CHAPTER XXIV
THE MEETING AT SANDY
December, and the noonday sun at Sandy still beat hotly on the barrenlevel of the parade. The fierce and sudden campaign seemed ended, forthe time, at least, as only in scattered remnants could the renegadeIndians be found. Eastward from the Agua Fria to the Chiquito, andnorthward from the Salado to the very cliffs of the grand canon, thehard-worked troopers had scoured the wild and mountainous country,striking hard whenever they found a hostile band, striving ever,through interpreters and runners, to bring the nervous and suspicioustribes to listen to reason and to return to their reservations. Thisfor long days, however, seemed impossible. The tragic death of RavenShield, most popular of the young chiefs, struck down, as theyclaimed, when he was striving only to defend Natzie, daughter of arevered leader, had stirred the savages to furious reprisals, andnothing but the instant action of the troops in covering the valleyhad saved the scattered settlers from universal massacre. Enough hadbeen done by one band alone to thrill the West with horror, but thesehad fled southward into Mexico and were safe beyond the border. Thesettlers were slowly creeping back now to their abandoned homes, andone after another the little field detachments were marching to theiraccustomed stations. Sandy was filling up again with something besidesthe broken down and wounded.
First to come in was Stout's triumphant half hundred, the happiestfamily of horse and foot, commingled, ever seen upon the Pacificslope, for their proud lot it had been to reach and rescue Angela,beloved daughter of the regiment, and Blakely, who had well-nighsacrificed himself in the effort to find and save her. Stout and histhirty "doughboys," Brewster, the sergeant, with his twenty troopers,had been welcomed by the entire community as the heroes of the briefcampaign, but Stout would none of their adulation.
"There is the one you should thank and bless," said he, his eyesturning to where stood Natzie, sad and silent, watching the attendantswho were lifting Neil Blakely from the litter to the porch of thecommanding officer.
They had brought her in with them, Lola and Alchisay as well--the lasttwo scowling and sullen, but ruled by the chieftain's daughter. Theyhad loaded her with praise and thanks, but she paid no heed. Two hoursafter Stout and his troopers had reached the cliff and driven away themurderous band of renegades--Tontos and Apache Yumas--bent on stealingher captives, there had come a little party of her own kindred inanswer to her signals, but these would have been much too late.Blakely would have been butchered. Angela and her benefactors, too,would probably have been the victims of their captors. Natzie couldlook for no mercy from them now. Through Wales Arnold, the captain andhis men had little by little learned the story of Natzie's devotion.In the eyes of her father, her brother, her people, Blakely wasgreater even than the famous big chief, Crook, the Gray Fox, who hadleft them, ordered to other duties but the year gone by. Blakely hadquickly righted the wrongs done them by a thieving agent. Blakely hadgiven fair trial to and saved the life of Mariano, that fiery brother,who, ironed by the former agent's orders, had with his shackled handsstruck down his persecutor and then escaped. Blakely had won theirundying gratitude, and Stout and Arnold saw now why it was that oneyoung brave, at least, could not share the love his people bore for_Gran Capitan Blanco_--that one was Quonothay--the Chief Raven Shield.They saw now why poor Natzie had no heart to give her Indian lover.They saw now why it was that Natzie wandered from the agency andhovered for some days before the outbreak there around the post. Itwas to be near the young white chief whom she well-nigh worshiped,whom she had been accustomed to see every day of her life during hisduties at the agency. They saw now why it was the savage girl haddared the vengeance of the Apaches by the rescue of Angela. Shebelieved her to be Blakely's sister, yet they could not give thereason why. They knew very little of Neil Blakely, but what they didknow made them doubt that he could ever have been the one at fault.Over this problem both ranchman and soldier, Arnold and Stout, lookedgrave indeed. It was not like Blakely that he should make a victim ofthis young Indian girl. She was barely sixteen, said Arnold, who knewher people well. She had never been alone with Blakely, said herkinsfolk, who came that night in answer to her signals. She had savedAngela, believing her to be Blakely's own blood, had led her to herown mountain refuge, and then, confident that Blakely would makesearch for it and for his sister, had gone forth and found him,already half-dazed with fever and exhaustion, and had striven to leadhis staggering horse up that precipitous