointed 
 passion he was in led him to use words and gesticu- 
 lations, understood only in small part, that changed 
 the first hot altercation into an instantaneous col- 
 lision. It was his " luck" that made him threaten 
 one brave with his rifle, but he fired no shot. Not 
 all that they fired hit him, but what was seen by 
 Perry Munro and his sister from the window was 
 the form of a lost white man rolling in the grass 
 while a Pawnee sprang after him with a bowie- 
 knife drawn. Blow followed blow with sickening 
 persistency, as Jessie pulled her brother back from 
 that horror, pleading, 
 
 " Don't shoot, Perry. Don't fire at them. Wait 
 and see what they will do. They may go away 
 now." 
 
 Again she was a good general. The very fact of 
 having killed their own leader cooled that squad of 
 horse-thieves a little, and they had no idea whether 
 the house held one white man or ten. They were 
 content to ride away to a spot out of point-blank 
 range and discuss the situation. 
 
 " Perry," said Jessie, " what shall we do ? "Were 
 there any at the other house ?" 
 
 " Do ? Are you not hurt at all ?"
 
 334 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 It was almost the first word he had spoken, and 
 it came from white lips, as if it hurt him. 
 
 " Not a scratch, but mother ?" 
 
 " I saw some of the devils ride in that direction. 
 Red Beauty is in the house, all the dogs, father, 
 Uncle John, they can defend themselves." 
 
 " So can we. Do you know, I was so excited I 
 forgot all about my revolver. I could have shot 
 him." 
 
 She said it as simply as if it had been a mere 
 trifling operation, as she drew out the small, pretty, 
 but deadly weapon that belonged to her. 
 
 " Keep it ready, Jessie. All we've got to do is 
 to wait. "We'll work around and get the whole 
 house ready. We can die fighting, anyhow."
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEY'S. 335 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 v A DAKK HOTJE AT CHUMLET'S. 
 
 THE ears of the old Potawatamy and of Bob 
 Munro had not heen made otherwise alike, but 
 they seemed to catch a sound of coming danger at 
 the same instant. No others of all in or about 
 Chumley's house heard the first whoop that fol- 
 lowed Perry, but Bob sprang towards the gate with 
 a loud bark, and Red Beauty turned towards Mrs. 
 Eagleson, remarking, quietly, 
 
 "Pawnee coming. Call in all dog. Shut up 
 house." 
 
 "Are they coming?" she said, and Erica rushed 
 towards Chumley's room to call out the men who 
 were there, only to be stopped by the old Indian. 
 He said to her, 
 
 " Squaw no tell Chumley. Wait. House heap 
 fort. Beat Pawnee." 
 
 He was in command, as he had been of the squad 
 in the forest, and when the foremost Pawnees gal- 
 loped nearer, the only living being they saw was 
 Mrs. Munro at the gate, straining her eyes at them 
 and across the prairie as if she could so discover 
 any signs of her son and daughter. Her husband
 
 336 SED BEAUTY. 
 
 now came out, and with Mrs. Eagleson's help the 
 half-frantic mother was conducted back into the 
 house. 
 
 The whooping and yelling red-skins saw at once 
 that their coming was prepared for, and they were 
 not yet ready to ride within easy range of rifles 
 held by pale-face settlers behind log walls. Even 
 in a time of open war their kind of " light cavalry" 
 works better in open country and against an enemy 
 of known inferiority. They were in a state of in- 
 tense and bloodthirsty excitement, but they also 
 labored under one difficulty to which they were 
 not accustomed, for they were without a leader or 
 a distinct plan of action. They were in need of 
 the brains of Jerry McCord, and these would never 
 serve them again. "Without them, however, they 
 could make the air hideous with threatening sounds 
 and fill the inmates of that house with shuddering 
 dread. 
 
 The yells reached the ears of Chumley, upon his 
 couch of suffering, and he would have made an 
 effort to rise but for the quick-handed prudence of 
 Uncle John. At that moment the patience of all 
 the dogs seemed to have given way at once, and 
 they responded to the war-cries beyond the fence 
 with a furious chorus of their own. 
 
 There were beads of perspiration on Chumley's 
 forehead as he faintly whispered, 
 
 "Red Beauty?"
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEFS. 337 
 
 " He is here," said Uncle John. " He says they 
 will not attack." 
 
 " That's good. The Eaglesons here ?" 
 
 " All here. All safe. Mrs. Munro is here." 
 
 " I saw Perry. Jessie ?" 
 
 Uncle John had struggled hard, as a professional 
 man, to retain composure before his patient, but 
 Chumley read the ashen dread that swept across 
 his face as he answered, 
 
 "Perry is out on the prairie. Jessie is at the 
 other house." 
 
 " My God in heaven !" 
 
 There are moments of supreme agony in human 
 lives which pass beyond the ideal thought of all 
 who are not so suffering. No window is into the 
 depths of that hot darkness, but Uncle John him- 
 self turned away from what he saw in the up-look- 
 ing eyes of the helpless man before him. 
 
 The warning crack of a rifle, fired by Red 
 Beauty through the hole in the front door, served 
 as an excuse to several voices to exclaim, 
 
 " Are they coming ?" 
 
 " Ugh ! No come if gun say keep away. Paw- 
 nee lose pony." 
 
 That was a fact. One brave had ridden too near 
 the gate on an errand of investigation, covering 
 his person behind his horse, and the shot of the 
 old Potawatamy had sent him away on foot, for the 
 pony made but one spring and rolled over lifeless. 
 
 p w 29
 
 338 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 The puzzle of the Pawnees was to be solved for 
 them in an unlooked-for fashion. 
 
