Thunder Moon and the Sky People E-Book

Max Brand

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The big man at the window, as though fascinated by the flood of light within the room, remained for a long time staring. Finally he turned, and instantly he grappled with the smaller shadow behind him.
“It is I!” whispered the Cheyenne hastily. “It is Standing Antelope. Take your hand from my throat, Thunder Moon!”
He was free, and the two slipped silently through the garden, through the hedges, and back into the adjoining woods where they had left their four horses.
“I, also, have seen,” said the boy.
“What?” asked the other.
“I have seen the reason that brought you from the Suhtai and made you travel all these moons into the land of the white men. I have seen his face!”
“You have seen him? Then who is he, Standing Antelope?”

Leseprobe

Max Brand

Thunder Moon and the Sky People

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Guide to Contents

Thunder Moon

and the Sky

People

MAX BRAND

CHAPTER ONE AN EARLY RIDE

CHAPTER TWO OVERTAKEN

CHAPTER THREE IT’S A WISE FATHER

CHAPTER FOUR WHERE’S THE PROOF

CHAPTER FIVE RECOGNITION

CHAPTER SIX WILLIAM, BIG INDIAN

CHAPTER SEVEN A NEW WORLD

CHAPTER EIGHT A WARRIOR IN CAPTIVITY

CHAPTER NINE TWO POINTS OF VIEW

CHAPTER TEN RED MEN AND WHITE

CHAPTER ELEVEN TEN HORSES FOR A LADY

CHAPTER TWELVE A LADY WHO LIKES HORSES

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE GIFT OF TARAWA

CHAPTER FOURTEEN SAILING HAWK

CHAPTER FIFTEEN WHAT IS GREATNESS

CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE SKY PEOPLE SPEAK

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN AN EARTH MAN ADVISES

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN LIBERAL EDUCATION

CHAPTER NINETEEN THE RESULT

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE BATTLE ENDED

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE BIG GAME AND SMALL

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO LISTENERS

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE THE OWL HOOTS

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR A DOG BARKS

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE A MAIDEN SPEAKS

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX IN THE GARDEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN THE CONSTABLE AT WORK

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT THE OWL HOOTS AGAIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CAPTIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY A THUNDERCLAP

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE RAIDERS

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO WHITHER?

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE BLOODHOUNDS

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR WHIPS AND SPURS

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE AN INTERRUPTED DANCE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX A LOST TRICK

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN COURAGE OF A WOMAN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT BRAVE FIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE NO WAY OUT

CHAPTER FORTY THERE WILL BE A WAY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE A VOW

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO THROUGH THE MARSH

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE HEAR, OH TARAWA

CHAPTER ONE AN EARLY RIDE

CHAPTER ONE AN EARLY RIDE

The big man at the window, as though fascinated by the flood of light within the room, remained for a long time staring. Finally he turned, and instantly he grappled with the smaller shadow behind him.

“It is I!” whispered the Cheyenne hastily. “It is Standing Antelope. Take your hand from my throat, Thunder Moon!”

He was free, and the two slipped silently through the garden, through the hedges, and back into the adjoining woods where they had left their four horses.

“I, also, have seen,” said the boy.

“What?” asked the other.

“I have seen the reason that brought you from the Suhtai and made you travel all these moons into the land of the white men. I have seen his face!”

“You have seen him? Then who is he, Standing Antelope?”

“If he were younger, he would be your brother. But he is too old for that. This is the reason that your skin is pale, Thunder Moon. This is the reason that your ways are not the ways of the Cheyennes. The man who sits in that lodge is your father and you have come this distance to find him.”

There was a rattling of hoofs on the hard surface of a bridle path through the woods nearby, and suddenly one of the horses neighed loudly. The riders paused and one of them said loudly, in the English tongue which was only beginning to have meaning to the ear of Thunder Moon, “The horses have broken the pasture fence again. George, go in there and have a look and tell me what you find.”

“Yes sir,” answered a thicker, huskier voice.

