“I do too!” stormed Lydia.  “I—­”

“Order!  Let Jackson finish, Miss Dudley,” said Senator Smith.

“I can’t let him finish,” cried Lydia, “until I tell you about Mr. Levine.  He’s been as much to me as my own father ever since my mother died when I was a little girl.  He’s understood me as only my own mother could, hasn’t he, Daddy!”

Amos nodded, with a little apologetic glance at the commissioners.  Levine’s eyes were fastened on Lydia’s face with an expression that was as sweet as it was fathomless.  Charlie Jackson stood biting his nails and waiting, his affection for Lydia holding in abeyance his frenzied loyalty to his father.

“You think he could murder when he could hold a little girl on his knees and comfort her for the death of her little sister, when he taught her how to find God, when—­oh, I know he’s robbed the Indians—­so has my own father, it seems, and so has Pa Norton, and so has Kent, and all of them are dear people.  They’ve all been wrong.  But think of the temptation, Mr. Commissioner!  Supposing you were poor and the wonderful pines lay up there, so easy to take.”

Senator Elway would have interrupted, but Senator James laid a hand on his arm.  “It’s all informal, let her have her say,” he whispered.  “It’s the first bright spot in all the weeks of the hearing.”

“Did you ever feel land hunger yourself,” Lydia went on eagerly, “to look at the rows and rows of pine and think what it would mean to own them, forever!  It’s the queerest, strongest hunger in the world.  I know, because I’ve had it.  Honestly, I have, as strongly as any one here—­only—­I knew Charlie Jackson and this awful tragedy of his and I knew his eyes would haunt me if I took Indian lands.”

“You’re covering a good deal of ground and getting away from the specific case, Miss Dudley,” said, Smith.  “Of course, what you say doesn’t exonerate Mr. Levine.  On the other hand, Jackson has no means of proving him accessory to the murder of his father.  We’ve threshed that out with Jackson before.  What you say of Mr. Levine’s character is interesting but there remains the fact that he has been proceeding fraudulently for years in his relations to the Indian lands.  You yourself don’t pretend to justify your acts, do you, Mr. Levine?”

Lydia sat down and Levine slowly rose and looked thoughtfully out of the window.  “The legality or illegality of the matter has nothing to do with the broader ethics of the case, though I think you will find, gentlemen, that my acts are protected by law,” he said.  “The virgin land lies there, inhabited by a degenerate race, whose one hope of salvation lay in amalgamation with the white race.  An ignorant government, when land was plenty and the tribe was larger, placed certain restrictions on the reservation.  When land became scarce, and the tribe dwindled to a handful, those restrictions became wrong.  It was inevitable that the whites should override them.  Knowing that the ethics of my acts and those of other people would be questioned, I went to Congress to get these restrictions removed.  If another two years could have elapsed, before these investigations had been begun, the fair name of Lake City never would have been smirched.”  Levine’s hand on the back of his chair tightened as he looked directly at Billy Norton.