“The damned lyin’ . . .” began Samuel Brett.
“Wait!” interrupted the commandant sharply. “Lincoln, you give me your word that you’ve told me the straight of it? He took the horse to escape bein’ murdered?”
“I give you my sacred word.”
“Then the horse belongs to him by rights,” said the other, and, refusing to listen to another word, he turned upon his heel and hurried away, leaving Samuel Brett half apoplectic with fury.
Roger Lincoln had drawn Torridon to one side. “Now, man,” he said, “while I keep Sam Brett here and try to hold him, get to Brett’s house. You’ll find Nancy there, I think. Go fast, my boy.” He turned to Samuel Brett. “Brett,” he said, “if you think that you have a fair claim to that black horse, will you sit down in my room and talk it over with me? Paul Torridon and I don’t want to figure as horse thieves.”
“I’ll talk it over here!” roared Samuel Brett. “Or I’ll fight it over here. As for rights, I can show you . . .”
Torridon heard no more. He had slipped away through the crowd and hastened through the open gates. Evening was covering Fort Kendry. Lamps were beginning to glimmer behind the windows, and the smell of frying meat made the air pungent as Torridon came again to the big square house and heard a woman’s voice calling: “Nancy! Oh, Nan!”
From the distance: “Yes, Aunt Mary!”
Oh, heart of Paul Torridon, how still it stood. He hastened through the gloom toward the trees and saw a form issuing from them with arms filled with greenery. He told himself that he could tell her by the mere pace at which she walked, the lightness of her step, and the sense of joy that went before her like radiance before a lamp. She came quickly on until she was aware of his shadow standing against the twilight gloom, and she stopped with a faint cry.
Then, cheerfully: “Are you the new man that Uncle Samuel sent in from Gannet?”
He did not answer. He could not. He heard her catch a frightened breath, but, instead of running from him, she came slowly forward, a small step and a halt, and a step again. The greenery slipped from her arms to the ground. He heard a small whisper, but to him it was all the vital, human warmth of song, and then she was in his arms.
From the door a long nasal wail was calling: “Nancy! Oh, Nan, where are you?”
And Torridon whispered: “She’s here. Oh, Nancy, Nancy, how beautiful you are.”
And she: “Silly dear, how can you see me?”
“I can see your goodness and your truth,” said Torridon. “And I . . . I . . .”
“Nancy!” wailed the caller. “Are you comin’?”
“Never, never,” whispered Torridon.
“I have to take these in,” whispered Nancy in reply. “I’ll be out again in a flash. Wait here . . . I’ve got to go in . . . she’d never stop calling me. . . .”
“How long will you be, Nan?”
“I don’t know. Not half a minute. Not two seconds.”
“Nan, I feel as though I’ll never see you again.”
“Ah, but you will.”
“Kiss me once.”
“There, and there.”
She swept up her fallen load and ran into the brightness of the doorway.
Torridon heard her saying: “I stumbled on the path and quite lost my breath.”
“Why, honey,” said her aunt, “you look all done in. Set down and rest yourself a minute, and . . .”
And a hood of darkness that instant fell over the head of Torridon, was jerked tightly over his mouth by mighty hands, and strong arms caught him up, crushing him with their power.
XVI
He felt himself being carried rapidly away, and faint he heard a voice murmur, beside the robe that stifled him: “Will you be quiet and make no cry, White Thunder?”
“Yes,” he gasped in the Cheyenne tongue.
Instantly the hood was jerked from his head. They were standing under the edge of the trees, he in the huge arms of Standing Bull. He knew that ugly profile even in that faint light.
“No harm, little brother,” murmured Standing Bull. “You are more safe now than you would be in your own teepee. I, Standing Bull, have spoken.”
He allowed Torridon to stand, but kept a tight hold on him.
And now the shadow of the girl ran out from the lighted door of the kitchen. Torridon saw her, as the Cheyenne drew him back into the shadow of the trees, saying: “Rising Hawk has gone to bring your horse. We would not take you back on a common pony. And all shall be as you wish in the tribe. You shall be a great medicine man among us, White Thunder. You shall be rich, with horses and scalps and squaws.”
The trees closed between Torridon’s back-turned face and the silhouette of the girl, but faintly, far off, he heard a cautious voice calling: “Paul! Paul!” And then a little louder, in a voice broken with fear and grief: “Paul Torridon! Where are you?”
A rustling passed among the trees before them. They came into a clearing and there were a dozen horses in waiting, and the gleaming, half-naked forms of several warriors. They closed in a whispering knot around Torridon. He did not hear their voices, for faintness dimmed his ears with a dull roaring through which he still seemed to hear the sad voice of a girl calling for Paul Torridon.
And suddenly he groaned: “Standing Bull, if I have been true to you and helped you in bad times, be my friend now. Take your knife and strike it into my side, but don’t carry me back to the Cheyennes.”
“Peace, peace, peace,” said Standing Bull, like a father to a sick child. “Peace, little brother. Happiness is not one bird, but many. We shall catch them for you, one by one. We shall fill your hands with happiness. Behold. Here is Rising Hawk, and the black thunder horse is with him.”
Suddenly Torridon was raised and placed in the saddle.
Standing Bull stood close beside him. “If you make a loud shout,” he said, “I give you the thing for which you ask . . . this knife through the heart. But go with us quietly, and everything shall be well. You shall be to me a son and a brother and a father, and to all the warriors of the tribe. Rising Hawk, watch the rear. I ride in front with White Thunder. Ah, ha. This night Heammawihio has remembered us.”
And with his feet lashed beneath the saddle, and a lariat running from the neck of the black stallion to the saddle bow of Standing Bull, Torridon was carried out from the settlement. The lights gleamed more dimly through the trees and went out altogether, and presently there was the faint glimmer of water to their left.
They were well embarked on the homeward way—the out trail for Torridon, from which he could see no return. And he raised his head to the broad and brilliant sky, where every star shone brightly, and he wondered why God had chosen to torment him. The sense of Roger Lincoln’s faith and truth rode at his side like a ghost, and the beauty of Nancy Brett, but they had been shown to him only to be taken away.
There were no tears in the eyes of Torridon. He had found a grief too great for that.
Standing Bull put the horses to full gallop. They began to rush forward like the wind. Trees and brush and the shining river poured past them, but the calm stars hung unmoved in their silent places above him.