The Talking Leaves: An Indian Story, William O. Stoddard [best novels for beginners TXT] 📗

your mother, and I heard that they had killed you too. I have been an old man ever since, but I think I shall grow young again now."

Time was precious. They could only spare enough for a few hurried questions and answers, and Murray glanced rapidly over the pages of the three magazines.

"Let me take them," he said. "I would like to read them carefully. I shall know what to say to the chief. You must not let anybody know I am your father—not till the right time comes."

"Oh, why not?"

"Because the Apaches would know then that I am their enemy, and have good reason to be. Even if they did not kill me at once, they would not trust me, and I want them to do that. It is my only hope of carrying you away with me. Stay here in the lodge till you are sure your face will not betray you."

She had been crying more copiously than her father, and that would have been a thing to be explained to Ni-ha-be and Dolores. Rita therefore remained in the lodge while Murray, with a great effort, recovered his usual calm self-control, and walked slowly and dignifiedly out. He needed to put on all the dignity he was master of, for his heart was thump-thumping against his ribs, and his brain was in a whirl as to when and how he should be able to claim and carry on the great treasure he had found.

Treasure! The Buckhorn Mine, piled mountain high with twenty-dollar pieces, was nothing to it.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Steve Harrison found his position a little awkward during the time spent by Murray with Rita in the lodge. The chiefs had too much dignity to seem to consult with so young a brave especially as he had not even one of the talking leaves to listen to. He knew that not only Dolores and Ni-ha-be, but half a dozen other squaws, old and young, were staring at him, and he could not understand a word of the low-voiced remarks they made. He was very glad, therefore, when his friend once more appeared, and he saw by the light on his face that he had no unpleasant news to bring.

"What find?" asked Many Bears. "Send Warning and Rita hear something?"

"Hear a little. Send Warning will take the leaves to his own lodge and hear more."

"What say now? Hear about big talk with blue-coat pale-faces?"

"Tell you what I think."

"The chief is listening."

"Break up village. Move west right away. More news come soon. Hear about treaty when you see the lodges of your own people. No time to lose."

That advice agreed so exactly with the notions of Many Bears that he was ready to accept it at once. He turned to his two councillors triumphantly.

"What did I tell you? It is wisdom. We will go. Tell the braves to get ready. Tell all the squaws to pack up. Send on hunting braves. Good many. Kill plenty meat."

There was no opposition. The only objection that could reasonably be raised was that so sudden a departure gave no opportunity for a grand celebration of their victory over the Lipans. They could attend to that some other time, and there was no doubt but what all the whooping and boasting in the band would keep safely till it should be called for.

"Come, Steve," said Murray. "We want an hour by ourselves."

They were quickly inside their own lodge, and were sure there were no listeners.

"Steve!"

"What is it, Murray?"

"That little girl is my own daughter!"

"I've suspected it. And this was the very band of Apaches that broke up your home and your mine."

"Yes, and it is a wonder they have not recognized me. If Apaches of some other band were to join them, some of them might remember me. They have seen me in more than one of their fights with the Lipans."

"It would be all over with us then."

"Of course it would. I am dressed differently, to be sure. I can change a little more. Must crop my hair and beard closer. They know me for a long-bearded old man. I must turn myself into a short-haired young one."

"Can't you dye your hair?"

"Not till we get to the settlements. There are no barbers among the Apaches."

"How will we ever get her away, Murray?"

"Oh, my girl! My poor, dear little girl! I dare not think about my wife. No wonder my hair is white. Steve, I must not let her live and die among these wild people. They have been kind to her, she says; and I do not hate them so much now I know that, but she shall not be an Indian."

He was getting feverishly excited, and Steve replied,

"Now, Murray, of course we will get her away. Haven't you some plan?"

"Only to draw the whole band nearer the frontier, or nearer to some fort or other."

"That's good. We should have a shorter distance to run, if we should escape."

"Now, Steve, I'm all upset and unstrung. That's the reason I came in here. I've got to get my wits about me again, or I can't plan anything."

"Sit down and read."

"Read? Do you suppose I could do that just now? Why, Steve, I've found my little daughter!"

"So you have. I don't wonder you're excited. I am myself. Here, give me a magazine. I'd like to find out how much of my reading will come back."

Murray handed him one, and Steve sat down. He had been fond of books in the days before he was captured by the Lipans. He had not forgotten his reading at all, and it came back to him in a way that made his heart jump. But that was after he had made a great effort, and driven away the faces of Rita and Ni-ha-be.

Both of them would somehow come between his eyes and the paper of those printed pages at first. Both of them were such nice, pretty, well-behaved girls, and yet one of them was white, the daughter of his friend Murray, and the other was only a poor little squaw of the Apaches.

