UGH’S night was a complex one, woven of anger, of passionate desire to turn to Miriam in his perplexity, of an almost uncontrollable yearning to dish everything and return to his old freedom on the plains. But, nursing Red Wolf as he fought his fight, the hours were full of Bookie and Bookie’s last moments on that very cot. He would not, he could not break faith. He had not yet fathomed what the wise old man had meant when he had pleaded with him to give all. But, somehow, he would learn Miriam would help him.
Eagle Wing returned at dawn with his mother, but Hugh, long ago disillusioned as to the possibilities for cleanliness in a blanket Indian, dared not install the old woman as nurse. After she was satisfied that her man was well cared for, he sent her over to Fred’s camp by the river, with the promise that she could see Red Wolf whenever she wished.
The old chief scarcely had spoken during the night. But when his squaw had gone, he astonished Hugh by opening his eyes and saying to Eagle Wing:
“You take the gray stallion?”
“No,” said Eagle Wing “Pink got ’em in his stable.”
“No has got,” grunted Red Wolf. “He say Hughie got. You go tell Pink you got ’em.”
“But no have got ’em,” protested Eagle Wing, rising nevertheless to obey.
“That’s all right,” agreed Red Wolf. “But you save Hughie trouble.”
“No!” said Hugh, decidedly. “Pink has done all the harm to me he can. But he will make you two a lot of trouble if he thinks you have that stallion. Let it alone, Red Wolf.”
The old man sighed. “You’re a heap big fool, Hughie!” But his tone was that of acquiescence and affection, and shortly he was asleep.
Hugh’s conference with Mrs. Ellis was but of few moments’ duration. He was at breakfast in the tiny Chinese restaurant beyond the barber shop when the stout chairman bore down upon him. She took a chair opposite him, gamely ordered a cup of the vile coffee and said, “How’s Red Wolf?”
“Fair. He’ll be crawling around in a week. The recuperative power of these Indians is marvelous.”
“And what’s the final answer?”
Lines of pain suddenly appeared in Hugh’s face. “Mrs. Ellis, I don’t want to go into politics. I am a man with a single ambition, whose chosen vocation satisfies that ambition to its depths. I believe that I can save the Old Sioux Tract without going into politics, and I’m going to try. I like you and I’d like to help you about the Children’s Code. In fact, I will help you in every way I can, after I’ve done this other job. Won’t that satisfy you?”
Mrs. Ellis sipped the mess of coffee Ah Lang placed before her almost to its dregs before she replied:
“And I like you, Mr. Stewart. I like you so much that I hate to see you break your heart against that gang at Cheyenne. But I believe it’s best that you do so. And when they have finished with you, you send for me to come down to The Lariat to look at your spring line of books. And I’ll come. In the meantime, I’m going to do one thing for you. I’m going to get my brother to hold up the granting of the charter for a month or so. He’s on the Commission. I can’t get more than that out of him, though.”
Hugh looked at Mrs. Ellis keenly. She must have been very beautiful as a girl. Her face now was a little aggressive, but still it was handsome. She wore her masses of white hair anyhow on the back of her head. She wore a very smart black toque at a very unbecoming angle and the cut of her suit was all wrong for her stout figure. But Hugh did not know this. He liked her and smiled as he said:
“I believe you’ve got a good many things up your sleeve. And I’m not at all sure but what you’re as clever a politician as Mrs. Morgan.”
“I’ll never be as successful as she, because I’m not as unscrupulous as she is,” replied Mrs. Ellis.
“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t know anything about politics, but I’d say there wasn’t any business in life from busting broncos to making governors where a perfectly lucid honesty wouldn’t win in the end.”
“We’ll see if that’s true!” Mrs. Ellis returned his smile as she rose, offering him her hand. “I’m taking the nine o’clock Limited. Don’t rise. You aren’t half through your breakfast. Good-by, my boy. I wish you were happier.”
“I’m happier than I deserve to be at that! Good-by, Mrs. Ellis, and thank you.”
He had a sudden sinking of his heart as she hurried past the restaurant window. He had made a friend, only to put her from him. Then he wondered, aimlessly enough, how his tall, gray-eyed mother would have looked with white hair, and finished his breakfast on that contemplation.