Adventure, August 1917 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

22 The fur-trader glanced furtively at the engineer, who was looking at him steadily, and then grinned. “Sure, the bulls, the cops,”’ he said with agrin. “You savvy English.” “Y’m not in the habit of speaking that kind,” replied Wallace. “Don’t get up on your ear, bo,”’ retorted Fleenor. ‘‘There’s too few of us white folks up in this country to be henning over nothing. It’s a long way to send for the police, Mr. Bancroft.” “I’m not going to send for the police,” answered the missionary instantly. ‘I’m through with the police, and, besides, I don’t want to see this man punished for something he never would have done. It would not be justice.” “But, Stan,” objected Joan. ‘‘He mur- dered her. We saw him. You wouldn’t turn him free now. He might kill some one else.” “That’s just it,” answered Stanton quietly. “He or another may repeat this, and there is always the chance that such a thing will happen so long as the man who sells whisky to the Indians goes unpunished. He is the man who is guilty of this murder, and he is the man I am going to catch and punish.” “But you have been trying for four months,” said Joan, “and you are no nearer a solution of the trouble than when you began.” Stanton did not answer as he stood looking at the dead Indian woman and the bound body of her husband. ‘The others saw that he could not speak, that his emotion prevented an expression of the determination that had come with this climax to his fight for the Indians’ welfare. To Wallace, remembering Bancroft’s burst of indignation against his own work, there came a realization of what this man’s resolve might mean. He recognized a fixity of purpose which few things human could turn aside, and he saw in the mission- ary a foe to his own hopes. Only to Fleenor did the message fail to come. “You're right, Mr. Bancroft,” he said. “These Indians ain’t got any business with the red stuff. Give them a drop and they want a barrel. They can’t lug it decent like a white man.” “But do you mean you are going to set this man free?’”? asked Wallace incredu- Adventure lously. ‘“We haven’t any right to do sucha thing.”’ ‘““There is a bigger question of what is right involved in this,’’ answered Stanton angrily, “‘and, no matter what the law may be, Justice demands that the men who sold whisky to this Indian, and not the Indian, should be punished for this woman’s death. And that is what I am going to do.” ‘What are you going to do first, Stan?” asked Joan. ‘T think it will be easy to get the informa- tion I want now. At last I think I can make an Indian talk.”’ “T wouldn’t depend any on that,” advised Fleenor. ‘I can’t get anything out of one if he don’t want to say it. There never was an oyster like ’em.”’ Only Joan saw the fur-trader’s face as he began to speak, and in that momentary gleam that came to his eyes she sensed something behind the apparently trivial remark, Stanton did not reply but knelt beside the Indian and felt of the wound on his temple. The blood had stopped flowing and was beginning to blacken on his face. “Did you hit him very hard, Joan?” Stanton asked. “Not too hard. Just enough to make him less dangerous.” Wallace stared at her in amazement. He, a man, would have been more anxious to know whether he had fatally injured the Indian. But this girl, even though in- tensely feminine, showed very little con- cern. It troubled him, and baffled him, for a moment. It did not fit in somehow with the idea he carried of this vivid girl who had in so short a time won such a place in his thoughts. Wondcaaly: he looked at Stanton, who had accepted Joan’s participation in such a matter-of-fact manner. To the young missionary, throwing water on to the face of the unconscious murderer, what had just passed might have been only another of their exciting childhood adventures. At last the Indian opened his eyes. It was evident at once that he was sober, that the whisky had left his mind cleared but also wholly bare of any recollection of what had happened. Joan saw this and whispered in Stanton’s ear: “Get him away quick, Stan. him know until he feels better.” “Searles, will you and Fleenor help me Don’t let Comiclook (© 5}