Golden Face: A Tale of the Wild West

Mrs Winthrop took in the situation at a glance – indeed, it would have been manifest to a far less clearsighted observer, so transparent were the symptoms in so simple a subject as poor Geoffry – and it annoyed her.

“I can’t think why,” she began one day, when the latter was away on some hunting expedition with most of the men, and the two ladies were alone together, “I can’t think why you treat the poor fellow so standoffishly, Yseulte. I’m sure he worships the very ground you walk on, and you might be a little kinder to him.”

“Really, I don’t see that the fact entails upon me a corresponding reciprocity,” was the reply, given a little coldly.

“There you go with your long words, Yseulte. And now you turn the stand-offishness upon me. I only mean, dear, that I want everyone to be friendly and on good terms around. Let him say what he wants to say. Then give him an answer. That’ll fix him one way or another right along, and put everything on a friendly footing again.”

“Would it? Supposing I were to tell you, Hettie, that Geoffry Vallance can’t take No for an answer, you would retort that you thought the more of him for it. But there is more than that. He should not have followed me out here. It was not right – it was even ungentlemanly. He has taken an unfair advantage in besieging me like this. In fact, he has placed me in a thoroughly false position.”

“But, dear,” mischievously, “so far from following you, it was you who brought him here.”

“Say Mr Vipan, rather. I am not an Indian fighter.”

Then spake Hettie Winthrop unadvisedly.

“Well, Mr Vipan, then. But, Yseulte dear, you are always pleasant and cordial enough with Mr Vipan. Naturally the other poor fellow notices it.”

Yseulte turned her grand eyes full upon the speaker, and there was an angry flash in them. These two friends were as near a quarrel as they would ever be likely to arrive.

“I don’t know what you mean, Hettie. Mr Vipan saved me from the most horrible of fates. Am I to show my appreciation by keeping him at arm’s length to please Geoffry Vallance?”

“Tut-tut! You needn’t be so fiery about it,” said the other, laughing mischievously. “I didn’t mean anything in particular that I know of, and I guess I don’t hold a brief for any Geoffry Vallance.”

That evening, for the first time since her rescue just alluded to, Yseulte was strolling by herself. She had been strangely reserved and silent all day, and now had stolen quietly away to be alone and think. A stream flowed between its fringe of fig and wild plum trees, about two hundred yards off the camp, and now she stood meditatively gazing into the current and thinking with a pang over the loss of her trout-rod. The evening air was lively with many a sound, the screech of myriad crickets, the shout of the teamsters driving in the animals for the night, the occasional cry of a fretful infant, and the wash and bubble of the water flowing at her feet. Suddenly the utterance of her own name broke in upon her meditations. There stood Geoffry Vallance, the expression of his face that of eagerness to make the most of his opportunity.

“Why do you always avoid me now?” he began, with a quick glance around, as if fearful of interruption, “What have I done that you will hardly speak to me now?”

A flush of anger mounted to her face.

“Have they come back from hunting?” she said, ignoring the question.

“No, I came back by myself. I couldn’t go on any longer till I knew what I had done to offend you. Have I not followed you to the end of another world? And this is how you treat me.”

She could have struck him. “What an idiot the boy is!” she thought. “Father was right. A witless idiot!”

“That is just what you have done,” she flashed forth. “Who gave you any sort of encouragement to follow me to what you are pleased to call ‘the end of another world’? Why did you come here to render me thoroughly ridiculous, to place me in a false position? By what right do you presume to call me to account? Answer me that, and then kindly leave me at once.”

For a moment he seemed thunderstruck, and stood staring at her in blank dismay. Then a light seemed to dawn upon him.

“I thought, at any rate, that one more to protect you – to stand between you and harm – in this wild country, counted for something. But it seems to constitute an offence. Well, I will leave, this very night if you wish it.”

“Nonsense!” was the angry retort. “Have you so soon forgotten the result of trying to cross the plains alone? You know perfectly well I don’t want you to run any such foolish risk. But you should not have followed me here at all. I thought I had given you a final answer once and for all at Lant – ”

“Good evening, Miss Santorex!” struck in a voice behind them. And Vipan raised his hat as he rode by at a foot’s pace within a dozen yards of them. So engrossed had they been that they had not heard the hoof-strokes of his horse. A flush came over Yseulte’s face. Could he have heard? she thought. Surely he must have. The evening air was so still, and Geoffry’s voice was of the high “carrying” order. Oh, that unlucky Geoffry! And for the moment she found it in her heart to wish that he had been left to the tender mercies of the red men.