 The captain and his blue-coats had ridden steadily 
 that day, but they had not used up their horses in 
 their haste. The two " trailers" with them avowed 
 positively that the red-skins they were following 
 had not turned to the right or left from the main 
 pathway, and their commander was all the more 
 positive that he was close upon an important duty. 
 His keen-eyed scouts in advance suddenly sent 
 back to him a shout of warning, and in a moment 
 more he was leaning in the saddle for a look at the 
 gory heads of the two dead Pawnees. 
 
 " The fighting began here," he said. " The set- 
 tlers were driven and Jerry's gang followed, but 
 how came these two to be scalped ?" 
 
 "Friendly Indian," said one of the "trailer" 
 scouts, himself a " good Pawnee." 
 
 " Indian's work," exclaimed the captain. " For- 
 ward!" 
 
 He was not excited, so far as any human eye 
 could discern, but the same could hardly be said 
 of the veterans behind him. All of these looked 
 brighter and happier, and three were absolutely 
 chuckling over the prospect of an actual " brush" 
 after their long and weary hunt. 
 
 The whooping and yelling that became audible 
 as the squad of cavalry drew nearer the edge of 
 the woods did not induce the captain to hasten the
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEY'S. 339 
 
 steady gallop which left his horses in good wind. 
 Then came the crack of Red Beauty's rifle, and all 
 it drew from the clear-headed leader was, 
 
 "Work going on. We're in time;" hut in a 
 minute more the word was, 
 
 " Sahres ! Forward ! Charge !" 
 
 They were in time as completely as was ever a 
 flash of lightning out of a clear sky. If they had 
 fallen from it they could not have come as a more 
 complete and bewildering surprise. Not a Pawnee 
 of Jerry McCord's gang had the least idea of wait- 
 ing to he shot or sahred. One very prudent hrave 
 sprang from his pony and held up his empty hands, 
 and, one after another, his fellows imitated him 
 exactly. The hlue-coats who had prematurely 
 chuckled were forced to sheathe their sahres in 
 utter disappointment while the captain ordered, 
 
 " I'll attend to these, corporal. Take two men 
 and ride over to that other house and see if all is 
 safe there." 
 
 That was the right way to make it so, for all 
 these events had occurred simultaneously, and the 
 four Pawnees who had smitten Jerry McCord were 
 too fiercely impatient to linger long before proceed- 
 ing to further activities. They could approach the 
 house very nearly, under cover of the stable, and 
 as yet not a shot had been fired from the windows. 
 Perhaps the inmates were white squaws only, or 
 unarmed. They would see about it. The stable
 
 340 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 might contain horses, and at all events it would 
 give them uncommon pleasure to burn it down. 
 
 They were not to have any such treat as that. 
 A dismounted Pawnee was at work with matches 
 and some straw, and his mounted comrades waited 
 by him. Perry was remarking to Jessie, 
 
 "I wish you had let me shoot. I could have 
 picked off one of them, if not two," when the 
 quick thud of horse-hoofs behind the four would- 
 be incendiaries suggested to them the arrival of 
 more of their own gang. They did not so 
 much as dream of white riders until the corporal 
 shouted, 
 
 " Now, boys !" He had been one of the men who 
 chuckled, and he had understood like a flash the 
 meaning of the other flash leaping up among the 
 straw. 
 
 It was not so much a charge of three men upon 
 four as a rush of armed civilization upon astounded 
 and paralyzed barbarism. The shout of onset was 
 answered by yells of dismay. The savage on foot 
 threw himself flat upon the ground. Two others 
 wheeled to run, and the one grim brave who turned 
 instinctively to face the corporal raised his tardy 
 rifle only to have it struck from his hands. His 
 sidelong dodge behind his horse was begun with 
 Indian quickness, but the return stroke of the 
 sabre was venomously rapid. Cloven almost to 
 the eyes, the savage fell to the earth, and the slayer
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEFS. 341 
 
 of Jerry McCord could hardly be said to have out- 
 lived him. 
 
 The corporal and the two men with him had 
 heard the captain's orders to spare all who sur- 
 rendered, or there would have been no prisoners 
 taken, thanks to the general reputation of that 
 band of outcasts. As it was, there were three dis- 
 armed Pawnees, in half a minute more, standing 
 still to have their hands tied with rope furnished 
 by Perry Munro. 
 
 He had rushed out of the house to take his share 
 in the supposed fight the moment he saw a blue 
 uniform, but all was over before he had a chance 
 for a shot. He had not even noticed one interest- 
 ing fact until the corporal and his comrades swung 
 their hats and cheered, suddenly. Well they 
 might, for there was Jessie Munro, revolver in 
 hand, only a few paces behind her brother, and 
 the corporal's excited inquiry, 
 
 " Now, boys, I say, isn't she just a stunner ?" did 
 but faintly indicate the picture of female anger and 
 beauty she presented. 
 
 "Are there troops at the other house?" asked 
 Perry. Is it safe ?" 
 
 " All secure, I reckon," said the corporal. " We 
 got in before any harm was done, I should say. 
 Captain Ingalls and his men are there." 
 
 " Jessie," said Perry, " get your horse, quick. 
 We must go at once. They don't know but what 
 
 29*
 
 342 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 we're killed. Corporal, you will find Jerry Mc- 
 Cord's body out yonder." 
 
 " You don't say ! That'll be a great relief to the 
 captain. How was it ?" 
 
 Brief but ample was the hurried explanation, but 
 Jessie was in the saddle by the time the story 
 was finished, and her brother had his foot in the 
 stirrup. 
 
 "Mister," said the corporal, "you just report 
 all that to Captain Ingalls and tell him we're waiting 
 orders." 
 
