“Years ago,” began Charlie, grimly, “my father foresaw what the whites were trying to do.  None of the other full bloods believed him.  He had nothing to do with half-breeds.”

“I don’t see why you always speak so of the mixed bloods,” interrupted Lydia.  “Their white blood ought to improve them.”

“It ought, yes,—­but it doesn’t.  And the reason is that only the rottenest kind of a white man’ll make a squaw a mother.  And only the low harpies in places like Last Chance will let an Indian father a child.”

Lydia flushed but compressed her lips and let Charlie speak on.  She knew that it was useless to try to stem the tide of protest that was rising to his lips.

“Father was the chief of the tribe and he called council after council until at last they all decided he’d better go to Washington and see if he could get help from the Indian Commissioner.  Even then John Levine had a following of half-breeds.  He told the yellow curs to kidnap my father and he’d see if he could make him more reasonable.  So the half-breeds laid in ambush the day father started for Washington.  Father put up an awful fight and they killed him!”

“Oh, Charlie!” cried Lydia, dropping her sewing.  “Oh, Charlie!”

“Yes,” said the Indian, tensely, “and though Levine wasn’t there he was just as much my father’s murderer as if he’d fired the shot.  Of course, nothing was ever done by the authorities.  It was hushed up as an Indian brawl.  But my sister, she was twenty then, she found out about Levine and she came in and set fire to his house one night, thinking she’d burn him to death.  Instead of that, she just scared his old hired man who was drunk.  Levine was away from home.  But he’s a devil.  He found out it was my sister and he told her the only way she could keep from being jailed was to sell him all our pines—­for a hundred dollars.  So she did, but she shot at him that Thanksgiving night when he’d been at your house.”

“Oh, Charlie!” whispered Lydia, horror in her blue eyes and her parted lips.  She looked at him in utter dismay.  No longer was he the debonair favorite of the High School.  In his somber eyes, his thin cold lips, his tense shoulders, the young girl saw the savage.  She looked from Charlie to the familiar garden, to Adam, scratching fleas, and beyond to the quiet herds in the Norton meadows.  Surely Charlie’s tale of killings had no place in this orderly life.  Then her glance fell upon the pine beside the gate.  It murmured softly.  Again Lydia saw the cloistered depths of the reservation pines and again there stirred within her that vague lust for ownership.  And she knew that Charlie’s tale was true.

She moistened her dry lips.  “But what can I do, Charlie!  I’m only a girl.”

“I’ll tell you what you can do.  You can throw down your murderer friend and side with me.  You can get every one you know to side with me.  And, Lydia, never tell Levine, or any one else, what you know about him.  It wouldn’t be safe!”