“You will remember that the Indian in the play is a great football hero, and a sort of demi-god to his fellows.  He begins to consider himself one of them—­their equal—­and he falls in love with the sister of his chum.  But when this fact is made known his friends turn against him and try to show him the barrier of blood.  At the finish a messenger comes bearing word that his father is dead and that he has been made chief in the old man’s place.  He is told that his people need him, and although the girl offers to go with him and make her life his, he renounces her for his duty to the tribe.

“Well, it was all right up to that point, but the end didn’t help me in shaping the future of Running Elk, for his father was hale, hearty, and contented, and promised to hang on in that condition as long as we gave him his allowance of beef on Issue Day.

“That night when I got back to the hotel I found a long-distance call from old Henry Harman.  He had wired me here at the Agency, and, finding I was in Washington, he had called me from New York.  He didn’t tell me much over the ’phone, except that he wanted to see me at once on a matter of importance.  My work was about finished, so I took the train in the morning and went straight to his office.  When I arrived I found the old fellow badly rattled.  There is a certain kind of worry which comes from handling affairs of importance.  Men like Henry Harman thrive upon it; but there’s another kind which searches out the joints in their coats of mail and makes women of them.  That’s what Henry was suffering from.

“‘Oh, Doc, I’m in an awful hole!’ he exclaimed.  ’You’re the only man who can pull me out.  It’s about Alicia and that damned savage of yours.’

“‘I knew that was it,’ said I.

“‘If you’ve heard about it clear out there,’ Harman declared, with a catch in his voice, ‘it’s even worse than I thought.’  He strode up and down his office for a few moments; then he sank heavily into his chair and commenced to pound his mahogany desk, declaring, angrily: 

“’I won’t be defied by my own flesh and blood!  I won’t!  That’s all there is to it.  I’m master of my own family.  Why, the thing’s fantastic, absurd, and yet it’s terrible!  Heavens!  I can’t believe it!’

“‘Have you talked with Alicia?’

“’Not with her, to her.  She’s like a mule.  I never saw such a will in a woman.  I—­I’ve fought her until I’m weak.  Where she got her temper I don’t know.’  He collapsed feebly and I was forced to smile, for there’s only one thing stubborn enough to overcome a Harman’s resistance, and that is a Harman’s desire.

“‘Then it isn’t a girlish whim?’ I ventured.

“‘Whim! Look at me!’ He held out his trembling hands.  ’She’s licked me, Doc.  She’s going to marry that—­that—­’ He choked and muttered, unintelligibly:  ’I’ve reasoned, I’ve pleaded, I’ve commanded.  She merely smiles and shrugs and says I’m probably right, in the abstract.  Then she informs me that abstract problems go to pieces once in a while.  She says this—­this—­Galloping Moose, this yelping ghost-dancer of yours, is the only real man she ever met.’