/> Clothed all in dull gray she was, like a savage young Quakeress. Even

the red ribbons were gone from her hair, which was covered by the gray

blanket wrapped tightly around her slim body. She drew him back from the

rim of the bluff.



"You no shout," she murmured gravely. "No lettum see you here. You

go quick. Ketchum you cayuse, go to ranch. You no tellum you be this

place."



Good Indian stood still, and looked at her. She stood with her

arms folded in her blanket, regarding him with a certain yearning

steadfastness.



"You all time think why," she said, shrewdly reading his thoughts, "I no

take shame. I glad." She flushed, and looked away to the far side of the

Snake. "Bad mans no more try for shoot you, mebbyso. I heap--"



Good Indian reached out, and caught her by both shoulders.



"Rachel--if you did that, don't tell me about it. Don't tell me

anything. I don't ask you--I don't want to know." He spoke rapidly, in

the grip of his first impulse to shield her from what she had done.

But he felt her begin to tremble under his fingers, and he stopped as

suddenly as he had begun.



"You no glad? You think shame for me? You think I--all time--very--bad!"

Tragedy was in her voice, and in her great, dark eyes. Good Indian

gulped.



"No, Rachel. I don't think that. I want to help you out of this, if I

can, and I meant that if you didn't tell me anything about it, why--I

wouldn't know anything about it. You sabe."



"I sabe." Her lips curved into a pathetic little smile. "I sabe you know

all what I do. You know for why, me thinkum. You think shame. I no take

shame. I do for you no get kill-dead. All time Man-that-coughs try for

shootum you. All time I try for--" She broke off to stare questioningly

up into his face. "I no tell, you no like for tell," she said quietly.

"All same, you go. You ketchum you hoss, you go ranch. I think sheriff

mans mebbyso come pretty quick. No find out you be here. I no like you

be here this time."



Good Indian turned, yielding to the pleading of her eyes. The heart of

him ached dully with the weight of what she had done, and with an uneasy

comprehension of her reason for doing it. He walked as quickly as the

rough ground would permit, along the bluff toward the grade; and she,

with the instinctive deference to the male which is the heritage of

primitive woman, followed soft-footedly two paces behind him. Once where

the way was clear he stopped, and waited for her to come alongside, but

Rachel stopped and waited also, her eyes hungrily searching his face

with the look a dog has for his master. Good Indian read the meaning of

that look, and went on, and turned no more toward her until he reached

his horse.



"You'd better go on to camp, and stay there, Rachel," he said, as

casually as he could. "No trouble will come to you." He hesitated,

biting his lip and plucking absently the tangles from the forelock of

his horse. "You sabe grateful?" he asked finally. And when she gave a

quick little nod, he went on: "Well, I'm grateful to you. You did what

a man would do for his friend. I sabe. I'm heap grateful, and I'll not

forget it. All time I'll be your friend. Good--by." He mounted, and rode

away. He felt, just then, that it was the kindest thing he could do.



He looked back once, just as he was turning into the grade road. She was

standing, her arms folded in her gray blanket, where he had left her.

His fingers tightened involuntarily the reins, so that Keno stopped and

eyed his master inquiringly. But there was nothing that he might say to

her. It was not words that she wanted. He swung his heels against Keno's

flanks, and rode home.



Evadna rallied him upon his moodiness at breakfast, pouted a little

because he remained preoccupied under her teasing, and later was deeply

offended because he would not tell her where he had been, or what was

worrying him.







"I guess you better send word to the doctor he needn't come," the pump

man put his head in at the office door to say, just as the freight was

pulling away from the water-tank. "Saunders died a few minutes ago.

Pete says you better notify the coroner--and I reckon the sheriff, too.

Pretty tough to be shot down like that in broad daylight."



"I think I'd rather be shot in daylight than in the dark," Miss Georgie

snapped unreasonably because her nerves were all a-jangle, and sent the

messages as requested.



Saunders was neither a popular nor a prominent citizen, and there was

none to mourn beside him. Peter Hamilton, as his employer and a man

whose emotions were easily stirred, was shocked a shade lighter as to

his complexion and a tone lower as to his voice perhaps, and was heard

to remark frequently that it was "a turrible thing," but the chief

emotion which the tragedy roused was curiosity, and that fluttering

excitement which attends death in any form.



