At tattoo there came a Mexican woman from one of the down-stream
ranches, sent in by the post trader, who said she could speak the
Apache-Mohave language sufficiently well to make Natzie understand the
situation, and this frontier linguist strove earnestly. Natzie
understood every word she said, was her report, but could not be made
to understand that she ought to go. In the continued absence of Mrs.
Plume, both the major and the post surgeon had requested of Mrs.
Graham that she should come over for a while and "see what she could
do," and, leaving her own sturdy bairnies, the good, motherly soul had
come and presided over this diplomatic interview, proposing various
plans for Natzie's disposition for the night. And other ladies
hovering about had been sympathetically suggestive, but the Indian
girl had turned deaf ear to everything that would even temporarily
take her from her self-appointed station. At ten o'clock Mother
Shaughnessy, after hanging uneasily about the porch a moment or two,
gave muttered voice to a suggestion that other women had shrunk from
mentioning: "Has she been tould Miss Angela and--him--is no kin at all, at all?"
"I don't want her told," said Mrs. Graham briefly.
And so Natzie was still there, sitting sleepless in the soft and
radiant moonlight, when toward twelve o'clock Graham came forth from
his last visit for the night, and she lifted up her head and looked
him dumbly in the face,--dumbly, yet imploring a word of hope or
comfort,--and it was more than the soft-hearted Scot could bear.
"Major," said he, as he gently laid a big hand upon the black and
tangled wealth of hair, "that lad in yonder would have been beyond the
ken of civilization days ago if it hadn't been for this little savage.
I'm thinking he'll sleep none the worse for her watching over him.
Todd's there for the night, the same that attended him before, and she
won't be strange with him--or I'm mistaken."
"Why?" asked Plume, mystified.
"I'm not saying, until Blakely talks for himself. For one reason I
don't know. For another, he's the man to tell, if anybody," and a
toss of the head toward the dark doorway told who was meant by "he."
"D'you mean you'd have this girl squatting there by Blakely's bedside
the rest of the night?" asked the commander, ruffled in spirit.
"What's to prevent her singing their confounded death song, or
invoking heathen spirits, or knifing us all, for that matter?"
"What was to prevent her from knifing the Bugologist and Angela both,
when she had 'em?" was the sturdy reply. "The girl's a theoretical
heathen, but a practical Christian. Come with us, Natzie," he
finished, one hand extended to aid her to rise, the other pointing to
the open doorway. She was on her feet in an instant, and, silently
signing her companions to stay, followed the doctor into the house.