Almost instantly the crowd became quiet. A curious sort of tenseness became apparent as Levine began to speak.

Lydia stared up at him. He looked very elegant to her in his frock coat and gray trousers. She was filled with pride at the thought of how close and dear he was to her. She wished that the folk about her realized that she and her shabby father were intimate with the hero of the evening.

The first part of the address interested Lydia very little. It concerned the possibility of a new Post Office for Lake City and made numerous excursions into the matter of free trade. It did not seem to Lydia that in spite of their attitude of tenseness, the people around her were much more interested than she.

Then of a sudden Levine launched his bolt.

"But after all," he said, "my friends, what is free trade or a new Post Office to you or me? Actually nothing, as far as our selfish and personal interests go. And who is not selfish, who is not personal in his attitude toward his community and his country? I frankly admit that I am. I suspect that you are.

"Ladies and gentlemen, twenty miles north of this old and highly civilized city, lies a tract fifty miles square of primitive forest, inhabited by savages. That tract of land is as beautiful as a dream of heaven. Virgin pines tower to the heavens. Little lakes lie hid like jewels on its bosoms. Its soil is black. Fur bearing animals frequent it now as they did a century ago.

"Friends, in this city of white men there is want and suffering for the necessities of life. Twenty miles to the north lies plenty for every needy inhabitant of the town, lies a bit of loam and heaven-kissing pines for each and all.

"But, you say, they belong to the Indians! Friends, they belong to a filthy, degenerate, lazy race of savages, who refuse to till the fields or cut the pines, who spend on whiskey the money allowed them by a benevolent government and live for the rest, like beasts of the field.

"Why, I ask you, should Indians be pampered and protected, while whites live only in the bitter air of competition?

"I am not mincing words to-night. I do not talk of taking the lands from the Indians by crooked methods. You all know the law. An Indian may not sell the lands allotted to him. I want you to send me to Congress to change that law. I want the Indian to be able to sell his acreage."

Levine stopped and bowed. Pandemonium broke loose in the Square. Clapping, hisses, cheers and cat-calls. Lydia clung to her father's arm while he began to struggle through the crowd.

"Well," he said, as they reached the outer edge of the Square and headed for the trolley, "the battle is on."

"But what will the Indians do, Daddy, if they sell their land?" asked Lydia.

"Do! Why just what John intimated. Get out and hustle for a living like the rest of us do. Why not?"

Why not indeed! "What did some of the people hiss for?" asked Lydia.

"Oh, there's a cheap bunch of sentimentalists in the town,—all of 'em, you'll notice, with good incomes,—who claim the Indians are like children, so we should take care of 'em like children. Then there's another bunch who make a fat living looting the Indians. They don't want the reservation broken up. I'm going to sit on the back seat of the car and smoke."

Lydia clambered into the seat beside her father. "Well—but—well, I suppose if Mr. Levine feels that way and you too, it's right. But they are kind of like children. Charlie Jackson's awful smart, but he's like a child too."

"I don't care what they're like," said Amos. "We've babied 'em long enough. Let 'em get out and hustle."

"Do you think Mr. Levine'll get elected?"

Amos shrugged his shoulders. "Never can tell. This is a Democratic town, but Levine is standing for something both Democrats and Republicans want. It'll be a pretty fight. May split the Democratic party."

This was the beginning of Lydia's reading of the newspapers. To her father's secret amusement, she found the main details of Levine's battle as interesting as a novel. Every evening when he got home to supper he found her poring over the two local papers and primed with questions for him. Up to this moment she had lived in a quiet world bounded by her school, the home, the bit of lake shore and wood with which she was intimate, and peopled by her father and her few friends.

With John Levine's speech, her horizon suddenly expanded to take in the city and the vague picture of the reservation to the north. She realized that the eyes of the whole community were focused on her dearest friend. Up on the quiet, shaded college campus—the newspapers told her—they spoke of him contemptuously. He was a cheap politician, full of unsound economic principles, with a history of dishonest land deals behind him. It would be a shame to the community to be represented by such a man. They said that his Democratic opponent, a lawyer who had been in Congress some five terms, was at least a gentleman whose career had been a clean and open book.

When these slurs reached Levine, he answered in a vitriolic speech in which he named the names of several members of the faculty who had profited through the Indian agent in quiet little sales of worthless goods to Indians.

The saloon element, Lydia learned, was against Levine. It wanted the reservation to stand. That the saloon element should be in harmony with them was galling to the college crowd, though the fact that their motives for agreement were utterly different was some solace.

The "fast crowd" were for John. Clubmen, politicians, real estate men were high in his praise. The farmers all were going to vote for him.

Lake City was always interested in the national election but this year, where the presidential candidates were mentioned once, Levine and his opponent were mentioned a hundred times. Ministers preached sermons on the campaign. The Ladies' Aid Society of the Methodist Church, the Needlework Guild of the Episcopalian, the Woman's Auxiliary of the Unitarian, hereditary enemies, combined forces to work for Levine, and the freeing of the poor Indian from bondage.



CHAPTER VIII

THE NOTE

"Each year I strew the ground with cones, yet no young pines grow up. This has been true only since the Indians went."—The Murmuring Pine.

Margery Marshall had entered High School this fall. She had returned from New York with a trousseau that a bride might have envied. She was growing tall, and her beauty already was remarkable. Her little head carried its great black braid proudly. The pallor of her skin was perfectly healthy—and even the Senior lads were seen to observe her with interest and appreciation.

The results of Lydia's summer dressmaking had not been bad. She had made herself several creditable shirtwaists and a neat little blue serge skirt. Her shoes were still shabby. Poor Lydia seemed somehow never to have decent shoes. But her hands and the back of her neck were clean; and her pile of Junior school books already had been paid for—by picking small fruit for Ma Norton during the summer and helping her to can it. She came back to school with zeal and less than her usual sense of shabbiness.

It was a day toward the first of October at the noon hour that Lydia met Kent and Charlie Jackson. She had finished her lunch, which she ate in the cloakroom, and bareheaded and coatless was walking up and down the sidewalk before the schoolhouse.

"Hello, Lyd! How's everything?" asked Kent. "I haven't seen you to talk to since last spring."

"Did you have a fine summer?" said Lydia.

"Aw, only part of it. Dad made me work till the middle of August, then Charlie and I camped up on the reservation."

"Shame he had to work, isn't it?" grinned Charlie. "Poor little Kent!"

The three laughed, for Kent now towered above Lydia a half head and was as brawny as Charlie.

"There comes Margery," said Lydia. "She hardly speaks to me now, she's been to New York."

"She is a peach," exclaimed Charlie, eying Margery in her natty little blue suit appraisingly.

"Some swell dame, huh?" commented Kent, his hands in his trousers' pockets, cap on the back of his head. "Hello, Marg! Whither and why?"

"Oh, how de do, Kent!" Margery approached languidly, including Lydia and Charlie in her nod.

"Got any paper dolls in your pocket, Miss Marshall?" inquired Charlie.

Margery tossed her head. "Oh, I gave up that sort of thing long ago!"

"Land sakes!" The young Indian chuckled.

"How do you like High School, Margery?" asked Lydia.

"Oh, it's well enough for a year or so! Of course Mama, I mean—Mother's going to send me to New York to finish."

"'Mother!' suffering cats!" moaned Kent. "Marg, you're getting so refined, I almost regret having pulled you out of the lake that time."

"You! Why Kent Marshall, I pulled her out myself!" exclaimed Lydia.

"And I saved both of you—and got licked for it," said Kent.

"I hope you all had a pleasant summer," observed Margery, twisting up the curls in front of her small ears. "Mother and I were in New York."

Kent, Lydia and Charlie exchanged glances.

"I had a pretty good summer," said Lydia. "I sewed and cooked and scrubbed and swam and once Adam, Dad, Mr. Levine and I walked clear round the lake, eighteen miles. Adam nearly died, he's so fat and bow-legged. He scolded all the way."

"I don't see how your father can let that Mr. Levine come to your house!" exclaimed Margery with sudden energy. "My father says he's a dangerous man."

"He's a crook!" said Charlie, stolidly and finally.

Lydia stamped her foot. "He's not and he's my friend!" she cried.

"You'd better not admit it!" Margery's voice was scornful. "Daddy says he's going to speak to your father about him."

"Your father'd better not go up against Levine too hard," said Kent, with a superior masculine air. "Just tell him I said so."

"You don't stick up for Levine, do you, Kent?" asked Charlie, indignantly.

"Why, no, but Dave Marshall's got no business to put his nose in the air over John Levine. I don't care if he is Margery's father. Everybody in town knows that he's as cruel as a wolf about mortgages and some of his money deals won't bear daylight."

"Don't you dare to say such things about my father," shrieked Margery.

"He was awful good to Dad and me about a money matter," protested Lydia.

"Aw, all of us men are good to you, Lyd," said Kent impatiently. "You're that kind. Being good to you don't make a man a saint. Look at Levine. He's got a lot of followers, but I'll bet you're the only person he's fond of."

"He's a crook," repeated Charlie, slowly. "If what he's trying to do goes through, my tribe'll be wanderers on the face of the earth. If I thought it would do any good, I'd kill him. But some other brute of a white would take his place. It's hopeless."

The three young whites looked at the Indian wonderingly. Their little spatting was as nothing, they realized, to the mature and tragic bitterness that Charlie expressed. A vague sense of a catastrophe, epic in character, that the Indian evidently saw clearly, but was beyond their comprehension, silenced them. The awkward pause was broken by the school bell.

Lydia had plenty to think of on her long walk home. Charlie's voice and words haunted her. What did it all mean? Why was he so resentful and so hopeless? She made up her mind that when she had the opportunity to ask him, she would. She sighed a little, as she thought of the comments of her mates on John Levine. Little by little she was realizing that she was the only person in the world that saw the gentle, tender side of the Republican candidate for Congress. The realization thrilled her, while it worried her. She had an idea that she ought to make him show the world the heart he showed to her. As she turned in at the gate and received Adam's greetings, she resolved to talk this matter over with Levine.

The opportunity to talk with Charlie came about simply enough. At recess one day a week or so later he asked her if she was going to the first Senior Hop of the year. Lydia gave him a clear look.

"Why do you ask me that? Just to embarrass me?" she said.

Charlie looked startled. "Lord knows I didn't mean anything," he exclaimed. "What're you so touchy about?"

