Frontier and pioneer life -- Dakota Territory -- Fiction
For the first time the girl glanced up; but it was not at Craig that she
looked. It was at that other figure in the background, the figure that
not once through it all had stirred or made a sound. "What shall we do,
How? what ought we to do?" she asked.
For ten seconds there was silence; but not even then did Craig recognise
the other's presence by so much as a glance. Only the look of exultation
left his face, and over his blue eyes the lids tightened perceptibly.
"Don't consider what I think, Bess," said a low voice at last. "Do what
you feel is right."
It was the white man who had decided, but it was another who brought the
decision to pass. How Landor, the Indian, it was who, alone in the
dreary chamber beneath the roof, laid the dead man out decently, and for
five dragging minutes thereafter, before the others had come, stood like
a statue gazing down at the kindly, heavy face, with a look on his own
that no living human had ever seen or would ever see. How Landor, the
Indian, it was who, again alone in the surrey, with the closely drawn
canvas curtains, drove all that day and half the night to the nearest
undertaker at the railroad terminus beyond the river, seventy-five miles
away. How Landor, the Indian, again it was who, with a change of horses,
but barely a pause to eat, started straight back on the return trail,
and ere it was again light was within the limits of Coyote Centre,
knocking at the door of Mattie Burton, the one woman friend of Mary
Landor he knew. How Landor it was once more who, before twenty-four
hours from the time he had left, had passed, with the unwilling visitor
by his side, re-entered the Buffalo Butte ranch yard. Last of all, How
Landor, the Indian, it was who faced the old surrey once more to the
east, and with still another team before him and a cold lunch in his
pocket, sat waiting within the hour to take the departing ones away.
Through it all he scarcely spoke a word, not one that was superfluous.
What he was thinking of no one but he himself knew. That he had expected
what had taken place in his absence, his bringing Mrs. Burton proved. At
last realisation had come, and Mary Landor was paying the price of the
brief lethargic respite; paying it with usury, paying it with the
helpless abandon of the dependent. The dreary weather-coloured ranch
house was not a pleasant place to be in that day. Craig left it
thankfully, with a shrug of the shoulders beneath the box-fitting
topcoat, as the door closed behind him. The other passenger, the one who
should have left also and did not, the girl Elizabeth--.
How Landor it was again who, when minutes of waiting had passed, minutes
wherein Craig consumed cigarettes successively, tied the team and
disappeared within doors. What he said none save the girl herself knew;
but when he returned he was not alone, and though the eyes of his
companion were red, there was in her manner no longer a trace of
hesitation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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