The Greeley tribune., 1905-11-16

reh Rodney was II man of few wor1s.
IL had become his unpleasant duty to
ac', ana to act quickly. lie suatched
judith from her mother and took her
INTO the house, and he returned with
ms Winchester, which was not loaded.
TO Singing Stream.
Aou got to 60 he said, and, lev
eling the Winchester, he repeated inc
command. Singing Stream looked at
MN with the dumb wonder of a forest
!niiG. Il was good squaw to YOU"
she said and did not even curse him.
Ana, turning, she ran toward the foot
hiIis with all the length of purple cal
leo trailing
Now, Mrs. Rodney, nee Tumlin. was
but human, and her cup of happiness
US the wife of squaw man was not
the brimminS beaker she had anticl.
pated. The expulsion of her predeces-
sor at such Il time to make room for
her own home coming was, it seemed,
open to criticism. "The neighborhood"
ut included perhaps five families liv-
ing i'll radius of as many hundred
niles felt that the Tumlins had es-
tablished a bad precedent. A souaw
man driving out brown wife to make
room for white is not a heroic figure.
1t had been done before, but it would
not hand down well in the traditions
OF the settling of this great country.
Irespnss Of law and order, with their
| swift, red handed reckoning, was but
a move of the great game of coloniza-
uon, but to shove out brown woman
for a white was mean move. Few
stopped at the RodneyS' ranch, though
it marked the first break in the journey
from town to the gold mining country
Rodney had fallen from his estate as
a pioneer; bis political opinions We're
| unsought in the conclaves that sat
| and spat at the stove when business
brought them to the joint saloon and
| poStotfice. The women dealt with the
question more openly, scorning fem
mime subtlety mt this pass US mad
equate ammunition. When they met
Mrs. Rodney they pulled aside their
skirts and glared This outrage
against woman it was woman's work
| tc setCle.
The Tumlin family did not remain
long enough in the Black Hills country
to witness Sally's failure as the wife OF
a pioneer. The restlessness OF the
settler" if the paradox be permissi-
bic, was in the marrow of their bones
The makeshifts of the wagon, the ud
ventures Of the road, We're the only
home they craved. The spring after
Sally's marriage they set forth for
California, The year following for New
Mexico, and still sighed for new worlds
to visit
Rodney's squaw wife was taken in
by some neighbors, good folk who We're
conversant with all phases of the ro-
nance They stood by her in her hour
| of trial and afterward continued to
keep her as Il servant. Her son jim
grew up with their own children.
When he was four years of age his
mother, Singing Stream, died, and Sal
ly persuaded her husband to take
young Jim into their own home partly
rs a sop to neighborly criticism, partly
as salve to her own conscience. Sal
ly had children of her own and looked
at things differently now from the time
when she fought the squaw for Rod
ney's favor.
.Iim's foster parents were, in truth,
glad to part with him. From his earli-
est babyhood he had been known as
limb of Satan" He was an 1shmael
by every instinct of his being. And
Mrs. Warren Rodney, nee Tumlin, felt
that in dealing with HIM in her capac'
ity of stepmother she daily expiated
any offense that she might have done
to his mother.
Sally grew slatternly with increasing
maternity. She spent her time IN Il
rocking chair, dipping snuff-a consola
ton imported from her former home
and lamenting the bad marriage she
had made Rodney ascribed his Ill for
tune to unjust neighborly criticism. lie
farmed a little, he raised little stock
and he drank a great deal of whisky
Sally hated the Black Hills country. Shs
felt that 1t knew too much about her
The neighbOrly inquisition had fallen
like blight on the family fortunes
A vague migratory impulse was on her
/
gin all over again. BY dint of persist
ent nagging she persuaded her nus
band to move to Wyoming, then In the
golden age Of the cattle industry.
Judith was ten years old when her
father, his wife and their children
moved from Dakota-they were not 50
particular about North and South Da-
l,ota in those dnys-to take up claim
ON Sweetwater. Wyoming. Judith
gave scant promise of the. beauty
that in LATER life became at cnce her
dover and her misfortune, that Whlci
was as likely to bring wretchedness as
happiness. In Wyoming she was ues
tined to find an old friend, Mrs. AtRlhs
who, as the bride of the young heu
tenant, had been present at the mar
riage of Sally Tumlin ana warren