“Your love for your Indians is, indeed, touching.  I witnessed a demonstration of that love last night, when you battered and kicked and hurled them about in their drunken and helpless condition.  But, tell me, what will become of them while you are following your trail of blood—­the trail you so fondly imagine will terminate in the death of Lapierre, but which will, as surely and inevitably as justice itself, lead you to a prison cell, if not the gallows?”

MacNair regarded the girl almost fiercely.  “I must leave my Indians,” he answered, “for the present, to their own devices.  For the simple reason that I cannot be in two places at the same time.”

“But their supplies were burned!  They will starve!” cried the girl.  “It would seem that one who really loved his Indians would have his first thought for their welfare.  But no; you prefer to take the trail and kill men; men who may at some future time tell their story upon the witness-stand; a story that will not sound pretty in the telling, and that will mark the crash of your reign of tyranny.  ‘Safety first’ is your slogan, and your Indians may starve while you murder men.”  The girl paused and suddenly became conscious that MacNair was regarding her with a strange look in his eyes.  And at his next words she could scarcely believe her ears.

“Will you care for my Indians?”

The question staggered her.  “What!” she managed to gasp.

“Just what I said,” answered MacNair gruffly.  “Will you care for my Indians until such time as I shall return to them—­until I have ridded the North of Lapierre?”

“Do you mean,” cried the astonished girl, “will I care for your Indians—­the same Indians who attacked my school—­who only last night fought like fiends among themselves, and burned their own homes?”

“Just that!” answered MacNair.  “The Indian who warned me of Lapierre’s plot told me, also, of the arrival of your supplies—­sufficient, he said, to feed the whole North.  You will not lose by it.  Name your own price, and I shall pay whatever you ask.”

“Price!” flashed the girl.  “Do you think I would take your gold—­the gold that has been wrung from the hearts’ blood of your Indians?”

“On your own terms, then,” answered MacNair.  “Will you take them?  Surely this arrangement should be to your liking.  Did you not tell me yourself, upon the occasion of our first meeting, that you intended to use every means in your power to induce my Indians to attend your school?  That you would teach them that they are free?  That they owe allegiance and servitude to no man?  That you would educate and show them they were being robbed and cheated and forced into serfdom?  That you intended to appeal to their better natures, to their manhood and womanhood?  I think those were your words.  Did you not say that?  And did you mean it?  Or was it the idle boast of an angry woman?”

Chloe interrupted him.  “Yes, I said that, and I meant it!  And I mean it now!”