Show t feared Rebecky understood and she too feared Perhaps it wasn’t fear he felt but rather the old call of on But anyway the Indian blood dragged the morning when Sandy down the dusty Winchester from the ' wall oiled It up and filled the chambers she showed sense He was just starting from the door with It In the crook of his arm his eyes fixed toshe when ward the other gulch convincing L an old stopped him and said in Indian which He turned into the cabin they sometimes used when talking toold man dropped on hie kneea over L Neluou gether: “Not that way brother It Nods who was looking at a nor bring was Nod's gathered him Into his arms and would do the boy no good All the sobbed In the way a fellow of that him back to you and me time that the trading was going on and the Great Spirit can make all to plepes kind does when he goes no one had paid any attention to He didn’t smooth resist taugh trail" —the big dry shaky kind where the her She didn’t count Nods bossed heart jumps and Jerks and tries to when she took the rifle from his this job too He acted as if he had hammer Its way out of the body hands and stood quietly thinking as forgotten something besides the bow was ejected after cartridge came— cartridge sheriff The next the and arrows and about three yards of day on by her hand to rattle unheeded He knew Sandy and loved alone string' which be had already brought the cabin floor He knew out In the way of baggage He truth” turned and looked at Re- him and dreaded the trip Sandy finally went down across the that to bring a posse would mean a crawled between Sandy’s legs where Sandy gulch and UP to the brow of the opthe latter stood In the door of the becky and she looked at fight In which many men would die But her face never changed a He knew that old Sandy Smith unposite bill where he could look on tepee put his arms around the old at her quite less Influenced that other cabin He was hungry for by reason alone woman's neck and she made one muscle They all lookedwoke For would unflinchingly fight a regiment a eight of hie boy On the door step up quick grab and held him close to her a while then Sandy dirty unkempt and dejected eat litbreast Some folks bave an idea the first time he was rough with her of officers to hold the thing he loved leaned tle Node while at bis feet cowering were sheriff But Sandy and the squaws aren't like other women when He made three quick steps in fear of something sat a friends so It didn’t come to that you get clear down below their outer over and grabbed her bo tightly by in of winced she dog which had already found spite arm when that he said skin Well they are Sandy was up the “Sandy old friend" said: the way across tho bills Sandy had shut down the hydraulic’s against It again because he under her Indian blood and Nod’s father didn’t seem to like the stood how she felt “Sandy God knows “Rebecky for God’s sake tell me! roaring mouth He was puttering I’d rather not be dog’s presence I bate this trip Then he argued with himself In this Did ye ever see this man before?" when Sandy faBhlon: "Although I do know how Everything was quiet tor what Eheriff than to have to tell you But around at something The hie man sprawled on top of the ridge and to care for mules and dogs I ain’t seemed another long time you’ve got to give the boy to The man’s got the proof and peering over first saw him then he much up on kids Onc't when I made grinned at her as if pleased over all father the order of court for hie child You came over to Nods shook him and a shirt out of buckskin for a kid It the trouble he was making and ebe gave him a took me six months This old dame looked him straight in the eyes and might kill me or a dozen other better when the dog bristled The dog wanted to fight but would be mighty handy So she’s in as ehe looked her eyes changed In- men who come after but you can’t kick contented You know that! kill the law It’e the man beat him off to a safe dls a quiet the play She’s goln’ to be Nod’s stead of having little nursery maid because he likes look like happy old folk have they the one thing that follows a man in tance while Nods apparently cried Nod’s father then slapped him her even if she is a hundred and grew narrow and black and sharp open fight and Is unwhlppable" turned she Then And the man came pretty near goto So it was that the big tamaracks and young fifty years old" moaned that night and the flowers ing out of the game about that minThe chief didn’t care It meant one Sandy: On top of the ridge a long ute around cabin white saw In this while Never the drooped mouth less to feed and saved some"Heap lie fellow had shut his teeth with them an old squaw man before" Without waiting to say company body from knocking her on the head And she poor wretch divided between affection for her tribe distrust of the white man and love for Nods finally gave In to the latter and To take him away from me— to take Nods?" The man didn’t really know Sandy you see or he wouldn’t have broken Most men would It so confidently have sooner gone against a Kansas cyclone or a neat of rattlers or a band of Apaches than to stir up But this ellow didn’t Sandy know him and to tell the truth for once Sandy was taken off his feet knows what would have Nobody happened next but Just then around the corner of the cabin with the dog and Pete following came Nods talking to Rebecky The stranger turned took a look at the squaw knew her and triumphantly waved his hand at her “I can prove it” he said “She knows It I left him with her three years ago — over in Idaho She’ll tell you so She has to tell you— It’e the NODSA WANA Fth By ROY NORTON y CuijTlgut by 0D3 he