"Mary Landor!" The dishes in the cupboard against
the wall shook as something heavy met the floor. "Mary!" A pause and a
tongue-tied examination. "My God! The woman is dead!"
* * * * *
It was ten minutes before starting time. The old-fashioned engine,
contemptuously relegated to the frontier before going to the junk heap,
was puffing at the side of the low sanded station platform. The rough
cottonwood box was already in the baggage car. How himself had assisted
in putting it there, had previously settled for its transportation.
Likewise he had bought the girl's ticket, and checked her scanty
baggage. The usual crowd of loafers was about the place, and his every
action was observed with the deepest interest. Wherever he moved the
spectators followed. Urchins near at hand fought horrible mimic duels
for his benefit; duels which invariably ended in the scalping of the
vanquished--and with expressions of demoniacal exultation playing upon
the face of the conqueror. From far in the rear a war whoop sounded; and
when the effort was to all evidence ignored, was repeated intrepidly
near at hand. They put themselves elaborately in his way, to move at his
approach with grunts of guttural protestation. Already, even here on the
frontier, the Sioux and his kind were becoming a novelty. Verily they
were rare sportsmen, those mimicking loafers; and for Indians it was
ever the open season.
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