He served his dinner solicitously. In his kitchen that evening he and Bolles unpacked the good things—the olives, the dried fruits, the cigars—brought by the new superintendent for Christmas; and finding Bolles harmless, like his gentle Asiatic self, Sam looked cautiously about and spoke:
“You not know why they laugh,” said he. “They not talk about my meat then. They mean new boss, Misser Dlake. He velly young boss.”
“I think,” said Bolles, “Mr. Drake understood their meaning, Sam. I have noticed that at times he expresses himself peculiarly. I also think they understood his meaning.”
The Oriental pondered. “Me like Misser Dlake,” said he. And drawing quite close, he observed, “They not nice man velly much.”
Next day and every day “Misser Dlake” went gayly about his business, at his desk or on his horse, vigilant, near and far, with no sign save a steadier keenness in his eye. For the Christmas dinner he provided still further sending to the Grande Ronde country for turkeys and other things. He won the heart of Bolles by lending him a good horse; but the buccaroos, though they were boisterous over the coming Christmas joy, did not seem especially grateful. Drake, however, kept his worries to himself.
“This thing happens anywhere,” he said one night in the office to Bolles, puffing a cigar. “I’ve seen a troop of cavalry demoralize itself by a sort of contagion from two or three men.”
“I think it was wicked to send you here by yourself,” blurted Bolles.
“Poppycock! It’s the chance of my life, and I’ll jam her through or bust.”
“I think they have decided you are getting turkeys because you are afraid of them,” said Bolles.
“Why, of course! But d’ you figure I’m the man to abandon my Christmas turkey because my motives for eating it are misconstrued?”
Dean Drake smoked for a while; then a knock came at the door. Five buccaroos entered and stood close, as is the way with the guilty who feel uncertain.
“We were thinking as maybe you’d let us go over to town,” said Half-past Full, the spokesman.
“When?”
“Oh, any day along this week.”
“Can’t spare you till after Christmas.”
“Maybe you’ll not object to one of us goin’?”
“You’ll each have your turn after this week.”
A slight pause followed. Then Half-past Full said: “What would you do if I went, anyway?”
“Can’t imagine,” Drake answered, easily. “Go, and I’ll be in a position to inform you.”
The buccaroo dropped his stolid bull eyes, but raised them again and grinned. “Well, I’m not particular about goin’ this week, boss.”
“That’s not my name,” said Drake, “but it’s what I am.”
They stood a moment. Then they shuffled out. It was an orderly retreat—almost.
Drake winked over to Bolles. “That was a graze,” said he, and smoked for a while. “They’ll not go this time. Question is, will they go next?”
III
Drake took a fresh cigar, and threw his legs over the chair arm.
“I think you smoke too much,” said Bolles, whom three days had made familiar and friendly.
“Yep. Have to just now. That’s what! as Uncle Pasco would say. They are a half-breed lot, though,” the boy continued, returning to the buccaroos and their recent visit. “Weaken in the face of a straight bluff, you see, unless they get whiskey-courageous. And I’ve called ’em down on that.”
“Oh!” said Bolles, comprehending.
“Didn’t you see that was their game? But he will not go after it.”
“The flesh is all they seem to understand,” murmured Bolles.
Half-past Full did not go to Harney City for the tabooed whiskey, nor did any one. Drake read his buccaroos like the children that they were. After the late encounter of grit, the atmosphere was relieved of storm. The children, the primitive, pagan, dangerous children, forgot all about whiskey, and lusted joyously for Christmas. Christmas was coming! No work! A shooting-match! A big feed! Cheerfulness bubbled at the Malheur Agency. The weather itself was in tune. Castle Rock seemed no longer to frown, but rose into the shining air, a mass of friendly strength. Except when a rare sledge or horseman passed, Mr. Bolles’s journeys to the school were all to show it was not some pioneer colony in a new, white, silent world that heard only the playful shouts and songs of the buccaroos. The sun overhead and the hard-crushing snow underfoot filled every one with a crisp, tingling hilarity.
Before the sun first touched Castle Rock on the morning of the feast they were up and in high feather over at the bunk-house. They raced across to see what Sam was cooking; they begged and joyfully swallowed lumps of his raw plum-pudding. “Merry Christmas!” they wished him, and “Melly Clismas!” said he to them. They played leap-frog over by the stable, they put snow down each other’s backs. Their shouts rang round corners; it was like boys let out of school. When Drake gathered them for the shooting-match, they cheered him; when he told them there were no prizes, what did they care for prizes? When he beat them all the first round, they cheered him again. Pity he hadn’t offered prizes! He wasn’t a good business man, after all!
The rounds at the target proceeded through the forenoon, Drake the acclaimed leader; and the Christmas sun drew to mid-sky. But as its splendor in the heavens increased, the happy shoutings on earth began to wane. The body was all that the buccaroos knew; well, the flesh comes pretty natural to all of us—and who had ever taught these men about the spirit? The further they were from breakfast the nearer they were to dinner; yet the happy shootings waned! The spirit is a strange thing. Often it dwells dumb in human clay, then unexpectedly speaks out of the clay’s darkness.
It was no longer a crowd Drake had at the target. He became aware that quietness had been gradually coming over the buccaroos. He looked, and saw a man wandering by himself in the lane. Another leaned by the stable corner, with a vacant face. Through the windows of the bunk-house he could see two or three on their beds. The children were tired of shouting. Drake went in-doors and threw a great log on the fire. It blazed up high with sparks, and he watched it, although the sun shown bright on the window-sill. Presently he noticed that a man had come in and taken a chair. It was Half-past Full, and with his boots stretched to the warmth, he sat gazing into the fire. The door opened and another buckaroo entered and sat off in a corner. He had a bundle of old letters, smeared sheets tied trite a twisted old ribbon. While his large, top-toughened fingers softly loosened the ribbon, he sat with his back to the room and presently began to read the letters over, one by one. Most of the men came in before long, and silently joined the watchers round the treat fireplace. Drake threw another log on, and in a short time this, too, broke into ample flame. The silence was long; a slice of shadow had fallen across the window-sill, when a young man spoke, addressing the logs:
“I skinned a coon in San Saba, Texas, this day a year.”
At the sound of a voice, some of their eyes turned on the speaker, but turned back to the fire again. The spirit had spoken from the clay, aloud; and the clay was uncomfortable at hearing it.
After some more minutes a neighbor whispered to a neighbor, “Play you a game of crib.”
The man nodded, stole over to where the board was, and brought it across the floor on creaking tip-toe. They set it between them, and now and then the cards made a light sound in the room.
“I treed that coon on Honey,” said the young man, after a while—“Honey Creek, San Saba. Kind o’ dry creek. Used to flow into Big Brady when it rained.”
The flames crackled on, the neighbors still played their cribbage. Still was the day bright, but the shrinking wedge of sun had gone entirely from the window-sill.