How the black eyes of Ni-ha-be would have snapped if she could have read the thoughts of Knotted Cord at that moment! She would never again have regarded him as a handsome young brave, almost good enough to be an Apache.

Murray, too, picked up a magazine and sat down.

"It will do for a sort of medicine," he muttered. "I may learn something from it, too. The world has changed a great deal since I have had newspapers or magazines to read. There may be some new nations in it, for all I know, and there surely must be a new lot of kings and queens and presidents, and all that sort of thing."

It was that thought which made him turn over a little carelessly all the illustrated articles and the stories, till he came to the "news of the month" among the leaves at the end.

There he began actually to read, and read closely, for it was all very new to him, although it was several months since it had been printed there.

There was a great deal of it, for the editor had condensed everything into the fewest words possible, and more than once Murray's eyes opened wider or his mouth puckered up as if for a whistle. The world had been moving fast while he had been among the Lipans.

"And Rita," he muttered, "she knows nothing at all about any of it. I don't know that I am sorry. She will have all the pleasure of learning all she needs to know, and she won't have anything to unlearn. I wish I could forget some things as completely as she seems to have done. I hope a good many of them will never come back to her at all."

No doubt it was very interesting, and Steve looked up from his own reading to see how completely absorbed Murray had become.

Still, it must have been a remarkable news item that could make a man of steady nerves bound suddenly to his feet and hold that magazine out at arm's length.

"Why, Murray," said Steve, "what can be the matter?"

"Matter? My dear boy! Read that! Rita is an heiress."

"What?"

He might well have been half afraid his friend had lost his wits, but he took the "talking leaves" held out to him, and read the few lines to which the finger of Murray was pointing:

"The great English estate of Cranston Hall, with a baronetcy, is waiting for an heir. The late baronet left no children, and his only brother, to whom the title and all descend, was last heard of in America. He is believed to have been interested in mining in the Far West, and the lawyers are hunting for him."

"Well," said Murray, when Steve ceased reading, "what do you think of that?"

"I don't know exactly what to think. Your name is Murray."

"Robert Cranston Murray, as my father's was before me. It was because he left me only my name that I left England to seek my fortune. Oh, Steve! I must find my way back now. Rita will be the lady of Cranston Hall!"

"Instead of the squaw of some Apache horse-stealer!"

Steve felt a little like dancing, and a good deal like tossing up his hat and venting his feelings by a good hurrah, but the next thought was a sober one.

"How are we ever to get them to give up Rita?"

Murray was thinking the same thought just then, and it seemed to him as if he must go out to the door of the lodge for a little breath of fresh air.

The chief and his councillors were nowhere to be seen, but there was Mother Dolores by the camp-fire.

Murray tried hard to assume a calm and steady face and voice as he strode forward and stood beside her. He spoke to her in Spanish.

"Well, Dolores, which do you like best, cooking for Mexican miners or for the great chief?"

She dropped her stew-pan and stood looking at him for a moment, drawing her breath hard, and then she exclaimed,

"I was right. It is Se�or Murray. Ah, se�or, it is so long ago! The poor se�ora—"

"Don't speak of her. I know. We found her. My Rita?"

"Yes, she is your Rita. But they will kill you if you tell them. I will keep your secret, se�or. I have kept it now."

She had dimly recognized him, then, and she, too, had been in doubt what to do or say. In answer to a few more questions she told him very truly that she had been better off among the Apaches than before she was captured. Less hard work, better treatment, better food, better position, just about as much real civilization.

Poor Dolores had never known much about that or anything better than the hard lot of a Mexican woman of the lower class among the rough miners. It was better, she said, to be the wife of a chief and have plenty to eat, and little hard work to do.

"But about Rita?"

"If you had your mine now, and your great droves of horses!"

"What could I do?"

"Do, Se�or Murray? Why, you could buy half the young squaws in the village, if you had husbands for them. But you are poor now. I suppose it cannot be done."

It was no wonder he had not thought of it before. It was so strange a thing to propose. That a father should buy his own daughter! He turned from her and strode back to his own lodge, to hear what Steve would say. "He's a mere boy, but sometimes he seems to have a great deal of sense."

Steve's remark, after he had heard about Dolores and her idea, was simply,

"That's nothing new, is it? If we can't run away with her, we can ransom her."

"Ransom? Well, now, that's a great deal better word than buy. But our gold coin won't do. They won't take the whole pile for her. They don't really understand the value of it."

"They want ponies, and blankets, and all that?"

"That's it. Why, Steve, it's the queerest thing. I'm so excited I can't