 " I will," said Perry, as he turned to gallop after 
 Jessie, leaving the corporal to reply to one of his 
 men: 
 
 " Beauty ? Did you say she was a beauty ? I'd 
 ride a thousand miles to see that gal come out of a 
 house with her blood riz and a cocked pistol ready 
 to shoot." 
 
 " So would I ; and her brother's a good feller, 
 too ; but how came Jerry's own buzzards to light 
 onto him ?" 
 
 Nobody could answer that puzzle, and all they 
 could do was to mount guard until the captain 
 should be heard from. His despatch of the squad 
 to care for the Munro house had been made with 
 military promptness, while yet the inmates of 
 Chumley's were but just aware of his arrival. A 
 sudden whoop from the lips of Red Beauty had 
 been followed by,
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEY'S. 343 
 
 " Blue-coat come ! Ugh ! All right now. Tell 
 Chumley, cavalry !" 
 
 Chumley heard, but he lay silent and motionless, 
 as if even life had departed from him, but Mrs. 
 Munro sprang forward, exclaiming, 
 
 " Open the door ! They must go and save my 
 children." 
 
 Red Beauty seemed willing enough to have the 
 door thrown open, but exposed no part of his own 
 person beyond it. 
 
 " Old Potawatamy no fool," he said to Mr. 
 Munro. " Pawnee not know he here. Keep still 
 awhile." 
 
 He was providing against future possibilities of 
 meeting some of those surrendering Pawnees at a 
 time or place less favorable. 
 
 Captain Ingalls saw the door open and out of it 
 pour a procession, headed by Mrs. Munro, which 
 quickly called upon him for the exercise of some 
 firmness. His hat was off in a moment, as he rode 
 forward to make inquiries. 
 
 "Is anybody hurt? Where is Mr. Chumley?" 
 he asked, with a sweeping bow to the ladies. 
 
 " My children, sir ! My son ! My daughter ! 
 They went to the other house." 
 
 " I have sent men there. I shall know all very 
 soon." 
 
 " I must go and see for myself!" 
 
 Mr. Munro had but glanced at the scene beyond
 
 344 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 the fence and had hurried away after a horse, but 
 the captain calmly responded, 
 
 " I think not, madame. I cannot permit any one 
 to venture out till I am sure the prairie is safe. As 
 soon as these villains are tied up you can have a 
 guard." 
 
 " I must go at once. I cannot wait." 
 
 " It will be but a few minutes." So it appeared 
 from the will with which his men were doing that 
 work of disarming and tying, but after a glance at 
 them he again asked, 
 
 " How is Mr. Chumley ? Was he absent ?" 
 
 "No, captain," said Gustav. "He was shot 
 through the body. Out in the forest." 
 
 " Where the two Pawnees are lying. I met him 
 here, four years ago. I remember your wife and 
 daughter. You were the wounded man then." 
 
 " Father," almost whispered Erica, " I knew 
 him." 
 
 He did not tell her what was in his eyes and 
 mind concerning the fair girl he remembered and 
 the young lady he saw now, but Mr. Munro came 
 back from the rear of the house with his own horse 
 and his wife's that had been tied there. 
 
 " You will have to wait a moment, sir," said the 
 captain, "till I can spare a guard. I'll go over 
 with you then. Can I see Mr. Chumley ?" 
 
 No one answered him, but Mrs. Munro threw 
 her arms around her husband's neck, sobbing out,
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEPS. 345 
 
 " Joseph ! Joseph ! I dare not go ! I dare not 
 know what has happened !" 
 
 It was only a momentary break-down, for in an 
 instant more she said to the steady-eyed captain of 
 cavalry, 
 
 " I am their mother, sir." 
 
 " And I am responsible for your safety, madame, 
 and for that of all here. It cannot be long now." 
 
 Nevertheless the minutes did go by, and each 
 seemed an age, until one of the "trailers" who 
 had been scouting back and forth upon the prairie 
 came in to report, 
 
 " Two coming, sir. Man. Woman." 
 
 " Perry ! Jessie !" gasped Mrs. Munro. 
 
 " I hope so, madame. My men are probably at 
 your house." 
 
 " And they've not been in any danger at all. 
 Perhaps they do not know the Pawnees are here." 
 
 That was a wild surmise, but there was comfort 
 in it, and it helped her to wait with better patience 
 an arrival so very near to come. Uncle John now 
 made his appearance, and at last the captain ob- 
 tained a sober answer concerning Chumley. 
 
 " See him ? Certainly, but he is in a high fever, 
 delirious. This excitement is the worst thing that 
 could have come." 
 
 Nevertheless, the captain's duty required actual 
 seeing, and also that when Perry and Jessie came 
 the former should answer official questions before
 
 346 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 even being kissed by his mother. That was of some- 
 what less importance considering the half-frantic 
 nature of the meeting between her and Jessie, not 
 to speak of Erica and Mrs. Eagleson. 
 
 " So the corporal had to cut down one of them," 
 said the captain. " That's good. And you saw 
 Jerry McCord killed by his own Pawnees. That 
 is very good indeed. Your account of the skirmish 
 in the forest explains the scalp-taking. Where is 
 Red Beauty now ? I know him." 
 
 " He must be in the house." 
 
 "Keeping out of sight of these fellows. Cun- 
 ning old fox. They've been led away now. I 
 declare, he knows it. There he comes." 
 
 It was a fact. Not one movement outside of the 
 house had escaped the watchfulness of the old 
 Potawatamy, and here he was to say " How" and 
 to tell the truth about this last operation of Jerry 
 McCord's Pawnees. He did pretty well, except 
 for omissions relating to the dead brave in the 
 ravine, until the captain said to him, 
 
 " So it was you who took the scalps. That ac- 
 counts for them." 
 
