_ CHAPTER XIII. THE VISIT OF THE INDIANS
"Tressa! Quick!"
But Tressa was too busy in the kitchen.
"Tressa Torrance. It's a free show--I wouldn't miss it. It's an epoch."
She came skipping through the door. "If it's only the trestle again--"
Torrance pointed dramatically across the trestle to the far bank. "This time it's our first callers." He turned to the pair of saddled horses tied to rings in the wall beyond the front door. "No, we're not riding to-night. We're entertaining. That is, if the local nabobs over there don't funk the trestle. I'd run the speeder over if I thought it wouldn't give them a fit. You never know what scares an Indian."
On the distant bank an Indian and his squaw were seated like statues on horses as motionless as themselves. The former, his horse seemingly on the very brink of the chasm, was leaning forward, his eyes shaded by his hand. The squaw, on higher ground, outlined against the sky, waited phlegmatically.
"Are you sure they're alive, daddy?"
"Certain. I saw Mrs. Indian's horse's tail flicker. Like to have a close-up, wouldn't you? Staring at us like that, it makes a fellow feel as if he's been stealing something of theirs and they're taking a good look in time for the scalping season."
He climbed the loose sand of the grade and waved.
The response was immediate. At a jerk of the squaw's hand her horse cantered down to where her lord had taken his stand. And for a time they sat side by side watching the distant welcome of the white man.
Suddenly the Indian's heels flew out and in, and the odd little broncho wheeled on its hind legs and swung into a wide circle. The squaw did not even look interested.
"Some rider, eh?" applauded Torrance. "If your old dad could ride like that he'd never have taken up railway building. Funny nag, that of his. Looks like a hobby horse come to life. What's he trying to tell us? Regrets he can't come? Or is it a challenge to bring my bow and arrow and settle the old feud? Anyway, it's a rattling good stunt--and I'd like to know the answer."
"I think he wants time to consider your invitation."
"By hickory, Tressa, another year and we'd have missed this. It takes only about one season to muddle up their riding with the white man's booze--or the white man's treaty money. Why don't we leave well enough alone--that is, if they'd let us build railways?"
The horse continued to gyrate, its rider performing the familiar Indian tricks--now leaning far over until his twin braids brushed the ground, now leaping off in full flight and on again as the horse came round in the circle; lying flat along the horse's side until only one leg from knee to foot was visible, leaning far over to peer at them under the horse's neck. As a finale he stood erect while the broncho dashed headlong for the bank. At the very brink it dropped back with braced legs, and the Indian, leaping gracefully backward, turned a somersault and landed on his feet.
"By hickory!" Torrance whistled through his teeth. "I know a showman would swop his whole caboodle for half an hour of that. I wonder what I'm expected to do over here to hold up my end. I want to be civil. I don't know anything that wouldn't look cheap after that. Wish I'd done mine first. Hi, you!" He was adding voice to arms. "That trestle'll bear
you anyway. Trot over and shake. Bring that little beast that looks like a horse, and I'll get you the biggest audience this side of Winnipeg."
Down in the camp half a thousand bohunks were watching every move.
The Indians had dismounted. He was pointing across the trestle. His squaw seemed to hesitate.
"If I made a sound like a bottle of fire-water," grinned Torrance, "he'd beat the record."
"You're not to let them have a drop. Now remember, daddy."
"The nearest bar's too far away to waste it on an Indian, my dear. But there's methylated spirits somewhere in the stores--and you've a bottle or two of flavoring extract, haven't you? All it needs is a smell. . . . They're tackling the trestle, Tressa. Bully for you, Big Chief! You got Murphy beat a mile. Must have heard us talking about fire-water. Wonderful ears, them Indians have."
Adrian Conrad, ready for his evening visit, slipped his automatic in his pocket and hastened up the slope. He arrived as the squaw, with a nervous little run, covered the last few yards of the trestle and stamped moccasined feet on solid ground. The Indian, frightened as he plainly was, stalked stolidly on to her side. "Nothing the white man can do," he seemed to say, "will flurry me."
Torrance met them with extended hand.
"I hope my little conversation with my daughter didn't raise false hopes, Big Chief. I haven't a drop that's fit to swallow."
The Indians stared at the extended hand in silence.
"I don't know whether they shake hands in your language," explained Torrance, "but it's all the rage with us. I'm straining to show how pleased I am. Ah--how's all the little papooses? Has the hired girl kicked for another afternoon a week, and who's the latest married man to run away with another woman? That may not be wigwam gossip, but it's all we know in our set; it's all the small-talk I have."
The Indian solemnly accepted the preferred hand, studying it curiously as his own brown one shook to Torrance's welcome.
"Me spik English," he grunted.
Torrance grinned foolishly. "Good--Lord!"
"Me spik English, too," murmured the squaw sweetly.
"Well, I'm bunco'ed!" Torrance rolled his eyes helplessly. "Take a hand, Tressa. Fancy meeting a family of redskins a thousand miles from nowhere and asking what make o' car they use!"
"Both spik English," said the Indian without a smile.
Torrance groaned. "Can you smile in English? This is getting on my nerves."
The Indians looked at each other, and as if one spring worked the mechanism their faces relaxed.