was called not because he was particularly sleepy but rather as an for the only abbreviation name which he had ever known his Indian appella-tloof Nodsawana Maybe he got the name without When christening the Net Perces got u white boy they didn’t go much on formality When Sandy Smith first aw him he was about three years old and was In trouble lie was about as dirty as any member of the tribe which harbored him and save for occasional light spots where his skin broke through the crust accidentally and save for his top shock of hair It would have been rather difficult to recognize him as white He was standing outside a teepee at a safe distance— where things couldn't be thrown at him— gritting his teeth his eyes with sobbing and kneading two very dirty very pudgy fists Sandy had been on a kind of vacation the klndothat suited him best By In the Olymcelling seme tlmberland in a mining pics and reinvesting claim he stood in a pretty fair way to That is almost everybody get rich In the district thought so So he’d been making a little trip over into Idaho But that hasn't much to do with Nods Coming back to him — Sandy happened to ride through this camp just at the time when Nods was feeling pretty bad If the angel Trouble had a Job on hand he must have felt like pulling a gun when Sandy Smith came around because that was Sandy's weak point Couldn't bear to see anybody let alone a child in sorrow Seeing Nods crying out In front of the teepee Sandy pulled up his horse swung over Into the side of his saddle and took a look at such an amazing thing as a little white boy in an Indian village a hundred or so miles from anywhere Nods reciproand naturally cated the attention The pudgy fists came away about a toot from the face and then The eyes which looked Just stopped like gentian flowers opened wide and Nods sized Sandy up for all he was worth Then either because he hadn’t white folks or because there forgotten was something about Sandy that went to his baby heart he twisted his face Into a smile that was like a big burst meadow of sunshine over a Now all this time Sandy had been watching him with kind of a paralyzed look When Nods gave him that smile he couldn't help giving It back Sandy’s face with Its long straggling mustache was one of the set steady kind that seldom changed but If any one ever saw him laugh it was sure to be and a surprise It was so unexpected made yon think there were things in beSandy that you never knew fore Nods saw this and without delay trudged up alongside the pony and held up both hands Wanted to be taken up and away from that village to go to some place with some one who had a kind word Instead of a kick lor him Sandy fairly fell off his down on his knees hofse dropped and put his big long arms around fclods and that’s how It began How Sandy and Nods became acquainted Nods gave k sigh big enough for a man and soon as he could get room put his two little arms his neck around Sandy’s smugg’ed and face right up against Sandy’s held it mere And from that on Sandy It wasn’t could have died for him He had anything he was used to in his time loved and been loved by lots of things but not by a small chap like this was crying and laughing Stf" Sandy when he felt something looking at him turned round and saw three or four blanketed bucks But in all the crowd white They here wasn't anything didn’t look as though they liked Sandy much A powwow brought out the fact that this youngster had been left with an old squaw by a man who claimed to Said he was coming be bis daddy back In a week but a year had slid off The squaw was too Into the nowhere but she Id to do much camp work wasn’t too old to think a heap of Nodsabout all the And probably awana kindness the little shaver ever knew In all that year had been from her being not much use The old woman bad to subsist off the camp pickings so there may have been times when both she and Nods went pretty It was easier for her to stand abuse though than it was for Nods She was more used to it having lived longer The minute Sandy Bhowed signs of the chief valued him wanting Nods It took a day and a night’s highly won out trading to get him but Sandy never being the kind of a fellow that decided he’d he twice or Once quits end the difficulty by going to war with grabnation Ferces the whole Nez to bing Nods and riding off trusting to pull him Cod and his Winchester through to go and ys be was getting ready Nods was waiting Sandy beard a kind of moaning noise in the tepee inwhere Nods lived so took a look There with her blanket over side her head and rocking to and fro with of her in front clenched ber hands went along Well in the course of time they all landed in Canada gulch and settled down Into the happiest little party you ever saw Before they came the only partner Sandy had was a dog Before they came an shack had been big enough Now all this was changed Sandy had the finest cabin on the The biggest In all the disgulch trict Had three rooms and a big porch and some store furniture Quit using tin plates and tin cups and tin spoons Swore off on tin and got so that real china a thick the real fine kind they use In restaurants In big cities wasn’t any too good Nods brought an addition Into the family not being satisfied with loaf with the dog and ing around It was a shaggy little burro He called it Pete although Sandy thought Jane would be more approbecause it wasn't a “Pete" priate kind of burro Sandy wanting to give Nods an "eddlcation” used to come in at night and laboriously teach him his A E C’s until the little yellow head would get the droops and the eyes would lose their velvety brightness Then any one passing