Lydia's cheeks burned redder than usual. "I went to a party at Miss Towne's when I was a Freshman and I promised myself I'd never go to another."

"Why not!" Charlie's astonishment was genuine.

"Clothes," replied Lydia, briefly.

The Indian boy leaned against a desk and looked Lydia over through half-closed eyes. "You're an awful pretty girl, Lydia. Honest you are, and you've got more brain in a minute than any other girl in school'll have all her life."

Lydia blushed furiously. Then moved by Charlie's simplicity and obviously sincere liking, she came closer to him and said, "Then, Charlie, why hasn't any boy ever asked me to a party? Is it just clothes?"

Looking up at him with girlish wistfulness in the blue depths of her eyes, with the something tragic in the lines of her face that little Patience's death had written there irradicably, with poverty speaking from every fold of the blouse and skirt, yet with all the indescribable charm of girlish beauty at fifteen, Lydia was more appealing than Charlie could stand.

"Lydia, I'll take you to a party a week, if you'll go!" he cried.

"No! No! I couldn't go," she protested. "Answer my question—is it clothes?"

"No, only half clothes," answered Charlie, meeting her honestly. "The other half is you know too much. You know the fellows like a girl that giggles a lot and don't know as much as he does and that's a peachy dancer and that'll let him hold her hand and kiss her. And that's the honest to God truth, Lydia."

"Oh," she said. "Oh—" Then, "Well, I could giggle, all right. I can't dance very well because I've just picked up the steps from watching the girls teach each other in the cloakroom. Oh, well, I don't care! I've got Adam and I've got Mr. Levine."

"He's a nice one to have," sneered Charlie.

"Why do you hate him so, Charlie?" asked Lydia.

"Lots of reasons. And I'll hate him more if he gets his bill through Congress."

"I don't see why you feel so," said Lydia. "You get along all right without the reservation, why shouldn't the other Indians. I don't understand."

"No, you don't understand," replied Charlie, "you're like most of the other whites round here. You see a chance to get land and you'd crucify each other if you needed to, to get it. What chance do Indians stand? But I tell you this," his voice sank to a hoarse whisper and his eyes looked far beyond her, "if there is a God of the Indians as well as the whites, you'll pay some day! You'll pay as we are paying."

Lydia shivered. "Don't talk so, Charlie. I wish I knew all about it, the truth about it. If I was a man, you bet before I voted, I'd find out. I'd go up there on that reservation and I'd see for myself whether it would be better for the Indians to get off. That poor old squaw I gave my lunch to, I wonder what would become of her—"

"Look here, Lydia," exclaimed Charlie, "why don't you come up on the reservation for a camping trip, next summer, for a week or so?"

"Costs too much," said Lydia.

"Wouldn't either. I can get tents and it wouldn't cost you anything but your share of the food. Kent'll go and maybe one of the teachers would chaperone."

Lydia's eyes kindled. "Gee, Charlie, perhaps it could be fixed! I got nine months to earn the money in. It's something to look forward to."

Charlie nodded and moved away. "You'll learn things up there you never dreamed of," he said.

The conversation with John Levine did not take place until the Sunday before the election. The fight in the Congressional district had increased in bitterness as it went on. Nothing but greed could have precipitated so malevolent a war. The town was utterly disrupted. Neighbors of years' standing quarreled on sight. Students in the University refused to enter the classrooms of teachers who disagreed with them on the Levine fight. Family feuds developed. Ancient family skeletons regarding pine grafts and Indian looting saw the light of day.

On the Saturday a week before election, Lydia went to pay her duty call on Margery. Elviry admitted her. It was the first time Lydia had seen her since the New York trip.

"Margery'll be right down," said Elviry. "She's just finished her nap."

"Her what?" inquired Lydia, politely.

"Her nap. A New York beauty doctor told me to have her take one every day. Of course, going to school, she can't do it only Saturdays and Sundays. She went to the Hop last night. She looked lovely in a cream chiffon. One of the college professors asked who was that little beauty. Come in, Margery."

Margery strolled into the room in a bright red kimona. "How de do, Lydia," she said.

"Hello, Margery. Want to play paper dolls?"

"Paper dolls!" shrieked Elviry. "Why, Margery, you are fifteen!"

"I don't care," replied Lydia obstinately. "I still play 'em once in a while."

"I haven't touched one since last spring," said Margery. "Want to see my New York clothes?"

"No, thank you," answered Lydia. "I'd just as soon not. I've got to get home right away."

"What's in that big bundle?" asked Elviry, pointing to the huge paper parcel in Lydia's lap.

"Nothing," she said shortly, looking at the rope portieres in the doorway.

"I got new ones in the East," said Elviry, following her glance. "Shells strung together. But I put 'em up only when we have parties. We don't use anything but doilies on the dining table now, no tablecloths. It's the latest thing in New York. Who made your shirtwaist, Lydia?"

"I did," answered Lydia, not without pride.

"I thought so," commented Elviry. "How much was the goods a yard—six cents? I thought so. Hum—Margery's every day shirtwaists were none of them less than thirty-nine cents a yard, in New York. But of course that's beyond you. I don't suppose your father's had a raise, yet. He ain't that kind. Does he pay Levine any rent for that cottage?"

"Of course, every month!" exclaimed Lydia, indignantly.

"Oh! I just asked! Your father's been talking strong for him at the plow factory, they say, and we just wondered. He's old enough to be your father, but you're getting to be a young lady now, Lydia, and it's very bad for your reputation to be seen with him. You haven't any mother and I must speak."

"I don't see how John Levine's reputation about Indians or pine lands can hurt me any," protested Lydia, angrily, "and I just think you're the impolitest person I know."

Elviry snorted and started to speak but Margery interrupted.

"You are impolite, Mama! It's none of our business about Lydia—if she wants to be common."

Lydia rose, holding the paper parcel carefully in her arms. "I am common, just common folks! I always was and I always will be and I'm glad of it—and I'm going home."

The front door slammed as she spoke and Dave Marshall came in.

"Hello! Well, Lydia, this is a sight for sore eyes. Thought you'd forgotten us. What's in your bundle?"

Lydia spoke furiously, tearing the paper off the bundle as she did so.

"Well, since you're all so curious, I'll show you!" And Florence Dombey, with the hectic gaze unchanged, emerged. "There!" said Lydia. "I never shall be too old for Florence Dombey and I thought Margery wouldn't be either—but I was wrong. I wrapped Florence Dombey up because I do look too big for dolls and I don't want folks to laugh at her."

"Of course you're not too big for dolls," said Dave. "You and Margery go on and have your play."

"Daddy!" cried Margery. "Why, I wouldn't touch a doll now."

"There, you see!" said Lydia, laying Florence Dombey on a chair while she pulled on her coat—made this year from one that Lizzie had grown too stout to wear—"It's no use for me to try to be friends any more with Margery. She's rich and I'm common and poor. She has parties and beaux and clothes and I don't. I'll be friends with you but I can't be friends with her."

Dave looked from his two women folks to Lydia. "What've you two been saying now?" he asked gruffly.

Elviry tossed her head. "Nothing at all. I just showed a decent interest in Lydia, as I would in any motherless girl and she got mad."

"Yes, I know your decent interest," grunted Dave. "You make me sick, Elviry. Why I was ever such a fool as to let you spend a summer in New York, I don't know."

"Now, Dave," said Elviry in a conciliating tone, "you said that Lydia and Amos ought to be warned about Levine."

"Yes, I did," exclaimed Dave, with a sudden change of voice. "You tell your father to come round and see me this evening, Lydia. I don't like his attitude on the reservation question. Tell him if I can't change his views any other way, I may have to bring pressure with that note."

Lydia blanched. She looked at Marshall with parted lips. She never had heard before the peculiar, metallic quality in his voice that she heard now. She buttoned her coat with trembling fingers.

"Yes, sir, I'll tell him," she said. "I guess it's no use to try to be friends with you either. We'll pay that note up, somehow. Even it can't be allowed to keep us from believing what we believe." Her voice strengthened suddenly. "What's the use of being an American if you can't believe what you want to? We'll pay that note! If I have to quit school and go out as a hired girl, we will."

Dave Marshall looked from Lydia to Margery and back again. Margery was patting her curls. Lydia, holding the doll, returned his look indignantly.

"I'm not going to tell my father to come to see you. I'll answer right now. We'll think and say what we please and you can do whatever you want to about that nasty old note."

Dave suddenly laughed. "There, Elviry, that's what I mean about Lydia's being the real thing. You can't help my being your friend, Lydia, no matter what happens. But," grimly, "I'll call in that note unless your father shuts up."

"Good-by!" exclaimed Lydia abruptly and she marched into the hall, head held high, and closed the outside door firmly behind her.

It had been a long time since she had known the heavy sinking of the heart that she felt now. In spite of their desperate poverty, since her interview in the bank with Marshall four years before, she had not worried about money matters. She had an utter horror of repeating Marshall's message to her father. Money worry made Amos frantic. She plodded along the October road, unheeding the frosty sunshine or the scudding brown leaves that had charmed her on her earlier trip.

In the midst of one of her longest sighs, Billy Norton overtook her.

"Well, Lydia," he said, "isn't it chilly for your lady friend?"

"Hello, Billy," said Lydia, looking up at the young man soberly. Billy was a sophomore in college.

"I'll carry her, if your hands are cold, though I'd hate to be caught at it," he said.

Lydia ignored his offer. "Billy, is there any way a girl like me could earn $600?" she asked him.

"Golly, not that I know of! Why?"

"Oh, I just asked. I wish I was a man."

Billy looked at the scarlet cheeks and the blowing yellow curls. "I don't," he said. "What's worrying you, Lyd?"

"Nothing," she insisted. Then, anxious to change the subject, she asked, "What're you studying to be, Billy?"

"A farmer. Next year I shift into the long agric. course."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Lydia, "I don't see what you want to study to be a farmer for. I should think you'd want to be something classy like a lawyer or—or something."

"Lots of folks think the same way, but I believe a farmer's the most independent man in the world. And that's what I want to be, independent—call no man boss."

"That's me too, Billy," cried Lydia, pausing at her gate. "That's what I want to be, independent. That's what real Americans are."

"You're a funny little girl," said Billy. "What made you think of that?"

"I often think about it," returned Lydia, running up the path to the door.