 " Ugh ! No. Good Indian. No take 'calp." 
 
 " Who, then ?" asked the captain. 
 
 " Boy take one. Make present yellow-hair 
 squaw. Old pill-man take one. Lose hair some 
 day, perhaps. Then put on Pawnee hair." 
 
 "That will do," said the captain. "What a
 
 A DARK HOUR AT CHUMLEVS. 347 
 
 witness you would make in a tight case ! But I'd 
 rather you'd swear on my side than against me." 
 
 It was a strange time for any laughing, and Mrs. 
 Munro said so to the rest when she heard the mili- 
 tary accompaniment of that reply, but Perry was 
 now coming towards them, and she had no mind, 
 just then, for any other fact. 
 
 Uncle John had returned to the house, and was 
 in the front room when his niece slipped in. 
 
 "It's been an awful day for all of us, Jessie," 
 said he. " I'm so glad the cavalry came in time. 
 The captain seems an uncommonly fine character." 
 
 " How is Mr. Chumley ?" 
 
 " He was doing well enough until he heard that 
 you were in danger," said Uncle John, with entire 
 simplicity. " That excited him fearfully. I don't 
 know what to say about the consequences. Don't 
 look in. He is talking incoherently about you and 
 everything else."
 
 348 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 A SCENE IN A KITCHEN. 
 
 MBS. MUNBO seemed to think that she had a debt 
 of some sort to pay to Captain Ingalls. So did 
 Gustav and Mrs. Eagleson, but it was many minutes 
 before it occurred to either of them that it could be 
 paid better in coffee and other refreshments for 
 him and his men than in the most grateful kind of 
 conversation. Those minutes had been remark- 
 ably well occupied and utilized, nevertheless. 
 
 It could not have been the unmistakable admira- 
 tion in the captain's respectful eyes which caused 
 Erica to beat a retreat into the house and through 
 it to the kitchen. Perry had seen both, and yet 
 he would have denied that any jealous uneasiness 
 led him to follow closely upon the heels of that 
 retreat. However, so it happened, there she was 
 and there was he, with no better other company 
 than Bob, who had followed Perry. 
 
 It was strange, perhaps, that so intensely timid 
 an expression should come upon her face, now that 
 all the Pawnees were tied up, or that a man of his 
 ready courage should hesitate and look around the 
 room, instead of right down into her face, for a 
 moment, and should then stammer out,
 
 A SCENE IN A KITCHEN. 349 
 
 " He's a splendid fellow, Erica. I'm so sorry he 
 was hit." 
 
 1 ' Oh , Perry ! Perry ! I'm so glad ! " 
 
 " Glad Chumley is hurt?" 
 
 " No ! No ! I love him. I hope he will get 
 well soon. But you, Perry, we were afraid they 
 had killed you." 
 
 It was entirely the correct thing for her to say, 
 but she had very nearly lost control of her manner 
 of saying it. She must have been unaware that 
 she was trembling, that her voice sounded pre- 
 ternaturally sweet, and that she looked more 
 beautiful to Perry Munro than ever before. 
 
 His courage had not fully returned to him. For 
 some reason he also was trembling. Nevertheless 
 his eyes now looked into hers in such a manner that 
 her hands went up as if to cover them, but only to 
 be caught on their way by both his own. 
 
 " Erica," he whispered, " would you have been 
 very sorry if they had killed me ?" 
 
 " Oh, Perry !" 
 
 His courage must have entirely come again, for 
 he drew her very near to him and she did not turn 
 her face away nor strive to escape. 
 
 " Erica ! Forever ?" 
 
 "Perry." 
 
 There was half a minute of silence in that room, 
 except for one anxiously inquiring whine from Bob, 
 and then Perry once more whispered, 
 
 30
 
 350 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " I meant to tell you some day, but I was not sure. 
 I loved you so, Erica." 
 
 " I knew it all, Perry, when I heard about you, 
 there in the woods, by Mr. Chumley. I was so 
 sorry for him ; but you, oh, Perry !" 
 
 They were very young and they were wonder- 
 fully happy, but they were in the kitchen of a log 
 farm-house on a very wicked earth, and that especial 
 moment could not last. 
 
 Mrs. Munro's hospitality wits had come to her, 
 and the captain had responded with hungry cor- 
 diality to what she said about refreshments for him 
 and his men, after their long, hard ride. He said 
 he would go over and inspect affairs at the other 
 house, taking Mr. Munro with him, and be back 
 by the time the proposed cooking could be done. 
 His next movements declared by their rapidity that 
 he meant to keep his word, and the two women 
 started for the kitchen, Mrs. Eagleson remarking, 
 
 " I'm so glad ! Plenty of ham, bacon, smoked 
 fish, half a deer hung up in the meat-house;" and 
 Mrs. Munro's inquiring response was uttered as she 
 entered the kitchen, 
 
 " Half a deer ?" and then she suddenly exclaimed, 
 " My dear !" 
 
 " Yes, mother," said Perry, in a tone of triumph, 
 but without changing the position of his right arm, 
 " but this is a whole dear, she is mine !" 
 
 " Oh, Erica !" that was what Mrs. Eagleson said
 
 A SCENE IN A KITCHEN. 351 
 
 over Mrs. Munro's shoulder, and for some seconds 
 afterwards the conversation was not easy to report. 
 The two mothers, however, appeared to be entirely 
 satisfied with the conduct of their children. All 
 the rude kitchen around them seemed to expand 
 into something unseen and wonderful, and did not 
 contract to its usual size until Mrs. Eagleson ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 " The captain ! The soldiers ! The fire is dead 
 out !" 
 