Saddle leather creaked as the servant dismounted; and then there was the noise of the man forcing his way through the brush.

Thunder Moon and his companion, however, already were on the backs of their horses; and the pack animals were taken on the lead. Standing Antelope went first, for he had eyes which, among the Suhtai, were said to see in the dark like a cat’s. Softly he wove among the tree trunks but, in spite of all his care, the animals made some noise and there was a sudden hail behind them: “Who’s there? Stop!” Then the voice shouted loudly: “Mister Sutton, I see a man on a horse there. There’s something wrong!”

“Thieves, George, by heavens!” cried the other. “Stop them! Fire on them with your pistol!”

“Ride!” said Thunder Moon to the boy ahead of him.

At the same instant a gun cracked behind them and a pistol ball hummed above their heads; while a moment later they heard the crashing of brush as “Mister Sutton” jumped his horse in from the roadway.

By this time Standing Antelope had put his pony to full gallop. It was no easy thing to ride with speed through the crowded trees of that copse but, flattening themselves along the necks of their horses, they swept onward at a smart pace. To the rear they heard shouting voices. Then the noise of one horse in pursuit. In a few minutes, as they hurdled low fences and plunged across cultivated fields and through strips of woods, the sounds died out.

On a low hilltop they drew rein. They could hear nothing at first, except the panting of their horses. Then they made out a dim noise of voices from the direction of the great house, and presently there was the cry of dogs.

“I have heard it!” said Thunder Moon in excitement. “The white man hunts with dogs. And now they are coming for us. Ride on, Standing Antelope.”

They rode until they came to a sheer slope, at the bottom of which was a considerable stream. It did not stop them; swimming their horses through, they drifted the animals for some time down the shallows on the farther side, then climbed out and up the opposite bank. There they wrung the water from their clothes and listened.

Dawn was beginning as they heard the music of the dog pack swell over the woodland and swing toward them, until the cry of the hounds echoed loud and full over the water.

“If it is your father who lives in the great lodge,” said Standing Antelope, “let us go to him. He will give us shelter in his tribe.”

“How can I tell that he is my father?” replied Thunder Moon. “Two bulls may have the same look, and yet they may come from different herds. I hardly can speak in his tongue; how could I call him my father? Besides,” he added more sternly, “I do not come even to a father and ask for help. The men of the Suhtai are free. They do not cringe like coyotes.”

The boy answered a little grimly: “If you are a Suhtai, he is not your father. If he is your father, then you are white and not free. For all white men are slaves. They are slaves to their law at least, as we learned in the wagon train. For their law can whip them, starve them, tie them with rope, or hang them by the neck so that the body and the spirit die together. If you are a Suhtai, you should not be here. If you are a white man and still wish to be free, then go back with me to the Suhtai and live as one of us and remember these people only as one remembers a dream after waking. This is good council, even if I am not a great warrior.”

“Peace!” said Thunder Moon. “You speak with a knife in every word. I shall do the thing that comes to me.”

They waited, and heard the noise of the hunt break over the river and stream up to them, through the trees. Then they rode through the copse until they came to a winding roadway. On its firm footing the horses flew. A dust cloud swirled up behind them in the morning light; and Thunder Moon laughed with pleasure.

He did not laugh for long, however. For, looking back down the roadway, he saw that a dozen men were riding hard in pursuit, and gaining fast. He had no doubt that his stallion could leave the pursuit safely behind. Instantly he doubted the ability of the Indian ponies to withstand such a challenge and over such a course as this. Even in the distance he could see that the pursuing riders were mounted on animals like his own fine horse. They did not move with a bobbing gallop, like Indian ponies at full speed, but with a long and swinging rhythm they slipped over the ground.

“Full speed!” he called to Standing Antelope.

The boy, with a shout of determination, gave the whip to his pony and the pack animals. They did not need two minutes to see how the matter was coming. Tired by a long journey, with many weeks of labor behind them, the ponies were failing fast. Besides, they had behind them horses of some matchless breed which filled the hearts of the two with wonder and with admiration. Thunder Moon made up his mind at once.

