OCR Text |
Show flame of the Border ?. promise to me, and 1 shall expect you as an honorable woman to keep It. But know this, my girl: that I shall never give you up. Neither Indians nor Arizona nor any living man is going go-ing to get you from me. Just remember remem-ber that." "Why, of course, Rod. And thank you for being so kind." "I'm not kind. I'm helpless. I have no choice In the matter. Either ! give you your way, or I lose your esteem by forcing you to mine. And that's that." They rode In silence that was a bit constrained for a long distance. And presently Into the stillness there was injected a sound, so thin and fine at first as to be no sound, but becoming more clear and certain as they rode ahead. It caught on Sonya's desert-trained desert-trained ears long before Rod heard It, and her head was up, a line between her brows. She searched the levels and the debouching de-bouching canyon mouths. It was down one of these that she determined presently pres-ently the sound was coming: a long, high wail almost like that which the Indian women gave at a death. At that moment Rod heard it too. "For the love of heaven I" he said wonderlngly, "what's that?" "Come along," said Sonya briefly and lifted Darkness with her knees and rein. The horse leaped away to the right where the canyons flattened to the plain. And coming out of one of these long defiles that cut the jumbled jum-bled Bad Land country was as strange a cavalcade as one might meet in many a day's journey. A team and buckboard with the huga figure of a white man hunched on the seat and three children huddled hud-dled In behind, little brown Navajos hushed down like Quail, their scared round faces turned backward to where a woman hung onto the rig's tail and cried to heaven, running when the Satter moved on his seat, flecked his 1 rthip, looked at her and down at his boots. "Well," he said, "I was sent to get em." "But only two. You didn't even know there were three," she coaxed. 'Come on let me give them back the baby." "Oh, well " he said reluctantly. Instantly the girl reached in and pulled the baby clear of the wagon, the mother with It. It was not really a baby, being a fair-sized youngster, but the least of the three. With her arm across the two she pushed them away from the wagon. Then she began be-gan speaking rapidly in Navajo. It was the white man's law, which was above tribal law, she told them, that the children go to the schools where they would learn the white man's ways, where they would be fed and clothed. They would become wise and above their station at the present time, being better for the knowledge they would get And she, the mother, would have them back soon for a visit, hearing all about what they had learned and eaten in the meantime. The littlest one she could keep now, providing she would go back to her hogan in peace. If not, It too would go. Would she listen to the white man's law? Would she take her one child instead of losing three for a little time only? The man spoke, and the woman, with her tragic eyes on the little scared faces in the wagon's tail, hugging hug-ging her babe, nodded. "0. K., Mr. Satter," Sonya said guardedly. Satter struck his near horse, and the buckboard bounced away. Turning in stark and tragic resignation, resig-nation, the two bedraggled figures moved off toward the canyon's mouth, the woman's eyes still strained back across her shoulder where her children were disappearing In the distance. The tall man looked back at Sonya, and his eyes spoke like Two Fingers' had. Blinded by tears, the girl climbed back In her saddle. She had forgotten forgot-ten Rodney Blake entirely. It was nor until they were well out on the doS1 ert's floor that she remembered him. "Rod," she said then, "do you see now why I cannot leave them? There is so much to do for them. They need me so !" "Yes," he said coldly. "I see." There was something in his tone which caused the conversation to languish, lan-guish, and they rode for miles through the early day without speech. Then Sonya stirred in her saddle and looked at Blake. "Did you say you are leaving the day after tomorrow, Rod?" she asked. "I did, but I might as well have kept the Information, for all the impression it made." "Oh, no, dear. I'm just so so full of troubles, you know. I didn't mean to seem careless. You know I didn't." "I wish to heaven I did, Sonya I" the man said passionately. "Well, remember remem-ber the rest of the things I said particularly par-ticularly that no man or anything shall get you from me, that I meaD to have you for my own If it's the last thing I ever do in life. Just remember that, my girl." A flush came in Sonva's face. By VINGIE E. ROE Copyrl&'ht, Doubleday, Doran & Co.. Ino. WNU Service SYNOPSIS Seeking death by throwing herself from