“Good Lord, Lydia!” exclaimed Charlie, “I didn’t want you to feel that bad!  I just wanted you to see, because you’re Levine’s friend and because I like you so much.  Please, don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying,” Lydia lifted reddened eyes to his, “I was just thinking.  What can I do about it, Charlie?”

“You can’t do anything.  It’s too late.  But I wanted you to see.  I don’t care what girl understands as long as you do.  I think an awful lot of you, Lydia.”

He took Lydia’s hand and patted it.  Lydia looked up at him, thrilled by his bronze beauty and the note in his voice.

“If I were a white man,” said Charlie, “I’d make you love me and marry me.  But I’m an Indian and sooner or later I’ll go back to my people.  I’m just making believe I can play the white man’s game for a while.”  He eyed Lydia wistfully.  “But we’ll be friends, eh, Lydia?—­Always?  Even if I go back to the wick-i-up, you’ll be my friend?”

“Oh, yes, Charlie, always,” replied Lydia, earnestly, even while there flashed through her head the half whimsical thought, “Queer kinds of men want to be friends with me, Mr. Levine, Mr. Marshall, and Charlie.  And they all hate each other!”

After this episode, Charlie was less strenuous about showing Lydia Indian conditions.  That night he resumed a mild flirtation with Olga that he had dropped when school closed and Olga met him more than half way.

“Wouldn’t that come and get you!” growled Kent to Lydia as Charlie and Olga paddled away in the canoe, the next morning.  “Have you and Charlie had a fight?”

“Nope,” replied Lydia.  “But I got sick of investigating the reservation.  Are you and Olga mad at each other?”

“Not so very!  Say, Lyd, let’s kill time,” Kent interrupted himself with a yawn, “with a tramp up to the settlement for some gum.”

Lydia stifled an elaborate yawn, at which Kent grinned.  “All right, I can stand it if you can,” she said.  “Will you come along, Miss Towne?”

Miss Towne, who had been highly edified by the morning’s maneuvering shook her head and settled herself in her hammock.  “No eight mile walk for me.  I’m taking a rest cure.  Better wear a hat, Lydia.  You’re getting dreadfully burned.”

“That’s right.  Your nose is peeling something fierce,” said Kent as they started off.

“Huh, yours looks like a pickled beet,” returned Lydia.  “Come on, pretend I’m Olga and be happy.”

CHAPTER X

THE CAMP

“The humans I have known lack root hold.  Perhaps that is why they die and leave no trace.”—­The Murmuring Pine.

There was no clear-cut trail between the camp and the settlement.  The settlement lay four miles northeast and there were little-used, needle-covered roads to be found that led here, there and everywhere, over which the initiated could find the way to the store.