to point out how she could not possibly get away from
him and the troops until they were across the border,
and that once there, it lay with him to turn her over to
the authorities or to set her free. " You can take your
choice, of course. I give you my word and I think
you are quite clever enough to believe me that if you
do not tell me what I want to know about Stone, I will
land you where I've landed your husband ; and that if
you do, you shall go free after I've done with you.
Now I can wait until you decide to answer," and he
rolled over on his back, put his arms under his head,
and gazed up at the jewel-blue patch of sky.

There was a long pause. A hawk lighted on a point
of rock and twinkled its little eyes at them. Two or
three squirrels whisked in and out. Once a scout came
by and stood looking at them, then went on, noiselessly,
up the mountain side.

" What do you want to know for ? " asked the woman,
at length.



THE HERITAGE OP UNREST 241

He repeated that he was not there to be questioned,
and showed her that he meant it by silence.

Presently she began again. " Well, he wasn't in it
at all. Stone wasn't."

This was not what Cairness wanted either. He per-
sisted in the silence. A prolonged silence will some-
times have much the same effect as solitary confinement.
It will force speech against the speaker's own will.

Mrs. Lawton gritted her teeth at him as though she
would have rejoiced greatly to have had his neck be-
tween them. By and by she started once more.
" Bill jest told him about it like a goldarned fool."

" That," said Cairness, cheerfully, " is more like it.
Go on."

"That's all."

" Begging your pardon, it's not all."

" What the devil do you want to know, then ? "

He considered. " Let me see. For instance, when
did Lawton tell him, and why, and exactly what ? "

" You don't say ! " she mocked. " You want the
earth and some sun and moon and stars, don't you,
though ? Well, then, Bill told him about a week after-
ward. And he told him because Stone had another
hold on him (it ain't any of your business what that
was, I reckon), and bullied it out of him (Bill ain't got
any more backbone than a rattler), and promised to
lend him money to set up for hisself on the Circle K
Ranch. Want to know anything else ? " she sneered.

" Several things, thanks. You haven't told me yet
what version of it your husband gave to Stone." Cair-



242 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

ness was a little anxious. It was succeed or fail right
here.

" Told him the truth, more idjit he."

"I didn't ask you that," he reminded her calmly.
"Tasked what he told."

" Say ! " she apostrophized.

"Yes?"

" You're English, I reckon, ain't you ? "

" Yes, and you don't like the English, I know that
perfectly. "

" You're right, I don't. You're as thick-headed as all
the rest of them."

" Thanks. But you started out to tell me what
Lawton told Stone."

" He told him the truth, I tell you : that when we
heard the Apaches were coming, we lit out and drove
out the stock from the corrals. I don't recollect his
words."

So that was it ! It took all the self-command that
thirty-five varied years had taught him not to rise up
and knock her head against the sharp rocks. But he
lay quite still, and presently he said : " That is near
enough for my purposes, thank you. But I would be
interested to know, if you don't mind, what you had
against a helpless woman and those two poor little
babies. I wouldn't have supposed that a woman lived
who could have been such a fiend as all that."

The woman launched off into a torrent of vitupera-
tion and vile language that surprised even Cairness*
whose ears were well seasoned.



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 243

" Shut up ! " he commanded, jumping to his feet.
"You killed her and you ought to be burned at the
stake for it, but you shall not talk about her like that,
you devilish old crone."

She glared at him, but she stopped short neverthe-
less, and, flinging down the stone she had been holding,
stood up also. "All right, then. You've done with
me, I reckon. Now suppose you let me go back to
the camp."

He turned and walked beside her. "Don't you
believe I know all that I want to. I've only just
begun. So that scoundrel knew the whole murderous
story, and went on writing lies in his papers and cov-
ering you, when you ought to have been hung to the
nearest tree, did he ? and for the excellent reason
that he wanted to make use of your husband ! I
worked on the Circle K Ranch and on that other one
over in New Mexico, which is supposed to be Lawton's,
and it didn't take me long to find out that Stone was
the real boss."

" He's got Bill right under his thumb," she sneered
at her weak spouse.

