Читать книгу The White Squaw - Reid Mayne - Страница 5

The backwoodsman preserved a wary look, as if suspicious of an attempt to corrupt him.

He was not alarmed. Cris Carrol knew himself to be incorruptible.

“Well, Mr Carrol,” proceeded the governor, after a pause; “you know that my settlement has prospered, and, as you may imagine, I have made money along with the rest?”

“Yes, I know that,” was the curt answer.

“And, having now got a little ahead of the world, I feel that I have a right to indulge some of my fancies. I want a better house, for instance.”

“Do you, now?” said Cris.

“And so I’ve made up my mind to build; and I want a good site. Now you see what I am driving at.”

“Well, no; I can’t say that I do exactly.”

“Why, Cris, you are dull to-day. I say I want a good site for my new house.”

“Well, ain’t you got hundreds of acres – enough and to spare for the most tremenjous big house as was ever built?”

“That’s true; but on all my land there’s not a spot I really like. Does that seem strange to you?”

“Mighty strange to me, but, perhaps, not so strange to you, governor.”

“But there is a bit of ground, Cris,” continued Elias, “that I do like exceedingly. The worst of it is it’s not mine.”

“Why don’t you buy it?”

“Just what I wish to do; but the owner won’t sell.”

“Perhaps you don’t offer enough.”

“No; that’s not the reason.”

“What is it, then?”

“Do you know the top of the hill?” abruptly asked Rody.

“What, where the Injuns make their camp?”

“Yes; that’s the place where I want to build. Oluski won’t sell that piece of property to me. Why, I don’t know.”

The governor did not stick very closely to the truth while talking on matters of business.

“Wal, what I have I to do with that?” asked the backwoodsman.

“Why, I thought if you were to see Oluski, perhaps you might talk him into letting me have the ground. I’ve set my mind on it; and I wouldn’t care if it cost me a good round sum. I’ll pay you well for any trouble you may take in helping me.”

Elias Rody had but one estimation of his fellow man, and that was, that every one has his price.

In the present instance he was mistaken.

“It won’t do, governor; it won’t do,” said Carrol, shaking his head. “I see now, plain as can be, what you’re after; but I won’t help you in it. If you wants the property, and Oluski won’t let you have it, then the Injun’s got his own reasons, and it ain’t for me to try and change ’em. Besides,” added he, “I don’t like the job; so no offence meant, but I must say now – and I says it once and for all. Is that all you’ve got to say to me?”

The governor bit his lips with vexation; but, possessing a wonderful command over his temper, he merely inquired what his son had said about Nelatu.

“Well, sir, he didn’t say much about anything special, except to ask me to look after the Injun lad, and see to his wounds. I did that in first-class style, and, as I told you before, he’s all right. Your son has been down every day to see my patient, as the doctor chaps calls them they physics. He ’peared mighty anxious to know how it was that he had come over to this part of the country alone, and where was the young girl, his sister.”

“Ah! so he was inquiring about her, was he?” exclaimed Rody, rising, and pacing the hut with restless steps. He was glad of a pretext for his rage.

The backwoodsman uttered a prolonged whistle.

Suddenly pausing in his impatient strides, the governor faced towards him.

“So he was anxious about her, was he?”

Elias Rody was evidently out of temper, and not now afraid to show it. But Carrol was not exactly the person to care much about this.

“He was,” was his cool answer; “but I don’t know how I’ve got anything to do with it, except to tell him, and you, too, for the matter of that, that the red man has his rights and feelings. Yes, and they’re both worth considerin’ as much as if they war pale-faces like ourselves.”

“And why to me, sir?” asked the governor.

“Well, just because I ain’t afraid to say to your face what I’d say behind your back, and that is, that your son had better stop thinking about that gurl, Sansuta, as soon as may be, and that you’d best see to it afore worse happens.”

A very outspoken man was the backwoodsman, and Elias Rody was sorry now for having visited him.

Before he could recover from his surprise, Carrol returned speech.

“There ain’t no good, governor, in mincing matters. Last year, when Oluski war here, your son war always prowlin’ ’bout the Injun encampment, and down in the grove war thar gurl used to be. He war always a talkin’ to the chief’s darter, and making presents to her. I know what I seed, and it warn’t jest the thing.”

“Perfectly natural, man,” said the governor, mastering his chagrin, and speaking calmly; “perfectly natural, all that, seeing that Nelatu, Sansuta, and my son grew up as children together.”

“All that may be; but it ain’t no use applyin’ it now that they’re most growed up to be man and woman, and you knows it, governor, as well as I do. As for Nelatu, he don’t amount to shucks; and I sometimes wonder whether he is Oluski’s son after all.”

The home truth in the first part of Carrol’s speech pleased the “governor” as little as any of his previous remarks; and, surprised at the freedom of the backwoodsman’s language, he was silent.

Not so Cris, who had evidently determined to say more. His garrulity was unusual; and, once started, he was too honest to hold his peace.

