The bunkhouse and shed-barns of the Horseshoe Bend ranch, looked as though they had been thrown promiscuously from the sloping hillside to their present site on the lower grade. The dwelling was a large, old fashioned log building with a massive stone chimney at one end. Although constructed on allotted Indian lands, it was typical of the pioneer homes of certain parts of the West, and at one time traceable across the continent. The large airy rooms gave to the interior a pleasant homelike appearance. The living room was commodious, with leather upholstered chairs and divan. The floor was bare, save for the buffalo, bear and mountain lion skins scattered about. The great open fireplace with its tall brass andirons, was piled with rustic wood. A case of books, and a center table with lamp, composed the furniture. The walls were decorated by a few paintings portraying wild life, several antlers of deer and elk, while above the bookcase leaned the mounted head of a mighty buffalo bull. Cogewea never looked upon this trophy without a pang of regret. The fixed glassy eyes haunted her, as a ghost of the past. With her people had vanished this monarch of the plains. The war-whoop and the thunder of the herd were alike hushed in the silence of the last sleep⁠—and only the wind sighing a parting requiem.

It was evening, and Cogewea sat at the table toying with a pencil, her writing material untouched. She was alone and her childhood days came before her like a dream-picture. How the years had flown! She drifted back to the teepee home, by the banks of the far rolling Swa-net^k-qah,6 among the mountains of the “Evergreen State.” There, her aged grandmother still lived, with her younger sister Mary. She longed to see the kind old face again; to feel the touch of those worn, wasted hands of the one who had been both father and mother to her. Of this singular girl of mountain and plain, men might think that her heart was of the stony cast. But not so! Hers was mortal. Although a dusky maiden of a stern race, she had the feminine longing to be loved and cared for. The inward throb can not always be determined by the degree of visible emotions; nor the coming downpour be gauged by the appearance of the storm cloud.

Cogewea was aroused from her reverie by the sound of approaching hoof-beats. The steed was reined in at the gate and she was greeted by Jim’s cheery:

“Hell‑o, Sis! Here’s your letters.”

She ran down the path and was handed two white envelopes. As she read the first missive, her face brightened and she hastened to impart the news to her sister:

“What do you think! Julia. Stemteemä and Mary are coming to make us a long, summer visit.”

“When will they be here?” questioned Mrs. Carter, glancing up from her sewing at the table.

“In about two weeks, Mary says.”

“What’s that I hear?” asked the suspicious Jim, who at that moment entered with Mr. Carter. “Who’s that there talk from?” as he caught playfully at the second letter with the delicate hand writing and so redolent with perfume. “Some beau feller?”

“Bah! I have no such animal. Don’t believe in ’em. It’s from my chum back East. How the trail lengthen. It does not seem a year since I left school to return to this God’s country. Sometimes I long to go back there, but I cannot leave these splendid plains and mountains that I love so well.”

“You talk like these here cactus-grown sand-sweeps and piled-up rocks was your private and individual property; and⁠—”

“When man was created it was said to him, if I remember correctly, ‘This is your soil. Till it and earn your daily food,’ and I think that I have a right to claim a part of the land, even without a man-written patent to it. But if it troubles you, then in word only will I assert my just title to the scenery thereof. Savey?”

“Sure you can! By gollies! little squ⁠—Cogewea. You’r ’bout the queerest I ever saw. Sometimes you talk nice and fine, then next time maybe yo’ go ramblin’ just like some preacher-woman or schoolmarm. Can’t always savey you.”

“That’s what others tell me,” she answered simply, as she turned into the living room, where Carter and three of the riders were chatting about the ranch stock, range grass and homesteaders. These last they derisively dubbed: “Missourians,” although they came from nearly every state in the Union. There has always been friction between the unpretentious homesteaders and the larger stockmen. Uninterested in this topic, Cogewea took a seat apart, and near the shaded lamp. She was elated that her grandparent and sister were coming. This younger sister, like Julia, had imbibed more of the primitive Indian nature, absorbed from the centuries-old legends as told them by the Stemteemä. Recognizing the new order of things, Cogewea realized that these threads in the woof of her people’s philosophy, must be irretrievably lost unless speedily placed on record. She was pondering on this, when Jim, returning from his accustomed round of the barn-corrals for the evening, drew a chair near her own in an endeavor to be sociable in his own rough way. Observing her pensive mood, he asked:

“What you thinkin’ ’bout, Sis?”

“Me? Oh! I was contemplating the possibilities of becoming an authoress, of writing a book. I have the theme all right and there is plenty of material yet available. What amuses you?” she suddenly asked, noticing the foreman’s smile of incredulity, as he unconsciously pulled at his scant mustache.

“I was just a thinkin’ what a book you would write up.”

“Why? I can see no particular joke in writing a book.”

“I mean if you was in bad humor; as when spilled in sage-trail by Wanawish,” he answered in a lowered tone. “You sure would ’tract readers with your tellin’, if you happen to use that there same every day talk and a puttin’ in Sundays.”

“I may surprise you yet, James LaGrinder! even if I am a ‘squaw’ as you call me,” was the spirited retort. “I may use the pen! The wiseheads laughed at the theories of Columbus. They insisted that the world was flat while the great explorer contended that it was round. Who was correct? Columbus is now honored by all nations for the correctness of his ideas.”

“All right, Sis! You and Columy have it your own ways; but I happen to know a spot or two where the world is purty durn’ flat, and other places where it is a standin’ on end and mos’ ready to topple over.”

Cogewea laughed. For once she would not quarrel. Their conversation flowed from one channel to another, varying and ceaseless. Jim was lighthearted. What had changed the girl’s mood, that she was so kind to him? he wondered. He little dreamed that it was because he had shielded her on that afternoon when two riderless horses had come home, leaving them afoot out on the sage-plains. With all the bantering of the boys, Jim had kept a closed mouth. He had kept faith with Cogewea.