“There a way turns on the right, Standing Antelope,” he said. “When we come to it, take that turning. Take the two spare horses with you, and when the time comes I promise you that all those riders shall follow me.”

The boy was too well trained to dispute the word of an older warrior. He cast one desperate glance behind him at the danger cloud which was rolling up on them so rapidly.

“I shall lead them away,” called Thunder Moon, “and then come back to you and find you. Keep to broken country. The short legs of your ponies cannot match the long legs of those horses behind us. What horses they are! But now they shall see what Sailing Hawk can do.”

By a mere pressure of his knees he reduced the pace of the stallion so that he fell well behind; and, turning in the saddle, he drew his rifle from its long holster beneath his right leg. He balanced it in his hand, and finally twitched the butt of it to his shoulder and fired. He smiled grimly, seeing two of the pursuers duck low on the necks of their mounts; for he knew that the ball he sent, though he missed them purposely, must have hummed quite close to their ears.

He waited, then, to see them check their pace, for so any Indian of the plains would have done against such accurate long-range practice as this. They thrust ahead after him more violently than before, as though they were striving to close the gap before he could load again.

He who could load and fire almost as rapidly as another Suhtai could whip arrows out of a quiver and onto the string. To prove to the pursuit his skill and the danger of pressing him too closely, he loaded like lightning and discharged a second ball. This time he took a still closer aim, and again the two leaders winced as the ball cut the air between them. Still they kept on.

It turned the heart of Thunder Moon cold with wonder. These were not the tactics of the plains. Then, in a burst of anger, he prepared for a third shot, which should find a target. Not a man—for these men had not harmed him—but a horse was to be his mark. When he took within the sights the reaching, lean, beautiful head of one of the horses, his heart failed him. To shoot such an animal was almost worse than to drive a bullet through the body of a rider.

He glanced ahead. Young Standing Antelope, with his two lead horses, had disappeared down the turn to the right. This was the time, then, to show the pursuit what Sailing Hawk could do. Leaning back a little in the saddle, Thunder Moon called on the stallion, and there was instant response. From hand canter to racing gallop the big chestnut leaped at a single bound.

For a mile at least that dizzy pace was maintained, and then Thunder Moon looked back to see if the forms of his pursuers were in sight. The result was a shock. They were still in sight and if they had lost ground, it was a negligible amount. Their speed still seemed to increase and there were more than the original half dozen riders now. Others seemed to have come in from some side road, and fully fifteen horsemen were pressing behind him.

Keen for the hunt, he heard them shout to one another, their voices tingling faintly through the crisp morning air. It dawned suddenly upon Thunder Moon that this might be his last day of riding.

CHAPTER TWO OVERTAKEN

CHAPTER TWO OVERTAKEN

As he steadied the stallion for the race, Thunder Moon tried to understand what was happening. Hitherto, when Indians on the plains challenged him, he had been able to draw away from them with ridiculous ease, in spite of his weight in the saddle. Now his bulk was doubtless greater than that of his pursuers, and doubtless the edge of the stallion’s speed had been taken by the long, long journey through all weathers and footings. Still it seemed strange that in all the world horses could be found that would keep up with him like this.

The hunt was drawing out behind him, in a string of riders. So much the speed of Sailing Hawk was accomplishing. There was no vast distance between the leader and the last of the group. They were fresh, terribly fresh, the lot of them. Sailing Hawk ran well, and well he would run until he died. In the meantime his strength was going. It was not the beginning but the end of a long day for him.

So Thunder Moon decided to try the effect of cross-country work, and sent the stallion at a neighboring fence. Nobly the big chestnut cleared it, and rushed up a gradual slope beyond toward a copse.