A dozen Indians hung about the store, the squaws peering inquisitively

in at the uncurtained window of the lean-to--where the bed held a long

immovable burden with a rumpled sheet over it--and the bucks listening

stolidly to the futile gossip on the store porch.



Pete Hamilton, anxious that the passing of his unprofitable servant

should be marked by decorum if not by grief, mentally classed the event

with election day, in that he refused to sell any liquor until the

sheriff and coroner arrived. He also, after his first bewilderment had

passed, conceived the idea that Saunders had committed suicide, and

explained to everyone who would listen just why he believed it. Saunders

was sickly, for one thing. For another, Saunders never seemed to get

any good out of living. He had read everything he could get his hands

on--and though Pete did not say that Saunders chose to die when the

stock of paper novels was exhausted, he left that impression upon his

auditors.



The sheriff and the coroner came at nine. All the Hart boys, including

Donny, were there before noon, and the group of Indians remained all day

wherever the store cast its shadow. Squaws and bucks passed and repassed

upon the footpath between Hartley and their camp, chattering together

of the big event until they came under the eye of strange white men,

whereupon they were stricken deaf and dumb, as is the way of our

nation's wards.



When the sheriff inspected the stable and its vicinity, looking for

clews, not a blanket was in sight, though a dozen eyes watched every

movement suspiciously. When at the inquest that afternoon, he laid upon

the table a battered old revolver of cheap workmanship and long past its

prime, and testified that he had found it ten feet from the stable-door,

in a due line southeast from the hay-corral, and that one shot had been

fired from it, there were Indians in plenty to glance furtively at the

weapon and give no sign.



The coroner showed the bullet which he had extracted from the body of

Saunders, and fitted it into the empty cartridge which had been under

the hammer in the revolver, and thereby proved to the satisfaction of

everyone that the gun was intimately connected with the death of the

man. So the jury arrived speedily, and without further fussing over

evidence, at the verdict of suicide.



Good Indian drew a long breath, put on his hat, and went over to tell

Miss Georgie. The Hart boys lingered for a few minutes at the store, and

then rode on to the ranch without him, and the Indians stole away over

the hill to their camp. The coroner and the sheriff accepted Pete's

invitation into the back part of the store, refreshed themselves after

the ordeal, and caught the next train for Shoshone. So closed the

incident of Saunders' passing, so far as the law was concerned.



"Well," Miss Georgie summed up the situation, "Baumberger hasn't made

any sign of taking up the matter. I don't believe, now, that he will.

I wired the news to the papers in Shoshone, so he must know. I think

perhaps he's glad to get Saunders out of the way--for he certainly must

have known enough to put Baumberger behind the bars.



"But I don't see," she said, in a puzzled way, "how that gun came onto

the scene. I looked all around the stable this morning, and I could

swear there wasn't any gun."



"Well, he did pick it up--fortunately," Good Indian returned grimly.

"I'm glad the thing was settled so easily."



She looked up at him sharply for a moment, opened her lips to ask a

question, and then thought better of it.



"Oh, here's your handkerchief," she said quietly, taking it from the

bottom of her wastebasket. "As you say, the thing is settled. I'm going

to turn you out now. The four-thirty-five is due pretty soon--and I have

oodles of work."



He looked at her strangely, and went away, wondering why Miss Georgie

hated so to have him in the office lately.



On the next day, at ten o'clock, they buried Saunders on a certain

little knoll among the sagebrush; buried him without much ceremony, it

is true, but with more respect than he had received when he was alive

and shambling sneakily among them. Good Indian was there, saying little

and listening attentively to the comments made upon the subject, and

when the last bit of yellow gravel had been spatted into place he rode

down through the Indian camp on his way home, thankful that everyone

seemed to accept the verdict of suicide as being final, and anxious that

Rachel should know it. He felt rather queer about Rachel; sorry for her,

in an impersonal way; curious over her attitude toward life in general

and toward himself in particular, and ready to do her a good turn

because of her interest.



But Rachel, when he reached the camp, was not visible. Peppajee Jim was

sitting peacefully in the shade of his wikiup when Grant rode up, and he

merely grunted in reply to a question or two. Good Indian resolved to

be patient. He dismounted, and squatted upon his heels beside Peppajee,

offered him tobacco, and dipped a shiny, new nickel toward a bright-eyed

papoose in scanty raiment, who stopped to regard him inquisitively.



