“Kent, I knew it,” said Lydia, after a pause.

“You knew it!  You let a lot of sickly sentimentality ruin Lake City in the eyes of the world?  Not only that.  Think what’s coming to John Levine!  Think what’s coming to me, though I’ve done little enough!”

“Then I’m glad it came to stop you; while you’d still done little!” cried Lydia.

“Nonsense!” snapped Kent.  “Of course, you don’t expect anything but gush from a girl about the Indians.  But I don’t see what you get out of it, Bill.  Who’s paying you?  Are you going to run for president on the purity ticket?”

“There’s no use in my trying to tell you why I did it,” grunted Billy.

“No, there isn’t,” agreed Kent.  “But I’ll tell you this much.  Bill, you and I break right here and now.  I’ve no use for a sneak.”

Again Billy shrugged his shoulders.  Lydia looked at the two in despair, then she smiled and cried, “Oh, there’s Margery!  Isn’t she lovely!”

It was Margery, just home from boarding-school, where she gaily announced as she shook hands she had been “finally finished.”

“Though,” she added.  “Daddy wants to pack me right off again because of this silly investigation.  As if I wanted to miss the fun of viewing all our best family skeletons!”

“Margery,” cried Lydia, quickly, “you’re so beautiful that you’re simply above envy.  What a duck of a dress!”

“Isn’t it!” agreed Margery.  “Kent, do get me a chair.  I’ll spoil all my ruffles on the grass.  Well!  Here I am!  And what were you all discussing so solemnly when I interrupted?”

“Indian graft!” said Billy, laconically.

“Isn’t it awful!  And isn’t it funny!  You know, I was actually proud that I lived in Lake City.  The girls used to point me out in school to visitors.”

Margery, exquisite in her dainty gown, her wonderful black eyes gleaming with fun, as a sample of Lake City dishonesty appealed to the sense of humor of her audience and they all laughed, though Lydia felt her throat tighten strangely as she did so,—­Margery, made exquisite on the money of blind squaws and papooses that froze to death!

“Daddy is all worked up, though I told him they certainly hadn’t done anything much to him, so far, and I’d feel real neglected if they didn’t find he had an Indian wife up his sleeve,” Margery went on.  “Oh, Billy, by the way.  Daddy says he thinks Senator Alvord started the whole thing.  Did he?”

“Yes, and I helped,” replied Billy shortly.

“Well, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” cried Margery, airily.  “Don’t you, Lydia?”

“No, I don’t, I’m proud of him, though I’m scared to death,” said Lydia.  “Things are so much worse than I thought they’d be.”

“Well, I just tell you, Billy Norton,” there was a sudden shrill note in Margery’s voice, “if anything really horrid is unearthed about Daddy, I’ll never speak to you again.  Would you, Kent?”