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Indeed if it had not been for him I should not have had that limp in my right foot, for both of my feet would have been mouldering these many years under the curly mesquite of the Southwest plains. But that comes later. We were all out on the prairie hunting for our cows that evening the one when O'mie guessed my secret. Marjie's pony was heading straight to the west, flying over the ground.
The two cases are not parallel; and yet I always think of this chapter-heading when I recall what followed Amos Judson's admonition to Mrs. Whately, to use her influence in his behalf. When Marjie's mother had had time to think over what had come about, her conscience upbraided her.
It was only on the town side that the bushes screened this point. All the west prairie was in that tender gloom that would roll back in shadowy waves before the rising moon. "Phil," O'mie began, "don't be no bigger fool than nature cut you out fur to be. Don't you trust that 'good Injun' of Marjie's, but kape one eye on him comin' an t' other 'n on him goin'."
Father Le Claire held himself neutral to the North and the South, and was sometimes distrusted by both factions in our town; but he went serenely on his way, biding his time patiently. At sunrise on the morning after O'mie had surprised Jean Pahusca with Marjie's wreath of faded blossoms held caressingly in his brown hands, Le Claire met him in the little chapel.
Dollie Gentry would have cracked his head with her rolling pin before she let him go. Cris Mead's wife would have chased him clear to the Neosho; she was Bill Mead's own mother when it came to whooping things; but poor, gentle Mrs. Whately sat dumb and dazed in a grief-stricken silence. "Give me your consent, and the thing's done. Marjie's only twenty.
He led her to the doorway and down the steps with a courtesy he never forgot toward women. When we were alone in his private office I longed to ask Marjie's errand, but I knew my father too well. "You wanted to see me, Phil?" He was seated opposite to me, his eyes were looking steadily into mine, and clear beyond them down into my soul.
Wait an' see." How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. There came to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jean had sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after I talked with my father of love and of my mother.
The impulse wakened on the prairie that evening at the sight of Marjie's peril leaped up again within me. "I'll do my best. But tell me, Father," I had dropped down beside him again, "do you still love my mother? Does a man love the same woman always?" Few boys of my age would have asked such a question of a man.
To Marjie, who had played about her knee, Aunt Candace was a part of the day's life in Springvale. But the name of Baronet was a red rag to Judson's temper. He was growing more certain of his cause every day; but any allusion to our family was especially annoying, and this remark of Marjie's fired him to hasten to something definite in his case of courtship.
Tillhurst's tale of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with these things in mind that Marjie had met me.
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