the summit of Lone Mir.sa, to escape dishonor at the hands of a drunken desperado, Sonya Suvarin allows al-lows horself to be rescued by her suddenly sud-denly sobered and repentant attacker. The girl is a self -appoi nied physician to the Navajo Indians, living on an Arizona sheep ranch with her brother Serge, his wife, Llla, and their small daughter. Babs. For a year she has been engaged to Rodney Lilake, wealthy Now Yorker, but her heart is with the friendless Navajos and she evades a wedding. Sonya pulls Little Moon, wife of Two Fingers, a Navajo, through the crisis of an Illness. Two Fingers Is . doeply grateful. CHAPTER II Continued 3 "Sonya," he said sharply, "shall we go?" As If a spell were broken, the stranger stran-ger looked up sharply. The eyes of the two men met and held. It was as If two blades struck and crossed, as If armed forces clashed. There was lnslant hatred In It, instant in-stant opposition. Then Sonya swung Into her saddle and was away at a lope, Rod following follow-ing close behind. "Who was that man?" he asked thinly thin-ly when he had caught up with her. "Do you know him?" "I don't know, and I do not," said the girl crisply, -"and I don't like your tone. Oh, Rod dear, I do wish you would understand me better." "Forgive me, Sonya," said Blake, "but I hate all men who look at you too long." The ride back to the ranch was beautiful beau-tiful beyond words with the newly risen sun bathing the weathered peaks and pinnacles of desert stone, but somehow Its glory missed the girl's heart. Whether It was seeing again the face of the man of Lone Mesa, or Rod's unreasoning jealousy, she could not say. At any rate, she was silent and preoccupied, and more than once Blake looked at her sharply. "Sonya," he said presently, "1 know you are tired, that you've had a hard night, but I want to have a talk with you, and this seems the best chance I'm likely to have, since you are so busy all the time. My longing and love for you are an old story. I'm not going Into it again. I'm just telling you that I'm leaving for the East day after tomorrow, and It has been my hope to take you back this time. Sonya darling, will you come?" He reached over and took her hand, and at the caressing pressure of his fingers tears actually came to the girl's eyes. Maybe because she was so tired, maybe because she needed a bit of looking look-ing after herself. Then she shook herself her-self mentally, squared her shoulders, as it were. She smiled Into Rod's eyes, squeezed his hand. "I didn't know you were going back so soon, dear," she said steadily, "and I think I want to go along, but there Is the woman back there who will surely die, after all my hard pull to save her, if I leave her now. She needs care and stringent treatment, and there is no one on the Reservation Reserva-tion who can who will give it to her. I can't leave her, Rod." The man straightened up, loosed her band. It was not in human nature to take a blow like this and not feel its Impact. Im-pact. He looked straight ahead for a little while, riding with his hands crossed on his pommel and Sonya watched him anxiously. "It Isn't a whim, Rod. Nor other men. I haven't looked at another man since I gave you my promise. It's a bigger thing than that. Bigger than myself, bigger than you, I think. It's something which partakes of the universal, uni-versal, the infinite. Something Inside my soul, an obligation to to the Creator Himself," she added hesitantly, hesitant-ly, "If you see what I mean. I have the knowledge, the health here Is the opportunity, the crying need. Let me stay with them a while longer, Rod, please. Let me teach them more hygiene, hy-giene, more child care, more mother care. They know so little, have so little." Blake drew a long breath, looked back at her, his eyes dilated and deep with feeling. "You should be a Portia," he said, "you plead so eloquently. And for a bunch of dirty redskins who'd cut your throat for a dollar any day." Sonya's lips fell open. How little this man knew, this man of the cities, of the rushing world beyond the desert! How appallingly inadequate bis judgments! What he was missing of the mystery of life, its priceless gifts of spirit, its lighted deeps! A tender yearning for this blindness in him welled up In her, and she touched his arm. "Forgive me," she said, "I see how It must seem to you, but believe me, Rod, it is not so. I cannot make you see It. Only try to believe what I say about it. Won't you, dear? Stand steady for another stretch, until I can do a little more, leave my mark a little plainer In this soil which I love, among these people whom I love too." Blake shrugged his shoulders under his thin leather coat "I suppose I must, or go down In your black books as a tyrant. Very well, Sonya. I'll give you six