Yet, still old affection fought with new clarity of vision.  Old loyalty quarreled with new understanding.  Bit by bit she went over her thinking life, beginning with her first recollection of Charlie Jackson in the class in Civil Government, and all that was feminine and blind devotion in her fought desperately with all that education and her civic-minded forefathers had given her.

Coming home from her last recitation, one mild afternoon, she stopped at the gate and looked up into the pine tree.  Its scent carried her back to the cloistered wood on the reservation and once more the desire for the soil was on her.  She leaned against the giant tree trunk and looked out over the lake, steel blue and cold in the March sunshine.  And there with the lowing of the Norton herds and the hoarse call of the crows mingling with the soft voice of the pine and the lapping of the lake, she made her decision.  For clearly as though the pine had put it into words, something said to Lydia that it was not her business to decide whether or not the Indians deserved to live.  It was her business to recognize that in their method of killing the Indians, the whites had been utterly dishonorable.  That her refusing to take a stand could not exonerate them.  History would not fail to record the black fact against her race that, a free people, the boasted vanguard of human liberty, Americans had first made a race dependent, then by fraud and faithlessness, by cruelty and debauchery, were utterly destroying it.  And finally, that by closing her eyes to the facts, because of her love for Levine, she was herself sharing the general taint.

It was Lydia’s first acknowledgment of her responsibility to America, and it left her a little breathless and trembling.  She turned back to the road and made her way swiftly to the Norton place.  She did not go into the house, but down the lane where she could see Billy putting up the bars after the cattle.  He waited for her, leaning against the rails.

“Billy,” she said, panting, her cheeks bright and her yellow hair blowing, “I’m against the Indian grafting.”

Billy put out his hand, solemnly, and the two shook hands.  For all Billy was four years older than Lydia, they both were very, very young.  So young that they believed that they could fight single-handed the whole world of intrigue and greed in which their little community was set.  So young that they trembled and were filled with awe at the vast importance of their own dreams.  And yet, futile as they may seem, it is on young decisions such as these that the race creeps upward!

“What are you going to do, Billy?” asked Lydia.

“I’m going to get a government investigation started, somehow,” he replied.  “It’ll take time, but I’ll get it.”

Lydia looked at him admiringly, then she shivered a little.  “I hate to think of it, but I’ll stand by you, Billy, whatever you do.”

“I’m going into ex-Senator Alvord’s law office this June.  I’ll bet he’ll help.  He’s so sore at Levine.  It’ll be lovely muckraking, Lyd!”