Billy stood for a minute looking after her thoughtfully. Then he smiled to himself and went on homeward.

Lydia did not tell her father that night of Marshall's threat. He was in such a tranquil mood that she could not bear to upset him. But the next day she gathered her courage together and told him. Amos was speechless for a moment. Then to her surprise instead of walking the floor and swearing, he gave a long whistle.

"So it's that serious, is it? I wonder just what he's up to! The old crook! Huh! This will be nuts for John though. If he doesn't come out this afternoon, I'll go look him up this evening."

Lydia's jaw dropped. "But, Daddy, you don't seem to realize we'll have to pay $600 the first of January," she urged, her voice still trembling. She had scarcely slept the night before in dread of this moment.

For the first time, Amos looked at her carefully. "Why, my dear child, there's nothing to worry about!" he exclaimed.

"You mean you're going to stop talking for Mr. Levine? Oh, Daddy, don't do that! We can borrow the money somewhere and I'll help pay it back. I'm almost grown up now."

"'Stop talking'!" roared Amos. "I've fallen pretty far below what my ancestors stood for, but I ain't that low yet. Now," his voice softened, "you stop worrying. Levine and I'll take care of this."

Lydia looked at her father doubtfully and suddenly he laughed unsteadily and kissed her. "You get more and more like your mother. I've seen that look on her face a hundred times when I told her I'd fix up a money matter. I don't know what I'd do without you, Lydia, I swan."

This was rare demonstrativeness for Amos. The reaction from anxiety was almost too much for Lydia. She laughed a little wildly, and seizing Adam by his fore paws put him through a two step that was agony for the heavy fellow. Then she put on her coat, and bareheaded started for a walk. Amos stood in the window staring after the bright hair in the October sun until it disappeared into the woods. Then he sighed softly. "Oh, Patience, Patience, I wonder if you can see her now!"

Levine stole away from his various councils and reached the cottage about supper time.

"If I didn't get out here once in a while," he said as he sat down to the waffles and coffee that made the Sunday night treat Lydia had lately developed, "I'd get to believe every one was playing politics."

Lizzie, pouring the coffee, looked Levine over. "A bullet'd have hard work to hit you now," she remarked, "you're so thin. If you'd listen to me, you'd be taking Cod Liver Oil."

Levine smiled at the wrinkled old face opposite. "If I didn't listen to you, I don't know who I would. Aren't you and Lydia all the women folks I got? If you'll fix me up some dope, I'll take a dose every time I come out here."

Lizzie sniffed and loaded his plate with another waffle. Amos was giving no heed to these small amenities. He was eating his waffles absentmindedly and suddenly burst forth,

"Lydia, tell John about Dave Marshall."

Lydia, flushing uncomfortably, did so. Levine did not cease his onslaught on the waffles during the recital. When she had finished, he passed his coffee cup.

"Another cup, young Lydia. Your coffee is something to dream of."

Lydia was too surprised to take the cup. "But—but six hundred dollars. Mr. Levine!" she gasped.

"Good news, eh, Amos?" said Levine. "Getting anxious, isn't he!" Then catching Lydia's look of consternation, "Why, bless your soul, Lydia, what are you upset about? Let him call in the loan. I can pay it."

Amos nodded. "Just what I said."

"But I think that's awful," protested Lydia. "We owe Mr. Levine so much now."

The effect of her words on John was astonishing. He half rose from his chair and said in a tone not to be forgotten, "Lydia, never let me hear you speak again of owing me anything! Between you and me there can never be any sense of obligation. Do you understand me?"

There was a moment's silence at the table, Amos and Lizzie glanced at each other, but Lydia's clear gaze was on the deep eyes of Levine. What she saw there she was too young to understand, but she answered gravely,

"All right, Mr. Levine."

John sank back in his chair and passed his plate for a waffle.

"I'll make my interest and payments to you then, thank the Lord!" said Amos.

"We'll make them on time just as usual," remarked Lydia, in a voice that had both reproof and warning in it. "Ain't debts perfectly awful," she sighed.

"So Marshall's worried," repeated John, complacently, when they were gathered round the stove. "Well, it behooves him to be. I don't know what he'll do when the Indians are gone."

"Mr. Levine," asked Lydia, "where'll the Indians go?"

John shrugged his shoulders. "Go to the devil, most of them."

"Oh, but that seems terrible!" cried Lydia.

"No more terrible than the way they live and die on the reservation. My dear child, don't develop any sentiment for the Indian. He's as doomed as the buffalo. It's fate or life or evolution working out—whatever your fancy names it. No sickly gush will stop it. As long as the Indian has a pine or a pelt, we'll exploit him. When he has none, we'll kick him out, like the dead dog he is."

Lydia, her eyes round, her lips parted, did not reply. For a moment she saw the Levine that the world saw, cold, logical, merciless. John interpreted her expression instantly and smiled. "Don't look at me so, young Lydia. I'm just being honest. The rest talk about 'freeing the Indian.' I say damn the Indian, enrich the whites."

"It—it makes me feel sort of sick at my stomach," replied Lydia, slowly. "I suppose you're right, but I can't help feeling sorry for Charlie Jackson and my old squaw."

Levine nodded understandingly and turned to Amos. "What's the talk in the factory?" he asked.

During the half hour that followed, Lydia did not speak again nor did she hear any of the conversation. New voices were beginning to whisper to her. Try as she would to hush them with her faith in her father and John, they continued to query: How about the Indians? Whose is the land? What do you yourself believe?

When Levine rose at nine to leave, she followed him to the door. "Adam and I'll walk a way with you," she said, "while Dad puts his chickens to bed."

"Fine!" exclaimed John. "My wheel is out of commission so I have to walk to the trolley."

He glanced at Lydia a trifle curiously however. This was a new venture on her part. It was a clear, cold, starlit night. Lydia trudged along for a few moments in silence. Then Levine pulled her hand through his arm.

"Out with it, young Lydia," he said.

"Do you suppose," she asked, "that God is something like ether—or like electricity—in the air, everywhere, something that sort of holds us together, you know?"

"Well," replied John, slowly, "I wouldn't want to believe that. I want to find a God we can know and understand. A God that's tender and—and human, by Jove."

Lydia looked up at him quickly in the starlight. "After what you said about Indians to-night, you can't believe God could be tender and—and let that happen!"

Levine returned her look and smiled. "You score there, honey. Lydia, you're growing up. Your head's above my shoulder now."

The young girl nodded carelessly. "But I wanted to talk to you about taking the reservation, not about me."

"I guess we'd better do that another time. I don't dare to have you walk further with me. This is a lonesome road back for you. And besides, I don't want you to scold me."

"Scold you!" Lydia paused in her astonishment. "Why, I love you as much as I do anybody in the world. How could I scold you?"

Levine looked down into the shadowy, childish eyes. "Couldn't you? Well, you're a dear, anyhow. Now scoot and I'll watch till you reach the gate."

Lydia hesitated. She felt a change in John's manner and wondered if she had hurt his feelings. "Kiss me good night, then," she said. "You don't do it as regularly as you used to. If I don't watch you, you'll be finding some one else to travel with you."

John turned the little face up and kissed her gently on the forehead, but Lydia with rare demonstrativeness threw her arms about his neck and kissed his lips with a full childish smack.

"There!" she said complacently. "Come on, Adam! Don't wait, Mr. Levine. I'm safe with Adam."

But John Levine did wait, standing with his hand against his lips, his head bowed, till he heard the gate click. Then he lifted his face to the stars. "God," he whispered, "why do You make me forty-five instead of twenty-five?"



CHAPTER IX

THE ELECTION

"Perhaps, after all, I have fulfilled my destiny in being a lute for the wind. But then why the cones and the broken boughs?"—The Murmuring Pine.

It rained on Election Day, a cold November drizzle that elated the Democrats. "A rainy day always brings a Democratic victory," said Amos, gloomily, voicing the general superstition.

The day was a legal holiday and even the saloons were closed. Yet Lake City was full of drunken men by noon. Every hack, surrey and hotel bus in town was busy in the pay of one faction or the other hauling voters to the booths. The Capitol square was deserted but groups of men, some of them very drunk and some of them very sober, were to be found throughout the business section of the city, bitterly debating the reservation question.

There were a great number of Indians in town that day, big dark fellows in muddy moccasins and faded mackinaws who stood about watching the machinations of the whites without audible comments.

Toward night the rain stopped and Lydia begged her father to take her into town to see the parade that would be indulged in by the victorious party. Amos was not at all averse to taking in the parade, himself. So nine o'clock found the two at the Square with a great waiting crowd. There were very few women in the crowd. Those that Lydia saw were painted and loud-voiced. Amos told her vaguely that they were "hussies" and that she was not to let go of his arm for an instant.

Lydia didn't know what a hussy was, but she didn't want to stir an inch from her father's side because of her fear of drunken men. She was in a quiver of excitement; torn with pity and doubt when she thought of Charlie Jackson; speechless with apprehension when she thought of the possibility of Levine's being defeated.

It was close on ten o'clock when the sound of a drum was heard from the direction of the Methodist Church. The crowd started toward the sound, then paused as Binny Bates, the barber, in a stove-pipe hat, mounted on a much excited horse, rode up the street. Binny was a Levine man and the crowd broke into cheers and cat-calls.

After Binny came the band, playing for dear life "Hail the Conquering Hero" and after the band, two and two a great line of citizens with kerosene torches. After the torches came the transparencies: "Levine Wins!" "The Reservation is Ours." "Back to the land, boys!" "We've dropped the white men's burden."

And following the transparencies came a surprise for crowd and paraders alike. Close on the heels of the last white man strode Charlie Jackson, with a sign, "The land is ours! You have robbed us!" and after Charlie, perhaps a hundred Indians, tramping silently two by two, to the faint strain of the band ahead,

"Columbia, the gem of the ocean The home of the brave and the free—"

For a moment, the crowd was surprised into silence. Then a handful of mud caught Charlie's sign and a group of college students, with a shout of "Break up the line! Break up the line," broke into the ranks of the Indians and in a moment a free for all fight was on.

Amos rushed Lydia down a side street and upon a street car. "Well! Well! Well!" he kept chuckling. "John ate 'em alive! Well! Well!" Then in the light of the car he looked at Lydia. "For heaven's sake! What are you crying for, child?"

