He glanced at Follett appealingly, as he had looked at the others when he left the platform that day, beseeching some expression of friendliness.

“Yes, I must tell you—­everything.”  But his face lighted as Follett interrupted him.

“You tell her,” said Follett, doggedly, “how you saved her that day and kept her like your own and brought her up to be a good woman—­that’s what you tell her.”  The gratitude in the little man’s eyes had grown with each word.

“Yes, yes, dear, I have loved you like my own little child, but your father and mother were killed here that day—­and I found you and loved you—­such a dear, forlorn little girl—­will you hate me now?” he broke off anxiously.  She had both his hands in her own.

“But why, how could I hate you?  You are my dear little sorry father—­all I’ve known.  I shall always love you.”

“That will be good to take with me,” he said, smiling again.  “It’s all I’ve got to take—­it’s all I’ve had since the day I found you.  You are good,” he said, turning to Follett.

“Oh, shucks!” answered Follett.

A smile of rare contentment played over the little man’s face.

In the silence that followed, the funeral-drum came booming in upon them over the ridge, and once they saw an Indian from the encampment standing on top of the hill to look down at their fire.  Then the little man spoke again.

“You will go with him,” he said to Prudence.  “He will take you out of here and back to your mother’s people.”

“She’s going to marry me,” said Follett.  The little man smiled at this.

“It is right—­the Gentile has come to take you away.  The Lord is cunning in His vengeance.  I felt it must be so when I saw you together.”

After this he was so quiet for a time that they thought he was sleeping.  But presently he grew restless again, and said to Follett:—­

“I want you to have me buried here.  Up there to the north, three hundred yards from here on the right, is a dwarf cedar standing alone.  Straight over the ridge from that and half-way down the other side is another cedar growing at the foot of a ledge.  Below that ledge is a grave.  There are stones piled flat, and a cross cut in the one toward the cedar.  Make a grave beside that one, and put me in it—­just as I am.  Remember that—­uncoffined.  It must be that way, remember.  There’s a little book here in this pocket.  Let it stay with me—­but surely uncoffined, remember, as—­as the rest of them were.”

“But, father, why talk so?  You are going home with us.”

“There, dear, it’s all right, and you’ll feel kind about me always when you remember me?”

“Don’t,—­don’t talk so.”

“If that beating would only stay out of my brain—­the thing is crawling behind me again!  Oh, no, not yet—­not yet!  Say this with me, dear:—­

“’The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.