Before he disappeared into the woods, Thunder Moon glanced back and saw the first flight of the hunt drive at the same fence. He smiled, waiting to see the disaster. To his amazement, every one of the horses took the obstacle in their stride, not flinging high in the air like Sailing Hawk, but skimming low, with a certain accustomed air, as though jumping were an old matter in their lives. Certainly it was not so with the stallion, accustomed as he was to the open ranges of the plains. The heart of Thunder Moon sank again.

However, he sent the stallion through the woods, and coming out on the farther side he saw beneath him a stretch of low ground, the surface of which was rosy with the morning light. It was marshland, he could see. Every step of it was glistening with water, and he was forced to turn his horse along the edge of the boggy ground.

A moment later, the hunt poured through the woods. He heard them shout with triumph which had a meaning in it, for Sailing Hawk began to flounder heavily. He had gone almost knee-deep in wet soil.

That was the end. Back to the dry ground he had to turn the stallion and, so turning, he was going straight into the midst of his enemies. There was no need of the rifle here. He thrust it deep in the holster and snatched out the two revolvers which hung at the bow of his saddle. The sway of his body would guide Sailing Hawk as well as reins; each hand was free for a gun, and unless all his long years of training with those difficult weapons had been wasted, there might be a death in every bullet.

Yet it would be hard to fire point-blank upon those men. There was hardly one of them who had not unlimbered rifle or pistol or revolver in turn; but they came toward him now with cheerful shouts, laughing, like careless children at the end of a race for fun. So he held his fire and waited.

“He’s going to fight it out, the nervy devil!” called some one. “Don’t shoot, boys. We’ll talk some sense into his head, or try to. Jack, you’re right. That’s one of your horses that he’s on.”

They were in evening clothes, all these youths—though such a term had not entered Thunder Moon’s vocabulary—and yet they were such born horsemen that they seemed as much at home in the saddle as if they had been in a ballroom. Clean faced, clear eyed, eager as hounds, they gathered around Thunder Moon, keeping a proper distance from his poised guns.

In the meantime, the man referred to as “Jack” came to the front and eyed Sailing Hawk with a proprietary air.

“Now, my man,” he said, “you’re caught, and you’re caught barehanded. But you’ve given us a fine hunt. Only how the devil did you manage to make Cyrus take that jump in such spread-eagle style? Get down, give up your guns, and go along with us. You’ll get nothing worse than justice, and maybe something better.”

“By all means better, Jack,” broke in one of the group. “I never knew your Cyrus had such foot. He beat us all.”

“My mare was only warming to her work,” protested another.

“But you weigh fifty pounds less than that man-mountain.”

They chaffed one another gaily.

“Get down,” repeated Jack. “Get down, man, when I tell you to. You don’t think you can stave off the lot of us, do you?”

The English tongue came roughly and slowly to the mind and the lips of Thunder Moon.

“My friend,” he said, “you are the chief of this band?”

The other opened his eyes a little more widely.

“Hello!” he said. “This is something special. Am I the chief, he wants to know. Who are you stranger?”

“I come from the Suhtai,” said Thunder Moon gravely.

“Who the devil are the Suhtai? Where do they breed?”

Thunder Moon opened his eyes in turn, for it had not occurred to him that there might be men who did not even know the name of that famous tribe.

“Wherever you come from,” said the other, “you’ve stolen my horse Cyrus. Get off his back, and after that we’ll talk.”

“You say a thing which is not true,” said Thunder Moon sternly. “This horse is not yours.”

“Watch him,” said Jack to his companions. “He has a grand face for this sort of work. Doesn’t move a muscle while he gets out a thing like that. I don’t know my own horses, I suppose?” he continued with a chuckle, facing his captive again.

“If he is your horse,” said Thunder Moon, “speak to him, and he will come to you.”

There was a general shout at this.

“That’s right, Jack. Talk to him. Make your horse answer back.”

“Hold on,” replied Jack. “Maybe the fellow’s a half-wit. Let’s go easy with him.”

He controlled his expression and asked more calmly: “If he is your horse, then, he’ll come when you call, I suppose?”

“He will, of course,” said Thunder Moon.