"I don't know," faltered Lydia. "I'm—glad for Mr. Levine—but poor Charlie Jackson! You don't suppose they'll hurt him?"

"Oh, pshaw," replied Amos. "Nothing but an election night fight! The young Indian went into the parade just to start one."

"How soon will the Indians have to get off the reservation?" asked Lydia.

"Oh, in a year or so! John's got to get a bill through Congress, you know."

"Oh." Lydia gave a great sigh of relief; a year or so was a very long time. She decided to forget the Indians' trouble and rejoice in Levine's triumph.

It was a triumph that John himself took very quietly. He realized that he had ahead of him in Congress a long and heavy campaign. The forces against him were not going to lie down, defeated by his election. But after the fashion of American elections, there were no protests or quarrels afterward. The town settled immediately to its old routine and Levine was dropped from the front pages of the newspapers.

Charlie Jackson was taciturn for a week or so, then he played brilliantly in the Thanksgiving football game and at the banquet which followed he was his old genial self.

After Christmas Lydia began seriously to consider how she could earn the twenty-five dollars that her share in the camping trip would cost. Lizzie was aghast at the size of the sum and didn't approve of the idea of camping anyhow. Amos gave his consent to her going, feeling that it was quite safe; that Lydia never could earn the money.

Lydia was dampened but not daunted. One (in January) Saturday afternoon, she went to call on Ma Norton. Ma was sitting in her bright kitchen sewing carpet rags. Ma's hair was beginning to turn gray but her plump cheeks were red and her gray eyes behind her spectacles were as clear as a girl's.

"Who's going to chaperone you children?" she asked Lydia.

"Miss Towne. The rest kicked, but I like her."

"You use a good deal of unnecessary slang, my dear," said Ma. "Who of the boys and girls are going?"

"Charlie and Kent and Olga and I. Margery's crazy to go, only her mother hasn't given in yet. If she does go, we'll ask Gustus Bach too."

Ma Norton looked at Lydia searchingly. "I didn't know you had anything to do with Olga or with Margery either, now."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Lydia, "this is Charlie's, party! None of 'em would go on my invitation. I—I don't quite see why, but I don't have chums like the rest."

"I wouldn't let it worry me," said Ma. "You've never had time to lally-gag. That's the secret of it."

Lydia turned this over in her mind thoughtfully for a moment and the older woman, looking up from her sewing caught on the young face the look of sadness that should not have been there.

"It would be nice for you to have the camping trip, dear," said Ma. "You've had so little to do with children your own age. I suppose you're worrying over the money end?"

Lydia nodded. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Every spring you get some one in to help you clean house. If you'll do it in Easter vacation, this year, and let me help, why, that would be a couple of dollars, wouldn't it?"

Ma Norton looked at the slender little figure and thought of the heavy carpet beating, the shoving of furniture, the cleaning of mattresses that the stout old colored man hustled through for her every spring. And she thought of the winter's butter and egg money (nearly forty dollars it amounted to already) that she was saving for new parlor curtains. Then she recalled the little figure that had nightly trudged two miles delivering milk rather than take Billy's school books as a gift. And Ma Norton smiled a little ruefully as she said,

"All right, you can help me instead of old Job and I'll pay you five dollars."

"Five dollars for what?" asked Billy. He had come in the side door, unheeded.

His mother explained the situation. Billy listened attentively, warming his hands at the stove.

"If I didn't have so much to do at home," said Lydia, "I could work here Saturdays and Sundays and earn a little, that way."

"Well, you wouldn't, you know," growled Billy. Lydia and Ma Norton looked up, startled at his tone.

"For the land's sake, Billy, why not?" exclaimed Ma.

"Because, Lydia's getting too big now to do these hired girl stunts. It was bad enough when she was little. But folks'll never forget 'em and always think of her as a hired girl if she keeps on."

Lydia gasped and turned scarlet. Ma Norton stared at her son as if she never had seen him before. Strong and blonde and six feet tall, he seemed suddenly to his mother no longer a boy but a mature man, and a very handsome one at that. As a matter of fact, although Billy's gaunt frame was filling out and his irregular features were maturing into lines of rugged strength, he never would be handsome. He was looking at Lydia now with the curious expression of understanding that she always brought to his gray eyes.

"I'm not ashamed to be a hired girl for your mother, Billy Norton," snapped Lydia.

"Well, I'm ashamed for you," answered the young man. "You earn your money some other way."

Lydia looked meaningly at Billy's big hands, rough and red with milking and farm work.

"You do hired man's work for your father. How'll you live that down?"

It was Billy's turn to blush. "I'm a man," he replied.

Lydia's voice suddenly quivered. "Then how can I earn money?"

"Dead easy! You make the best fudge in the world. Put some for sale in the University book store. I'm clerking there an hour every day."

"The very thing!" cried Ma Norton.

"Billy, you are a duck!" shrieked Lydia.

"Gimme something to eat, Ma, before I go out to milk," said Billy, with a grin that struggled to be modest.

Billy's suggestion proved indeed to be a happy one. He was a willing pack horse and middleman for Lydia and though the demand for fudge was never overwhelming, Lydia by the end of May had cleared something over thirty-five dollars.

Her joy over this method of earning money was not confined to its relation to her camping trip. She saw herself helping to pay up their indebtedness to Levine, Marshall having made good his threat to call in the note. She saw herself gradually developing an enormous trade that finally should demand a whole store for itself. The store would develop into a candy factory. The candy factory would grow into a business that would send Lydia, admired and famous, traveling about the world in a private yacht.

In the meantime, she expended the whole of four dollars on a pair of buckskin outing boots and eight dollars on a little corduroy hunting coat and skirt. When the clothes arrived from the Chicago mail order house, Amos, Lizzie and Lydia had an exciting hour. Amos had brought the package home from town with him, and supper had been held back while Lydia tried on the clothes. Amos and Lizzie smiled when the young girl pranced out before them. The suit was cheap but well cut, with belt and pockets and welted seams. The soft buckskin shoes fitted the slender calves like velvet. With her bright cheeks and her yellow hair above the fawn-colored corduroy, Lydia looked half boy, half woman.

"My soul, Lydia, they're just grand!" cried Lizzie.

"What boys are going in that crowd?" demanded Amos.

"Charlie and Kent and—Margery's mother's given in—'Gustus Bach. I told you. Daddy, don't you like the suit?"

"Like it!" exclaimed Amos. "Lydia, I'm stunned by it! It makes me realize my little girl's growing up to be a pretty woman. I wish I could have bought you your first suit myself, Lydia. But on a dollar and a half a day, I swan—"

The brightness suddenly left Lydia's face. "Oh, Daddy," she exclaimed, "I'm a pig to spend all this money on myself! You take the rest of the money, for the note."

Amos gave a laugh that was half gay, half grim. "Lydia, you spend every cent of that money on yourself. You've earned it in more ways than one. I wish John Levine could see you in it. I guess he will though. Congress will rest most of the summer. Let's have supper now."

Lydia spun through her Junior examination blissfully. For once marks and final averages were of little importance to her. For the week after school closed, she was going camping!

Charlie and Kent were making all the camp preparations. Miss Towne and the three girls were to be at Lydia's gate with their suitcases at nine o'clock of a Monday morning. Other than this, they had received no orders.

Amos had been very sober when he said good-by to Lydia, at half past six. "It's your first trip, Lydia. Don't do anything you wouldn't want your mother to see."

Lydia looked at him wonderingly, then threw her arms about his neck. "Oh, Daddy, I don't want to go off and leave you two whole weeks!"

"It's too late to back out now. Go on and have a good time," said Amos, picking up his dinner pail. Lydia watched him down the road. Suddenly she realized how lonely her father must be without her mother.

"I oughtn't to go, Lizzie," she said.

"Shucks! Think of all you'll have to tell us when you get home. Don't be a cry baby, child."

Promptly at nine Charlie and Kent whirled up to the gate in a carryall. The driver was the same man who had moved the Dudley family five years before. He greeted Lydia with a grin.

"You've grow'd some, eh, Lydia? Where's the rest of the women folks?"

"Here come Miss Towne and Olga!" cried Kent. "Margery'll be late, of course."

At nine-fifteen Margery was driven up in state by Elviry, and at nine-twenty the carryall was off to the north in a cloud of dust, leaving Adam howling dismally at the gate.

For fifteen miles the way led up and down hill over a dusty country road that wound for the most part past great wheat farms and grazing lands, vividly green under the June sky. Here and there were woods of young oak and birch, self sowed, replacing the pine long since cleared off. For the last five miles there were few farms. The rolling hills disappeared and low lying lakes, surrounded by marshes took their places. The young rice bordering the lakes was tenderly green and the marshes were like fields of corn with their thick growth of cat-tail. Beyond the marshes the hills rose again, with the road winding like a black ribbon over their curving bosoms into the vivid sky beyond.

"Where the hills begin again, that's the reservation," said Charlie.

"Where are the pines?" asked Lydia. "I thought it was all pines."

"You'll see plenty, before the trip's over. Just beyond that group of buildings is the reservation line."

The buildings Charlie pointed to were the first that had appeared in several miles. A two-story, unpainted frame house with several barns and sheds comprised the group. There was a sign on the front of the house.

"Last Chance," read Margery, as they clattered by. "For goodness' sake!" she giggled, "is it a hotel?"

"Look at all the women! One in every window!" cried Olga. "Why, they must have a lot of maids! Do people come up here in the summer, Kent?"

Kent gave Miss Towne an appealing glance.

"It's a miserable, disreputable place, girls," said the teacher. "Why look at that when you have these beautiful hills before you? How far into the reservation do we go, Charlie?"

"About four miles. It's where I camp every year. Margery, did you bring some paper dolls?"

Margery dimpled and tossed her head. "I wonder how old I'll have to be before you realize I'm grown up, Charlie!"

Charlie looked at her critically. "Well, when you're eighteen, maybe."

"Lydia'll be twenty-five before she gets through looking like a baby, but Olga's a young lady now," said Kent. He was eying the girls with the air of a connoisseur. "Three peaches, aren't they, Miss Towne?"

"I don't see why you say three," objected Gustus. "Ask me and say four."

The young people laughed and looked at Miss Towne, half startled by Gustus' audacity. Miss Towne herself was blushing and Olga exclaimed, "Why, Miss Towne, you are good looking when you blush! And I don't believe you're so frightfully old!"