They clambered up the mountain side, back to the
camp, and Cairness escorted her to the tepee in
silence. Then he left her. " Don't try to run away
again," he advised. "You can't get far." He started
off and turned back. " Speaking of running away,
where's the Greaser you lit out with ? "

She replied, with still more violent relapse into
foul-tongued abuse, that he had gone off with a woman



244 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

of his own people. "Got me down into this hell of
a country and took every quartillo I had and then
skedaddled."

Cairness smiled. There was, it appeared, a small
supply of poetic justice still left in the scheme of things
to be meted out. " And then the Apache came down
and bore you off like a helpless lamb," he said. " If
I'd been the Apache I'd have made it several sorts of
Hades for you, but I'd have scalped you afterward.
You'd corrupt even a Chiricahua squaw. However,
I'm glad you lived until I got you." And he left her.

But he kept a close watch upon her then and during
all the hard, tedious march back to the States, when
the troops and the scouts had to drag their steps to
meet the strength of the women and children ; when
the rations gave out because there were some four hun-
dred Indians to be provided for, when the command
ate mescal root, digging it up from the ground and
baking it ; and when the presence of a horde of filthy
savages made the White-man suffer many things not to
be put in print.

But they were returning victorious. The Chiri-
cahuas were subdued. The hazard had turned well.
There would be peace ; the San Carlos Agency, breed-
ing-grounds of all ills, would be turned over to military
supervision. The general who had succeeded if he
had failed it would have been such a very different
story would have power to give his promise to the
Apaches and to see that it was kept. The experiment
of honesty and of giving the devil his due would have a



THE HERITAGE OP UNREST 245

fair trial. The voices that had cried loudest abuse
after the quiet soldier who, undisturbed, went so
calmly on his way, doing the thing which seemed to
him right, were silenced ; and the soldier himself came
back into his own land, crossing the border with his
herds and his tribes behind him. There was no flour-
ish of trumpets ; no couriers were sent in advance
to herald that the all but impossible had been accom-
plished.

On a fine Sunday morning in June the triumphant
general rode into a supply camp twelve miles north of
the line, and spoke to the officer in command. " Nice
morning, Colonel," he said. And then his quick eyes
spied the most desirable thing in all the camp. It was
a tin wash basin set on a potato box. The triumphant
general dismounted, and washed his face.



XX

THERE was peace and harmony in the home of the
Reverend Taylor. An air of neatness and prosperity
was about his four-room adobe house. The mocking-
bird that hung in a willow cage against the white wall,
by the door, whistled sweet mimicry of the cheep of
the little chickens in the back yard, and hopped to and
fro and up and down on his perches, pecking at the
red chili between the bars. From the corner of his
eyes he could peek into the window, and it was bright
with potted geraniums, white as the wall, or red as the
chili, or pink as the little crumpled palm that patted
against the glass to him.

He whistled more cheerily yet when he saw that
small hand. He was a tame mocking-bird, and he had
learned to eat dead flies from it. That was one of
the greatest treats of his highly satisfactory life. The
hand left the window and presently waved from the
doorway.

The Reverend Taylor stood there with his son in his
arms. The mocking-bird trilled out a laugh to the
evening air. It was irresistible, so droll that even
a bird must know it, the likeness between the little
father and the little son. There was the same big
head and the big ears and the big eyes and the body

246



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 247

that was too small for them all, a little, thin body,
active and quivering with energy. There were the
very same wrinkles about the baby's lids, crinkles of
good humor and kindly tolerance, and the very same
tufts of hair running the wrong way and sticking out
at the temples.

The tufts were fuzzy yellow instead of gray, and the
miniature face had not yet grown tanned and hard
with the wind and the sun, but those were mere de-
tails. The general effect was perfect. There was no
mistaking that the lively fraction of humanity in the
Reverend Taylor's arms was the little Reverend.
That was the only name he went by, though he had
been christened properly on the day he was six months
old, Joshua for his father and Randolph for his mother,
in memory of Virginia, and her own long maidenhood.
She was herself a Randolph, and she wanted the fact
perpetuated. But in Tombstone, Joshua Randolph
Taylor was simply the little Reverend.

The little Reverend was the first thing on earth to
his father. For the wife had made that step in ad-
vance, which is yet a step in descent in a woman's life,
when she becomes to her husband less herself than the
mother of his child.

