Levine grunted.  Lydia’s heart was pounding so hard that it really pained her.  She stared at John unbelievably.  Yet it was the same familiar, sallow face, with the gaunt look about the cheeks.  Only the eyes were strange.  Lydia had never seen them so hard, so searching before.  Kent was breathing deep and he did not loose his hold on her arm.

“Well,” said Levine, “is that all you folks have got to report, after six months?  What do you think I’m paying you for?”

An old mixed blood, almost as dark as a full blood, removed his pipe from his mouth.  “All the shoes we buy this year made out of paper, cost four dollars, melt when they get wet.  Woman at Last Chance tell me Injun Agent tell her he gets those shoes from Marshall.”

“The hog!” grunted Levine.  “Anything more?”

What more might have come Lydia did not know for an old squaw came tottering into the fire glow.  She was gray headed and emaciated.

“Oh, that’s our old squaw, Kent, remember?” whispered Lydia.

“Shut up!” murmured Kent.

The squaw made her way up to John.  There was something sinister in the look of her and he rose.

“What you do now, white man,” she snarled.  “Steal!  Steal more, eh?”

Levine looked down on her and his voice was pitying.  “Why, you poor old devil, you look half starved.”  He dug into his pocket and brought out a silver dollar.  “Go get some grub,” he said.

The old woman stared from the dollar to Levine’s face and her voice rose to a shriek.

“Steal!  Steal!  Make our young men drunk!  Make our young girls have babies that grow like these snakes,” she pointed a trembling, scrawny finger at the scowling mixed bloods.  “White man—­dirty fool—­dirty thief,” and she spat at Levine, at the same time striking the dollar from his hand.  It rolled out onto the needles and lay shining in the firelight.

John stiffened and the mixed bloods watched him curiously.  But the squaw suddenly burst into the feeble yet deep drawn sobs of the old, and tottering over to the silver she picked it up.  “Hungry!” she sobbed.  “All the time much hungry.”  And she started slowly away from the fire in the direction of Kent and Lydia’s hiding-place.

“Quick!” whispered Kent, and noiselessly the two ran back into the darkness of the woods, through which, however, a silver light was beginning to filter.  “There’s the moon,” he said in a low voice.  “Now I can find the lake.”

He took Lydia’s hand and they hastened in silence toward the rising moon.  In less than half a mile they found the lake and far around its curving shore, the gleam of their own camp fire.

“Holy Mike!  What do you think of that!” demanded Kent as they headed for the fire.  “Isn’t Levine a wonder!”

“Oh, Kent!” gasped Lydia.  “What shall we do!”

“Do!” cried Kent.  “Why keep our mouths shut and see what happens.  Lord, what an adventure!  Lyd, I wouldn’t have missed this day for a hundred dollars!”