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Read Ebook: Members of the Family by Wister Owen Dunn Harvey Illustrator
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Ebook has 1338 lines and 61975 words, and 27 pages
"Soldiers?"
"Soldiers."
"Guess I know why they're here."
"Oh, yes," sighed the doctor. "You know. Few come here for any other reason." The doctor held views about how a military post should be regulated, which popular sentiment will never share. "Can I do anything for you?" he inquired.
"If I could have some newspapers?" said Scipio.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" said the doctor. After that he saw to it that Scipio had them liberally.
With newspapers the patient sat surrounded deep, when the Virginian, passing north on his way to Billings, looked in for a moment to give his friend the good word. That is what he came for, but what he said was:--
"So he has got false teeth?"
Scipio, hearing the voice at the door, looked over the top of his paper at the visitor.
"Yes," he replied, precisely as if the visitor had never been out of the room.
"What d' y'u know?" inquired the Virginian.
"Nothing; what do you?"
"Nothing."
After all, such brief greetings cover the ground.
"Better sit down," suggested Scipio.
The Virginian sat, and took up a paper. Thus for a little while they both read in silence.
"Did y'u stop at the Agency as y'u came along?" asked Scipio, not looking up from his paper.
"No."
There was silence again as they continued reading. The Virginian, just come from Sunk Creek, had seen no newspapers as recent as these. When two friends on meeting after absence can sit together for half an hour without a word passing between them, it is proof that they really enjoy each other's company. The gentle air came in the window, bringing the tonic odor of the sage-brush. Outside the window stretched a yellow world to distant golden hills. The talkative voice of a magpie somewhere near at hand was the only sound.
"Nothing in the newspapers in particular," said Scipio, finally.
"You expaictin' something particular?" the Virginian asked.
"Yes."
"Mind sayin' what it is?"
"Wish I knew what it is."
"Always Horacles?"
"Always him--and Uncle. I'd like to spot Uncle."
Mess call sounded from the parade ground. It recalled the flight of time to the Virginian.
"When you get back from Billings," said Scipio, "you're liable to find me up and around."
"Hope so. Maybe you'll be well enough to go with me to the ranch."
But when the Virginian returned, a great deal had happened all at once, as is the custom of events.
Scipio's vigorous convalescence brought him in the next few days to sitting about in the open air, and then enlarged his freedom to a crutch. He hobbled hither and yon, paying visits, many of them to the doctor. The doctor it was, and no newspaper, who gave to Scipio the first grain of that "something particular" which he had been daily seeking and never found. He mentioned a new building that was being put up rather far away down in the corner of the reservation. The rumor in the air was that it had something to do with the Quartermaster's department. The odd thing was that the Quartermaster himself had heard nothing about it. The Agent up at the Agency store considered this extremely odd. But a profound absence of further explanations seemed to prevail. What possible need for a building was there at that inconvenient, isolated spot?
Scipio slapped his leg. "I guess what y'u call my romance is about to start."
"Well," the doctor admitted, "it may be. Curious things are done upon Indian reservations. Our management of them may be likened to putting the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments into a bag and crushing them to powder. Let our statesmen at Washington get their hands on an Indian reservation, and not even honor among thieves remains."
"Say, doc," said Scipio, "when d' y'u guess I can get off?"
"Don't be in too much of a hurry," the doctor cautioned him. "If you go to Sunk Creek--"
"Sunk Creek! I only want to go to the Agency."
"Oh, well, you could do that to-day--but don't you want to see the entertainment? Conjuring tricks are promised."
"I want to see Horacles."
"But he is the entertainment. Supper comes after he's through."
Scipio stayed. He was not repaid, he thought. "A poor show," was his comment as he went to bed. He came later to be very glad indeed that he had gone to that entertainment.
"Smell anything you don't like?" inquired the clerk, tartly--and unwisely.
"Nothin' except you, Horacles," was the perfectly amiable rejoinder.--"It's good," Scipio then confessed, "to be smellin' buckskin and leather and groceries instead of ether and iodoform."
"Guess you were pretty sick," observed the clerk, with relish.
"Yes. Oh, yes. I was pretty sick. That's right. Yes." Scipio had continued through these slowly drawled remarks to look at the ceiling. Then his glance dropped to the level of Horacles, and keenly fixed that unconscious youth's plump little form, pink little face, and mean little mustache. Behind one ear stuck a pen, behind the other a pencil, as the assistant clerk was arranging some tins of Arbuckle's Arioso coffee. Then Scipio took aim and fired: "So you're going to quit your job?"
Horacles whirled round. "Who says so?"
The chance shot--if there ever is such a thing, if such shots are not always the result of visions and perceptions which lie beyond our present knowledge--this chance shot had hit.
"First I've heard of it," then said Horacles sulkily. "Guess you're delirious still." He returned to his coffee, and life grew more interesting than ever to Scipio.
Instead of trickling back, health began to rush back into his long imprisoned body, and though he could not fully use it yet, and though if he hobbled a hundred yards he was compelled to rest it, his wiry mind knew no fatigue. How athletic his brains were was easily perceived by the Indian Agent. The convalescent would hobble over to the store after breakfast and hail the assistant clerk at once. "Morning, Horacles," he would begin; "how's Uncle?"--"Oh, when are you going to give us a new joke?" the worried Horacles would retort.--"Just as soon as you give us a new Uncle, Horacles. Or any other relation to make us feel proud we know you. What did his letter last night say?" The second or third time this had been asked still found Horacles with no better repartee than angry silence. "Didn't he send me his love?" Scipio then said; and still the hapless Horacles said nothing. "Well, y'u give him mine when you write him this afternoon."--"I ain't writing this afternoon," snapped the clerk.--"You're not! Why, I thought you wrote each other every day!" This was so near the truth that Horacles flared out: "I'd be ashamed if I'd nothing better to do than spy on other people's mails."
Thus by dinner-time generally an audience would be gathered round Scipio where he sat with his legs on the chair, and Horacles over his ledger would be furiously muttering that "Some day they would all see."
Horacles asked for a couple of days' holiday, and got it. He wished to hunt, he said. But the Agent happened to find that he had been to the railroad about some freight. This he mentioned to Scipio. "I don't know what he's up to," he said. He had found that worrying Horacles was merely one of the things that Scipio's brains were good for; Scipio had advised him prudently about a sale of beeves, and had introduced a simple contrivance for luring to the store the customers whom Horacles failed to attract. It was merely a free lunch counter,--cheese and crackers every day, and deviled ham on pay-day,--but it put up the daily receipts.
And next, one evening after the mail was in, Scipio, sitting alone in the front of the store, saw the Agent, sitting alone in the back of the store, spring suddenly from his chair, crush a newspaper into his pocket, and stride out to his house. At breakfast the Agent spoke thus to Scipio:--
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