 It was at about the same time that the corporal 
 asked of Red Beauty, out in front of the house, 
 
 " I say, do you know if either of those young 
 women wants to get married? Because, if they 
 do " 
 
 " Ugh ! Blue-coat fool. Not know. Both squaw 
 belong to Red Beauty. Soldier come time to drive 
 away Pawnee. Too late get squaw." 
 
 "Look here," responded the grinning corporal, 
 " if you'd have your mouth sewed up for an inch on 
 each side, and get the bridge of your nose taken 
 down, and get yourself boiled and ironed, you'd be 
 a good-looking old Indian." 
 
 " Better look than soldier now. Ugh ! Soldier 
 got face like chipmunk. Run away from man own 
 him." 
 
 There was little profit to be had in an exchange 
 of compliments with the old Potawatamy, but the 
 members of that squad of cavalry who had not seen
 
 352 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Jessie or Erica were simply skeptics of what their 
 comrades told them. They should have seen them 
 when they met, just after Mrs. Eagleson set herself 
 at work around the cook-stove. Mrs. Munro had 
 walked into the front room ahead of Perry and 
 Erica. She had found Jessie staring out of the 
 window, like a girl in a dream, and had whispered 
 something in her ear not audible to others. 
 
 " Erica ? Perry ?" exclaimed Jessie. " I'm so 
 glad;" but the rest of her expression of it required 
 no words and was very eloquent. 
 
 There was much cooking done at Chumley's 
 house during the remainder of that day. The cap- 
 tain and his men attended to all that remained of 
 their duties relating to the Pawnees, dead or alive, 
 and when Jessie Munro and her mother went home 
 they found no traces remaining of the terrible occur- 
 rences in or near it. 
 
 The parrot gave them a noisy welcome, and then 
 for the first time Jessie was aware that she had 
 actually heard and now remembered his vociferous 
 remarks during the visit of Jerry McCord. 
 
 " He called him all the hard names he knew," 
 she said to her mother. 
 
 " Potawatamy devil Pawnee," said Poll, with 
 needless emphasis. 
 
 " I wonder where they buried him ?" said Mrs. 
 Munro. " He was a man who might have had a 
 better end."
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 353 
 
 " It's over in the woods somewhere." 
 He would need no tombstone, that was certain, 
 and if one had been put up, no man in that region 
 could have told what name to chisel upon it. 
 
 Two weary families lay down to rest that night 
 to sleep or not to sleep, as the case might be 
 in well-guarded security. Uncle John declared 
 that he had taken a good nap and that he alone 
 must watch by Chumley's bedside, and the rest 
 assented without a suspicion that his reasons were 
 other than strictly surgical in their " character." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIV. 
 
 HOW THE STOBY ENDED. 
 
 THE day following a great excitement is apt to 
 be one of noticeable quietness. 
 
 Even the captain and his men got quietly away 
 with their captives, but not until after the former 
 had visited both homesteads, as he said, to "pay 
 his respects to the ladies," but really for one more 
 look at Jessie and Erica, that he might settle a sad 
 dispute in his own mind as to their comparative 
 claims to perfection. He rode away more in doubt 
 than ever. 
 
 x 80*
 
 354 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Perry Munro awoke and came out for a sunrise 
 look at the prairie and forest, with an idea that 
 they had been transformed from a troubled range 
 for Pawnees and horse-thieves into a sort of Eden. 
 At all events he believed that he knew of one blue- 
 eyed angel in it, and that he should see her very 
 soon after breakfast. 
 
 Uncle John could hardly have been said to 
 awake, for he had not been asleep. He had faith- 
 fully watched his " case" during the entire night, 
 and both he and Mr. Chumley were in states of 
 high fever. The latter had a manifest right to be 
 so, for his delirium was a natural consequence of 
 the work of Jerry McCord's bullet. His volunteer 
 surgeon reported, with a very doleful shake of the 
 head, that he feared the wound was taking on 
 a bad character. He had yet another cause for the 
 fever which was upon him, but he made no men- 
 tion of it to any one until after Perry Munro came 
 over to take his turn as watcher. Jessie came with 
 him, and Perry's first errand did not take him to 
 the sick-room. Hers did, and there was no reason 
 why she should not be permitted to look at the 
 man who had been shot on her account. She took 
 a long, long look, for Uncle John had gone to find 
 Perry and give him careful directions to do almost 
 nothing whatever for Chumley. He was to let 
 matters take their own course until Uncle John 
 should wake up and come back with professional
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 355 
 
 skill and wisdom. For some minutes, therefore, 
 Jessie was alone in that room and acting as tempo- 
 rary nurse and watcher. She drifted almost un- 
 intentionally across from the door to the window, 
 and by that stood the writing-desk. Several en- 
 velopes, which may have contained letters, lay 
 where Chumley had left them when suddenly 
 called away the previous morning. Her eyes fell 
 upon them very naturally and innocently. They 
 were all addressed, in a plain, business-like hand, 
 to " Richard Cholmondeley, Esq.," and Jessie knew 
 of no such man. The name sounded English and 
 aristocratic, and led her to note the fact that the 
 stamps on the envelopes came from a British post- 
 office. Then she felt that she was prying, and 
 turned her eyes away. She was still thinking of 
 that name when Uncle John sent to her a loud 
 whisper, 
 
 " Jessie, come here, I want to see you." 
 He turned away as she came out, and she was 
 compelled to follow him through the front door 
 and around into the shadow of the house before 
 she could obtain any farther explanation. Even 
 then he began in a way that puzzled her, for he 
 said, 
 
 "I suppose you know more of Mr. Chumley's 
 character than I do. I was aware that there was 
 such a family, and that they spelled the name in 
 the old way in spite of the pronunciation. If I
 
 356 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 were you I would Americanize it, or your friends 
 will never get it right. He and you have been 
 more secret than you should have been, but I sup- 
 pose your mother knows. I found this on his 
 writing-desk, and I've let nobody see it. He 
 would doubtless have taken better care of it if he 
 had not been shot." 
 