It was true. Miss Towne in her outing blouse, a soft felt hat crushed down on her brown hair, which was now wind-tossed and loosened, her smooth skin flushed, her gray eyes full of laughter, did not look her frightful age of thirty-five. In fact, she looked charmingly young. Her youthful charges looked her over with frank amazement. It was a tradition in the school to fear and dislike Miss Towne. Charlie had asked a number of teachers to act as chaperone before he had approached Miss Towne. She too had at first refused, then had said, "Well, it's Lydia's first outing. I'll do it for her sake. But don't tell her I said so." Charlie had kept his own counsel and Miss Towne had delayed her summer trip to Europe, for the camping trip on the reservation.

"Thank you, children, you brighten my old age very much. Look at the neat farms we are passing."

"Indian farms," said Charlie. "This one belongs to Chief Cloud."

"Are there many Indian farms?" asked Lydia.

"No, there's not much use for Indians to farm. The Agent is their middleman, and he eats up all the profits."

"For the Lord's sake, Charlie," protested Kent, "don't begin any funeral oration! We're no investigating committee. We're out for some fun."

"Second the motion," said Gustus. "Can I smoke, Miss Towne?"

Miss Towne gave Gustus a clear look. He was a tall, thin boy of seventeen, with the dark eyes of the Rhine German and with thin hawk-like features that went with his hollow chest. His father was a rich brewer and Gustus, always elegantly dressed, was very popular with the girls. Margery had insisted on his being invited.

"If I were a boy with a chest like yours, I wouldn't smoke," said Miss Towne, "but do as you please."

With a nonchalant "Thanks," Gustus lighted a cigarette.

"Going to stay in training all summer, Charlie?" asked Kent.

"Yes," grunted Charlie, "but next summer I'll be through with football, and I'll smoke my head off."

"Oh! the pines!" shrieked Lydia.

A sudden silence fell. The road, curving around a hill, had without warning entered the pine woods.

In every direction as far as the eye could pierce stretched brown, columnar aisles, carpeted with the brown of needles and the green of June undergrowth: aisle on aisle, green arch on green arch, flecked with sunshine, mighty trunks supporting great swaying boughs, drooping with their weight of needles.

Except for a muffled thud of horses' hoofs, the carryall moved soundlessly for the road was thick carpeted with needles.

The others fell to chatting again, but Lydia was too moved for words. The incense of the pines, their curious murmuring stillness, roused in her memories that were perhaps half racial. She never had been in a pine wood before, yet the hushed sense of solemnity it wakened in her was perfectly familiar. Its incense breathed to her secrets she never had known, never would understand, yet it seemed to her startled fancy that she had known and understood them, always.

She was still in a half dream when the blue of a lake glimmered beyond the far aisles and the carryall drew up with a flourish before three tents set in the pines on the water's edge.

Charlie and Kent had made their preparations well and they displayed them proudly. They had rented the three old A tents from the agent, as well as the seven canvas cots, the dishes and the cooking utensils. The middle tent had been arranged with a rough slab-table and benches for a dining- and living-room. The boys' tent with three cots and the girls' with four, were crowded but comfortable.

"The Indian school is closed for the summer," explained Charlie, "and the Agent was glad to make a little money extra. He'll pocket it, you bet. Everything's clean," he added hastily in answer to Miss Towne's lifting eyebrows. "Blankets, cots and all, even the hammocks yonder, I had scrubbed with soap and water. I don't live with a doctor for nothing."

"It's very nice, indeed, boys," said Miss Towne. "Come girls, get out your aprons. I suppose you're all starved."

"Wait! Wait!" cried Kent. "That's not the way this camp's going to be run. Charlie, Gustus and me do the cooking. You ladies are company and don't have to do anything except wash the dishes and make your own beds."

"Gee!" exclaimed Lydia. "I'd rather cook than wash dishes, any day."

"I never wash dishes," protested Margery.

"I can't do it either," said Olga.

"Can you boys really cook?" asked Miss Towne, in her sharp way.

"Yes, Ma'am!" replied Kent. "Charlie learned in the Indian school, even baking, you know, and he's taught me a lot. Gustus can peel potatoes, clean fish and such stunts."

Gustus groaned but made no protest.

"I think it's a very nice arrangement," decided Miss Towne. "Come girls, let's unpack and arrange the tent."

Kent's statement proved no idle boast. The boys could cook. And though the fare was simple during the entire holiday consisting of fish, caught in the lake, potatoes, baking powder biscuits and occasional additions of canned stuff, it was well prepared and there was plenty of it.

The little camp quickly settled into an orderly routine. The girls wrangled among themselves about the dish-washing and Gustus was inclined to complain over the number of potatoes he was obliged to peel, but beyond this the camp work caused little friction.

Miss Towne was well supplied with French books and made, the young folks thought, an ideal chaperone. She was tired after her year's work and spent almost all her time in a hammock. She saw to it that the girls were in bed by ten o'clock and that all were accounted for at meal time. Apparently, beyond this, she left her charges to their own devices. She had taught in the High School too long not to know that spying and nagging are more demoralizing than no chaperoning at all.

There was a very early pairing off in the camp. Kent devoted himself to Olga, Gustus to Margery and Charlie to Lydia. Kent and Olga kept the camp supplied with fish. Excepting at meal time and the bathing hour, they spent the day in a birchbark canoe on the lake. Gustus and Margery were the least strenuous of the party and caused Miss Towne, as a consequence, more uneasiness than the rest. They spent long hours sitting side by side in a hammock, talking, heaven knows of what! In the evening when the camp-fire was lighted they were always being routed out of the shadows by the others and teased into joining the story telling and singing.

Charlie undertook to show to Lydia the reservation as the Indians knew it. If Lydia was a little puzzled by his eagerness to make her understand conditions on the reservation, she gave little thought to the riddle. This adventure was affecting her deeply. There was the sudden freedom and relaxation from home responsibilities. There was the daily and intimate companionship with young people, than whom none were better dressed than she!—and there were the pines.

She knew and loved the woods at home. But they were second growth hardwood and birch, and had little in common with the splendor of the pines. Waking early in the morning, she would creep from the tent and steal beyond sound and sight of the camp. There in the cathedral beauty of the pines she would stand drawing deep breaths and staring as if her eyes must pierce through the outward solemn loneliness of the forest, to its deeper meaning. She often wondered if in his search for God, John Levine had ever stood so.

Tramping through the woods with Charlie, she did not talk much, nor did he. They visited one or two neat Indian farms, but for the most part Charlie led her from one wick-i-up to the other, deep set in recesses of the wood, where the only whites to intrude on the Indians were the occasional government wood cruisers. These wick-i-ups were hovels, usually in the last stages of poverty and desolation. A squaw, braiding reed mats, a buck returning with a string of fish, a baby burrowing in the moss—all of them thin, ragged and dirty, and about them the hallowed beauty and silence of the primeval pines; this was the picture Lydia carried of most of the dwellers in these huts. Sometimes the wick-i-up was occupied by a solitary Indian, nearly always sick and always old.

Once they came upon a white haired squaw crawling feebly from her doorway toward a fish that lay at the foot of a tree. Charlie picked up the fish and he and Lydia helped the old woman back to her hut. In the hut was an iron pot and a pile of reed mats. That was all.

"She says," explained Charlie, "that she's been sick all winter and she'd have starved to death only one of her neighbors drops a fish for her there, every day or so."

"Let's get some food for her at the camp," said Lydia eagerly.

Charlie shook his head. "What's the use! It would just prolong her agony. She's nearly dead now. The old can go. It's the young ones' starving that hurts me."

He led Lydia out and again they tramped through the long green aisles. It was later in the day that they came upon a wick-i-up where there were three children, besides the father and mother. Two of the children were half blind with eye trouble. The whole family was sitting in the sun, about a pot of fish. The grown-ups chatted eagerly with Charlie, and he translated for Lydia.

"They say it's been a fearful winter. They only had ten dollars this year out of their Government allowance and they couldn't get work. They lived on fish and potatoes. The Catholic priest gave them some wild rice. The baby froze to death or starved, or both. We'll bring some food over to these folks, Lydia, because there are kids—eh?"

"But, Charlie, what's the Government allowance?"

"Oh, didn't you know?—and you're one of the white lords of creation too! The Government set aside this land for the Indians in solemn treaty with them, for ever and ever. Then it deliberately sold off a big block of it and deposited the money at Washington. The income from this was to be given to the Indians. There's over two million dollars there. But by the time it's filtered from Washington to the Indians, this is the result." He nodded at the half-starved group about the fish pot. "Damn the dirty, thieving whites," he said, quietly.

Lydia had had four days of this. As they made their way back to the camp for supper, she said to him, in an unsteady voice, "Charlie, I can't stand it! Think of that baby that froze to death. And all these beautiful woods are full of half-starved Indians! Charlie, I can't stand it!" And Lydia bowed her head on her arm and leaned against a tree trunk.

"Good Lord, Lydia!" exclaimed Charlie, "I didn't want you to feel that bad! I just wanted you to see, because you're Levine's friend and because I like you so much. Please, don't cry!"

"I'm not crying," Lydia lifted reddened eyes to his, "I was just thinking. What can I do about it, Charlie?"

"You can't do anything. It's too late. But I wanted you to see. I don't care what girl understands as long as you do. I think an awful lot of you, Lydia."

He took Lydia's hand and patted it. Lydia looked up at him, thrilled by his bronze beauty and the note in his voice.

"If I were a white man," said Charlie, "I'd make you love me and marry me. But I'm an Indian and sooner or later I'll go back to my people. I'm just making believe I can play the white man's game for a while." He eyed Lydia wistfully. "But we'll be friends, eh, Lydia?—Always? Even if I go back to the wick-i-up, you'll be my friend?"

"Oh, yes, Charlie, always," replied Lydia, earnestly, even while there flashed through her head the half whimsical thought, "Queer kinds of men want to be friends with me, Mr. Levine, Mr. Marshall, and Charlie. And they all hate each other!"

After this episode, Charlie was less strenuous about showing Lydia Indian conditions. That night he resumed a mild flirtation with Olga that he had dropped when school closed and Olga met him more than half way.

"Wouldn't that come and get you!" growled Kent to Lydia as Charlie and Olga paddled away in the canoe, the next morning. "Have you and Charlie had a fight?"

