A Waif of the Plains by Bret Harte (13 ebook reader TXT) 📖

In one hand it held a gun; the other was bent above its eyes in eager scrutiny of some distant point beyond and east of the spot where the children lay concealed. Presently, with a dozen quick noiseless strides of the pony’s legs, the apparition moved to the right, its gaze still fixed on that mysterious part of the horizon. There was no mistaking it now! The painted Hebraic face, the large curved nose, the bony cheek, the broad mouth, the shadowed eyes, the straight long matted locks! It was an Indian! Not the picturesque creature of Clarence’s imagination, but still an Indian! The boy was uneasy, suspicious, antagonistic, but not afraid. He looked at the heavy animal face with the superiority of intelligence, at the half-naked figure with the conscious supremacy of dress, at the lower individuality with the contempt of a higher race. Yet a moment after, when the figure wheeled and disappeared towards the undulating west, a strange chill crept over him. Yet he did not know that in this puerile phantom and painted pigmy the awful majesty of Death had passed him by.

“Mamma!”

It was Susy’s voice, struggling into consciousness. Perhaps she had been instinctively conscious of the boy’s sudden fears.

“Hush!”

He had just turned to the objective point of the Indian’s gaze. There WAS something! A dark line was moving along with the gathering darkness. For a moment he hardly dared to voice his thoughts even to himself. It was a following train overtaking them from the rear! And from the rapidity of its movements a train with horses, hurrying forward to evening camp. He had never dreamt of help from that quarter. This was what the Indian’s keen eyes had been watching, and why he had so precipitately fled.

The strange train was now coming up at a round trot. It was evidently well appointed with five or six large wagons and several outriders. In half an hour it would be here. Yet he refrained from waking Susy, who had fallen asleep again; his old superstition of securing her safety first being still uppermost. He took off his jacket to cover her shoulders, and rearranged her nest. Then he glanced again at the coming train. But for some unaccountable reason it had changed its direction, and instead of following the track that should have brought it to his side it had turned off to the left! In ten minutes it would pass abreast of him a mile and a half away! If he woke Susy now, he knew she would be helpless in her terror, and he could not carry her half that distance. He might rush to the train himself and return with help, but he would never leave her alone—in the darkness. Never! If she woke she would die of fright, perhaps, or wander blindly and aimlessly away. No! The train would pass and with it that hope of rescue. Something was in his throat, but he gulped it down and was quiet again albeit he shivered in the night wind.

The train was nearly abreast of him now. He ran out of the tall grass, waving his straw hat above his head in the faint hope of attracting attention. But he did not go far, for he found to his alarm that when he turned back again the clump of mesquite was scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the plain. This settled all question of his going. Even if he reached the train and returned with some one, how would he ever find her again in this desolate expanse?

He watched the train slowly pass—still mechanically, almost hopelessly, waving his hat as he ran up and down before the mesquite, as if he were waving a last farewell to his departing hope. Suddenly it appeared to him that three of the outriders who were preceding the first wagon had changed their shape. They were no longer sharp, oblong, black blocks against the horizon but had become at first blurred and indistinct, then taller and narrower, until at last they stood out like exclamation points against the sky. He continued to wave his hat, they continued to grow taller and narrower. He understood it now—the three transformed blocks were the outriders coming towards him.

This is what he had seen—

[Drawing of three black blocks]

This is what he saw now—

 

! ! !

 

He ran back to Susy to see if she still slept, for his foolish desire to have her saved unconsciously was stronger than ever now that safety seemed so near. She was still sleeping, although she had moved slightly. He ran to the front again.

The outriders had apparently halted. What were they doing? Why wouldn’t they come on?

Suddenly a blinding flash of light seemed to burst from one of them. Away over his head something whistled like a rushing bird, and sped off invisible. They had fired a gun; they were signaling to him—Clarence—like a grownup man. He would have given his life at that moment to have had a gun. But he could only wave his hat frantically.

One of the figures here bore away and impetuously darted forward again. He was coming nearer, powerful, gigantic, formidable, as he loomed through the darkness. All at once he threw up his arm with a wild gesture to the others; and his voice, manly, frank, and assuring, came ringing before him.

“Hold up! Good God! It’s no Injun—it’s a child!”

In another moment he had reined up beside Clarence and leaned over him, bearded, handsome, powerful and protecting.

“Hallo! What’s all this? What are you doing here?”

“Lost from Mr. Silsbee’s train,” said Clarence, pointing to the darkened west.

“Lost?—how long?”

“About three hours. I thought they’d come back for us,” said Clarence apologetically to this big, kindly man.

“And you kalkilated to wait here for ‘em?”

“Yes, yes—I did—till I saw you.”

“Then why in thunder didn’t you light out straight for us, instead of hanging round here and drawing us out?”

The boy hung his head. He knew his reasons were unchanged, but all at once they seemed very foolish and unmanly to speak out.

“Only that we were on the keen jump for Injins,” continued the stranger, “we wouldn’t have seen you at all, and might hev shot you when we did. What possessed you to stay here?”

The boy was still silent. “Kla’uns,” said a faint, sleepy voice from the mesquite, “take me.” The rifle-shot had awakened Susy.

The stranger turned quickly towards the sound. Clarence started and recalled himself. “There,” he said bitterly, “you’ve done it now, you’ve wakened her! THAT’S why I stayed. I couldn’t carry her over there to you. I couldn’t let her walk, for she’d be frightened. I wouldn’t wake her up, for she’d be frightened, and I mightn’t find her again. There!” He had made up his mind to be abused, but he was reckless now that she was safe.

The men glanced at each other. “Then,” said the spokesman quietly, “you didn’t strike out for us on account of your sister?”

“She ain’t my sister,” said Clarence quickly. “She’s a little girl. She’s Mrs. Silsbee’s little girl. We were in the wagon and got down. It’s my fault. I helped her down.”

The three men reined their horses closely round him, leaning forward from their saddles, with their hands on their knees and their heads on one side. “Then,” said the spokesman gravely, “you just reckoned to stay here, old man, and take your chances with her rather than run the risk of frightening or leaving her—though it was your one chance of life!”

“Yes,” said the boy, scornful of this feeble, grownup repetition.

“Come here.”

The boy came doggedly forward. The man pushed back the well-worn straw hat from Clarence’s forehead and looked into his lowering face. With his hand still on the boy’s head he turned him round to the others, and said quietly,—

“Suthin of a pup, eh?”

“You bet,” they responded.

The voice was not unkindly, although the speaker had thrown his lower jaw forward as if to pronounce the word “pup” with a humorous suggestion of a mastiff. Before Clarence could make up his mind if the epithet was insulting or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with a gesture of invitation, said, “Jump up.”

“But Susy,” said Clarence, drawing back.

“Look; she’s making up to Phil already.”

Clarence looked. Susy had crawled out of the mesquite, and with her sunbonnet hanging down her back, her curls tossed around her face, still flushed with sleep, and Clarence’s jacket over her shoulders, was gazing up with grave satisfaction in the laughing eyes of one of the men who was with outstretched hands bending over her. Could he believe his senses? The terror-stricken, willful, unmanageable Susy, whom he would have translated unconsciously to safety without this terrible ordeal of being awakened to the loss of her home and parents at any sacrifice to himself—this ingenuous infant was absolutely throwing herself with every appearance of forgetfulness into the arms of the first new-comer! Yet his perception of this fact was accompanied by no sense of ingratitude. For her sake he felt relieved, and with a boyish smile of satisfaction and encouragement vaulted into the saddle before the stranger.