She ran down the path and was handed two white envelopes. As she read the first missive, her face brightened and she hastened to impart the news to her sister:
“What do you think! Julia. Stemteemä and Mary are coming to make us a long, summer visit.”
“When will they be here?” questioned Mrs. Carter, glancing up from her sewing at the table.
“In about two weeks, Mary says.”
“What’s that I hear?” asked the suspicious Jim, who at that moment entered with Mr. Carter. “Who’s that there talk from?” as he caught playfully at the second letter with the delicate hand writing and so redolent with perfume. “Some beau feller?”
“Bah! I have no such animal. Don’t believe in ’em. It’s from my chum back East. How the trail lengthen. It does not seem a year since I left school to return to this God’s country. Sometimes I long to go back there, but I cannot leave these splendid plains and mountains that I love so well.”
“You talk like these here cactus-grown sand-sweeps and piled-up rocks was your private and individual property; and—”
“When man was created it was said to him, if I remember correctly, ‘This is your soil. Till it and earn your daily food,’ and I think that I have a right to claim a part of the land, even without a man-written patent to it. But if it troubles you, then in word only will I assert my just title to the scenery thereof. Savey?”
“Sure you can! By gollies! little squ—Cogewea. You’r ’bout the queerest I ever saw. Sometimes you talk nice and fine, then next time maybe yo’ go ramblin’ just like some preacher-woman or schoolmarm. Can’t always savey you.”
“That’s what others tell me,” she answered simply, as she turned into the living room, where Carter and three of the riders were chatting about the ranch stock, range grass and homesteaders. These last they derisively dubbed: “Missourians,” although they came from nearly every state in the Union. There has always been friction between the unpretentious homesteaders and the larger stockmen. Uninterested in this topic, Cogewea took a seat apart, and near the shaded lamp. She was elated that her grandparent and sister were coming. This younger sister, like Julia, had imbibed more of the primitive Indian nature, absorbed from the centuries-old legends as told them by the Stemteemä. Recognizing the new order of things, Cogewea realized that these threads in the woof of her people’s philosophy, must be irretrievably lost unless speedily placed on record. She was pondering on this, when Jim, returning from his accustomed round of the barn-corrals for the evening, drew a chair near her own in an endeavor to be sociable in his own rough way. Observing her pensive mood, he asked:
“What you thinkin’ ’bout, Sis?”
“Me? Oh! I was contemplating the possibilities of becoming an authoress, of writing a book. I have the theme all right and there is plenty of material yet available. What amuses you?” she suddenly asked, noticing the foreman’s smile of incredulity, as he unconsciously pulled at his scant mustache.
“I was just a thinkin’ what a book you would write up.”
“Why? I can see no particular joke in writing a book.”
“I mean if you was in bad humor; as when spilled in sage-trail by Wanawish,” he answered in a lowered tone. “You sure would ’tract readers with your tellin’, if you happen to use that there same every day talk and a puttin’ in Sundays.”
“I may surprise you yet, James LaGrinder! even if I am a ‘squaw’ as you call me,” was the spirited retort. “I may use the pen! The wiseheads laughed at the theories of Columbus. They insisted that the world was flat while the great explorer contended that it was round. Who was correct? Columbus is now honored by all nations for the correctness of his ideas.”
“All right, Sis! You and Columy have it your own ways; but I happen to know a spot or two where the world is purty durn’ flat, and other places where it is a standin’ on end and mos’ ready to topple over.”
Cogewea laughed. For once she would not quarrel. Their conversation flowed from one channel to another, varying and ceaseless. Jim was lighthearted. What had changed the girl’s mood, that she was so kind to him? he wondered. He little dreamed that it was because he had shielded her on that afternoon when two riderless horses had come home, leaving them afoot out on the sage-plains. With all the bantering of the boys, Jim had kept a closed mouth. He had kept faith with Cogewea.
The evening passed all too quickly for Jim, who lingered to have a last word or parting glance from the girl. But it was to no purpose. She gave a jovial “good night” to all indiscriminately, as the four boys strung out from the living room for the bunkhouse. As soon as they had passed the gate, Jack Galvin, a lank, quarterblood Texan of uncertain qualities and known as “Rodeo Jack,” exclaimed:
“Jim, yo’re a lucky cuss! She’s a plum fine gal, best ever walked an’ spunk’er nor hell! Can sho’ hold her own! Talk ’bout roastin’ th’ whites! She can sho’ arg’y with any of ’em. An’ s’ciety! Jus’ watch her a usin’ them there han’ rags at th’ table! she sho’ ain’t for any of us fellers an if Jim lan’s her, it’s cause of his more Injun ’plection as well as blood-’finity. Some times them there high toned ‘breed’ gals are fer harnisin’ up with th’r own kin’, an’ I don’t blame ’em. Not many white men wo’th any thin’ shine up to a squaw, ’less she has lan’ an’ some herds. I ain’t stuck on no gal, but I know a lady when I see one an’ this here gal is sho’ of that cast. I ’low as how I’m a leavin’ nex’ week, it ain’t no slam to own up me ’temptin’ bein’ sof’ with her once. An’