trail. It was the poorbrute's last climb. Blakely she managed to bring in safety to herlofty eerie. The horse had fallen, worn out in the effort, and died onthe rocks below. She had roused Angela with what she thought would bejoyful tidings, even though she saw that her hero was desperately ill.She thought, of course, the white girl knew the few words of Spanishthat she could speak. All this was made evident to Arnold and Stout,partly through Natzie's young brother, who had helped to find andsupport the white chief, partly through the girl herself. It wasevident to Arnold, too, that up to the time of their coming nothinghad happened to undeceive Natzie as to that relationship. They triedto induce her to return to the agency, although her father and brotherwere still somewhere with the hostile bands, but she would not, shewould go with them to Sandy, and they could not deny her. More thanonce on that rough march of three days they found themselves askingwhat would the waking be. Angela, daughter of civilization, under safeescort, had been sent on ahead, close following the courier whoscurried homeward with the news. Natzie, daughter of the wilderness,could not be driven from the sight of Blakely's litter. The dumb,patient, pathetic appeal of her great soft eyes, as she watched everylook in the doctor's face, was something wonderful to see. But now, atlast, the fevered sufferer was home, still only semi-conscious, beingborne within the walls of the major's quarters, and she who had savedhim, slaved for him, dared for him, could only mutely gaze after hisprostrate and wasted form as it disappeared within the darkenedhallway in the arms of his men. Then came a light step bounding alongthe veranda--then came Angela, no longer clad in the riding garb inwhich hitherto Natzie had seen her, but in cool and shimmering white,with gladness and gratitude in her beautiful eyes, with welcome andprotection in her extended hand, and the Indian girl looked strangelyfrom her to the dark hallway within which her white hero haddisappeared, and shrank back from the proffered touch. If this was thesoldier's sister should not she now be at the soldier's side? Had sheother lodge than that which gave him shelter, now that his own wasburned? Angela saw for the first time aversion, question, suspicion inthe great black eyes from which the softness and the pleading hadsuddenly fled. Then, rebuffed, disturbed, and troubled, she turned toArnold, who would gladly have slipped away.
"Can't _you_ make her understand, Mr. Arnold?" she pleaded. "I don'tknow a word of her language, and I so want to be her friend--so wantto take her to my home!"
And then the frontiersman did a thing for which, when she heard of itone sunset later, his better half said words of him and to him thatoverstepped all bounds of parliamentary usage, and that only a wifewould dare to employ. With the blundering stupidity of his sex, poorArnold "settled things" for many a day and well-nigh ruined thesweetest romance that Sandy had ever seen the birth of.
"Ah, Miss Angela! only one place will ever be home to Natzie now. Hereyes will tell you that."
And already, regardless of anything these women of the white chiefsmight think or say, unafraid save of seeing him no more, unashamedsave of being where she could not heed his every look or call orgesture, the daughter of the mountain and the desert stood gazingagain after the vanished form her eyes long months had worshiped, andthe daughter of the schools and civilization stood flushing one-halfmoment, then slowly paling, as, without another glance or effort, sheturned silently away. Kate Sanders it was who sprang quickly after herand encircled the slender waist with her fond and clasping arm.
That night the powers of all Camp Sandy were exhausted in effort tosuitably provide for Natzie and her two companions. Mrs. Sanders, Mrs.Bridger, even Mother Shaughnessy and N
orah pleaded successively withthis princess of the wilderness, and pleaded in vain. Food andshelter elsewhere they proffered in abundance. Natzie sat stubbornlyat the major's steps, and sadly at first, and angrily later, shook herhead to every proposition. Then they brought food, and Lola andAlchisay ate greedily. Natzie would hardly taste a morsel. Every timePlume or Graham or a soldier nurse came forth her mournful eyes wouldstudy his face as though imploring news of the sufferer, who layunconscious of her vigil, if not of her existence. Graham's treatmentwas beginning to tell, and Blakely was sleeping the sleep of the just.They had not let him know of the poor girl's presence at the door.They would not let her in for fear he might awake and see her, and askthe reason of her coming. They would not send or take her away, forall Sandy was alive with the strange story of her devotion. Thequestion on almost every lip was "How is this to end?"
