The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
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child. Has she no other one?"
They had reached the bluff above the camp that was almost a town now. She sat down on a log and wished she could keep from trembling so.
"Yes--she has another one--a pretty one, I think," she said, at last. "It is Gracie--Grace--"
She looked up at him appealingly.
But the emotion in her face made his lips tighten. He had heard so many revelations of her that morning. What was this last to be?
"Well," he said, coldly, "that is a pretty name, so far as it goes; but what is the rest of it?"
"Overton," she said, in a low voice, and his face flushed scarlet.
"What do you mean?" he asked, harshly, and the little one, disliking his tone, reached her arms to 'Tana. "Whose child is this?"
"Your child."
"It is not true."
"It is true," she answered, as decidedly as himself. "Her mother--the woman you married--told me so when she was dying."
He stared at her incredulously.
"I wouldn't believe her even then," he answered. "But how does it come that you--"
"You don't need to claim her, if you don't want to," she said, ignoring all his astonishment. "Her mother gave her to me. She is mine, unless you claim her. I don't care who her father was--or her mother, either. She is a helpless, innocent little child, thrown on the world--that is all the certificate of parentage I am asking for. She shall have what I never had--a childhood."
He walked back and forth several times, turning sometimes to look at the girl, whom the child was patting on the cheek while she put up her little red mouth every now and then for kisses.
"Her mother is dead?" he asked at last, halting and looking down at her.
She thought his face was very hard and stern, and did not know it was because he, too, longed to take her in his arms and ask for kisses.
"Her mother is dead."
"Then--I will take the child, if you will let me."
"I don't know," she said, and tried to smile up at him. "You don't seem very eager."
"And you came back here for that?" he said, slowly, regarding her. "'Tana, what of Max? What of your school?"
"Well, I guess I have money enough to have private teachers out here for the things I don't know--and there are several of them! And as for Max--he didn't say much. I saw Mr. Seldon in Chicago and he scolded me when I told him I was coming back to the woods to stay--"
"To stay?" and he took a step nearer to her. "'Tana!"
"Don't you want me to?" she asked. "I thought maybe--after what you said to me in the cabin--that day--"
"You'd better be careful!" he said. "Don't make me remember that unless--unless you are willing to tell me what I told you that day--unless you are willing to say that you--care for me--that you will be my wife. God knows I never hoped to say this to you. I have fought myself into the idea that you belong to Max. But now that it is said--answer me!"
She smiled up at him and kissed the child happily.
"What shall I say?" she asked. "You should know without words. I told you once I would make coffee for no man but you. Do you remember? Well, I have come back to you for that. And see! I don't wear Max's ring any longer. Don't you understand?"
"That you have come back to _me_--'Tana!"
"Now don't eat me! I may not always be a blessing, so don't be too jubilant. I have bad blood in my veins, but you have had fair warning."
He only laughed and drew her to him, and she could never again say no man had kissed her.
"'Tana!" said the child, "'ook."
She looked where the little hand pointed and saw all the clouds of the east flooded with gold, and higher up they lay blushing above the far hills.
A new day was creeping over the mountains to banish shadows from the Kootenai land.
THE END
SHOE-BAR STRATTON
By Joseph B. Ames
SHOE-BAR STRATTON
CHAPTER I
BACK FROM THE DEAD
Westward the little three-car train chugged its way fussily across the brown prairie toward distant mountains which, in that clear atmosphere, loomed so deceptively near. Standing motionless beside the weather-beaten station shed, the solitary passenger watched it absently, brows drawn into a single dark line above the bridge of his straight nose. Tall, lean, with legs spread apart a bit and shoulders slightly bent, he made a striking figure against that background of brilliant sky and drenching, golden sunlight. For a brief space he did not stir. Then of a sudden, when the train had dwindled to the size of a child's toy, he turned abruptly and drew a long, deep breath.
It was a curious transformation. A moment before his face--lined, brooding, somber, oddly pale for that country of universal tan--looked almost old. At least one would have felt it the face of a man who had recently endured a great deal of mental or physical suffering. Now, as he turned with an unconscious straightening of broad shoulders and a characteristic uptilt of square, cleft chin, the lines smoothed away miraculously, a touch of red crept into his lean cheeks, an eager, boyish gleam of expectation flashed into the clear gray eyes that rested caressingly on the humdrum, sleepy picture before him.
Humdrum it was, in all conscience. A single street, wide enough, almost, for a plaza, paralleled the railroad tracks, the buildings, such as they were, all strung along the further side in an irregular line. One of these, ramshackle, weather-worn, labeled laconically "The Store," stood directly opposite the station. The architecture of the "Paloma Springs Hotel," next door, was very similar. On either side of these two structures a dozen or more discouraged-looking adobe houses were set down at uneven intervals. To the eastward the street ended in the corrals and shipping-pens; in the other direction it merged into a narrow dusty trail that curved northward from the twin steel rails and quickly lost itself in the encompassing prairie.
That was all. Paloma Springs in its entirety lay there in full view, drowsing in the torrid heat of mid-September. Not a human being was in sight. Only a brindled dog slept in a small patch of shade beside the store; and fastened to the hotel hitching-rack, two burros, motionless save for twitching tails and ears, were almost hidden beneath stupendous loads of firewood.
But to Buck Stratton the charm lay deeper than mere externals. As a matter of fact he had seen Paloma Springs only twice in his life, and then very briefly. But it was a typical little cow-town of the Southwest, and to the homesick cattleman the sight of it was like a refreshing draft of water in the desert. Pushing back his hat, Stratton drew another full breath, the beginnings of a smile curving the corners of his mouth.
"It sure is good to get back," he murmured, picking up his bag. "Someway the very air tastes different. Gosh almighty. It don't seem like two years, though."
Abruptly the light went out of his eyes and his face clouded. No wonder the time seemed short when one of those years had vanished from his life as utterly and completely as if it had never been. Whenever Stratton thought of it, which was no oftener than he could help, he cringed mentally. There was something uncanny and even horrible in the realization that for the better part of a twelve-month he had been eating, sleeping, walking about, making friends, even, like any normal person, without retaining a single atom of recollection of the entire period.
Frowning, Buck put up one hand and absently touched a freshly healed scar half-hidden by his thick hair. Even now there were moments when he felt the whole thing must be some wild nightmare. Vividly he remembered the sudden winking out of consciousness in the midst of that panting, uphill dash through Belleau Wood. He could recall perfectly the most trifling event leading up to it--the breaking down of his motor-cycle in a strange sector just before the charge, his sudden determination to take part in