"Look at that, Adrian. That's prairie manners for you. I suppose if I asked him to jump off the trestle--"
The Indian shifted about and gravely regarded the long drop. Torrance clutched his arm and led toward the shack.
"Don't you do it, Chief. I ain't worth it."
He brought chairs from the sitting room.
"I don't even know whether you sit down. I haven't a pipe that would go round, but there's a fair tobacco you're welcome to. It don't make bad chewing. Tressa's awful glad to see you. We haven't had a caller since the new curtains went up."
The Indian was not listening; his eyes were on the two horses tied beyond the door. Gathering his blanket about him, he went to them, running a hand over them with the air of a connoisseur. He stooped to their feet, his two braids, twined through and through with bits of coloured cloth, falling over his ears.
"Good!" he grunted.
"Just what I said," agreed Torrance amiably, "--of course, after I'd paid for them. Best bits o' horseflesh this side of anywhere. Broke 'em myself, so I ought to know."
"Daddy!"
"Maybe not quite broke 'em," corrected Torrance easily, "but they nearly broke me. Picked 'em from a bunch of the finest animals ever came off a ranch--"
"Daddy!"
"That
was a fine lot, Tressa--and those two were the best of the bunch."
"How much?" The Indian's face was expressionless.
The contractor blinked. "You don't want to buy? I thought Indians always stole what-- The worst of me is I talk too fast. You see I lost a lot of horses not long ago, and it's temporarily affected my judgment. I don't say it was Indians stole 'em--in fact I saw the guy, but it was too far to catch his pedigree. Anyway, he was dressed white. One of three got 'em--either my own men, or contractors out west, or the Indians. If I thought it was my men there'd be a new line of graves to-morrow--and I don't somehow think the contractors would risk it. It seemed safer to blame the Indians then. Now? Oh, I guess I must have been crazy. Them horses weren't stolen. They've taken a holiday to get a drink, or gone for the World's Series baseball games."
"How much?" repeated the Indian stoically.
"But you don't want horses like them, when you've a circus beast over there would make them look like a wheelbarrow without the wheel."
"How much?"
Torrance sighed. "Is that all the English teacher knew at your school? Conrad, he's making me name a price, because I don't know any other way to stop him. Indian-who-spiks-English, they cost me two hundred dollars each, and--"
"Daddy!"
"Oh, bother!" Torrance mopped his forehead. "That's the worst of bringing up a daughter too strict. A real liar hasn't half a chance. Did I say fifty dollars?"
"Fifty dollars," offered the Indian, unfolding a wallet from his blanket.
"One hundred dollars--in cold cash--out here in the bush! Say"--he walked reverently round the Indian, looking him over--"where d'you keep his scalp? I warn you I haven't ten dollars in the shack--and I'm getting bald about the crown."
"Fifty dollars!" grunted the Indian.
"I got to turn it down, old friend. They're the only saddle horses, bar the Police, within a week's journey."
"One hundred dollars."
Torrance walked reverently over to the horses and stared at them.
"I bet they're a damn sight better'n I thought."
"Two hundred each!" There was a finality about the extravagant offer that impressed Torrance.
"Big Chief," he murmured, "let's see that bank again. To tell you the truth, I paid exactly ten dollars each for them--and I couldn't rob a decent citizen. So you see the deal's off: I wouldn't take the money, and you couldn't go back on your offer."
The Indian was holding out a huge roll of bills. Torrance blinked at it and turned to Tressa.
"You can't sell, daddy. One is mine, and I'm learning to ride. But we'll give them the horses for nothing when we leave."
Torrance extended his hands helplessly. "That ends it, you see. She's boss. We can't sell, but we'll hand 'em over f.o.b. when we go--and if you've oats enough in your tribe for that red fellow I wish you'd give me your address and let me know when nobody's home."
The eyes of the Indian and his squaw met. The latter sighed. The Indian slowly thrust the wallet within his blanket. Then without another word he took her hand and they started back across the trestle.
Torrance watched them with amazement "Hi--say!"
The Indians stalked on.
"I might be able to scare up a bottle of fire-water--"
No response. Torrance sank into a chair and drew his sleeve across his forehead.
"Talkative? By hickory, they reek with it. They sure got my goat. All the squaws I ever saw before were so thick with grease, and the things that stick to it. . . . I'm beginning to feel for the squaw-man after seeing that girl."
"Wasn't she pretty?" Tressa was staring regretfully after the receding couple. "I didn't know they were so dainty---"
"Wasn't I telling you they aren't--"
Conrad spoke for the first time: "I've seen that chap before."
"Me, too," said Torrance. "But I can't imagine not picking him out of any Indians I ever met. They don't grow 'em like him. Our fire-water, with here and there a missionary for good measure, sees to that. Oh, hello, Sergeant!" Unheard, Sergeant Mahon had come along the soft grade and was watching the Indians now almost at the other end of the trestle. "You missed the fun. Highest velocity conversation on two words ever."
The Sergeant whipped out his binoculars. He did not move again until the Indians had galloped out of sight.
"What d'you make of 'em, Sergeant?"
"Strange!" muttered the Policeman, slowly replacing the glasses. _