There was a chorus of whistles.

“Let’s see a proof of that.”

One brief syllable of guttural Cheyenne was spoken, and Sailing Hawk dropped to his knees. No trick was more necessary or valuable on the prairies, where a warrior might wish to use his pony as a breastwork in case of a fierce attack. There was a general shout of admiration and amazement from the spectators.

“This is something special, Sutton!” said one of the young men.

“Special,” said Jack Sutton, “but it doesn’t change matters. I suppose no one doubts that that’s a Sutton chestnut?”

“He looks the part,” said a companion, “but, after all, you can’t tell what horses may be in other parts of the world. Certainly that’s not a Sutton saddle.”

“We’ll talk over the details later on,” said Jack Sutton. “Now, my man, just jump off the horse at once, will you? Throw down your guns.”

Thunder Moon made no reply.

“Because if you don’t,” said Sutton, “we’ll have to make you, you know.”

“The Suhtai,” said Thunder Moon quietly, “die before they give up their guns and their horses. If you fight, some of you must die. In each gun there are six voices.”

“Can you believe it?” asked Sutton with growing irritation. “The fool really seems to think he can bluff us out. Now, my friend the horse thief, I’ll give you till I count ten before I take you off that horse.”

“Friend,” answered Thunder Moon, “come one pace nearer to me, and your spirit goes to the Sky People.”

It seemed as though Jack Sutton were about to make that step forward, when one of his friends caught him by the arm and jerked him back.

“The beggar means to do it,” he exclaimed, “and by the look of him I think that he’d shoot straight.”

“Are fifteen of us to stand here stopped by one brazen-faced blackguard?” asked young Sutton in a rising fury.

“Come, Jack,” said another. “You’re the hope of your house. Don’t throw yourself away. Besides, we don’t want to murder this nervy rascal. More than that, though, you haven’t proved that this is your horse. If he is, he’s developed a taste for strange languages. Let me try to handle the case, will you?”

He stepped forward.

“Now my friend,” he said, “you see that we have the numbers. And, of course, we can’t afford to be outdone by one man. However, we don’t want to keep your back against the wall, and we don’t want to murder you. Come with us to the colonel’s house and let him hear the story. You make good your claim to the horse and the colonel will never give you a shady deal. You know Colonel Sutton, of course? And of course, you can trust him to do what’s right?”

Most of this speech was rather beyond the understanding of Thunder Moon. All that was clear to him was that this speaker was apparently acting as peacemaker; and vaguely he gathered that some one called Colonel Sutton was to be the judge. Colonel was a title like chief among the whites. He knew that also.

So he said: “Let us go to the chief. Some of you may ride beside me to see that I do not run away. But no one rides behind me.”

“All fair, all square,” said the other. “Satisfactory, Jack?”

“I’d rather have the thing settled here,” said Sutton. “Looks as though there weren’t enough of us to do justice.”

“Enough to do murder, Jack, old fellow; but you spell justice a different way, I take it. Come along, boys, and we’ll hear the end of this.”

CHAPTER THREE IT’S A WISE FATHER

CHAPTER THREE IT’S A WISE FATHER

With panting horses, with laughing voices, the party went down the long dusty road.

“That was a run,” one said.

“What a burst!”

“Better than fox hunting! The beggar nearly nicked me twice.”

“And if he isn’t a thief, why did he shoot?”

On the whole, never was there better humor shown by Cheyennes returning from a lucky buffalo hunt than was exhibited now by these fellows who rode so gaily around Thunder Moon. He regarded them not, for his dignity forbade; but all the time, with careful eye, he watched the men who rode on either side of him. Yet, to his surprise, though he had sent two balls so near them, they treated him with perfect good humor. They rode until they came close behind the great house which he had sat down to watch in the middle of the night. Then they turned in, and paused in the arch of the driveway just in front of the mansion.

Since it seemed impossible to get Thunder Moon off his horse, as a compromise they sent into the building for Colonel Sutton. He came at once, his wife beside him.