the cabin would see the glow of a pipe and If he took the trouble to walk up the path between the flowers he would find a big lank man sitting on a bench In the darkness of his out over porch looking far the hills and the lights of other cabins and either telling stories or holding tight a tired little boy who bad gone asleep — very fast asleep ’Most always at their feet was curled a dog ready to fight for them both If harm offered If you looked farther where the lamp shone through the cabin door you would probably see a bent old squaw squatted on the floor making something out of beads When one Is happier than ever before in all his life and has everyand all the love he thing he wants has starved for through all the years the heels of Time’s moccasins are Then Time Is young and greased travels fast The fellow who first pictured him as a slow dragging old man with a gait like a turtle and a toting scythe must have known him That's when he goe' only in trouble slow Two years which didn’t seem more than an hour long had passed over before Time went slow In Can ada gulch then stopped and made each day a month each week an age and a lifetime a pack too heavy for the shoulders Sandy had a piece of pipe to mend and came up to the cabin on the point of the bill when he heard steps He turned round inquiringly to see s man as big as himself And he wasn’t the sort of man you like One those of fellows who leers Instead of smiles and brags when be talks “I’ve come to get my boy — the one you call Nods” he said The wrench dropped from Sandy’s hands A minute be- fore the birds had sung the flowers bloomed and the sun shone Now the birds were voiceless the posies without color and the Bun had slipped from sight It was very still and all the world was unreal and full of A blow In Sandy's face would bloom have brought Instant response but this stranger in a dozen words bad hit full In the heart so that it almost stopped beating and for the first time In all hie life Sandy trembled and was afraid and couldn’t strike back He looked at the stranger at the cabin and then up Into the sky It didn’t Beera that God could be so unkind! This was something he had never of He swallowed several thought times before he could get speech then said In a dazed way: “Your boy? Nods your boy? And you’ve come for him? Come for bim? For Nods? she stooped over Nods who stood curiously looking at all of hem fiercely gathered him into her arms and trudged through the cabin loor stran"You see you’re mistaken with a ger” Sandy drawled gently “She don’t know big sigh of relief you You cain’t have the boy" The stranger began to argue In a sort of way and be and neaceable Sandy sat down on a log Then Sandy over heard something the grass behind him and turned round in time to see Rebecky with a hunting knife about readyto end the stranger’s claim on Nods or anything She was all Inelse in the world dian again and was there to kill Sandy grabbed ber and although she and small was withered old bent and be a giant In strength It was about all he could do to hold her off She fought like a wildcat' trying to get at this intruder Sandy got the knife away from her and turned to the man The fellow sneered and said: “Put the knife Into her why don’t you? She’s nothin’ but a lyin' old squaw” That started Sandy to boiling and he moved toward him with that kind of a stealthy deadly way that panthers have when slipping up on someThe fellow saw he had gone thing too far and began to back off "Now you hike and be damned quick" Sandy said between his teeth more rnd “or 111 put It In you clear up to the hilt" The etranger ran away but In this last move Sandy had practically adHad pracmitted his own defeat tically admitted that he knew the man waa within his rights'" Otherwise why Rebecky’s denial and then her attempt to decide the question at the point of the knife? That waa moaned upon the floor and a bent old man sat wearied his with fingers on the clutched through his hair —robbed — And away over desolated and alone across a ridge in a dirty little shack claim purchased for a on a worthless song a big coarse man brutally cuffed a tired little boy tot sobbing Nods and gloated over a triumph bad gone from Sandy’s life Of course Sandy and Rebecky knew within a day or so where Nods had been taken There was Just one ridge — a low divide — between Canada gulch and Poor Man’s gulch where Nod’s father had taken his claim But before either It was several days Sandy or Rebecky tried to see the boy In the meantime Sandy didn’t work He was fcjnder to Rebecky than usual because be knew how the He thought more old woman suffered of her or It because It was perfectly natural that he should love anything which had loved Nods He wandered aimlessly around the cabin or out among the flowers where Nods He gulped when he had dug holes up the little ABC books picked and when he was alone out under the big sympathizing trees had long talks with the Lord begging him to show the way so the little feet might patter Into the cabin again Then his thougnts took a new turn and he was the grim Sandy that men He seems to run things pretafter all Keeps us from doing a heap of things we shouldn't Now” about this time the Lord do noticed that Sandy was going to make a mighty big mistake so took a band "Daddy Sands” a little voice said why don't you take me In your arms? ’I do so want your arms!" Sandy naturally couldn’t kill a man and bold Node at the same time and when be grabbed up the boy the Lord having interrupted at the right minute kind of took him out of his piadness and led him into sanity The red things quit floating around in front of hie eyes Hie brain