"Nope," replied Lydia. "But I got sick of investigating the reservation. Are you and Olga mad at each other?"

"Not so very! Say, Lyd, let's kill time," Kent interrupted himself with a yawn, "with a tramp up to the settlement for some gum."

Lydia stifled an elaborate yawn, at which Kent grinned. "All right, I can stand it if you can," she said. "Will you come along, Miss Towne?"

Miss Towne, who had been highly edified by the morning's maneuvering shook her head and settled herself in her hammock. "No eight mile walk for me. I'm taking a rest cure. Better wear a hat, Lydia. You're getting dreadfully burned."

"That's right. Your nose is peeling something fierce," said Kent as they started off.

"Huh, yours looks like a pickled beet," returned Lydia. "Come on, pretend I'm Olga and be happy."



CHAPTER X

THE CAMP

"The humans I have known lack root hold. Perhaps that is why they die and leave no trace."—The Murmuring Pine.

There was no clear-cut trail between the camp and the settlement. The settlement lay four miles northeast and there were little-used, needle-covered roads to be found that led here, there and everywhere, over which the initiated could find the way to the store.

But Lydia and Kent did not want to use the roads. It was with the old familiar sense of make believe adventure that they started on what they called a Bee-line southwest. And it was mid-afternoon before, hungry and leg weary, they reached the store that backed up against the Indian school!

They bought sardines, crackers and cheese and ate them perched on a dry goods box near the hitching rack.

"There! I feel happier," said Kent as he threw away the empty sardine cans. "How are you, old lady?"

Lydia swung her feet contentedly. "Fine! Let's start back. We'll be there by supper time, I'm sure we know the way now."

Kent nodded, offered Lydia a stick of gum, took one himself, put a huge supply in his pocket and they were off.

But alas for the vanity of amateur woods-craftsmen! The late June dusk found them still threading the endless aisles of pine, their sense of direction completely obscured by the sinking of the sun.

"Scared, Lyd?" inquired Kent as they paused for a moment's rest on a log.

"No, but I'm awful hungry and I've chewed gum till I'll scream if I see another piece. We ought to come on another wick-i-up soon."

"We've come on a dozen of them," grumbled Kent. "If we could make the Indians understand where the camp is, it would be all right. And I don't know what Charlie's Indian name is, so that doesn't help."

Lydia drew a trifle closer on the log to Kent. "Supposing we have to stay out here all night!" She shivered a little.

"Well, I'd light a fire," said Kent in a matter of fact manner that Lydia suspected was assumed, "and fix you up on a bed of pine needles. Then I'd stand guard all night, like a little tin hero."

"No, we'd guard in turns," corrected Lydia. "Kent, what's the use of starting on until the moon comes up?"

"None at all," returned the boy. "It's due about nine, isn't it! I hope the folks won't worry about us. In the meantime, you and I can have a good old talk, like the old days. Remember?"

It was entirely dark now in the woods. Fireflies darted about. Crickets shrilled and an occasional owl hooted. Lydia moved still closer to Kent, until his shoulder touched hers.

"I remember! Kent, are you afraid?"

"I should say not! I like the woods at night. Don't the fern and the needles smell fine? Lyd, what're you going to do after you finish High School?"

"Go on to the University. Aren't you?"

"Dad wants me to, but I guess I'll go to work. Why waste four years learning a lot of stuff that'll never earn me a cent?"

"But you could take engineering, or law."

"All lawyers are crooks and I've no head for figures. I'm going into the real estate business. There's real money in that, particularly if Levine gets his bill through. What do you want to go to the University for?"

"Kent, I promised Mother I'd go. And I want to anyhow. We're so poor, that I'll never be anything but a scrub woman if I don't get educated. And all our folks back East were college people, even if they were farmers—all but Dad. He thought he was too smart to go to college."

Kent stirred uncomfortably. "I don't think I'm too smart, but I want to make money, quick."

"I don't see what the hurry is. Is it Olga?"

"Of course it isn't Olga! She's all right to flirt with and a peachy looker, but you don't suppose a fellow wants to marry every girl he gets crazy about!"

"I didn't know," said Lydia, meekly. "Nobody was ever crazy about me."

"You aren't that kind, thank heaven. If I ever catch you running round flirting, I'll slap your face."

There was nothing humorous in Kent's tone, nevertheless Lydia giggled. "Lots you'd know about it when you don't see me for months at a time."

"I'd know, never fear. You're growing up the way a girl ought to. I know all about it."

Lydia sat, staring into the darkness, thinking this over. She was getting an amount of comfort out of the conversation that made her realize how sore a spot there had been within her.

"But why do you flirt?" she asked finally.

"Aw, boys are that way. You don't understand. A fellow can't help flirting with girls like Margery and Olga—or any other old girl, as far as that goes."

"Kent," asked Lydia, suddenly, "what's a hussy?"

"Huh!" exclaimed Kent. "What makes you ask that?"

"What you said about flirting. Election night there were lots of women, flashily dressed, around, and father said they were hussies. And I saw Gustus flirting with one of them, and some of the Senior boys, too. And I saw some of the best dressed of the Indians with them."

"You'd better ask your father," said Kent.

"I did and he said I'd know when I got older."

There was silence again. The wind sighed through the pines, the crickets chirped, the all-hallowing scent of the pine enveloped them as if blown from some heavenly incense burner. Kent was only seventeen. He sat staring with puzzled eyes into the darkness. He tried to picture Olga putting a question like this to him, and failed. A sudden realization of the loneliness of Lydia's unmothered girlhood, of her innocent faith in him, touched the best that was in him. His voice was a little husky but he answered coolly.

"A hussy, Lyd, is a flirt who's gone to the bad. Those around Lake City chase after the students and the Indians who've got Government allowances, and get their money away from them."

"Oh," said Lydia. "Oh!" Then thoughtfully, "Aren't men silly!"

"Yes, they are," agreed Kent. "And, Lyd, whenever you want to know about such things, you ask me. It's a man's place to tell a girl the things she ought to know."

"All right," replied Lydia, "and of course, you're just like a brother to me."

"Oh, I don't feel so brotherly as—Gee, there's a fire, Lydia!"

Faintly through the trees gleamed a distant blaze. The two jumped to their feet and, weariness forgotten, started hastily toward it.

"It's the camp crowd, I guess," said Lydia.

"No, it isn't, it's a bunch of men," corrected Kent. "Hold on a minute, Lydia. Let's see what we're getting into."

He pulled her into the shelter of a giant pine trunk and the two peered at the group around the fire.

"Some kind of an Indian pow-wow, half breeds, mostly," whispered Kent.

Lydia shivered. "Don't they look fierce in the firelight," she murmured. "Let's get out of here, Kent."

"Shucks! Be a sport, Lyd! We'll watch them a minute, then I'll brace up and speak to 'em."

There were six half breeds in "store" clothes and moccasins squatting around the blaze. None of them was speaking.

"They act as if they were waiting for some one," whispered Lydia, with some of the old thrill of pirate plays returning to her. "Kent, they've all got guns!"

"Hush! There comes some one else. For the love of cats!"

John Levine emerged from the darkness of the forest into the fire glow.

"How!" he grunted, slipping into an empty space, opposite the two eavesdroppers.

"How," returned the Indians.

Silence in the woods, except for the crackling fire.

"Kent, let's go! I don't want to listen, I don't want to know." The cold sweat was standing on Lydia's forehead.

Kent seized her arm. "You've got to stay. It's your business to know," he whispered sharply.

"Where's Eagle's Feather?" asked Levine.

"Sick," replied an Indian.

John nodded. "I got back from Washington today. Big fight there. Marshall and his crowd, they'll make a big fight. I may have to compromise. I may make my bill read, only mixed bloods can sell their lands, not full bloods."

"Good!" said an Indian. "Full blood don't want to sell, anyhow."

"Better for you mixed bloods," agreed Levine, "because you'll get higher prices for your land, but worse for us whites, for there'll be less land, unless—you mixed bloods should happen to swear the full bloods are mixed too."

No one spoke for a minute, then a fat, yellow-faced half-breed laughed. "I'll swear old Chief Dawn had a white great-grandmother. I'll get even with him, for throwing me out of the council."

"Exactly," said Levine. "It'll be a good way for all of you to pay up old debts. Any of Marshall's men been up here lately?"

After a pause, one of the younger Indians said, "Some young fellows been going through the woods measuring out a road and they acted like they was just out for a vacation when any one was around. A year ago I see one of the fellows riding out with Marshall."

Levine grunted. Lydia's heart was pounding so hard that it really pained her. She stared at John unbelievably. Yet it was the same familiar, sallow face, with the gaunt look about the cheeks. Only the eyes were strange. Lydia had never seen them so hard, so searching before. Kent was breathing deep and he did not loose his hold on her arm.

"Well," said Levine, "is that all you folks have got to report, after six months? What do you think I'm paying you for?"

An old mixed blood, almost as dark as a full blood, removed his pipe from his mouth. "All the shoes we buy this year made out of paper, cost four dollars, melt when they get wet. Woman at Last Chance tell me Injun Agent tell her he gets those shoes from Marshall."

"The hog!" grunted Levine. "Anything more?"

What more might have come Lydia did not know for an old squaw came tottering into the fire glow. She was gray headed and emaciated.

"Oh, that's our old squaw, Kent, remember?" whispered Lydia.

"Shut up!" murmured Kent.

The squaw made her way up to John. There was something sinister in the look of her and he rose.

"What you do now, white man," she snarled. "Steal! Steal more, eh?"

Levine looked down on her and his voice was pitying. "Why, you poor old devil, you look half starved." He dug into his pocket and brought out a silver dollar. "Go get some grub," he said.

The old woman stared from the dollar to Levine's face and her voice rose to a shriek.

"Steal! Steal! Make our young men drunk! Make our young girls have babies that grow like these snakes," she pointed a trembling, scrawny finger at the scowling mixed bloods. "White man—dirty fool—dirty thief," and she spat at Levine, at the same time striking the dollar from his hand. It rolled out onto the needles and lay shining in the firelight.

John stiffened and the mixed bloods watched him curiously. But the squaw suddenly burst into the feeble yet deep drawn sobs of the old, and tottering over to the silver she picked it up. "Hungry!" she sobbed. "All the time much hungry." And she started slowly away from the fire in the direction of Kent and Lydia's hiding-place.

