Me Smith

despair. What would Smith say? was her thought. What would he do? She felt intuitively how great would be his disappointment. How could she tell him?
    She drew the blanket tighter about her shoulders and across her face, crouching on the seat like a culprit.
    The ranch-house was dark when they drove into the yard, for which she was thankful. She left Meeteetse to unharness, and, without striking a light or speaking to Susie, crept between her blankets like a frightened child.
    Smith, in his dreams, had heard the rumble of the wagon as it crossed the ford, and he awoke the next morning with a sensation of pleasurable anticipation. In his mind’s eye, he saw the banknotes in a heap before him. There were all kinds in the picture—greasy ones, crisp ones, tattered bills pasted together with white strips of paper. He rather liked these best, because the care with which they had been preserved conveyed an idea of value. They had been treasured, coveted by others, counted often.
    Eager, animated, his eyes bright, his lips curving in a smile, Smith hurried into his clothes and to the ranch-house, to seek the Indian woman. He heard her heavy step as she crossed the floor of the living-room, and he waited outside the door.
    “Prairie Flower!” he whispered as she stood before him.
    She avoided his eyes, and her fingers fumbled nervously with the buckle of her wide belt.
    “Could you get it?”
    “Most of it.”
    “Where is it?” His eyes gleamed with the light of avarice.
    She drew in her breath hard.
    “It was stole.”
    His face went blood-red; the cords of his neck swelled as if he were straining at a weight. She shrank from the snarling ferocity of his mouth.
    “You lie!” The voice was not human.
    He clenched his huge fist and knocked her down.
    She was on the ground when Susie came out.
    “Mother!”
    The woman blinked up at her.
    “I slip. I gettin’ too fat,” she said, and struggled to her feet.
    Elsewhere, with great minuteness of detail, Meeteetse was describing the exciting incident of the night, and what would have happened if only he could have laid hold of his gun.
    “Maybe they wouldn’t ’a’ split the wind if I could have jest drawed my automatic in time! As ’twas, I put up the best fight I could, with a woman screamin’ and hangin’ to me for pertection. I rastled the big feller around in the road there for some time, neither of us able to git a good holt. He was glad enough to break away, I kin tell you. They’s no manner o’ doubt in my mind but them was the Great Northern hold-ups.”
    “But what would they tackle you for?” demanded Old Man Rulison. “Everybody knows you ain’t got nothin’, and you say all they took from the old woman was a flour-sack full of dried sa’vis berries. It’s some of a come-down, looks to me, from robbing trains to stealin’ stewin’-fruit.”
    “Well, there you are.” Meeteetse shrugged his shoulders. “That’s your mystery. All I knows is, that I pulled ha’r every jump in the road to save them berries.”
----
    XX
THE LOVE MEDICINE OF THE SIOUX
    Still breathing hard, Smith hunted Tubbs.
    “Tubbs, will you be ready for business, to-day?”
    “The sooner, the quicker,” Tubbs answered, with his vacuous wit.
    “Do you know the gulch where they found that dead Injun?”
    “Yep.”
    “Saddle up and meet me over there as quick as you can.”
    “Right.” Tubbs winked knowingly, and immediately after breakfast started to do as he was bid.
    Smith’s face was not good to look upon as he sat at the table. He took no part in the conversation, and scarcely touched the food before him. His disappointment was so deep that it actually sickened him, and his unreasoning anger toward the woman was so great that he wanted to get out of her sight and her presence. She was like a dog which after a whipping tries to curry favor with its master. She was ready to go to him at the first sign of relenting. She felt no resentment because of his injustice and brutality. She felt nothing but that he was angry at her, that he kept his eyes averted and repelled her timid advances. Her heart ached, and she would have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her. In her desperation, she made up her mind to try on him the love-charm of the Sioux women. It might soften his heart toward her. She would have sacrificed anything and all to bring him back.
    Smith was glad to get away into the hills for a time. He was filled with a feverish impatience to bring about