“I know that you are a good cowpuncher, but you get me all out of patience when you start those stunts about your ‘belts.’ I know that it is not the truth! If you would cut out peddling hot air, you would be all right. And Jim,” she continued warningly, “you want to quit calling me a squaw; especially before strangers. Do you hear? Some of these days I will murder you with a good heart! If you were not a half-breed yourself, you would never dare call me such names.”
“Where do you bury your dead, little Injun?” Jim laughed derisively. “Do you smoke-cure the scalps of your victims?”
“Jim! I could learn to hate you.”
The eyes of the enraged girl flashed ominously. The Westerner realized that he was on dangerous ground and hastened to retrench. His tone was most conciliatory:
“Come, Sis! I was only a teasin’ you. I didn’t mean anything; but only kiddin’. Let’s bury the hatchet!”
“The only way that I can forgive you, is for you not to tell what you know about me getting thrown from Wanawish.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, that is all. And you had better not whisper it to a living soul; especially the H-B boys. This is going to be a secret between us two.” She caught the smile returning playfully to the suntanned face, and continued admonitively: “You better dare not anyway! If John knew that his foreman was in slumberland this time of day, you know what it would mean. Fired in a jiffy! Savey?”
Her threat only amused Jim. He gazed at her firm, intelligent face a moment with admiring eyes.
“Sis! is this all the secret we ever goin’ have ’tween us? Can’t we have somethin’ better?”
She scrutinized his appealing features, but her eyes grew cold.
“Don’t be an idiot! James LaGrinder. You know what I have always said! Say no more on the subject, if you want my friendship.”
“Friendship’s alright far as it goes, but it ain’t sometimes satisfyin’, There’s a cravin’ considerable different and I want to tell you how I love—”
“Don’t Jim! Please don’t spoil everything by being foolish! I love you as a big brother and let it go at that. Men are such irrational beings! It seems that a girl cannot be their ‘pal’ but that they take it she is hat and belt in love with them. I hate men like that! I like those who know and understand.”
“Ain’t you a jumpin’ at ’clusions?” was the cunning retort. “I was only sayin’ as how I love to think maybe some time I’ll ’sperience that there cravin’.”
“Perhaps I did jump prematurely and without a visible landing,” she replied, langhing confusedly, “but the symptoms of an immediate ‘cravin’ ’ was so palpably manifest! However, I am sure glad that it is settled for we can now walk home with no misgivings as to a mutual understanding.”
Jim made no response as they started on the weary five-mile tramp to the ranch. His heart was heavy and he thought her absolutely heartless. But he felt sure that she loved no one else, and found solace in the reflection that he might yet “have a chance”!
III
A Range Idyl
It’s like a tale from long ago,
Badger Clark
And far across the sea—
Could that land be the land we know?
Those roving riders we?
The bunkhouse and shed-barns of the Horseshoe Bend ranch, looked as though they had been thrown promiscuously from the sloping hillside to their present site on the lower grade. The dwelling was a large, old fashioned log building with a massive stone chimney at one end. Although constructed on allotted Indian lands, it was typical of the pioneer homes of certain parts of the West, and at one time traceable across the continent. The large airy rooms gave to the interior a pleasant homelike appearance. The living room was commodious, with leather upholstered chairs and divan. The floor was bare, save for the buffalo, bear and mountain lion skins scattered about. The great open fireplace with its tall brass andirons, was piled with rustic wood. A case of books, and a center table with lamp, composed the furniture. The walls were decorated by a few paintings portraying wild life, several antlers of deer and elk, while above the bookcase leaned the mounted head of a mighty buffalo bull. Cogewea never looked upon this trophy without a pang of regret. The fixed glassy eyes haunted her, as a ghost of the past. With her people had vanished this monarch of the plains. The war-whoop and the thunder of the herd were alike hushed in the silence of the last sleep—and only the wind sighing a parting requiem.
It was evening, and Cogewea sat at the table toying with a pencil, her writing material untouched. She was alone and her childhood days came before her like a dream-picture. How the years had flown! She drifted back to the teepee home, by the banks of the far rolling Swa-netk-qah,6 among the mountains of the “Evergreen State.” There, her aged grandmother still lived, with her younger sister Mary. She longed to see the kind old face again; to feel the touch of those worn, wasted hands of the one who had been both father and mother to her. Of this singular girl of mountain and plain, men might think that her heart was of the stony cast. But not so! Hers was mortal. Although a dusky maiden of a stern race, she had the feminine longing to be loved and cared for. The inward throb can not always be determined by the degree of visible emotions; nor the coming downpour be gauged by the appearance of the storm cloud.
Cogewea was aroused from her reverie by the sound of approaching hoof-beats. The steed was reined in at the gate and she was greeted by Jim’s cheery:
“Hell‑o, Sis!