"Quick!" whispered Kent, and noiselessly the two ran back into the darkness of the woods, through which, however, a silver light was beginning to filter. "There's the moon," he said in a low voice. "Now I can find the lake."

He took Lydia's hand and they hastened in silence toward the rising moon. In less than half a mile they found the lake and far around its curving shore, the gleam of their own camp fire.

"Holy Mike! What do you think of that!" demanded Kent as they headed for the fire. "Isn't Levine a wonder!"

"Oh, Kent!" gasped Lydia. "What shall we do!"

"Do!" cried Kent. "Why keep our mouths shut and see what happens. Lord, what an adventure! Lyd, I wouldn't have missed this day for a hundred dollars!"

Lydia scarcely heard him. "John Levine!" she murmured. "My best friend! Oh, I can't believe it."

"Shucks! Why, that's life! Gee, what rich pickings! Me for the real estate business!"

"Kent, it's stealing, just as my squaw said. And it's just the meanest, dirtiest kind of stealing!"

"It's nothing of the kind. The whites have got to have that land and if a lot of sentimental grannies won't let us get it openly, we've got to get it quietly."

They were nearing the camp now and Kent stopped and in the moonlight took Lydia by the shoulders. "Look here, Lyd, don't you tell a soul about what we saw. Promise me!"

"I'll do nothing of the kind," snapped Lydia.

The two stood staring at each other. The lad, tall and broad, his dark face tense; the girl, slender, her fair hair shimmering, her eyes clear in the moonlight.

"Promise!" repeated Kent.

"I will not!" returned Lydia.

Kent's hold on her shoulders tightened. He wanted to box her ears and yet, as he gazed at the wistful, sensitive lips, he felt a sudden desire to kiss her.

"Well, promise me, you'll say nothing while we're in camp, anyhow."

Lydia hesitated. After all, she thought, to whom could she tell the story and what could any one do! "All right, I'll promise that," she agreed, slowly.

Kent took his hands from her shoulders. "Come on then, old lady. Gee, this beats hanging poor old Florence Dombey under the willows. Give me your hand and I'll tow you along."

It was scarcely nine o'clock, after all, when they trudged into the camp. Charlie and Gustus came in a moment later, having heard Miss Towne's call.

"Oh, Lydia! Lydia! I've worried myself sick." And the cruel Miss Towne, the grouchy Miss Towne, threw her arms about Lydia, with a little murmur that was curiously like a sob.

"We were just going to the settlement for help," said Charlie, "though we were pretty sure nothing serious could have happened."

"Of course nothing serious!" protested Kent. "We were too smart to follow the roads and got lost going and coming. We waited for the moon to come up and we haven't had anything to eat but chewing gum."

"We saved your supper," said Margery. "Come on, Gustus, we'll heat it for 'em."

"Margery'd be a real human being, if she'd stay away from her mother," observed Kent. "For the love of Mike, let me sit down!"

"Here, get in the hammock and let me fix the cushions for you!" cried Olga, who had been eying Lydia closely.

"Thanks, I prefer the dining-room bench, right now," returned Kent. "Come on, Lyd. Food!"

Lydia was tired the next day and elected to stay in camp with Miss Towne while the others, including even Margery and Gustus, went on an all day strawberry hunt.

Lydia lay in a hammock with a book all the morning, but the greater part of the time, Miss Towne observed, her eyes were fastened broodingly on the lake and not on the printed page. The two went bathing alone, at noon, and afterward lay on the grassy shore, drying their hair.

"Lydia, wasn't Kent nice to you, yesterday?" asked the chaperone, abruptly.

Lydia turned a startled, sunburned face toward the questioner. "Nice! Why, of course! Kent's like my brother."

"No man but a brother can be like a brother, my dear. Always remember that. What happened yesterday to worry you?"

"Nothing that had anything to do with Kent. Gosh! I should say not!"

"Lydia!" cried Miss Towne. "Please don't use such dreadful language! If you knew how coarse it sounds! Oh, my dear, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings," as she watched the scarlet face and quivering lips. "It's just that you are so fine, I can't bear to have you do anything that isn't fine. I've been planning to talk to you for a long time about your slang. Leave that sort of thing to Olga and the rest. Use only the purest Anglo-Saxon. Be a credit to your fine Puritan stock in speech. You already are, in character."

Lydia said nothing. She sat struggling to keep back the tears when a horse's hoof beats sounded under the trees and Levine rode into the camp.

Lydia had been wondering how, when she saw him in town, she was going to meet him, what she was going to say to him. But now, her only thought was that here was the devoted friend who had understood her since babyhood.

As he dismounted, she jumped to her feet. "Oh, my dear Mr. Levine! My dear! My dear!" she cried and hair flying, she ran to him and threw her arms about his neck, burying her face against his rough corduroy coat.

John threw a long arm about her, and held her to him closely, while with his free hand he smoothed back the glory of her hair. And Miss Towne, watching, saw his long saturnine face transformed.

"Why, Lydia, my little sweetheart! I didn't realize you'd missed me so." He held her silently for a moment, then, catching Miss Towne's gaze, he smiled.

"Lydia has few loves, but they're strong," he said. "I'm her foster father. My name's John Levine."

Lydia disengaged herself. "And this is Miss Towne," she said, "my dearest teacher."

"I've heard your praises sung for a long time," said Levine.

"And I've heard Lydia sing yours," returned Miss Towne.

"And no one else, I'll bet," laughed John.

"Sit down," said the chaperone, with what dignity she could muster with her hair down her back, "while Lydia and I finish dressing."

"You'll have lunch with us?" called Lydia as she retreated toward the tent.

"Yes, but I can't stay longer. Must be back in Lake City for supper," replied Levine, tying up his horse.

The luncheon was a success. Lydia was delighted to put her hand to cooking again, and while Miss Towne set the table, John chatted with both of them of his Washington experiences. He rode away immediately after he had finished eating. Miss Towne wiped the dishes thoughtfully.

"It's hard to realize that he's the scandalous John Levine," she said. "He's simply charming!"

Lydia flared, flushed and subsided. Never again, she realized, could she contradict aspersions cast on Levine's character. And yet, how like a bad dream the episode of last night seemed. If only it had been a dream!

"You're not resentful still about my criticism of your slang using, are you, Lydia?" asked Miss Towne, anxiously.

"No," muttered Lydia, "I deserved it."

Miss Towne's face cleared. "Well, then, tell me all about your friend. He interests me."

Nothing could have soothed Lydia more in her half guilty feeling of having spied unfairly on John than to spend the rest of the afternoon in a history of his relationship to her family.

Side by side in the hammock the two lay during the rest of the sunny summer afternoon, gazing up into the pines and talking of the curious personality that was making history for Lake City. In after years, whenever she thought of Levine, Miss Towne's memory brought her two pictures—one of the tall, sardonic faced man clasping the golden haired girl in his arms. The other was of pine boughs, murmuring sadly and persistently above the gentle flow of Lydia's young voice.

That night the young people sat alone around the camp fire. The chaperone complained of a headache and went to bed soon after supper. When she had disappeared, and the tent flap had dropped behind her, Gustus chanted softly,

"School's closed! Teacher's dead! Hooray!"

and deliberately put his arm about Margery and kissed her. Margery gave a little shriek but blushed and looked pleased and Gustus settled down with his head in her lap. Margery sat looking into the fire, and smoothing Gustus' hair.

Olga, who was sitting with Charlie on the opposite side of the blaze, her back against a log, arranged her skirts. "Come on, Charlie," she said, with a glance at Kent. And Charlie ensconced himself comfortably with his head on Olga's knee.

Lydia, who was sitting with Kent, eyed this grouping with interest, and mingled with a little sense of shock and disapproval was just the least little feeling of regret that the boys didn't feel "crazy" about her. She was sitting bolt upright, with her cheeks flaming a little when she felt Kent's arm stealing round her. She did not resist when he pulled her softly against him. She was utterly surprised at the pleasurable sensation she experienced at having Kent's arm about her. The others were singing but for once Lydia's throaty contralto did not join in.

So this was spooning! Of course, she wouldn't let anybody but Kent do this. And what did it amount to, anyhow! If this was all there was to spooning, why did people think it was wrong?

Under cover of the singing, Kent giving her a little squeeze said, "Didn't think you were such a flirt, Lydia! Let me put my head in your lap, will you?"

"All right," said Lydia nonchalantly. And presently she was smoothing Kent's hair, and he was holding her unoccupied hand. It was the same crisp black hair Lydia had pulled in many a childish quarrel and Kent had held her hands many a time to keep her from slapping his face. And yet there was a thrill about this!

Kent evidently called this flirting. Flirting! Lydia began going back over the conversation with Kent that the eavesdropping episode had crowded from her thoughts. Kent didn't respect girls that flirted and he told her he'd slap her if she flirted and yet, here he was! Lydia went on smoothing the crisp hair, with the thin hand that had the callouses of hard work across the palm.

The others were singing one of Lydia's favorite airs and she joined in.

"The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine."

She sang the words unthinkingly—and stopped. John Levine was helping her in her search for God, and robbing and betraying the Indians as he did so! And here was Kent, warning her against doing that which he was persuading her to do. What was the matter with men! Was there no trusting them? And yet, she liked to "spoon" with Kent!

"Oh," she thought, "I wish I knew more about men. I wish I could ask Mother."

And memory, like a gentle alarm clock rang its warning. "Lydia," her father had said, "don't do anything you'd be ashamed to have your mother know."

Lydia yawned and gave Kent's hair a little tweak. "Get up, Kent, my foot's asleep," she said.

Kent sat up. The others sang on and Lydia said, "I thought you didn't want me to flirt."

"I don't, but with me it's different!" replied Kent.

Lydia jumped to her feet. "You make me sick, Kent Moulton!" she snapped. "All men make me sick. I'm going to bed." And she stalked off in her hunting boots, without a good night to any one.

Kent looked after her with an expression half sheepish, half admiring.

"What's the matter with Lyd?" asked Olga.

"Doesn't care about the spooning bee," replied Kent.

"Proper is Lydia's middle name," commented Gustus.

"Lydia is absolutely O. K.," said Charlie.

"Bet your life," agreed Kent. "Get your big head over, Gustus, and give me a piece of Margery's knee."

