After that, Red Hawk headed straight for Witherell. Even with this swift mount, the miles were long, but in the sunset of a certain day he came through the pass and looked down on the town, all its western windows filled with wavering golden light, from every chimney the smoke slanting south on a quiet breeze. Two things he saw like two well-known faces: the roof of the blacksmith shop, and the roof of Richard Lester’s house. Then the White Indian went down the slope.
It was not easy to persuade the horse to go. Those thousand odors of ever-dreaded man thronged the air, and the strange sights and sounds of the village filled White Horse with terror so that Red Hawk had to dismount and lead him by the mane, speaking constant words of comfort.
They were on the edge of the town before they were noticed, and then the whole populace turned out. Boys came first of all. They did not run at Red Hawk with loud jibes now. There was no flinging of stones. They scarcely seemed to notice the ragged misery of the patched skins in which he was dressed. Instead, they held back to a distance, with muffled exclamations.
Women and men came running, also. They filled in the sides of the street, and a clamoring began from which White Horse shrank closer and closer to his master, and the more he cowered beside Red Hawk, the more the murmuring rose. It seemed as though that horse had been brought home to be the possession of every human being in the gathering, to judge from the shining of their eyes and the caressing gestures of their hands as they drew the figure of the stallion in air.
Red Hawk could not pick out many individual voices, but he afterward remembered one thing—how Sam Calkins bawled out: “There he comes! I knew he’d do it. A blacksmith is the boy for a hard job, every time. Brains’ll take more than horses!”
Now Red Hawk was in front of Richard Lester’s house, where he saw the lawyer lying in a chair that was half a bed, placed on the front verandah, facing to the south and west as though to enjoy the last heat of the day.
The girl whipped out the door, then stood with one hand gripping the edge of it as Red Hawk turned in at the gate. He stared ahead at her, and then aside at the stallion. He could not tell which was the greater: the painful thought of surrendering the horse, or the pleasure at the knowledge that her heart had been great enough to ask for that king of the prairies as her marriage price. Then he walked up the gravel of the path, with White Horse crowding at his heels.
Now he stood at the bottom of the steps. The girl was standing as one enchanted. Now he was lifting his right hand in greeting.
There was a ceremonial solemnity in his manner that had hushed the voices of the crowd following him, and that was why every one for a great distance could hear him so perfectly as he said: “This is the price you named. I give you White Horse, and I take you as my squaw. Bring a rope so that you may lead him. Then come with me to my lodge.”
There followed a moment of pause. In it he seemed to see the girl’s widening eyes. Then from behind him, up and down the street, laughter burst out like water from a broken dam, mirth and mockery that screamed in shrill trebles and thundered in deep bass notes. For there was hardly a child so small that the jest lacked a point, it seemed.
The uproar made White Horse flash about, shouldering heavily against his master. And then, baffled by the loathed scent of human flesh and by the braying sound of human voices, the stallion threw up his head and neighed until it seemed that he was giving some sort of an answer to the crowd.
Red Hawk turned, also, to glance over his shoulder at the crowd. When he looked toward the house again, the girl was gone and Richard Lester was rising from his chair. He walked slowly down the steps, leaning on a cane, and Red Hawk saw the face of a sick man, very white, so that the veins that were traced across the temples were doubly blue. There was no laughter about Richard Lester as he took the hand of Red Hawk.
“Come inside with me,” he said.
“White Horse would break through the wooden floors,” said Red Hawk, “and I cannot leave him. Where is Maisry? Has she gone to say good bye to her mother? Has she gone to make her pack? I want her to come to me with empty hands.”
“You’ll see Maisry. I promise you that,” Lester assured him. “But come with me around to the back of the house, out of sight of these foolish people.”
He led the way to the rear, but still the laughter washed up and down the street in waves. Inside the house, Red Hawk heard the sharp and angry outcry of Mrs. Lester.
Richard Lester sat on a sawbuck beside the woodpile, his hands folded over the head of his cane. White Horse was still shouldering close to his master, while the happy eye of Red Hawk roved over the golden western sky, and over the deep blue of the hills, contentedly. It seemed to him a proper moment for his woman to come out and put her hand in his and follow him.
“This matter of a marriage price . . . and my daughter,” said Lester. “What is that about, Red Hawk?”
“She has told you, of course,” he answered. “I know that among the whites a girl is not sold as among the Indians . . . but she gives herself away for whatever she pleases. I have heard that some give themselves even for bright beads. But Maisry is not like others. She has the proud heart of a Cheyenne. She would not sell herself for a sparrow, but for an eagle. So fortune was kind to me, and I have brought her the eagle out of the air.”
He smiled happily at Lester, and the lawyer, half frowning, answered: “Do I understand, Red Hawk, that you have been trailing White Horse for these two years on account of my girl? Oh, we’ve heard the tales of you in the plains and in the mountains. I’ve read the colonel’s report, too, and it’s a very fine story. I hear, also, that the Blackfeet have buried the hatchet and made peace with the Cheyennes, because of you. But you have been hunting White Horse all on account of my daughter?”
Red Hawk’s conscience troubled him a little. He had to take thought for a moment before he could answer: “Well, there is another reason. When I saw him, I could not take him out of my eye. But who am I to hunt down White Horse that whole tribes have failed to take? It was only good luck, and much waiting, that gave him to me.”
“Maisry!” called Lester. “You must come out here, my dear.” The kitchen door opened, and Mrs. Lester’s excited face appeared. “She’ll do no such thing!” she cried. “Richard Lester, what are you thinking of?”
“There’s a mystery here,” said the lawyer. “Maisry, you’ll have to come.”
And suddenly the girl was through the doorway and hurrying down the steps, throwing off her mother’s hand.