The Reverend Taylor grabbed at a fly and caught
it in his palm. He had become very expert at this,
to his wife's admiration and his son's keen delight. It
was because the little Reverend liked to see him do it,
and derived so much elfish enjoyment from the trick,
that he had perfected himself in it. He gave the



248 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

crushed fly to the baby, and held him up to feed the
bird. The bird put its head through the bars and
pecked with its whiskered bill, and the little Reverend
gurgled joyfully, his small face wrinkling up in a
way which was really not pretty, but which his father
thought the most engaging expression in the world.

The puppy which had been born the same day as the
little Reverend, a beast half coyote, half shepherd, and
wholly hideous, came and sat itself down beside them
on the sill, looked up with its tongue hanging out to
one side, and smiled widely. The beaming good nature
of the two Reverends was infectious. The baby squealed
gleefully, and kicked until it was set down on the door-
step to pat the dog.

Presently the nurse came, a big, fat Mexican woman,
with all her people's love of children showing on her
moon face as she put out her arms. She had been with
the Taylors since before the baby's birth, and she had
more of its affection than the mother.

The little Reverend understood only Spanish, and his
few words, pronounced with a precision altogether in
keeping with his appearance, were Spanish ones. The
old nurse murmured softly, as she took him up, " Quieres
leche hombrecito, quieres cenar ? El chuchu tiene hambre
tambien. Vamos d ver mamd."

The little Reverend was not to be blandished. He
was willing to go because it was his supper time and
he knew it, but the big-eyed look of understanding he
turned up to the gentle, fat face said plainly enough that
he was too wise a creature to be wheedled. He sub-



THE HERITAGE OP UNREST 249

mitted to be carried in, but lie cast a regretful glance
at the " chuchu," which sat still in the doorway, and
at his father, who was watching the line of flying ants
making their way, a stream of red bodies and sizzing
white wings, out of the window and across the street.

They had been doing that for three days. They
came down the chimney, made across the floor in a line
that never changed direction, nor straggled, nor les-
sened, up the wall and out a crack in the window.
They did no harm, but followed blindly on in the path
the first one had taken. And the minister had said
they should not be smoked back or thwarted.

The little Reverend had been much interested in them
also. He had sat for several hours sucking an empty
spool, and observing them narrowly, in perfect silence.
His father had great hopes of him as a naturalist.

Finally the minister raised his eyes and looked down
the street. It was almost empty, save for two men in
high-heeled top boots and sombreros who sat in chairs
tilted back against the post-office wall, meditating in
mutual silence. The only sounds were the rattling of
dishes over in his mother-in-law's restaurant across the
street, and the sleepy cheeping of the little chickens
in his own back yard, as they cuddled under their
mother's wing.

The Reverend Taylor was about to go to the coops
and close them for the night, when he saw a man and
a woman on horseback coming up the street. The
woman was bending forward and swaying in her sad-
dle. He stood still and watched. The red sunset



250 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

blaze was in his face so that he could not see plainly
until they were quite near. Then he knew that it was
Cairness and yes, beyond a doubt Bill Lawton's
runaway wife.

They halted in front of him, and the woman swayed
again, so much that he ran to her side. But she righted
herself fiercely. Cairness was dismounted and was
beside her, too, in an instant. He lifted her from the
horse, pulled her down, more or less ; she was much too
ungainly to handle with any grace.

"May I take her in ?" he said, nodding toward the
open door.

"Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might
have been men who would have remembered that Mrs.
Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town,
and who would in the names of their own wives have
refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes.
But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as
hesitate.

Cairness put his arm around the big angular shoul-
ders and helped her into the sitting room. She dropped
down upon the sofa, and sat there, her head hanging,
but in sullenness, not humility.

Mrs. Taylor came to the dining-room door and looked
in. " Can I do anything ? " she asked.

" Come in," said her husband. He was pouring out
a drink of whiskey.

She came and stood watching, asking no questions,
while the woman on the sofa gulped down the raw
whiskey and gave back the glass.



