Part 68

It was opened questioningly by a little mouse of a woman, with great brown eyes, and gray strands mixing in her bright, brown hair.

The boy flung his arms around her like a bear. "Mother!" he cried breathlessly.

"Charley! My boy!" she gasped.

He picked her up bodily; and, kicking the door shut, carried her into the cheerful sitting room, where geraniums bloomed on the sunny window-sill, and a fire danced in the grate.

"I'm bigger than you are now!" he chuckled joyously. He put her in her chair; and waltzed about the room, touching the well-remembered objects. "By Jolly! the very same pictures, the good old sofa!" he sang. "Oh, it's good to be home!"

The mother held out her arms. "My boy! My boy!" was all she could say.

Dropping to his knees, he embraced her again. "You dear old lady," he cried. "What a trouble I always was! It's your turn to have a good time now!"

"It's enough to have you back," she murmured.

He gyrated about the room again. "Say, I feel as giddy as a puppy after a bath! Imagine trolley-cars and baby-carriages and show windows and silver knives and forks after two years in the North. Say, I've clean forgot how to eat stylish!"

"How long are you going to stay?" she murmured.

He came to a stand beside her. "I'm not going back," he said in a deeper tone. "It's a bully country and I had a whale of a time--but I belong here! I'm going to take care of you now, and bring up the kids. I'm a man now,"--his face changed comically--"Don't laugh!" he begged. "I used to say that all the time; but it's different now; you'll see! I've had experience!"

She held out her arms to him again. "Tell me, my son," she whispered.

He dropped to the floor beside her; and laid his head against her knee. There, in front of the fire, while the sun went down, and the early winter twilight gathered, he told her the story.

"When Garth rode away leaving me and Rina in the poplar bluff," he said--reaching that part in due course--"I didn't know much what was happening. But say, that Rina, she's an out-o'-sight nurse! She brought me around in great shape; and the second day afterward I was as peart as you please. That same day the fellows from the Crossing turned up; Jim Plaskett, the policeman, and three others. It was Jim made them come, soon as he heard the story. Jim's a peacherino! One of these lean, quiet chaps you can depend on; decent, too, clean-mouthed--Oh! Jim's looked up to, I can tell you!

"They wanted me to rest a while yet, till they came back. But they had plenty of spare horses, and Rina and I wouldn't stand for being left behind. We rode like sixty all next day, and camped only fifteen miles from Death River. We found the bones of Garth's horse on the way--picked clean; and the note he left every place he camped. You ought to have heard Jim Plaskett crack up Garth's pluck--and Jim knows!

"We reached the canyon about half-past six in the morning. I'd heard of that place from the Indians. Say, it was a fearsome spot! a kind of crooked, gaping split in the prairie like the pictures in Dante's Inferno. The walls were as bare and hard and cold as black ice; and way down in the bottom there was a horrible jelly-like water swirling around without making any noise. Seems if you couldn't breathe good when you got into the place! Minded me of the receiving vault in the cemetery.

"There was a risky little path going down, and we kept right on. Across the river, there was a break in the wall where a creek came down a steep, wild-looking ravine. At the bottom of it we could see a tepee and a tent; but no people. Some said they saw a body in the ravine, but you couldn't rightly make out."

Charley paused and shuddered. "Say, it was horrible!" he whispered. "Glad I don't have dreams! When we got down near the water suddenly we saw old Mary Co-que-wasa come climbing over a heap of stones that was piled on the flat; and she was bent almost double, half lifting, half dragging a man by a rope under his arms. It was Nick Grylls. He looked dead.

"We shouted at her; and she looked up just once. I saw her face plain. It wasn't surprised or glad or anything--just stupid like a breed. She never stopped walking. She stepped right off the flat rock into the deep water with the man on her back; and they went out of sight; and some bubbles came up."

He stopped, staring into the fire. His mother caught him to her breast. "Oh, my son! what sights were these!" she murmured.

"Mary was a deep one!" Charley said slowly. "You couldn't tell about her! I never heard her open her mouth!

"We hustled down to the edge of the water," he resumed presently. "Jim Plaskett threw off his coat; and went in after them. But it was no use; the current carried them down; and it was too cold to stay in more than a minute or two. We never saw them again.

"Jim landed on the other side; and brought us back the raft that was there; and we all crossed. There was nobody in the tents--blankets in a heap, as if they'd sprung out of bed suddenly. We started to climb the ravine. It was a body lying there on the rocks; it was Mabyn. Rina was halfway to it, before any of us saw. He wasn't dead; but had a bullet through both legs.

"Say that place was full of horrors! It stunk of gunpowder; and there was little thin layers of smoke hanging quiet between the walls. I was near out of my head, thinking what had become of them. We shouted all the time; and by and by we got a faint kind of an answer back. By Jolly! I went up those rocks like a cat! I found them behind a whopping big rock. Garth was stretched out all bloody and she was trying to get his coat off; and she couldn't. She looked up at me with a face like chalk; and when she saw who it was, she just gave a little cry like a baby, and keeled over. Oh, it was pitiful! I carried her down to the river. I wouldn't let anybody else touch her.

"Well, to make a long story short, we decided to raft it down the river to Fort Ochre, instead of trying to win overland to the Crossing. Garth had a ball through his shoulder and a gashed hand; and Mabyn was pretty low. It was longer that way, but we could carry them comfortable.

"We built another raft and started next morning. Jim Plaskett, Mabyn and Rina went on the first; and Sandy Arkess, Garth, Natalie and I followed on the other. The other two fellows were to drive all the horses back over the prairie. Say, that was quite a journey! Garth was getting better; and we all felt pretty good, sitting round and swapping yarns, and looking at the scenery, while the current carried us down. When we got out of the gorge, coming down so quietly as we were, we saw any amount of game. Got a moose right on the bank! Gee! that was good meat! And at night, say it was out o' sight! sitting there talking about going home, and watching the trees march past, and a bang-up show of Northern lights up above! It was pretty cold.

"There was the Dickens of a pow-pow at the Fort, when we got there at last! It's great sport being a hero! The Bishop and his party were there, just ready to start for home, and you never saw such a surprised man, when he saw Garth coming in from the other direction. And the old woman--I mean Mrs. Bishop--took to Natalie like her long-lost mother.

"Their party was obliged to start at once for fear of the river's closing on them; and Garth insisted on sending Natalie out with the old lady. She kicked like anything at leaving him there wounded; and I braced him, too, to let her stay; but he told me it was for the sake of her good name. I didn't quite see that--why any one who knew Natalie!--but I suppose he knew best.