eo weary and so tired for all the sleepless nights since Node had gone grew clear again and he eaw what a big mistake he was about to make Sandy finally put Nods down on the When he did so he eaw groupd welts on the bare three blouse skin where the unbuttoned was open Well — he would bave a little satisfaction for that anyway He made one quick Jump to where the man stood his arm shot out with terrific force and Nod’s father fairly flew up into the air Before he could realize what had happened Sandy was on him one hand on hiB throat and the other battering his face I came here to kill you" he rasped "You’ve been between his teeth beating Nods Take this as a promise that I’m coming here now every day and if ever I find another mark on him by God I’ll tear your heart out of your body as sure as my name’s Smith!” It seemed there wouldn't be any necessity for a return trip the way Sandy’s arm was working His blood was boiling again and the desire so strong that unless the Lord had interfered again It would have It must have been ended differently the Lord who put it into Nods’ father’s mouth to say: "Let me go! If me Let you want the kid sa go! bad why don’t you buy him?” Sandy’s fingers released their hold He had Buy Nods? Buy Nods? It never thought of that before seemed so incomprehensible that anyas body would offer to sell anything dear as Nods that of all the ways in these last he had contemplated weary days this had been the one way overlooked Slowly he climbed to his feet and Nods’ father shrinking and battered and cowed but hopeful for his craven worthless life also arose Cupidity He was in the man’s every look the very end for which he ame and for which — alone — he had square ty well “and I’ll deed you all my right now and forever —to him” "It’s done!” said Sandy without a moment’s hesitation His claim the richest in all this land the thing that could produce the gold which would buy a king’s ransom could go Gold? for this boy as a ransom What was gold? Nothing! A paltry metal which though all of it in the world were within his reach couldn’t oay for one clasp of those little arms that again hugged hm around hts feet and were soon after transferred to his throat They went into the cabin where Sandy on a sheet of paper wrote “Know all men by these here documents — that one William Martin does hereby sell to one Smith known to most folks as Sandy Smith one white Nodsawana And this boy named here thing calling himself a man — aforesaid and whereas known as Mar-"four tin — takes as full pay number and It’s on Canada claim gulch agreed by one of the aforesaid named — that he will kill this man Sandy Martin if he ever speaks to or claims this aforesaid boy Nodsawanna again So help me God deed “P S — This Is also a to the aforesaid boy and Just the same as a bill of sale for a pony or else a write might lawyer anything transferring the boy to Sandy Smith” They signed it in several places to make dead sure Sandy wanting who was mighty pleased and Martin at the deal being perfectly willing There had been a time when a paying claim a big cabin a beap of furniture and a field of flowers would have seemed Just about all In life But the boys on that Sandy wanted pulled a heavy Colt's from hts pocket the gulch know and will tell you that and was taking very careful aim all these things were passed up like Things he drew a bead on didn’t live a pawn and without thought' when long as a rule Then be decided the on the following day Sandy and his distance was oo far Decided somefamily rode away thing else also and that was that They got up to that point you can be would go down and kill this brute see on the very brow of the hill If it cost him his own life his hope the of the hereafter and Nods That where the trail dips off toward the morning aftd-- ' In the sunrise never be cuffed again boy should lead was Sandy Smith holding Nods He would see to that he muttered on the pommel of bis saddle Next as he ccashed down Into the clearing with an outfit came two The man started to say something another pony with old Rebecky and look Into but got a good square then Pete on whose back was packed decided this and Sandy’s flaming eyes which in a a basket big Nods looked wasn’t his hour to talk dog could ride up and with cries of “Daddy Sands! I knew you'd Sands! Dear Daddy Right up on that point they 1 knew come you would find me” stopped and looked back most of us rushed frantically over and clasped hope and believe without regret on his arms tightly around Sandy’s legs the cabin and the claim and the Somehow flowers it was like the For onde he was not taken Into arms For once there was no reply thing you remember out of the Bible long after you’ve forgotten the words Sandy had an errand to perform He wasn't the quiet Sandy of the last perhaps you know the place— where a two years but the old Sandy of the man named Joseph and a woman He named Mary and a tender smiling Geronimo and other border days had a mission little boy rode off and out into the And Nod’s father read It and grew big world with none but God to care for them and right sure in the knowlwhite and lost his defiant grin There In front of hlnv stood Death Just edge that He looks after His own The man’s arms closed around the waiting a few minutes to do Its work And it would be done— the glint of little boy the old woman behind was t steel shope In the eyes and old Pete and the the happy and told btm so dog were willing to go along after knowing that green pastures work The Lord mayn’t always ran be found for all things which are things out the way we like best but faithful to the end somehow or another if you're on the ' |