"I just saw them bury Saunders," Good Indian remarked, by way of opening

a conversation. "You believe he shot himself?"



Peppajee took his little stone pipe from his lips, blew a thin wreath of

smoke, and replaced the stem between his teeth, stared stolidly straight

ahead of him, and said nothing.



"All the white men say that," Good Indian persisted, after he had waited

a minute. Peppajee did not seem to hear.



"Sheriff say that, too. Sheriff found the gun."



"Mebbyso sheriff mans heap damfool. Mebbyso heap smart. No sabe."



Good Indian studied him silently. Reticence was not a general

characteristic of Peppajee; it seemed to indicate a thorough

understanding of the whole affair. He wondered if Rachel had told her

uncle the truth.



"Where's Rachel?" he asked suddenly, the words following involuntarily

his thought.



Peppajee sucked hard upon his pipe, took it away from his mouth, and

knocked out the ashes upon a pole of the wikiup frame.



"Yo' no speakum Rachel no more," he said gravely. "Yo' ketchum 'Vadnah;

no ketchum otha squaw. Bad medicine come. Heap much troubles come. Me no

likeum. My heart heap bad."



"I'm Rachel's friend, Peppajee." Good Indian spoke softly so that others

might not hear. "I sabe what Rachel do. Rachel good girl. I don't want

to bring trouble. I want to help."



Peppajee snorted.



"Yo' make heap bad heart for Rachel," he said sourly. "Yo' like for be

friend, yo' no come no more, mebbyso. No speakum. Bimeby mebbyso no have

bad heart no more. Kay bueno. Yo' white mans. Rachel mebbyso thinkum all

time yo' Indian. Mebbyso thinkum be yo' squaw. Kay bueno. Yo' all time

white mans. No speakum Rachel no more, yo' be friend.



"Yo' speakum, me like to kill yo', mebbyso." He spoke calmly, but none

the less his words carried conviction of his sincerity.



Within the wikiup Good Indian heard a smothered sob. He listened, heard

it again, and looked challengingly at Peppajee. But Peppajee gave

no sign that he either heard the sound or saw the challenge in Good

Indian's eyes.



"I Rachel's friend," he said, speaking distinctly with his face half

turned toward the wall of deerskin. "I want to tell Rachel what the

sheriff said. I want to thank Rachel, and tell her I'm her friend. I

don't want to bring trouble." He stopped and listened, but there was no

sound within.



Peppajee eyed him comprehendingly, but there was no yielding in his

brown, wrinkled face.



"Yo' Rachel's frien', yo' pikeway," he insisted doggedly.



From under the wall of the wikiup close to Good Indian on the side

farthest from Peppajee, a small, leafless branch of sage was thrust out,

and waggled cautiously, scraping gently his hand. Good Indian's fingers

closed upon it instinctively, and felt it slowly withdrawn until his

hand was pressed against the hide wall. Then soft fingers touched his

own, fluttered there timidly, and left in his palm a bit of paper,

tightly folded. Good Indian closed his hand upon it, and stood up.



"All right, I go," he said calmly to Peppajee, and mounted.



Peppajee looked at him stolidly, and said nothing.



"One thing I would like to know." Good Indian spoke again. "You don't

care any more about the men taking Peaceful's ranch. Before they came,

you watch all the time, you heap care. Why you no care any more? Why you

no help?"



Peppajee's mouth straightened in a grin of pure irony.



"All time Baumberga try for ketchum ranch, me try for stoppum," he

retorted. "Yo' no b'lievum, Peacefu' no b'lievum. Me tellum yo' cloud

sign, tellum yo' smoke sign, tellum yo' hear much bad talk for ketchum

ranch. Yo' all time think for ketchum 'Vadnah squaw. No think for

stoppum mens. Yo' all time let mens come, ketchum ranch. Yo' say fightum

in co't. Cloud sign say me do notting. Yo' lettum come. Yo' mebbyso

makum go. Me no care."



"I see. Well, maybe you're right." He tightened the reins, and rode

away, the tight little wad of paper still hidden in his palm. When he

was quite out of sight from the camp and jogging leisurely down the hot

trail, he unfolded it carefully and looked at it long.



His face was grave and thoughtful when at last he tore it into tiny bits

and gave it to the hot, desert wind. It was a pitiful little message,

printed laboriously upon a scrap of brown wrapping--paper. It said

simply:



"God by i lov yo."