Leaving his horse, Jim burst through the thorny barrier six gun in hand. Two rods away Wanawish was standing in front of a cottonwood, saddle lying on the ground. For a moment he stood, half expecting an attack from ambush, but nothing materializing, he cautiously advanced. Not until he reached the horse did he discover the inert and bound figure at the tree. With hardly a change of facial expression, he tore away the smothering gag and with knife severed the tight-binding lariat, easing the unconscious girl to the ground. Bringing water in his sombrero, he bathed the bruised and swollen face, and when the dazed eyes opened he held the flood to the dry and parched lips. Cogewea drank deeply and then dropped back with a suppressed sigh. Jim was the first to speak.
“What happened, Sis? Where is that there dam’ Shoyahpee dog?”
Half averting her face in shame, Cogewea told of every transaction with Densmore, from the scene at the teepee the previous evening up to the time of losing consciousness soon after the miscreant had left her. She had not known of Bringo’s following her, but she had a vague conception of Wanawish coming and standing near her.
Jim brought his mount and removing the saddle, laved the sweaty back at the creek and then left him to roll and graze on the shrivelled grass. He then returned to Cogewea, who, now that reaction had set in, was lying on an outspread saddle blanket sobbing. Jim sat down near her, but it was a long half hour before he spoke; his voice low and softly modulated with suppressed emotion:
“Sis,” he began, “it ain’t no use tryin’ to get back your dough ’lessen I could overtake that there Shoyahpee snake ’fore he reaches Ravalli which I can’t. No laws of recovery like this here case is for our kind!” he continued with a tinge of bitterness, “ceptin’ this,” tapping his six-shooter. “I’m a goin’ take you back to the ranch and ’range my ’fairs and then go a trailin! When I run a white-skinned coyote to hole, they can hang old Jim, ’cause all ’counts is then a goin’ be settled. There ain’t no place here now for the best rider of the Flathead.”
“No Jim,” answered Cogewea, who had ceased crying. “Let the Shoyahpee go! He is not worth your hunting. He got my money, but it was cheap to find him out in time. I saved my Wanawish! I was blind not to listen to Stemteemä’s warnings from the Indian spirits. I do not want you to go away. It is for me to go back to the Okanogan and forget.”
“The sun is fallin’ low,” observed Jim, rising to his feet. “We better be goin’, ’cause the mountain air’ll be cold for you.”
While Cogewea dipped her aching head in the cooling water and rearranged her disheveled hair, Jim saddled the horses and they were soon on their way. Scarce had they struck the main road when the clatter of hoofs drew their attention, as amid a smother of dust, Celluloid Bill and Silent Bob came sweeping down the slope, followed closely by Rodeo Jack, Frenchy and Slim of the Foot Hills.
“Where is that there tenderfoot guy!” demanded Celluloid as they came to a halt.
Jim briefly explained the situation, not even withholding the money loss, and declared that it was then too late to think of overhauling the miscreant before he should have arrived at Ravalli and boarded the train; that he was well mounted and had had several hours the lead with every possible advantage in his favor.
At this moment Cogewea’s bruised face was sighted by Frenchy who immediately went into wild gesticulation. When the boys saw her pitiable condition, they became frenzied. Celluloid and Rodeo felt that they were in a measure responsible for the deplorable affair and were ready to go any limit in righting, in their own way, the deadly wrong suffered by the companionable girl. Blind with fury, they insisted on following in pursuit, even with their then winded mounts.
“What’s meanin’ of all this here hesitatin’!” stormed Rodeo. “Yo’ goin’ let th’ dam’ robbin’, gal-beating’ son-of-a-cuss go like this? He’s worse as any bloomin’ cattle-rustlin’ coyote an’ yo’ know yo’d foller one of them there sneaks plum to hell, what yo’d stop his sinnin’ again his feller man. Com’on boys! No dam’ dirt like this is a goin’ with the H-B riders.”
This declaration of purpose was greeted with a chorus of approval by the boys, but Cogewea overruled the violent measure, by pointing out the fallacy of any attempt at reprisal.
Not only was Densmore out of their reach, but they being mere “breed Injuns,” any extreme measures on their part would not be countenanced, and for the same reason an appeal to the courts looking to justice, would be of little or no avail. She showed them that because of the relative social standing of the two races, there were devious ways by which the Shoyahpee would be able to escape merited punishment. She finally persuaded them to forego all thoughts of pursuit, but there was a scowl on each dark face as they turned homeward. They worshipped this free, wild girl of the range, whose word with them was law.
Brooding and dejected, Cogewea rode with Jim in the midst of the cavalcade on its return. Her heart was numb! She had lived and died in this one day. The sunset, glorious in its fiery splendors reflected from the snow-capped Rockies, held not its accustomed interest for her.
To Cogewea, the world was dead!
XXXI
A Voice from the Buffalo Skull
As unto the bow the cord is,
Hiawatha
So unto the man is woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!
Two snows had passed and the birds, again returned from the warm-land filled