“Governor, there’s many things I’ve had in me to say to you at a convenient time. That time’s come, I reckon, and I may as well clur it off my mind. I don’t belong to yur colony. I’m only a ’casional visitor, but I sees and hears things as others don’t seem to dare to tell you o’, though why I can’t fancy; for you’re only a man arter all, although you air the head man o’ the settlement. As near as I can fix it in my mind, all yur people hev settled hyar on land that once belonged to the Injun. This bein’ the case, it seems to me that the same laws as is made for the white man is made for the red-skins too. Now, governor, it ain’t so; or, if they are made, they ain’t carried out; and, when there’s an advantage to be got for the white man at the expense of the Injun, why, you see, the law’s strained just a leetle to give it. It’s only a leetle now, but by and bye it’ll be a good deal. I know you’ll say that’s only natural, too, because that’s the way you think; but I tell you, Mr Rody,” here Carrol became excited, “that it ain’t natural no how; and it ain’t right; and, therefore, mischief’s sure to come o’ it. Now, I tell you, because you’ve more brains and more money than any o’ the rest, of course you’ve got more to answer for. So them’s my sentiments, and you’re welcome to them whether you like ’em or no.”

“Well, Mr Carrol,” replied Rody, with a withering emphasis on the “Mister,” “I’m glad you’ve given me your opinion – it’s a valuable one, no doubt.”

“I don’t know whether it’s a valyable one, but I know it’s a honest one,” answered Cris, with a quiet dignity, that, despite his rough dress, bespoke him a gentleman. “I have no object in giving advice to you, governor. I only feel it a duty, and I like to discharge my duties. The same way I thinks about your son Warren running after this Injun girl. No good’ll come o’ that neyther.”

Whatever reply the “governor” would have made to this last observation was cut short by the entrance of Warren Rody himself.

Seen now in the light of open day, the young man presented a strange contrast to his father. Of small stature, effeminate countenance, restless, shifting eyes, and a vacillating expression of mouth, he did not look like the son of the hard, rugged man who stood beside him.

He was neatly, almost foppishly dressed, and had a self-sufficient air not altogether pleasant. He seemed like one who would rather pass through the world with oily smoothness than assert himself with confidence of power and honesty of purpose.

By one of those strange mental impressions impossible to account for, both Cris and the “governor” felt that Warren had been a listener.

If so, he did not betray any sign of annoyance at what he had heard, but stood smilingly tapping his boot with a handsome riding-whip.

“Ah, father, you here? Have you come to see the invalid, or to say ‘good bye’ to the hunter, who tells me he is off to the wilderness to-morrow?”

His father did not answer him, but, turning to Carrol, said —

“The matter I intended to have spoken to you about will do at another time; but I’m still much obliged to you for your good advice.”

This was spoken with as much cutting politeness as could be well pressed into the speech.

As he turned to leave, he said aside to his son, “Be home early, Warren. I have something particular to say to you.”

Warren nodded, and his father passed out of the house, not at all pleased with the interview between himself and the backwoodsman.

Nothing disconcerts scheming men more than blunt honesty.

As soon as the governor was gone, Carrol commenced humming a song. His new visitor waited for several moments before speaking to him.

“How is Nelatu?” he at length asked. “Will he be strong enough to travel to-morrow?”

“Not quite,” said Carrol, pausing in the chorus part of his ditty; “he’d best remain here till his people come. They won’t be long now, and the stay will give him time to get right smart.”

“What was it that vexed my father, Cris?”

“Well, I don’t know ’cept he’s took somethin’ that’s disagreed with him. He do seem riled considerable.”

“But, Cris, are you really off to-morrow?”

“By sunrise,” answered Carrol.

“Which way are you going?”

Cris looked slily at his questioner before answering.

“I don’t know for sure whether it’ll be along the bay, or across the big swamp. The deer are gettin’ scarce near the settlement, and I have to go further to find ’em. That’s all along of civilisation.”

“If you go by the swamp you might do me a service,” said Warren.

“Might I?” Then, after a thoughtful pause, the back woodsman continued – “Well, you see, Warren, it won’t be by the swamp. I’ve made my mind up now, and I’m goin’ along the bay.”

Warren said, “All right; no matter.”

Then, with a word of explanation, parted from Cris, and proceeded to find Nelatu.

As soon as he was out of sight, Carrol’s behaviour would have furnished a comic artist a capital subject for a sketch. He chuckled, winked his eyes, wagged his head, rubbed his hands, and seemed to shake all over with suppressed merriment.

“A pair of the artfullest cusses I ever comed across. Darn my pictur if the young ’un ain’t most too good. War I goin’ by the swamp, ’cos then I might do him a service? No, no, Mister Warren, this coon ain’t to be made a cat’s paw of by you nor your father neyther. I ain’t a goin’ to mix myself up in either of your scrapes, leastways, not if I knows it; nor Nelatu shan’t if I can help it. I don’t let him stir till his fellow Injuns come, and, may-be, that’ll keep him out o’ trouble. No, Master Warren, you must do yur own dirty work, and so must your father. Cris Carrol shan’t help either o’ you in that. If the young ’un don’t mind what he’s heard, altho’ he made b’lieve he didn’t, and his father don’t mind what I told him, there’ll be worse come of it.”