At tattoo there came a Mexican woman from one of the down-streamranches, sent in by the post trader, who said she could speak theApache-Mohave language sufficiently well to make Natzie understand thesituation, and this frontier linguist strove earnestly. Natzieunderstood every word she said, was her report, but could not be madeto understand that she ought to go. In the continued absence of Mrs.Plume, both the major and the post surgeon had requested of Mrs.Graham that she should come over for a while and "see what she coulddo," and, leaving her own sturdy bairnies, the good, motherly soul hadcome and presided over this diplomatic interview, proposing variousplans for Natzie's disposition for the night. And other ladieshovering about had been sympathetically suggestive, but the Indiangirl had turned deaf ear to everything that would even temporarilytake her from her self-appointed station. At ten o'clock MotherShaughnessy, after hanging uneasily about the porch a moment or two,gave muttered voice to a suggestion that other women had shrunk frommentioning:
"Has she been tould Miss Angela and--him--is no kin at all, at all?"
"I don't want her told," said Mrs. Graham briefly.
And so Natzie was still there, sitting sleepless in the soft andradiant moonlight, when toward twelve o'clock Graham came forth fromhis last visit for the night, and she lifted up her head and lookedhim dumbly in the face,--dumbly, yet imploring a word of hope orcomfort,--and it was more than the soft-hearted Scot could bear."Major," said he, as he gently laid a big hand upon the black andtangled wealth of hair, "that lad in yonder would have been beyond theken of civilization days ago if it hadn't been for this little savage.I'm thinking he'll sleep none the worse for her watching over him.Todd's there for the night, the same that attended him before, and shewon't be strange with him--or I'm mistaken."
"Why?" asked Plume, mystified.
"I'm not saying, until Blakely talks for himself. For one reason Idon't _know_. For another, _he's_ the man to tell, if anybody," and atoss of the head toward the dark doorway told who was meant by "he."
"D'you mean you'd have this girl squatting there by Blakely's bedsidethe rest of the night?" asked the commander, ruffled in spirit."What's to prevent her singing their confounded death song, orinvoking heathen spirits, or knifing us all, for that matter?"
"What was to prevent her from knifing the Bugologist and Angela both,when she had 'em?" was the sturdy reply. "The girl's a theoreticalheathen, but a practical Christian. Come with us, Natzie," hefinished, one hand extended to aid her to rise, the other pointing tothe open doorway. She was on her feet in an instant, and, silentlysigning her companions to stay, followed the doctor into the house.
And so it happened that when Blakely wakened, hours later, the sightthat met him, dimly comprehending, was that of a blue-coated soldiersnoozing in a reclining chair, a blue-blanketed Indian girl seated onthe floor near the foot of his bed, looking with all her soul in hergaze straight into his wondering eyes. At his low whisper, "Natzie,"she sprang to her feet without word or sound; seized the thin whitehand tremulously extended toward her, and, pillowing her cheek uponit, knelt humbly by the bedside, her black hair streaming to thefloor. A pathetic picture it made in the dim light of the newborn day,forcing itself through the shrouded windows, and Major Plume, restlessand astir the hour before reveille, stood unnoted a moment at thedoorway, then strode back through the hall and summoned from theadjoining veranda another sleepless watcher, gratefully breathing thefragrance of the cool, morning air; and presently two dim forms hadsoftly tiptoed to that open portal, and now stood gazing within untiltheir eyes should triumph over the uncertain light--the post commanderin his trim-fitting undress uniform, the tall and angular shape ofWren's elderly sister--the "austere vestal" herself. It may have beena mere twitch of the slim fingers under her tawny cheek that causedNatzie to lift her eyes in search of those of her hero and herprotector. Instantly her own gaze, startled, was turned straight tothe door. Then in another second she had sprung to her feet, and withfury in her face and attitude confronted the intruders. As she did sothe sudden movement detached some object that hung within the breastof her loose-fitting sack--something bright and gleaming thatclattered to the floor, falling close to the feet of the drowsingattendant, while another--a thin, circular case of soft leather,half-rolled, half-bounded toward the unwelcome visitors at the door.
Todd, roused to instant action at sight of the post commander, bentquickly and nabbed the first. The girl herself darted after thesecond, whereat the attendant, misjudging her motive, dreading dangerto his betters or rebuke to himself, sprang upon her as she stooped,and dropping his first prize, dared to seize the Apache girl with bothhands at the throat. There was a warning cry from the bed, a flash ofsteel through one slanting ray of sunshine, a shriek from the lips ofJanet Wren, and with a stifled moan the luckless soldier sank in histracks, while Natzie, the chieftain's daughter, a dripping blade inher uplifted hand, a veritable picture of fury, stood in savagetriumph over him, her flashing eyes fixed upon the amazed commander,as though daring him, too, to lay hostile hands upon her.