The sun was just up, the air was cool and brisk, and the roses which twined up the face of the dwelling were showering their fragrance on the breeze. Thunder Moon looked up to the pair standing on the verandah of the house, between the tall, thin, white pillars which framed its entrance. The man, whom they called colonel, was big, powerful of shoulder, grim of expression, and his hair looked silver in that rosy light; by his side, the woman seemed wonderfully thin and delicate. He supported her on his arm, and she seemed frightened, as she looked down on this array of wild young men on their prancing horses. The ball had lasted late at Sutton House and, when the last farewells were said and breakfast finished, they had come to this bright hour of sunrise.

“You’ll have to be judge as well as colonel, sir,” said young Jack Sutton, standing on the steps beneath his parents. “We’ve caught a fellow who’s a horse thief, as I live. And if that isn’t Cyrus that he’s riding, any one may have me.”

The colonel came forward to the edge of the porch.

“The blaze of Cyrus is not so short and wide as that,” he said almost instantly. “That isn’t one of our horses, Jack. But for all the world, he’s one of the strain. That dark chestnut isn’t a frequent color. Young man, where did you get that horse?”

The question was clear enough to Thunder Moon, and yet he could make no answer. For a strange new emotion swelled in his throat and stifled him, and he could not take his eyes from the face of the colonel or from that of the little white-haired woman beside him.

“There were two of them in the woods yonder,” explained Jack Sutton. “George and I guessed them out and they ran for it. Two men and four horses, and two of the nags with big packs. You’d better look to the silver, mother. This rascal here, when we took after him, opened fire on us. No man shoots to kill unless he has a guilty conscience. That stands for common sense, I suppose.”

Thunder Moon was stirred to answer, and he said: “I did not shoot to kill.”

“Come, come!” broke in another youngster, though still good humoredly. “Two balls whistled within an inch of my ears. What would you call that?”

“Very interesting,” said the colonel. “Very interesting. Come up here, young man, and let me have a talk with you about yourself, and what brought you loitering in the woods, yonder, long after midnight.”

“He won’t dismount,” broke in Sutton. “Sticks to Cyrus as though he were glued there.”

His words were instantly disproved, for Thunder Moon leaped from the back of his horse and, pausing only to sweep his buffalo robe about him, advanced with stately stride toward the porch. Sailing Hawk came close in his rear, and when his master mounted the steps the stallion went up behind him.

There was a little murmur of wonder. The colonel could not help smiling, and his eyes shone. This was a companionship between man and beast such as he loved to see. Not for nothing had he spent the better part of his life and his talents in the rearing of Thoroughbreds.

The man from the plains and the colonel stood face to face. There was not a fraction of an inch of difference between them in height; there was no difference in the bulk of their shoulders, which made even the magnificent dimensions of young Jack seem paltry by comparison.

“Now, sir,” said the colonel, “let’s have an understanding. In the first place, I don’t really suspect you. Because a fellow who can train a horse as you’ve trained that one can’t be a sneak thief or a burglar. Where did you get that stallion?”

Thunder Moon, slowly, stretched forth his hand to the west. His blazing eyes did not leave the face of Sutton for a moment.

“West, eh?” said the colonel. “Well, I didn’t know that they raised such animals farther west than my estate. How far west, my friend?”

It was difficult for Thunder Moon to speak, so much was his mind loaded with many reflections. Then he said, slowly, as he had made his gesture: “Far west . . . beyond the rivers . . . in the land of the Cheyennes.”

There was a faint cry—a moan—and the colonel’s wife drooped and swayed.

The colonel was swift to turn to her, and his son was still swifter, but the gliding step of Thunder Moon was swiftest of all. He passed between them and caught her in his arms, and held her lightly.

“Now, by heaven!” cried Jack Sutton, vastly alarmed, and reached for his pocket pistol. He did not draw it, however.

For the stranger, standing tall and solemn before them, had altered most wonderfully—a light appeared to break from his eyes and his breast heaved.