“I can’t think how it is,” said Geoffry, moodily, bringing his glance back from Vipan’s retreating form to the flushed face of his companion. “I’ve a dim recollection of having seen that fellow before – how, when, and where is just what puzzles me.”

Yseulte started. If she was thinking the same thing she was not going to say so. She suggested a return to the camp.

“And it’s my belief,” pursued Geoffry, with a dash of venom – “my firm belief, that he’s a bad hat.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I’ve heard one or two queer whispers about him in the camp. It’s said that he’s too friendly with the Indians.”

“Especially the other day when you and I had the pleasure of meeting. Where would you be now but for him, or where should I? I don’t think we ought to go out of our way to cultivate a bad opinion of a man who has saved both our lives, do you?”

She left him, for they had now reached the camp – left him standing there feeling very sore, very resentful, and thoroughly foolish. Yseulte Santorex could be very scornful, very cutting, when she chose.

Chapter Twenty Six

“At his Time of Life.”

“Something not quite right there – not quite right. No, sir,” said the scout to himself, shaking his head softly as he furtively watched his companion. “And I reckon I can fix it,” he added. “Lord! Lord! To think what we may come to – the most sensible of us as well as the most downright foolishest.”

Vipan, stretched at full length beside the camp fire, smoking his long Indian pipe, looked the very picture of languid repose. Yet his thoughts were in a whirl. Why had he come there? – why the devil had he stayed?

The hour was late – late, that is, for those destined to rise at the first glimmer which should tell of the rising dawn – and sundry shapes rolled in blankets, whence emanated snores, betokened that most of the denizens of the encampment were sleeping the sleep of the healthy and the just. The murmur of voices, however, with now and then an airy feminine laugh from the Winthrops’ side of the corral, told that some at any rate were keeping late hours.

“Say, Bill, I conclude I’ll git from here.”

No change of expression came into the speaker’s face. Nor did he even glance at him addressed. The words seem to escape him as the natural and logical outcome of a train of thought.

“Right, old pard. I’m with you there. Where’ll you light out for?”

“I think I’ll go to Red Cloud’s village and see what’s on. Perhaps look in upon Sitting Bull or Mahto-sapa on the way.”

“There I ain’t with you,” answered the scout decisively. “Better leave the reds alone just now. Haven’t you been shooting ’em down like jack-rabbits around here, and won’t they now be bustin’ with murderation to take your hair? No, no.”

“May be. But I want a change, anyway. So I’m for looking up that placer on upper Burntwood Creek. The troops won’t molest us this time, because all the miners’ll have left. Besides all available cavalry will be told off against Sitting Bull.”

“It’s strange that Mr Vipan hasn’t been near us all day,” Mrs Winthrop was saying. “But I suppose he’ll clear out as suddenly as he came. These Western men are queer folks, and that’s a fact.”

“Vipan isn’t a Western man,” answered the Major, thoughtfully. “And it’s my private opinion he could give a queer account of himself if he chose. Sometimes I could swear he had been in the Service. However that’s his business, not ours.”

“Well, he might be a little more open with us, anyway, considering the time we have been together.”

“Just over a week.”

“That’s as long as a year out here. But I shall be sorry when he does leave us – very sorry.”

“May I hope that remark will apply to me, Mrs Winthrop?” said a voice out of the gloom, as its owner stepped within the firelight circle. “It’s odd how things dovetail, for as a matter of fact I strolled across for the purpose of taking leave.”

“Oh, how you startled me!” she cried. “Of taking leave? Surely you are not going to leave us yet, Mr Vipan? Why, we hoped you would accompany us home, and stay awhile, and have a good time generally. You really can’t go yet. Fred – Yseulte – tell him we won’t allow it.”

“Why, most certainly, we won’t,” began the former, heartily. “Come, Vipan – your time’s your own, you know, and you may just as well do some hunting out our way as anywhere else.”

“Of course,” assented his wife. “But – I know what it is. We have offended him in some way. Yseulte, what have you done to offend Mr Vipan? I’m sure I can’t call to mind anything.”