 As he spoke he held out to his altogether con- 
 founded niece a miniature-case, wide open, and she 
 took it in a hand that trembled visibly. 
 
 " Uncle John ! What does this mean ?" 
 
 " It's a right good likeness, only it isn't just 
 your expression. I didn't know you had it." 
 
 "I never did have it. I don't know anything 
 about it. It isn't me. Hide it, Uncle John. Go 
 put it away. Don't let anybody see it." 
 
 Her crimson face had so much genuine distress 
 in it that his very heart melted. It was a case that 
 he did not at all understand, and he said so in 
 several ways. 
 
 " Nevertheless," he added, " you have a right to 
 your secret. He may die. I'm almost afraid he 
 will. Then of course you wouldn't want anything 
 said about it. My old notion was that he meant to 
 marry Erica. I thought you thought so. It shows 
 how a man may be mistaken. No, I won't touch 
 that picture again. Seems to me your mother 
 ought to know." 
 
 Jessie felt as if some of her wits were leaving
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 357 
 
 her, for Uncle John turned briskly away, sternly 
 refusing to assume the custody of that love-token. 
 It seemed to burn her fingers, and she wished to 
 drop it in the grass. Still, as she looked at it again 
 and again, she wondered when and where it could 
 have been taken, and how Mr. Chumley came by 
 it. The whole world was all a mystery, and it 
 contained no Garden of Eden whatever. 
 
 Uncle John went into the house and into the 
 bedroom opposite Chumley's, and in five minutes 
 more he was soundly asleep, as he had a perfect 
 right to be. Jessie did not dare to go in for some 
 minutes. She wanted to see her mother, and at 
 the same time she did not wish to see a living soul. 
 
 " Perry is in there. I'll tell him to put it back. 
 It isn't mine." 
 
 It was more an impulse than a properly con- 
 sidered purpose, but almost before she clearly un- 
 derstood what she was doing she was at the door 
 of Chumley's room, whispering to her brother, 
 
 " Perry, take it and put it back in the writing- 
 desk. It isn't mine. Uncle John brought it away 
 by mistake." 
 
 Then she flitted away, and he did not see her 
 again until the next morning, for he had something 
 to say to Erica that evening, and was away from 
 home a little late for so young a man. When he 
 first took the miniature from his sister's hand, 
 however, he had said to himself,
 
 358 v RED BEAUTY. 
 
 "I declare! Is that so? Well! If they haven't 
 kept still about it! Erica will be as glad as I am. 
 It would be awful if he should die now. How she 
 must feel ! That's what made him so furious about 
 Jerry McCord." 
 
 Erica, when he told her, was indeed delighted, 
 and determined to see Jessie as soon as she could 
 and tell her so. 
 
 Jessie had heard something more about it before 
 that time came, for her mother was at Chumley's 
 house when Uncle John awoke in the afternoon, 
 and he did his duty well before he went in to relieve 
 Perry. 
 
 " We must be very careful what we say before 
 Jessie," he said. " She must be suffering terrible 
 anxiety." 
 
 " Jessie ? Why, John, what is there about her ?" 
 
 Then came out all he knew, and as much more 
 about the discovery of the miniature and of the 
 correct way of spelling Richard Cholmondeley's 
 long English name. 
 
 Mrs. Munro had a right to be vexed with her 
 daughter for concealing so important a family mat- 
 ter, and she spoke to her husband about it, with a 
 mind quite misty as to what her own duty might 
 be. 
 
 " My dear," he said, " let her alone. I'm sure 
 she has trouble enough just now. If he lives you 
 will know all about it, and if he should die "
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 359 
 
 " I do so hope lie will not !" 
 
 " So do I. Let her alone." 
 
 She consented, but when she looked again and 
 again upon her daughter's face, going and coming 
 around the house, so full of trouble and perplexity, 
 her motherly heart melted, and kept on melting 
 more and more, until at last she put an arm around 
 Jessie's neck and kissed her and said to her, 
 
 "I do so hope you are not to lose him. Uncle 
 John told me." 
 
 " Mother ! Mother ! Don't speak of it. I shall 
 go insane ! It is not my picture." 
 
 " It's his now, but Uncle John says the likeness 
 is admirable." 
 
 ""What shall I do? I do not know anything 
 about it ! It isn't mine !" 
 
 Mrs. Munro was mystified, and, at the end of 
 half an hour's broken-up conversation, she was in 
 what she herself called a " state of mind," for it 
 was evident that Jessie was telling the truth. 
 
 "As soon as he is able to speak," she said, at 
 last ; and she did not go any further or say what she 
 proposed to do then, but she promised Jessie to 
 trouble her no more about it for the present. Mr. 
 Munro and Uncle John rigidly confined themselves 
 to looking wise and kindly. 
 
 Perry was out early the next morning, with a 
 general disposition to sing. He and Bob saw Jessie 
 go to milk the cows, and went to join her at once.
 
 360 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 Her eyes were red and her cheeks pale, and Perry's 
 heart smote him. 
 
 " I won't say a word, Jessie. I believe he is 
 going to get well." 
 