“She is not sick,” he said quietly. “But the woman is fallen in darkness. She will see again, later on.”

“She’s overtaxed herself with this infernal ball!” cried the colonel, pale with fear. “Confound me if I’ll have dance music in this house again. These waltzes are fit for a madhouse; besides, they’re indecent. Martha, do you hear me? Are you better, my dear?”

There was no answer. Mrs. Sutton lay limp, and her head would have fallen back had it not been for the supporting arm of Thunder Moon.

“Give her to me!” exclaimed the colonel.

A dark, gloomy glance was all that answered him, and Thunder Moon stepped past him into the house.

The high rooms soared above him. Beneath his feet was a soft carpeting that mysteriously muffled the fall of his feet—and yet it was not turf. He carried the unconscious woman to a couch, laid her there and kneeled by her side.

“I won’t have him touch her,” said Jack Sutton furiously. “I won’t have it! Why, the common rascal . . . the scoundrel of a thief!”

“Be still, Jack,” said his father. “Don’t be ridiculous. He treats her as though she were precious. There’s something not common about this man.”

“Hello!” cried Jack. “What’s in that flask? Are we going to have her poisoned? What’s in that leather pouch?”

Thunder Moon turned his head toward the younger man and answered: “Water . . . brother!”

There was something in the intonation of his voice, and something in the dark glance of his eyes, that made Jack Sutton catch his breath and look to his father as though for advice.

At the taste of the cold water, the colonel’s wife stirred, moaned a little, opened her eyes, and stared wildly up to the stern, dark face above her.

“Randolf!” breathed Mrs. Sutton.

At that, the colonel moved between her and Thunder Moon.

“What is it?” he asked. “What is it, Martha? Did something upset you? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t think. I don’t dare to think! I’m going mad, Randolf.”

“Ruth,” said Jack, to a girl who now ran into the room, “see what you can do. Something’s wrong with mother . . . and I think it’s that rascally horse thief fellow who’s done it.”

“Who?” cried the girl.

She turned and saw Thunder Moon, wrapped again in his robe, his arms folded beneath it, his bowed head turned toward the woman on the couch.

“Ah!” gasped Ruth Sutton, and she clung close to her brother.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Jack, irritated rather than sympathetic. “He’s not a ghost. He’s a man, you know. He’s not a ghost.”

“Are you sure?” stammered Ruth. “Are you sure that he’s not a ghost?”

Jack Sutton had stood enough. He strode up to Thunder Moon.

“Sir,” he said, “whatever happens, I’m afraid that you’re a scoundrel. But before you’re one minute older, I’ll have your name, and who you are, and where you’ve come from, and all the rest of it.”

“Brother,” said the tall man, and again there was a strange intonation of the word, “on the plains in the West the Suhtai know me, and they have given me a name.”

“Suhtai, again. And who the devil are the Suhtai?”

“Are you better Martha?” asked the colonel. “Steady, now. Has this fellow upset you at all? Is it he? I know the Suhtai. And so do some of our troopers, worse luck. They’re a tribe of the Cheyennes, Jack.”

“God bless me!” Jack cried, and moved a pace away. “I thought there was something odd about him. Are you an Indian, then?”

“What I am,” said Thunder Moon, raising his head, “I cannot tell. And as for my name, I have come a great journey; I have traveled for more than one moon, to come at last to this place to learn what my name might be.”

“Why, the fellow has no wits, Indian or white,” said Jack Sutton. “He says that he’s come here to find out what his name may be.”

“I knew it!” cried the colonel’s wife.

“I knew it! I knew it!” cried Ruth, pointing with a rigid arm.

What the colonel’s wife knew, they could not discover instantly, for at that moment she fainted dead away, and the colonel, much alarmed, called for help.

Jack Sutton was too excited to be of assistance, but he took his sister by both arms.

“I almost think there’s some foolish plot between you and mother,” he said. “I really almost think there is. What the devil is it that you and she know that has to do with this fellow, that neither of you has ever seen before?”

