The intonation of the last words showed quite as much curiosity as the girl had declared, only it was more carefully veiled.
"Oh, I don't know as it is," returned her brother; "except under – well – circumstances. But, some way, a white man is mightily ashamed to have it known that he has a squaw wife. Ivans told me that many of them would as soon be shot as to have it known back East where they came from."
"Yes," remarked a gentleman who joined them during this speech, and whose brand-new hunting suit bespoke the "got-up-regardless" tourist; "it is strange, don't you think so? Why, back East we would hear of such a marriage and think it most romantic; but out here – well, it seems hard to convince a Westerner that there is any romance about an Indian."
"And I don't wonder, Alec, do you?" asked Mrs. Houghton, turning to her husband as if sure of sympathy from him; "all the squaws we have seen are horribly slouchy, dirty creatures. I have yet to see the Indian maiden of romance."
"In their original state they may have possessed all the picturesque dignities and chivalrous character ascribed to them," answered Mr. Houghton, doubtfully; "but if so, their contact with the white race has caused a vast degeneration."
"Which it undoubtedly has," returned Hardy, decidedly. "Mixing of races always has that effect, and in the Indian country it takes a most decided turn. The Siwash or Indian men of this territory may be a thieving, whisky-drinking lot, but the chances are that nine-tenths of the white men who marry among them become more worthless and degraded than the Indian."
"There are, I suppose, exceptions," remarked Houghton.
"Well, there may be," answered Hardy, "but they are not taken into consideration, and that is why a man dislikes to be classed among them. There is something of the same feeling about it that there is back home about a white man marrying a negro."
"Then why do they do it, if they are ashamed of it?" queried Mrs. Houghton with logical directness.
"Well, I suppose because there are no white women here for them to marry," answered her brother, "and Indians or half-breeds are always to be found."
"If ministers are not," added Houghton.
"Exactly!"
"Oh, good gracious!" ejaculated the little matron in a tone of disgust; "no wonder they are ashamed – even the would-be honest ones are likely to incur suspicion, because, as you say, the exceptions are too few for consideration. A truly delightful spot you have chosen; the moral atmosphere would be a good field for a missionary, I should say – yet you would come here."
"Yes, and I am going to stay, too," said Hardy, in answer to this sisterly tirade. "We see or know but little of those poor devils or their useless lives – only we know by hearing that such a state of things exists. But as for quitting the country because of that – well, no, I could not be bought back to the East after knowing this glorious climate. Why, Tillie and I have picked out a tree to be buried under – a magnificent fellow that grows on the plateau above our house – just high enough to view the Four-mile Park from. She is as much in love with the freedom of these hills as I am."
"Poor child!" said his sister, commiseratingly; "to think of her being exiled in that park, twenty miles from a white woman! – didn't you say it was twenty?"
"Yes," and her brother leaned his back against the tree and smiled down at her; "it's twenty and a half, and the white woman whom you see at the end of the trip keeps a tavern – runs it herself, and sells the whisky that crosses the bar with an insinuating manner that is all her own. I've heard that she can sling an ugly fist in a scrimmage. She is a great favorite with the boys; the pet name they have for her is Holland Jin."
"Ugh! Horrible! And she – she allows them to call her so?"
"Certainly; you see it is a trade-mark for the house; her real name is Jane Holland."
"Holland Jin!" repeated his sister with a shudder. "Tillie, come here! Have you heard this? Hen has been telling me of your neighbor, Holland Jin. How do you expect to live always in this out-of-the-way place?"
Out from under the branches where their camp had just been located came Tillie, a charmingly plain little wife of less than a year – just her childishly curved red lips and her soft dark eyes to give attractiveness to her tanned face.
"Yes, I have heard of her," she said in a slow, half-shy way; "she can't be very – very – nice; but one of the stockmen said she was good-hearted if anyone was sick or needed help, so she can't be quite bad."
"You dear little soul," said her sister-in-law fondly; "you would have a good word to say for anyone; but you must allow it will be awfully dismal out here without any lady friends."
"You are here, and Rache."
"Yes, but when Rache and I have gone back to civilization?"
The dark eyes glanced at the speaker and then at the tall young ranchman. "Hen will be here always."
"Oh, you insinuating little Quaker!" laughed the older woman; "one would think you were married yesterday and the honeymoon only begun, would you not, Alec? I wonder if these Chinook winds have a tendency to softening of the brain – have they, Hen? If so, you and Tillie are in a dangerous country. What was it you shot this time, Alec – a pole-cat or a flying-squirrel? Yes, I'll go and see for myself."
And she followed her husband across the open space of the plateau to where Ivans was cutting slices of venison from the latest addition to their larder; while Hardy stood smiling down, half amusedly, at the flushed face of the little wife.
"Are you afraid of softening of the brain?" he asked in a tone of concern. She shook her head, but did not look up. She was easily teased, as much so about her husband as if he was still a wooer. And to have shown her fondness in his sister's eyes! What sister could ever yet see the reason for a sister-in-law's blind adoration?
"Are you going to look on yourself as a martyr after the rest have left you here in solitary confinement with me as a jailer?"
Another shake of the head, and the drooped eyes were raised for one swift glance.
"Because I was thinking," continued her tormentor – "I was thinking that if the exile, as Clara calls it, would be too severe on you, I might, if it was for your own good – I might send you back with the rest to Kentucky."
Then there was a raising of the head quick enough and a tempestuous flight across the space that separated them, and a flood of remonstrances that ended in happy laughter, a close clasp of arms, and – yes, in spite of the girl who was standing not very far away – a kiss; and Hardy circled his wife's shoulders with his long arms, and, with a glance of laughing defiance at his cousin, drew her closer and followed in the wake of the Houghtons.
The girl had deliberately stood watching that little scene with a curious smile in her eyes, a semi-cynical gaze at the lingering fondness of voice and touch. There was no envy in her face, only a sort of good-natured disbelief. Her cousin Clara always averred that Rachel was too masculine in spirit to ever understand the little tendernesses that burnish other women's lives.
CHAPTER IV.
BANKED FIRES
She did not look masculine, however, as she stood there, slender, and brown from the tan of the winds; the unruly, fluffy hair clustering around a face and caressing a neck that was essentially womanly in every curve; only, slight as the form seemed, one could find strong points in the depth of chest and solid look of the shoulders; a veteran of the roads would say those same points in a bit of horse-flesh would denote capacity for endurance, and, added to the strong-looking hand and the mockery latent in the level eyes, they completed a personality that she had all her life heard called queer. And with a smile that reflected that term, she watched those two married lovers stroll arm in arm to where the freshly-killed deer lay. Glancing at the group, she missed the face of their guide, a face she had seen much of since that sunrise in the Kootenai. Across the sward a little way the horses were picketed, and Mowitza's graceful head was bent in search for the most luscious clusters of the bunch-grass;