 "Don't say any more, Perry." 
 
 " I'll go right away. Come, Bob." 
 
 Bob hunted around for a stick and went and laid 
 it down by Jessie, in token of good will, and then 
 she was rid of them both. 
 
 An hour or so later it was not possible to get rid 
 of Erica. All that could be done was to accept her 
 intensely sisterly expressions of sympathy and af- 
 fection, and give up the miniature business in silent 
 despair. 
 
 She had two weeks of it before her. A whole 
 fortnight of mystery, during which every soul 
 around her was painfully kind and forbearing. She 
 was also made to understand that any and all ex- 
 planations were out of order, and that the Garden 
 of Eden around Chumley's Post was pretty well 
 satisfied with the amount of romance it had on hand. 
 
 Mr. Richard Cholmondeley had nothing worse 
 than a gunshot wound to endure, so far as anybody 
 else knew, for just one half of Jessie's truly awful 
 fortnight. Up to that time Uncle John had not 
 felt that the character of the case justified him in 
 speaking of anything but strictly surgical afiairs. 
 There came a morning, however, destitute of fever 
 and accompanied by symptoms which implied great
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 361 
 
 discretion on the part of Jerry McCord's bullet. 
 It had turned to the right to get out between the 
 ribs before it had done irreparable mischief. It 
 must also have shoved some things aside without 
 breaking them. Uncle John felt that his patient 
 could safely be trusted to bear a trifle of pleasant 
 information. 
 
 " I have not mentioned it before, Mr. Chumley. 
 When we brought you in from the woods we found 
 your room in some disorder, letters out and so 
 forth." 
 
 " I left it in great haste." 
 
 " Remarkable old-fashioned way of spelling your 
 name. I gathered them up and shoved them into 
 the desk. My niece's picture " 
 
 " Had I left that out ? Heavens !" 
 
 " I asked her what to do with it." 
 
 ""What? She saw it?" 
 
 " I gave it to her, and her brother tells me she 
 made him put it back again. I have not spoken to 
 her about it from that day to this." 
 
 A long, low groan from his patient answered 
 him, and he had an alarmed feeling that he had ex- 
 ceeded his duty. Not for worlds would he have 
 permitted another breath upon that subject, and he 
 forbade it to all other watchers. For one whole 
 week the mystery and romance had complete pos- 
 session of that sick-room. Chumley had flushes 
 of fever, every now and then, which Uncle John 
 
 Q 81
 
 362 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 could not understand, and he was almost afraid to 
 give him quinine yet. 
 
 It was at the end of the week that Erica Eagle- 
 son came in to see her friend, for the first time, 
 and she brought with her a fixed, settled, cour- 
 ageous purpose, which she had not even confided 
 to Perry. It was good for any sick man to have 
 such a face as hers shine down on him and say how 
 glad were all that he was so rapidly recovering. 
 
 " Jessie will get well now, too. Oh, Mr. Chum- 
 ley, why do you not send for her ? Speak to her !" 
 
 "Erica? If she would come. Oh, if I could 
 but say one word !" 
 
 " I must go right away, Mr. Chumley. I can't 
 wait. Good-by. I will come again as soon as I 
 can." 
 
 She was gone, a swiftly willing bearer of that 
 message to Jessie Munro, and to enjoy the latter's 
 astonished response : 
 
 " See me, Erica? He asked to see me ?" 
 
 " He said, ' Oh, if she would come ! If I could 
 say one word.' He looked so so earnest." 
 
 " I will go, I must, I must put an end to this ! 
 I cannot endure it !" 
 
 . " I couldn't," said Erica, " if it was Perry instead 
 of Mr. Chumley." 
 
 Jessie heard in silence, with burning cheeks. 
 'Leaving Erica to say what she migjit to her mother, 
 she put on her hat and set out for Chumley's. She
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 3^3 
 
 seemed to be walking in a dim and troubled dream 
 till she reached the house, and all in such another 
 dream, though wide awake, had he been lying 
 since Erica's flitting, and Perry Munro had been 
 sitting by him, dreaming of Erica. 
 
 Perry saw his sister's face in the door-way, and 
 the thought in his mind was, 
 
 " Come at last ? She should have been here 
 long ago. I never saw her look so white, but she 
 won't faint," and he was out of the room like a 
 flash. 
 
 Mr. Chumley's face was pale enough, but his 
 low, firm voice had no sign of weakness in it as he 
 said, 
 
 " It was not my fault, Miss Munro. Whether I 
 live or die is of little consequence, but I must 
 speak. You saw the miniature ?" 
 
 " I did, and I have wondered " 
 
 She paused, and he said to her, 
 
 " It is a wonder to me, Miss Munro. It is the 
 likeness of my brother's wife." 
 
 The quick blood mantled hotly to Jessie's tem- 
 ples, and she could not find in all her world one 
 word to say. 
 
 " That is not all, Miss Munro. You will hear 
 me, will you not ? There was a boy once, and a 
 beautiful woman made a fool of him. He sup- 
 posed she had a soul and a heart, and she may have 
 had. He declared, years ago, that she had neither,
 
 364 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 for she cast him aside like an old glove, and 
 married his elder brother. She also married a 
 good property, for the boy had only an allowance 
 of a hundred pounds a year. That is the way 
 with entailed estates in England. The boy left 
 home and country and came to America, and 
 hated all women and many men, until there came 
 to him a woman who taught him that he had 
 simply been a fool. Shall I tell the rest ?" 
 
