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Other Indians were there, and outlaws. It was a mixed group, rough and hard-looking. "Hey, Willetts!" called the trader, and his loud, ringing voice, not pleasant, stilled the movement and sound. When Willetts turned, Shefford was half-way across the wide walk. The missionary not only saw him, but also Nas Ta Bega, who was striding forward.
But it seemed a face came between him and his passion a sweet and tragic face that would have had power to check him in a vastly more critical moment than this. And in an instant he had himself in hand, and, strangely, suddenly felt the strength that had come to him. Willetts stood in earnest colloquy with a short, squat Indian the half-breed Shadd. They leaned against a hitching-rail.
The moon peeped over the shoulder of an eastern wood, and the young men suddenly descried their long shadows stretching in front of them. Harkless turned to look at the silhouetted town, the tree-tops and roofs and the Methodist church spire, silvered at the edges. "Do you see that town, Willetts?" he asked, laying his fingers on his companion's sleeve. "That's the best town in the United States!"
In the midst of a speech of Lige's about the look of the wheat he suddenly gave out a sigh so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant, so profound, that Willetts turned with astonishment; but when his eye reached his companion's face, Harkless was smiling. The editor extended his hand. "Shake hands, Lige," he cried.
Tom asked in his usual sober but pleasant way. Hervey Willetts was about to fly off the handle but something in Tom's quiet, keen glance deterred him. "You fellows going home soon?" "Tuesday morning," volunteered the Panthers' patrol leader. "We usually don't stick to the finish. We're a troop of quitters, you know." "What did you quit?" asked Tom, taking his informant literally.
Most of the missionaries are good men good for the Indians, in a way, but sometimes one drifts out here who is bad. A bad missionary teaching religion to savages! Queer, isn't it? The queerest part is the white people's blindness the blindness of those who send the missionaries. Well, I dare say Willetts isn't very good.
The little crowd dispersed quietly; Lige Willetts plucked to his horse and cantered away to overtake the buckboard; William Todd took his courage between his teeth, and, the song ringing in his ears, made a desperate resolve to call upon Miss Bardlock that evening, in spite of its being a week day, and Caleb Parker gently and stammeringly asked Cynthia if she would wait till he shut up the shop, and let him walk home with her and Bud.
Angeline Willetts! Whom was she with?" "A Madame Duclos, a French lady. I once spoke to her." "You did? And what did you say?" "I bade her good morning as we were passing on the main-deck stairs. But she did not answer, and I was not guilty of the impertinence again." "I see. Such, then, was the situation up to this morning. But since?
Willetts uttered a half-laugh, an uneasy, contemptuous expression of scorn and repudiation. "The charges of such a man as you are can't hurt me," he said. The man did not show fear so much as disgust at the meeting. He seemed to be absorbed in thought, yet no serious consideration of the situation made itself manifest. Shefford felt puzzled. Perhaps there was no fire to strike from this man.
It could not be Withers, for the trader was in Durango at that time. Shefford thought of Willetts and Shadd. "Who's coming?" he asked low of the Indian. Nas Ta Bega pointed down the trail without speaking. Shefford peered through the white dim haze of starlight and presently he made out moving figures. Horses, with riders a string of them one two three four five and he counted up to eleven.
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