The evening passed all too quickly for Jim, who lingered to have a last word or parting glance from the girl. But it was to no purpose. She gave a jovial “good night” to all indiscriminately, as the four boys strung out from the living room for the bunkhouse. As soon as they had passed the gate, Jack Galvin, a lank, quarterblood Texan of uncertain qualities and known as “Rodeo Jack,” exclaimed:

“Jim, yo’re a lucky cuss! She’s a plum fine gal, best ever walked an’ spunk’er nor hell! Can sho’ hold her own! Talk ’bout roastin’ th’ whites! She can sho’ arg’y with any of ’em. An’ s’ciety! Jus’ watch her a usin’ them there han’ rags at th’ table! she sho’ ain’t for any of us fellers an if Jim lan’s her, it’s cause of his more Injun ’plection as well as blood-’finity. Some times them there high toned ‘breed’ gals are fer harnisin’ up with th’r own kin’, an’ I don’t blame ’em. Not many white men wo’th any thin’ shine up to a squaw, ’less she has lan’ an’ some herds. I ain’t stuck on no gal, but I know a lady when I see one an’ this here gal is sho’ of that cast. I ’low as how I’m a leavin’ nex’ week, it ain’t no slam to own up me ’temptin’ bein’ sof’ with her once. An’ say! I thought a blizzard busted loos’; such a col’ wave struck me. Hones’! I wished for a overcoat on that there July day. An’ it sho’ took a quart of th’ hottest to quaker th’ chill. She’s too long dis’ance for my rope.”

“I’d like to cut Jim out myself,” spoke up Celluloid Bill. “But Lord! there ain’t no chance! Yo’ can’t mash with that there gal! One day she beat me in a hoss race on th’ upper trail, an’ she bested me with th’ rope. I kinda hinted splicin’ lariats. I got no furder! She went in th’ air like a wil’ bronk at th’ fust cinchin’. Jim’s th’ main guy an’ it must be ’count his shade bein’ a little darker’n mine. Anyhow he’s there like a duck an’ th’ maverick who beats him is got to be a thorybred. But somebody’ll lan’ her! When them there gals begin talkin’ of not lovin’ an’ a dyin’ ol’ maids, yo’ lookout! There’s a sho’ sign of a weddin’ in th’ air. Come now, Jim! Own up! When’s th’ day? We want get th’ fiddlers an’ weddin’ presents ready. Yo’ can ’spect silver plates an’ them there cut glass thin’s costin’ nearly a month’s wages to buy.

“Bob,” he continued, turning to a companion at his side, “yo’ ’member time we batched?” Bob’s answer was a grunt. “Time th’ folks was gone an’ yo’ cooked for us? When yo’ used a little glass dish for soap after we busted t’other one; an’ how mad Mrs. Carter was when she came home an’ foun’ us a usin’ it? She said as it cost seven kales an’ we didn’t b’lieve it. But ’twas true! Them there thin’s cost like hell, but it’s th’ kin’ I’m goin’ buy Jim when he hitches up. But he won’t tell! Maybe it’s goin’ be a s’prise, ain’t it Jim?”

Jim was silent. He only wished that it could be true. Celluloid continued, turning again to his second companion:

“Bob, what’s been yo’ ’sperience? ’Fess up an’ tell what transmised when yo’ an’ her was a chasin’ mavericks on th’ big flat las’ spring? What did that there gal say when yo’ went kinda easy talkin’ on her? No use sayin’ yo’ didn’t, ’cause it was a chance what no man’d pass up askin’ what was a battin’ on his min’. Yo’ve been through th’ fire same as them there three Hebo Phillistiners in th’ furnace, only under differ’nt ’vironments.”

“Aw! come off an’ quitcher rakin’ up ol’ trouble what’s mos’ forgot,” responded Bob in a dragging moan. “I hater think of that there time once more; I hater sleep an’ dream it all over tonight.”

“Celluloid Bill’s” correct name was William Cameron. A spare built, light complexioned half-blood Cheyenne, he got his range sobriquet wearing a white celluloid collar when he first came to the ranch. Of a talkative sort and fond of mischief, he was leader in most of the H-B escapades.

Robert Morgan, known as “Silent Bob,” was a tall, spare built, even-tempered man of thirty, who hailed from the mountain regions of West Virginia. Proud of his southern blood, he ever insisted that he was a “Virginian” proper; and that the new State was not a legitimate child of the Union, since it was born in the throes of war. He lamented the division of the “Old Dominion,” and refused to recognize but the one State. His voice slow and drawling, it seemed an effort for him to talk. But even at that he was a general favorite with the riders throughout the range. True as steel, he would fight for a friend.

Long after the boys were in dreamland, Jim tossed on his hard bunk. He pondered about the future, which had never before troubled him. He recalled that ever since Cogewea came to the ranch, life seemed to owe him something. Sometimes he imagined that she cared for him, but the next moment his hopes would be dashed. He could not understand the girl. She was a strange medley of amiable sunshine and shadowy indifference; insusceptible alike to chiding or cajolery.

Thus Jim lay pondering, till the little clock on the shelf seemed to say: “Cogewea! Cogewea! Cogewea!” He covered his head with his blankets to shut out the pleasingly wakeful sound. He tried not to think of her; to sleep, but somnolence kept persistently aloof. Amid the darkness he imagined her brilliant eyes ever before him.

The “best rider of the Flathead” was in love.

Jim did not know when he fell asleep. It must have been towards morning, for seemingly he had scarce closed his eyes, when he felt Celluloid shaking him to get up for breakfast.