“Oh, you’re blind! You’re utterly blind!” cried Ruth. “Both of you are blind. Look at him again.”

“I see him. What of it? What of it?”

“Dad,” Ruth exclaimed, running to her father and clinging to his arm as he helped his wife back to the couch.

“Let me alone. Your mother’s dying, Ruth, I think.”

“She’s not . . . joy doesn’t kill. Dad, won’t you look at him? Won’t you see?”

“See what, child? Damn it, Ruth, what’s in your mind? What is this mystery?”

“Don’t you understand? He says that he’s come back here to find his name. . . .”

“That’s nonsense.”

“But it isn’t. I know what his name is.”

“The devil you do. What is it, then?”

“It’s William Sutton, and he’s your own son. Don’t you see? He’s come back. He’s come back to you!”

CHAPTER FOUR WHERE’S THE PROOF

CHAPTER FOUR WHERE’S THE PROOF

Whatever the emotion of the others, when the excited Ruth Sutton made this startling announcement, no one felt more keenly than her brother Jack, though his sentiment may have differed from the rest. For as the eldest child, the only son, he had naturally expected to come into the majority of his father’s great fortune. Though perhaps Jack was no worse than the next man, this announcement thrust him literally to the heart. Whatever his first thought might have been, certainly his first movement was to touch the pocket pistol which he carried with him always, like most of the gay lads of that time. Perhaps he recalled a picture seen a little earlier that morning, when this same danger to his hopes then stood with the marsh behind him and fifteen armed men before. One shot would have done a great work, at that lucky time. Now the time was past.

There was no opportunity for the others to observe the expression on the face of Jack, for they were all too busily engaged on the subject of this suspected horse thief.

The poor colonel, utterly taken aback, caught at his wife and drew her to him, and stared for a moment at Thunder Moon as though he were looking at a leveled gun rather than at a lost son. Ruth Sutton recoiled from this great man of the prairies. Her keen eyes had seen a resemblance, but the mark of the wilderness was visibly on him, and she was frightened.

Only Mrs. Sutton, weakest of all a moment before, went unafraid to the strange visitor. She drew herself out of the arms of the colonel and, going to Thunder Moon, she took those terrible hands which Pawnee and Comanche and stalwart Crow knew and feared. She drew close to him, peering keenly into his eyes.

“You are William!” she cried softly. “Ah . . . you are my dear boy come back to us. Only tell me. Will you tell me?”

“My heart is sad,” said Thunder Moon, and he fought back an impulse to take her in his arms. “My heart is sad. All that I know is what an old man of the Suhtai told me. He sent me here. But of myself I know nothing.”

“You see, Father,” broke in the matter-of-fact voice of Jack, “we’d better go a bit slowly. God knows no one wants him to be the true Sutton more than I do. But we have to have more proof than the sketchy resemblance of two faces. We have to have something better than that. You see . . . he isn’t a bit sure himself.”

“How could he be sure? He was an infant when he was stolen!” exclaimed the colonel, who was turning from deadly white to violent crimson.

“As for the word of some lying Indian . . . some old chatterer. . . .”

“I tell you, Jack, you mustn’t speak that way!” cried Mrs. Sutton. “Isn’t there a call of blood to blood? I felt it when I first saw him. Randolf, do something. Let me be sure.”

The colonel hesitated, looked about wildly, and finally said: “Let’s try to be calm. Let’s make no mistake. It would be too horrible to think that we had him back again and then find it was only a fraud. You understand? Let’s try to work out the testimony. Somebody tell someone to give those young fools outdoors some mint juleps . . . or anything that will keep them quiet. We have to think this out. We have to feel our way to the truth.”

“Here! Here’s the truth!” Mrs. Sutton said.

She snapped open a little pendant at her throat and showed a miniature which was painted on the inside, showing her husband as he had been when he was a young man. The colonel looked at it gravely and long; then he raised his eyes as though afraid of what he must see. The result was a start of amazement and joy.