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 251

Cairness had gone out to hitch the horses. When he
came in he spoke to Mrs. Lawton, as one possessed of
authority. He told her to lie down if she wanted to.
" With your leave, Mrs. Taylor ? " he added. Mrs.
Taylor was already beside her, fussing kindly and
being met with scant courtesy.

Cairness took the Reverend Taylor to the door.
" You know that is Bill Lawton's wife ? " he said.

Taylor nodded.

" The one who sloped with the Greaser ? "

The parson nodded again.

" Do you object to taking her into your house for a
short time ? "

The Reverend Taylor did not object.

" And your wife ? "

" She will shrink, I guess, at first," he admitted.
" Women who ain't seen much of life kind of think
they ought to draw aside their skirts, and all that.
They were taught copy-book morals about touching
pitch, I reckon," he was wise concerning women now
" and it takes a good deal of hard experience to
teach them that it ain't so. But she'll take my word
for it."

" She is ill, you see ? "

The parson had seen.

" She may be ill some time. Would it be asking too
much of you to look after her ? " The bachelor showed
in that.

Taylor realized from the Benedict's greater knowl-
edge that it was asking a great deal, but still not



252 THE HERITAGE OP UNREST

too much. He assured Cairness that she should be
cared for.

" She was a captive among the Chiricahuas up in the
Sierra Madre. She's had a hard time of it. That and
the return march have been too much for her."

The parson expressed pity and felt it, which is
more.

" Yes," Cairness said, " of course it's hard luck, but
she's deserved it all, and more too. You may as well
know the whole thing now. It's only fair. She and
her husband were the cause of the Kirby massacre.
Drove off the stock from the corrals and left them no
escape."

His teeth set. The little man gasped audibly.
" Good God ! " he said, " I " he stopped.

" I rather thought that might be too much for even
you," said Cairness.

" No, no ; it's a good deal, but it ain't too much.
Not that it could be more, very well," he added, and
he glanced furtively at the woman within, who had
stretched out on the lounge with her face to the wall.
Mrs. Taylor was fanning her.

" You will still keep her then ? " Cairness wished to
know.

He would still keep her, yes. But he did not see
that it would be in the least necessary to tell his wife
the whole of the woman's iniquity. It took quite all
his courage, after they had gotten her safely in bed, to
remind her that this was the same woman who had gone
off with the Mexican.



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 253

Mrs. Taylor folded her hands in her lap, and simply
looked at him.

" Well ? " said he, questioningly, setting his mouth. It
answered to the duellist's " On guard ! " She had seen
him set his mouth before, and she knew that it meant
that he was not to be opposed. Nevertheless there was
a principle involved now. It must be fought for. And
it would be the first fight of their marriage, too. As he
had told Cairness once, she was very amiable.

" Well," she answered, " I think you have done an
unspeakable thing, that is all."

" Such as "

"To have brought an abandoned woman into our
home."

"If her presence blackens the walls, we will have
them whitewashed."

But she was not to be turned off with levity. It
was a serious matter, involving consequences of the
sternest sort. Mrs. Taylor was of the class of minds
which holds that just such laxities as this strike at the
root of society. " It is not a joke, Joshua. She pollutes
our home."

" Are you afraid she will contaminate me ? " he
asked. He was peering at her over the top of a news-
paper.

She denied the idea emphatically.

" Baby, then ? "

Equally absurd.

" Or the nurse ? "

It was too foolish to answer.



254 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

" Then," said the Reverend Taylor, laying down the
paper, "you must be scared for yourself."

" Never ! " she declared ; it was merely because she
could not breathe the same air with that creature.

" I wonder, my dear, what sort of air you breathed in
your mother's restaurant at meal times ? "

Mrs. Taylor was silent. Her pop blue eyes shifted.

"Trouble is," he went on evenly, "trouble is, that,
like most women, you've been brought up to take copy-
book sentiments about touchin' pitch, and all that, lit-
eral. You don't stop to remember that to eat with
unwashen hands defileth not a man. If she can't do
you any harm spiritually, she certainly ain't got the
strength to do it physically. I can't say as I'd like to
have her about the place all the time unless she was
going to reform, and I don't take much stock in
change of heart, with her sort, because she wouldn't
be a pleasant companion, and it ain't well to counte-
nance vice. But while she's sick, and it will oblige
Cairness, she can have the shelter of my manta. You
think so too, now, don't you ? " he soothed.

