“Keep out, Amos,” said Levine.  “We’ve got to clear this up.  I’ve been expecting it, for some time.  Lydia, years ago before the Government began to support the Indians, they were a fine, upstanding race.  The whites could have learned a lot from them.  They were brave, and honorable, and moral, and in a primitive way, thrifty.  Well, then the sentimentalists among the whites devised the reservation system and the allowance system.  And the Indians have gone to the devil, just as whites would under like circumstances.  Any human being has to earn what he eats or he degenerates.  You can put that down as generally true, can’t you, Amos?”

“You certainly can,” agreed Amos.

“Now, the only way to save those Indians up there is to kick them out.  The strong ones will live and be assimilated into our civilization.  The weak ones will die, just like weak whites do.”

“But how about Charlie’s pines?” insisted Lydia.

Something like a note of amusement at the young girl’s persistence was in John’s voice, but he answered gravely enough.

“Yes, I’ve bought his pines and I’ll get them out, next winter.  There’s no denying we want the Indians’ land.  But there’s no denying that throwing the Indian off the reservation is the best thing for the Indian.”

“But what makes Charlie think you’re stealing them?  And he says that when the pines go, the tribe will die.”

“I paid for the pine,” insisted Levine.  “An Indian has no idea of buying and selling.  It’s a cruel incident, this breaking up of the reservation, but it’s like cutting off a leg to save the patient’s life.  Sentiment is wasted.”

“That’s the great trouble with America, these days,” said Amos, his pipe bowl glowing in the summer darkness.  “All these foreigners coming in here filled the country with gush.  What’s become of the New Englanders in this town?  Well, they founded the University, named the streets, planted the elms and built the Capitol.  Since then they’ve been snowed under by the Germans and the Norwegians, a lot of beer drinkers and fish eaters.  Nobody calls a spade a spade, these days.  They rant and spout socialism.  The old blood’s gone.  The old, stern, puritanical crowd can’t be found in America to-day.”

Lydia was giving little heed to her father.  Amos was given to fireside oratory.  She was turning over in her mind the scene in the woods between John and the half breeds.  That then was a part of the process of removing the patient’s leg!  The end justified the means.

She heaved a great sigh of relief.  “Well, then, I don’t have to worry about that any more,” she said.  “Only, I don’t dare to think about those starving old squaws, or the baby that froze to death.”

“That’s right,” agreed Levine, comfortably.  “Don’t think about them.”

Old Lizzie snored gently, gave a sudden sigh and a jerk.  “Land!  I must have dozed off for a minute.”