Nat-u-ritch, with slow impassiveness, obeyed. She came from the house with hardly a glance at the stranger. She had changed but little; still slender and childish in form, motherhood and the past five years seemed to have left no mark upon her save, perhaps, for a more marked wistfulness of expression, especially when she looked at Jim and the boy. Her life was complete; physical deprivations or disappointments mattered little to her. Taught by Jim the ways of civilization, she tried to apply them to her surroundings, but it seemed to her a waste of the golden hours when she might be following her master instead across the plains or playing with her child. It was almost piteous to see how she controlled the instincts of her savage desire for freedom, and in her primitive way cared for the little cabin so as to please Jim.
Malcolm Petrie noticed at once the difference between Nat-u-ritch and the other Indian women whom he had seen during the past days, and was impressed by it.
Hal, at sight of his mother, quickly responded to her out-stretched hand.
"Nat-u-ritch, this is my te-guin—my friend," and Jim indicated Petrie. She inclined her head to the solicitor and said, "How?" As her eyes met Petrie\'s shrewd glance an instinctive apprehension caused her to tighten her arm about the child.
"Te-guin—big chief from out yonder—over the big water," Jim explained, but her unflinching gaze made it difficult for him to go on. He whispered to Petrie: "I don\'t know how to do it—-I don\'t know how to do it." Then he summoned all his courage, and with a forced smile said, pleasantly, as though humoring a child, "Nat-u-ritch, te-guin—big chief—come for little Hal."
She flung her arms about the sturdy little fellow, and a sharp exclamation was her only answer.
"Pretty soon make Hal big chief. Touge wayno—te-guin—good friend—take Hal long way off." A shudder ran through her. She began to grasp what the stranger\'s presence meant. He was of her boy\'s father\'s race, and for too long she had forgotten, what in the beginning had so often troubled her, that Jim would some day want to return to his own people. This had been her great fear, but his kindness all these years had lulled to rest that ache of the early days.
While these thoughts tormented her, she could hear Jim still explaining. "Long trail, heap long trail—over mountains, heap big mountains—Washington."
She slipped the child to the other side of her, that he might be farther away from the silent man who was bringing this woe to her, and her clutch grew tighter at the word "Washington." Jim explained to Petrie, "Washington means a lot to them." Then he came closer to Nat-u-ritch as he said, impressively:
"Big Father—send for little Hal. Say make him big chief—te-guin cross wide water—heap big boat—Hal see the rising sun. Pretty soon, some day, Hal heap wickyup—heap cattle—heap ponies—pretty soon heap big chief."
He waited the result of his words. He thought to appeal to her pride and ambition for the boy; but she only shook her head and gazed at him like an affrighted animal whose young is about to be torn from her.
Jim\'s fortitude began to desert him. "She doesn\'t understand. She can\'t—she can\'t," he almost moaned, as he turned away, while his clinched hands and the stiffening of his body showed the strain that was proving almost too great for him. "This is a hard business, Mr. Petrie," and Petrie could feel the vibrant emotion of these two victims of fate. As Jim moved a step away, Nat-u-ritch, still holding the boy, started forward and caught his arm as though to hold him back. Her mind was in a daze—she could utter no word; but Jim understood the pantomime.
"She thinks I\'m going, too," he said, and hastened to explain away her anxiety.
"No, Nat-u-ritch—Jim stay here always with you." Something of her agony was relieved and she loosed her hold on him. "Always with you," Jim repeated tenderly, looking into the tragic eyes as she eagerly followed every word. "Only little Hal."
As Nat-u-ritch fully grasped the meaning of the words, there broke from her lips the one English word "No!" which rang out on the evening air with a wild, dry sob of protest. It was the anguished cry of universal motherhood. The Indian woman sank on her knees, with her arms about the boy, her face buried on his breast. The crouching figure betrayed the old savage instinct of the female covering her young from the ruthless hand that would snatch it from her.
This time both men turned away. A purple gray light fell over the yard, the last traces of the sun\'s glory disappeared, and the air grew chilly.
Jim was the first to speak. Kindly, but as a master who must have obedience, he said; "Nat-u-ritch, I have taken counsel. My heart is good. My word is wise. I have spoken. Go." He gently disengaged the boy from her grasp. Nat-u-ritch looked long into Jim\'s eyes, and as she met his immovable determination, without a struggle, and with a calmness terrible to see, she released the child.
Jim lifted her to her feet. With her big, stricken eyes still fastened on him, she stood silent for a moment; then the bent, half-stumbling figure slunk past him. Jim dared not watch Nat-u-ritch, though he could hear her heavy breathing and the flapping of her beaded robe against the ground as she crossed to the stable. Once Petrie saw her sway, but she had steadied herself before he could reach her. As she reached the corral she stopped, and, turning, flung out her arms in appeal to Jim; but his back was towards her, the child hidden in his embrace. Then he heard the quick patter of her feet as she fled out into the night—away from these aliens, back to the hills to abandon herself to her grief.
As Jim rose he resolved that when the boy had gone he would try to make her understand that this sacrifice was forced upon them, that for the child\'s sake they must both bear it, and in the future she should receive even greater care and comfort from him.
"This is harder on her than on me, Petrie," he said, as he lifted Hal up on the bench and knelt beside him.
"Where is she going?" Petrie asked, as he walked towards the corral behind which she had disappeared.
"Out into the hills to fight it out alone. Mr. Petrie, this is going to be hard on the boy, too. He is a shy little prairie bird and has been a great pet."
He was thinking that perhaps he could arrange to let Nat-u-ritch have the boy a little longer and keep Petrie with them awhile. "It would be rough on him to leave us all so suddenly and go away with a perfect stranger. Can\'t you stay here a week or two to let him get used to you?" Jim proposed. "By that tim............