"Darn it," said Charlie, "Lydia's left the tent flap up. We might as well go to bed."

Which, after another song or two, they did.



CHAPTER XI

LYDIA GIGGLES

"Nature is neither cruel nor sad. She is only purposeful, tending to an end we cannot see."—The Murmuring Pine.

The days flew lightly by, lightly for Lydia, too, in spite of the heavy secret she carried of Levine's plotting. Lightly, in spite of the fact that Lydia was undergoing some soul-changing experiences in this short holiday, experiences that were to direct her life's course.

The day before they broke camp, Lydia's old squaw appeared and asked for Charlie Jackson.

Charlie and Kent were cooking dinner.

"Dear me," said Miss Towne, "tell him to take the poor thing away, Lydia."

"He must feed her, first," exclaimed Lydia, leading the old Indian over to the cooking shelter.

Kent and Lydia exchanged glances as Charlie led the squaw—Susie, he called her—into the woods, after Lydia had heaped her old arms with food. Kent and Gustus had put the dinner on the table and they all were seated at the meal when Charlie returned.

"What did she want, Charlie?" asked Olga.

"You wouldn't care if I told you," replied Charlie, grimly. "But," he burst forth suddenly, "some day you whites will pay. Some day the Japs or the Jews will do to you Americans what you've done to us."

"Who cares!" cried Olga, pertly. "Have a pickle, Charlie, and cheer up." She pushed the pickle dish toward him.

"Or some catsup," suggested Gustus, depositing the bottle by Charlie's plate.

"Or a sardine," added Margery.

Charlie's lips twitched and he smiled and Miss Towne sighed in a relieved way. The meal progressed without a further crisis.

After the dishes were done, Kent followed Lydia, who was strolling off for a last walk in the woods.

"Do you suppose she told Charlie about Levine?" he asked, as he overtook her.

"Look out, Charlie's coming," said Lydia and in a moment the Indian had joined them.

"Look here, Lydia," he began, "Levine is up to some new cussedness. Old Susie came on him in council the other night with six of the worst half breeds in the reservation. She lost her head and began to jaw him so she didn't find out what it was about. And he's getting the last of my timber now. Lydia, you've got to help me. When you get home, talk to Levine."

"Getting the last of your timber!" exclaimed Kent.

"Yes, the law lets 'em get the 'dead and down' stuff and who's going to swear it's fresh stuff that he cut this summer and will get out next winter?"

"Do you mean he's up cutting your pines now?" cried Lydia, aghast.

"No! No!" impatiently. "His half breeds do that."

"But how does he come to be taking your wood? Why don't you go to see him yourself?" asked Kent.

"I can't answer either of those questions," replied Charlie, sullenly.

The two young whites thought of the attack on Levine, and looked at each other apprehensively.

"Won't the Indian Agent stop him?" asked Lydia.

"He! Why, he's deep in the mire himself with Dave Marshall. My God, Margery Marshall went to New York on a blind Indian boy's pines! Lydia, save my pines for me! They belong to my tribe. My father kept them and so did his father for his people. As long as they had those miles of pines, they had a place for the tribe to live. Father was going to Washington three years ago to tell the president about the graft when they shot him from ambush. If I put up a fight, they'll shoot me. My father wanted me to learn white ways so I could protect the tribe. And the more I learn of white ways the more I realize I'm helpless. Lydia, won't you help us?"

Neither Kent nor Lydia ever had seen Charlie thus before. He was neither arrogant nor sullen. He was pleading with a tragic hopelessness that moved his two hearers profoundly.

"Oh, Charlie! I will try," cried Lydia. "I truly will."

"I knew you would," said Charlie, huskily, and he turned back abruptly to the camp.

"Gee!" exclaimed Kent. "Chapter number two!"

Lydia stamped her foot. "How can you speak so, Kent! It's a frightful thing!"

"Sure it's frightful, but it can't be helped. The whites have got to have this land. Might's right."

"What makes the whites so crazy for it?" asked Lydia.

"Money," returned Kent.

Lydia stared about her. Supposing, she thought, that she owned a hundred acres of this pine land. She forgot Kent and concentrated every force of her mind on sensing what land ownership would mean. And suddenly there woke in her, her racial hunger for land. Suddenly there stirred within her a desire for acreage, for trees, soil, stream and shrub, a wide demesne that should be hers and her children's forever. She was still too young to trace the hunger back to its primal source, the desire for permanency, the yearning to possess that which is the first and the last of existence, which neither moth nor dust can corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. But somewhere back in her still childish mind a lust for a wide domain of pine land bestirred itself to begin battle with the sense of right and justice that her heart of hearts told her Levine was outraging.

"Are you really going to talk to Levine?" Kent roused her from her reverie.

"Yes! Didn't I promise to?"

"Lots of good it'll do," grunted Kent. "And if you tell him we overheard him in the woods, I'll be sore."

"I don't see why."

"Because, after I finish High School, I'm going to tell him I know, to make him let me in on the deal. Look here, Lyd, don't tell him I was with you, anyhow."

"Oh, all right," replied Lydia, crossly. "For goodness' sake, don't let's talk about it any more. I don't see why men always have to be plotting! I'm going back to camp and help pack."

The driver arrived with the carryall at nine o'clock the next morning, and at mid-afternoon, Lydia was dropped at the gate, where Adam took possession of her. It was earlier than she had been expected, and Lizzie had not returned from her Saturday marketing. Lydia lugged her suitcase up the path, glad to be at home, yet murmuring to herself a little disconsolately.

"Nothing to look forward to now, but school in the fall."

The house seemed small and dingy to her, after the open splendor of the pine woods. Old Lizzie had "let things go" and the rooms were dusty and disorderly. Lydia dropped her suitcase in the kitchen.

"I've just got to train old Lizzie," she said, "so that she won't leave her old carpet slippers and her apron in the middle of the kitchen every time she goes out. And Dad just must quit leaving his pipe on the dining-room table. I do wish we had Mission furniture instead of this everlasting old mahogany. I just guess there's got to be some reforming in this house, this summer. If I've got to leave off slang, Dad and Lizzie can leave off a few of their bad habits."

She carried the suitcase on into her bedroom and Lizzie, coming in, hot and bundle-laden an hour later, found the living-room in immaculate order and Lydia, in an old dress, blacking the kitchen stove.

"For the land's sake, child," said Lizzie as Lydia kissed her and took her bundles from her, "how tanned you are! And you shouldn't have begun work the minute you got home."

"I had to. I couldn't stand the dirt," answered Lydia, briskly. "Is Daddy all right? You'll find your slippers where they belong, Lizzie."

The old lady, in her rusty black alpaca which she always wore to town, gave Lydia a look that was at once reproachful and timid. Lydia had shown signs lately of having reached the "bringing up the family" stage of her development and Lizzie dreaded its progress.

Amos came in the gate shortly after six. Lydia was waiting for him at the front door. He looked suddenly shabby and old to Lydia and she kissed him very tenderly. It required all the supper hour and all the remainder of the evening to tell the story of the camp and to answer Lizzie's and Amos' questions. There were several episodes Lydia did not describe; that of the half breed council in the wood, for example, nor the "spooning" with Kent.

It was ten o'clock when Amos rose with a sigh. "Well, you had a good time, little girl, and I'm glad. But I swan, I don't want you ever to go off again without me and Liz and Adam. Adam howled himself to sleep every night and I'd 'a' liked to. I'm going out to see if the chickens are all right."

"I got everything that belongs to you mended up, Lydia," said Lizzie, following into the kitchen bedroom.

Lydia looked from the gnarled old hands to the neat rolls of stockings on the bureau. She had been wishing that Lizzie was a neat maid with a white apron! A sense of shame overwhelmed her and she threw her arms about her kind old friend.

"Lizzie, you're a lot too good to me," she whispered.

Lydia was sitting on the front steps, the next afternoon, with a book in her lap and Adam at her feet, when Billy Norton called. He stopped for a chat in the garden with her father, before coming up to greet Lydia.

"He is awful homely. A regular old farmer," she thought, comparing him with the elegant Gustus and with Kent's careless grace.

Billy was in his shirtsleeves. His blond hair was cropped unbecomingly close. Lydia did not see that the head this disclosed was more finely shaped than either of her friends. He was grinning as he came toward Lydia, showing his white teeth.

"Hello, Lyd! Awful glad you're back!"

He sat down on the step below her and Lydia wrinkled her nose. He carried with him the odor of hay and horses.

"How's your mother?" asked Lydia. "I'm coming over, to-morrow."

"Mother's not so very well. She works too hard at the blamed canning. I told her I'd rather never eat it than have her get so done up."

"I'll be over to help her," said Lydia. "We had a perfectly heavenly time in camp, Billy."

"Did you?" asked her caller, indifferently. "Hay is fine this year. Never knew such a stand of clover."

"Miss Towne was grand to us. And Kent and Charlie are the best cooks, ever."

"Great accomplishment for men," muttered Billy. "Are you going to try to sell fudge, this winter, Lyd?"

"I don't know," Lydia's tone was mournful, "Daddy hates to have me. Now I'm growing up he seems to be getting sensitive about my earning money."

"He's right too," said Billy, with a note in his voice that irritated Lydia.

"Much you know about it! You just try to make your clothes and buy your school books on nothing. Dad's just afraid people'll know how little he earns, that's all. Men are selfish pigs."

Astonished by this outburst, Billy turned round to look up at Lydia. She was wearing her Sunday dress of the year before, a cheap cotton that she had outgrown. The young man at her feet did not see this. All he observed were the dusty gold of her curly head, the clear blue of her eyes and the fine set of her head on her thin little shoulders.

"You always look just right to me, Lyd," he said. "Listen, Lydia. I'm not going to be a farmer, I'm—"

"Not be a farmer!" cried Lydia. "After all you've said about it!"

"No! I'm going in for two years' law, then I'm going into politics. I tell you, Lydia, what this country needs to-day more than anything is young, clean politicians."

"You mean you're going to do like Mr. Levine?"

"God forbid!" exclaimed the young man. "I'm going to fight men like Levine. And by heck," he paused and looked at Lydia dreamily, "I'll be governor and maybe more, yet."

"But what's changed you?" persisted Lydia.

"The fight about the reservation, mostly. There's something wrong, you know, in a system of government that allows conditions like that. It's against American principles."