But she was not sure that she thought so. She
wanted to know why the woman could not be sent to
the hotel, and he explained that Cairness wished a very
close watch kept on her until she was able to be up.
Curiosity got the better of outraged virtue then.
" Why ? " she asked, and leaned forward eagerly.

But the Reverend Taylor's lips set again, and he
shrugged his narrow shoulders. "I'm not certain
nyself," he said shortly.



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 255

An eminent student of the sex has somewhere said
that women are like monkeys, in that they are imita-
tive. The comparison goes further. There is a certain
inability in a monkey to follow out a train of thought,
or of action, to its conclusion, which is shared by the
major part of womankind. It is a feminine character-
istic to spend life and much energy on side issues. The
lady forgot almost all about her original premise. She
wished especially to know that which no power upon
earth would induce her lord to tell.

He took up his paper again. " He ain't told me the
whole thing yet," he said.

She wished to hear as much as he had confided.

The Reverend Taylor shook his head. " I may tell
you sometime, but not now. In the meanwhile I'm
sure you think we had better keep Mrs. Lawton here,
don't you now ? "

She did not. She would as lief touch a toad.

"Ain't it funny how narrow-minded some good
women can be, though ? " he speculated, looking at her
very much as he was in the habit of looking at his speci-
mens. And he quoted slowly, as if he were saying over
the names and family characteristics of a specimen.

" ' And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing.' I wonder how many
women who have lived up to every word of the Deca-
logue have made it all profitless for want of a little
charity ? "

She asked, with the flat Virginia accent of the vowels,



256 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

if he would like her to go and embrace the woman, and
request her to make their home henceforth her own.

" No," he said, " I wouldn't like you to, and she
wouldn't want it, I reckon." He dropped back into his
usual speech. "She ain't any repentant sinner, by a
good deal. But as Cairness wants me to keep an eye on
her, and as she's sick, I wish you to let her stay in the
house, and not to make a rumpus about it. If you
really don't like to go near her, though," he finished,
" I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll take her in her food
myself, and nurse can clean out her room."

Perhaps the Scripture texts had taught their lesson,
or perhaps there yet lingered a hope of learning that
which her husband would not tell. Anyway, for the
week which the woman lay on the cot in the little
whitewashed chamber, which had no outlet save
through the sitting room where some one was always
on guard night and day, Mrs. Taylor served her with a
good enough grace.

When she was able to be up, Cairness went in to see
her. She was sitting on a chair, and looking sulkily
out of the window. " You got me jailed all right," she
sneered, " ain't you ? " and she motioned to the grating
of iron.

" You can go whenever you like now," Cairness told
her. She demanded to know where she was to go to,
and he answered that that was not his affair, but that
he would suggest a safe distance. " Somebody else
getting hold of the truth of the Kirby business mightn't
be so easy on you as I am."



THE HERITAGE OF TJNREST 257

" How do I know you're done with me yet ? " she
snapped.

He told her that she didn't know it, because he
was not ; and then he explained to her. " What I want
of you now is for you to come over with Taylor and
me to see Stone."

She jumped to her feet. "I ain't going to do it."

" Yes," he assured her unmoved, " you are. At
least you are going to do that, or go to jail."

" What do you want me to say to Stone ? "

"Nothing much," he told her. He and Taylor
could take care of the talking. Her part would be
just to stand by and pay attention.

" And after that ? "

" After that, as I said before, you may go."

He suggested that the sooner she felt that she could
go the better, as she had been a good deal of a burden
to the Taylors.

She laughed scornfully. " It ain't me that asked them
to take me in," she said ; " I'm as glad to go as they are
to have me." She wore a calico wrapper that Cairness
had bought for her, and other garments that had been
gathered together in the town. Now she put a battered
sombrero on her head, and told him she was ready.

He and the parson followed her out of the house.
She had not cared to say good-by to Mrs. Taylor, and
she glared at the little Reverend, who balanced him-
self on his uncertain small feet and clutched at a chair,
watching her with his precocious eyes and an expres-
sion combined of his mother's virtuous disapproval



258 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

and his father's contemplative scrutiny, the while the