The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 224: what you’re looking at

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

926 from that; from here, from there; try- ing it all around, knowing very well that it could not get away. Wagon tracks might come and wagon tracks might go, but that ripple would stay there forever. What had she spent four years in college for if not to be firmly established in the cer- tainty of that? It wasn’t like Big Buf- falo—it couldn’t dodge. The thought of that queer old man made her laugh. And it was a lone- some sort of place to laugh alone in. She realized that when she heard her- self laughing back from across the river. Jennie focused on the ripple. She planted her heels firmly in the gravel of the sloping bank; she bent over the finder, her hand cupped aroundsit. And as she stood there in the tense concen- tration of that important moment, a large brown hand reached around from behind her, laid hold of the camera and snatched it away. Things came fast to Jennie after that. She would have screamed, but another big brown hand was clapped over her mouth, and following the hand a hand- kerchief, which they sawed between her teeth and tied at the back of her head. Other brown hands. caught her wild- flying arms, and the brown faces be- longing to them appeared, solemn-look- ing, even severe. And the most solemn and severe of all was the face of old Big Buffalo, who stood in front of her, the camera under his arm. The old chief was assisted by two able young men who wore their hair sleek and shiny over their ears, braided behind like Chinamen. One of the young men pulled her by the arm to the water’s edge and shoved her in. She struck it knee-deep, and he followed, picking her up in his arms, Thus he carried her across, wading, the others coming after. When he reached the farther shore the young man stood Jennie upon her feet with a grunt that attested to his dis- pleasure. As far as squaws went, to that young man all of them looked THE ARGOSY. alike, and when necessity called upon him to put aside his manhood and the traditions of his race and carry one of them, he meant to serve the occasion only, and not prolong the degradation. All the carrying in that young man’s family was done by the ladies them- selves. So when he put her down he erunted and gave her a shove to re- assert his manhood and impress her with the proper regard for their relative positions in the eyes of society. Jennie had her wits about her. Or, at least, she thought that she had. For the moment she was free from the clasp of those sinewy arms. According to the moving pictures, that was the time to run. Jennie ran, darting into the fringe of bullberry bushes and red willows which grew along the river shore. She turned and doubled, never look- ing back, believing those big brown hands were coming after her, reaching -out to grab her without a sound. Buffalo and his young men stood looking at the agitated brush which marked her trail like the wake of a boat. Big Buffalo said nothing; the young men grinned. Perhaps she was doing the thing they most desired her to do. Anyway, they marched off down the river to a point below the ford where their horses were tied, mounted them, and galloped away toward the hills, Big Buffalo holding the camera with great care above the tops of the tall ereasewood which swished around him as he rode. 1 And all the time poor little Jennie was running as hard as she could in the opposite direction. The dirty old hand- -kerchief was still in her mouth where the brown hands had bound it, and the running was very tiresome where there were so many things with stickers and hooks on them to catch a young lady’s skirt. = It couldn't last always. Jennie brought up on a little knoll, heaped by the sleepless desert winds around a daring clump of something that had ventured out into the open and tried to Eomichoo cS (E©)