I shall not ask you to leave us in peace;
but as surely as one of you speaks another word of insult to her or to
me, as surely as one of you attempts to interfere or prevent, I shall
kill that man. No matter which of you it is, I shall do this thing." A
moment longer he stood so, observing them steadily, with folded arms;
then, still facing, he moved back a step. "Mr. Mitchell," he said, "we
are ready."
And there that October noonday, fair in the open with two hundred
curious eyes watching, in a silence unbroken as that of prairie night
itself, Bess Landor and Ma-wa-cha-sa the Sioux were married. The
minister stumbled in the ritual, and though he held the book close
before his face, it was memory alone that prompted the form; for the
pages shook until the letters were blurred. Yet it was done, and, save
one alone, every spectator who had come with a far different intent
stayed and listened to the end. That one, a tall, modish alien with a
red, flushed face covered with a two-days' growth of bread, was likewise
watching when it began. But when it was over he was not there; and not
one of those who had followed his lead had noticed his going.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MYSTERY OF SOLITUDE
Westward across the unbroken prairie country, into the smiling,
sun-kissed silence and emptiness, two people were driving: a white girl
of two-and-twenty summers and an Indian man a few years older.
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