Part 9 (1/2)
As these convictions grew in clearness she found herself brought suddenly and sharply to face the issue. With a swift contraction of the heart she realized that she must send her husband on this perilous duty.
Ah! Could she do it? It was as if a cold hand were steadily squeezing drop by drop the life-blood from her heart. In contrast, and as if with one flash of light, the long happy days of the last six months pa.s.sed before her mind. How could she give him up? Her breathing came in short gasps, her lips became dry, her eyes fixed and staring. She was fighting for what was dearer to her than life. Suddenly she flung her hands to her face and groaned aloud.
”What is it, Mandy?” cried her husband, starting from his place.
His words seemed to recall her. The agonizing agitation pa.s.sed from her and a great quiet fell upon her soul. The struggle was done. She had made the ancient sacrifice demanded of women since ever the first man went forth to war. It remained only to complete with fitting ritual this ancient sacrifice. She rose from her seat and faced her husband.
”Allan,” she said, and her voice was of indescribable sweetness, ”you must go.”
Her husband took her in his arms without a word, then brokenly he said:
”My girl! My own brave girl! I knew you must send me.”
”Yes,” she replied, gazing into his face with a wan smile, ”I knew it too, because I knew you would expect me to.”
The Inspector had risen from his chair at her first cry and was standing with bent head, as if in the presence of a scene too sacred to witness.
Then he came to her, and, with old time and courtly grace of the fine gentleman he was, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.
”Dear lady,” he said, ”for such as you brave men would gladly give their lives.”
”Give their lives!” cried Mandy. ”I would much rather they would save them. But,” she added, her voice taking a practical tone, ”sit down and let us talk. Now what's the work and what's the plan?”
The men glanced at each other in silent admiration of this woman who, without moan or murmur, could surrender her heart's dearest treasure for her country's good. This was a spirit of their own type.
They sat down before the fire and discussed the business before them.
But as they discussed ever and again Mandy would find her mind wandering back over the past happy days. Ever and again a word would recall her, but only for a brief moment and soon she was far away again.
A phrase of the Inspector, however, arrested and held her.
”He's really a fine looking Indian, in short a kind of aristocrat among the Indians,” he was saying.
”An aristocrat?” she exclaimed, remembering her own word about the Indian Chief they had met that very evening. ”Why, that is like our Chief, Allan.”
”By Jove! You're right!” exclaimed her husband. ”What's your man like, again? Describe him, Inspector.”
The Inspector described him in detail.
”The very man we saw to-night!” cried Mandy, and gave her description of the ”Big Chief.”
When she had finished the Inspector sat looking into the fire.
”Among the Piegans, too,” he mused. ”That fits in. There was a big powwow the other day in the Sun Dance Canyon. The Piegans' is the nearest reserve, and a lot of them were there. The Superintendent says he is somewhere along the Sun Dance.”
”Inspector,” said Allan, with sudden determination, ”we will drop in on the Piegans to-morrow morning by sun-up.”
Mandy started. This pace was more rapid than she had expected, but, having made the sacrifice, there was with her no word of recall.
The Inspector pondered the suggestion.
”Well,” he said, ”it would do no harm to reconnoiter at any rate. But we can't afford to make any false move, and we can't afford to fail.”
”Fail!” said Cameron quietly. ”We won't fail. We'll get him.” And the lines in his face reminded his wife of how he looked that night three years before when he cowed the great bully Perkins into submission at her father's door.
Long they sat and planned. As the Inspector said, there must be no failure; hence the plan must provide for every possible contingency. By far the keenest of the three in mental activity was Mandy. By a curious psychological process the Indian Chief, who an hour before had awakened in her admiration and a certain romantic interest, had in a single moment become an object of loathing, almost of hatred. That he should be in this land planning for her people, for innocent and defenseless women and children, the horrors of ma.s.sacre filled her with a fierce anger.