months longer, but at the end of that time I shall demand thei fulfillment of your "I suppose I should be flattered," she said sharply, "but I am not. There is something about this attitude of yours, Rod, that angers me a seeming of command that goes down hard with me. One's life is his own, marriage or no marriage, to a certain extent, you know. I'm not the type of woman who can be completely absorbed." "Forgive me," Blake said quickly. "Perhaps I do seem dictatorial, but my excuse must be that ancient one which covers a multitude of sins great love." "I wonder," said Sonya. Sonya made a hurried trip next day to Chee wash and found the woman much better. "So," she told her happily, smoothing smooth-ing the gaunt young cheek, "we made the good fight together. All is well, little mother." "For the Love of Heaven!" He Said, Wonderingly, "What's That?" horses trotted, her mouth open, her braided hair in disarray where she had torn at it, stumbling, swaying with fatigue. She was a "wild squaw," namely one who spoke only her native tongue, and all tragedy, all loss, all fear and terror were In her swollen opaque eyes. A man ran behind her, a tall Navajo with bound hair and tur-quols tur-quols necklaces swinging on his breast. Sonya pulled Darkness in beside the rig, which stopped at her approach. "Why, Mr. Satter!" she said, "what does this mean?" "It means that these d d Navvys are resisting an officer," the man said harshly, "and's likely to get 'em Into trouble when I report it. You know what they are to handle, Miss Savarin, especially these wild ones." "Why surely I know, but Isn't this a little rough? You taking the children chil-dren to the school?" "Yes. They should 'a' been there last fall. Term's almost over. But they kept 'em hid out so good we never could find a one. Didn't think they had but two, and here's three." Sonya had dismounted. She went around behind the light wagon and spoke In Navajo. "Tell me thy heart I am thy sister," sis-ter," she said. The woman glanced at her, her shaking arms around the youngest child, which had scuttled to her breast the minute the rig stopped. The man came up and faced her, searching her face with troubled eyes. Instantly Sonya was this mother, this father, in their clouded misunderstanding, misunder-standing, seeing their little ones torn from their grasp. Whatever it was that shone In her face, the man saw It, trusted her at once, knew her for herself, her-self, having heard of her though he had never seen her. Sonya laid her arm around the heaving heav-ing shoulders of the wailing woman. She looked up at the man on the seat "Mr. Satter," she said, "don't you think you could leave them one? Just this little one, the baby? You know it's hard to give them up any of them and this is so little. Couldn't you? Please, Mr. Satter? Just for me? I'll go before the superintendent and make It right if you will. I think I can. Won't you please let them have the baby'?" There was In Sonya's voice all the guile of womankind since Eve, a coaxing coax-ing quality that had wrought on the hearts of men since she was born. Her long black eyes pleaded gravely And Two Fingers smiled his slow smile, and the young doctor rode away. Sonya spent that last evening In the patio with Rodney Blake, alone under un-der the stars, swinging In the fringed hammock, her hand between his palms, his low voice in her ears, speaking of the future. Serge and Lila, sensing the strain between them, had retired early. And Sonya put her arms about Rod's neck, kissed him and took his kisses, and felt happy. It was late when they separated in the living room, tiptoeing in like a pair of sixteen-year-olds, laughing in whispers, and early when they all gathered again tor breakfast It was quite a drive down to the little town where Rod would take the train for New York, and Sonya, who was driving driv-ing him, wanted an early start The last moments on a station platform plat-form are always filled with strange emotions, forebodings, and vague fears tinged with the sadness of parting, and Sonya was genuinely close to tears as she watched the handsome Rod about his ticket-buying, his trunk-rheckinu. trunk-rheckinu. For one panicky second she wished she were going with him, a marriage certificate in her bag. Then she shook herself indignantly, ran with him down the platform beside the slowing train, kissed him fervently, watched him go away across the desert. There was a little mist in her dark eyes, but she was surprised and a bit dismayed at the odd feeling of lightness, light-ness, of freedom, which came over her. "Ingratel" she told herself, "you don't deserve a good man's love. I begin to suspect you're a spinster elk j selfish anil lazy, and due to take on fa' ' In waiJ some day as punishment I" To BIC i "'-"n ii0. |