"Let's consider it settled then," he said.
For the first time the girl glanced up; but it was not at Craig that she
looked. It was at that other figure in the background, the figure that
not once through it all had stirred or made a sound. "What shall we do,
How? what ought we to do?" she asked.
For ten seconds there was silence; but not even then did Craig recognise
the other's presence by so much as a glance. Only the look of exultation
left his face, and over his blue eyes the lids tightened perceptibly.
"Don't consider what I think, Bess," said a low voice at last. "Do what
you feel is right."
It was the white man who had decided, but it was another who brought the
decision to pass. How Landor, the Indian, it was who, alone in the
dreary chamber beneath the roof, laid the dead man out decently, and for
five dragging minutes thereafter, before the others had come, stood like
a statue gazing down at the kindly, heavy face, with a look on his own
that no living human had ever seen or would ever see. How Landor, the
Indian, it was who, again alone in the surrey, with the closely drawn
canvas curtains, drove all that day and half the night to the nearest
undertaker at the railroad terminus beyond the river, seventy-five miles
away. How Landor, the Indian, again it was who, with a change of horses,
but barely a pause to eat, started straight back on the return trail,
and ere it was again light was within the limits of Coyote Centre,
knocking at the door of Mattie Burton, the one woman friend of Mary
Landor he knew.
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