 He had told it steadily and well so far, and she 
 felt that she could not on any account cut him off, 
 but there is in all of us an " imp of the perverse." 
 He is especially busy on stormy days, and she per- 
 versely answered him : 
 
 " They are so happy, Perry and Erica," as if the 
 fact of that happiness had anything whatever to do 
 with his misery or the remaining history of it. It 
 was but an old and withered idea, blown in the 
 way unduly, and his only comment upon it was, 
 
 " No one is more glad of that than I am. I had 
 calculated upon it. But oh, Jessie Munro, if those 
 fiends had harmed you I should have gone mad !" 
 
 A flashing vision of her encounter with Jerry 
 McCord burnt through her mind and made her 
 bend her head. Before she could recover any 
 power to answer him, he went on : 
 
 " That was MY history, Miss Munro. It was 
 years ago. You saw the miniature. The same 
 face came to me again, a woman with a heart and
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 3(55 
 
 with a soul. I did not know that at first, but it 
 was the face my very life was waiting for." 
 
 He might have paused there, but it was now 
 turned full upon him, and something in it sugges- 
 tive of a rosy sunrise encouraged him to add, 
 
 " It was your face, whether I die or live, your 
 face MissMunro? Jessie? Am I delirious again, 
 or has it really come ?" 
 
 If he had been well and upon his feet, she prob- 
 ably would not have moved a step or uttered a 
 word ; but he lay there, wounded and helpless. If 
 she should run away he could not follow her. Per- 
 haps he might die and never hear the very answer 
 she wanted to give him now. He was a magnet 
 irresistible, and she went nearer, nearer, until the 
 one arm he could use swept around her, and then 
 she found voice to say, 
 
 " Are you sure ? Am I " 
 
 " With all my soul I say again, I was a boy and 
 a fool. You are my first love, Jessie." 
 
 " Oh, Richard ! You must live ! I have been 
 so miserable." 
 
 She did not look so just then, and his face wore 
 a sort of promise of speedy recovery. Perhaps she 
 saw it, for the smile on her own grew brighter. 
 The magnet was still at work, too, and since his 
 lips could not rise to hers the smile had to come 
 down and meet the " promise." 
 
 Perry Munro's duty as watcher did not at all de- 
 
 31*
 
 366 i RED BEAUTY. 
 
 niand that he should look into that room very soon, 
 but there is a great deal of stupidity among young 
 men. His mind was troubled very much about the 
 happiness of other people, being himself so very 
 happy; but when he walked past the wide-open 
 door and glanced through it as he did so, and saw 
 his sister sitting by the bedside with Chumley's 
 hand in her own, he remarked to himself, 
 
 " Just as Erica said it would be. They've made 
 up at once." 
 
 There had been no quarrel, but the " making 
 up" was all that could be asked. 
 
 Uncle John was the only member of the Munro 
 family who never could quite get a correct under- 
 standing of the story of that miniature, but none of 
 them felt more pride over Chumley's rapid recovery. 
 
 When the next October days were brightest, one 
 of them found the neighborhood of Chumley's 
 Post in charge of some live-stock, presided over by 
 a cat, a parrot, and five dogs. All the human in- 
 habitants were twenty miles away, on a visit to the 
 nearest " minister." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Perry Munro and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Richard Cholmondeley remained away until late in 
 November, but the rest returned the same day. 
 
 The most remarkable member of the wedding 
 party had also been the most silent, and it was not 
 until they were all on their way home that Mrs. 
 Munro asked him,
 
 HOW THE STORY ENDED. 357 
 
 "Now, Red Beauty, what do you think of a 
 pale-face wedding ?" 
 
 " Think Indian heap, fool. Give squaw father 
 blanket, pony, gun. Heap good deal. White man 
 keep gun, keep blanket, keep pony, give old preach 
 man ten dollar for scold squaw. Ugh !" 
 
 His idea of the difference in the comparative cost 
 of the two systems may have been limited, but his 
 idea of his duty to remain as a sort of life-long 
 retainer of " Chumley" was not, and he remained. 
 
 The story of Jerry McCord's death had long 
 since been in the newspapers, and had been read 
 by one set of bank officers with deep interest. The 
 only human beings with a legal right to draw out 
 the winnings of his dark career would never know 
 to what bloody end it had led their lost son and 
 brother. 
 
 Not long after the wedding, there was a break- 
 fast-table gathering in one of the stately homes of 
 England. The morning mail had been received, 
 and the elderly lady at the head of the table opened 
 first a letter and then a little packet, which had 
 come all the way from America. 
 
 " Chelmsford !" she exclaimed. " Laura, love, 
 Richard has married an American girl. He has 
 sent her likeness. Oh, dear ! Well. We must see 
 what she is like." 
 
 Open came the packet, and again there was a 
 sharp exclamation,
 
 368 RED BEAUTY. 
 
 " Laura ! "What does it mean ? He has sent two 
 of her. No, these are both your own pictures." 
 
 "He had one," murmured Laura, with a deep 
 blush. " Chelmsford, dear, you know it was not 
 my fault." 
 
 Her husband had stretched out a hand for the 
 pictures, however, and now he answered her with 
 a very hearty-sounding laugh. 
 
 " Dick always had good taste. That's yours, 
 Laura. This is your sister-in-law. I declare ! 
 Found her in America, too. It is most remarkable." 
 
 ""We must have them come and see us some 
 day. What do you say, Laura?" 
 
 "I say so. Chelmsford, you and I must send 
 them a wedding present." 
 
 " I think you owe him one," said he, " if only 
 for the compliment he has paid you." 
 
 That was an error, too, but in due course of time 
 the presents were received at Chumley's Post, and 
 the visit to the English home was made. 
 
 THE END.
 
 A "'"linn. illinium 
 
 000 121 167 1 
 
 
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