He loved her, and she loved him.  Yet—­she was an Indian, and did he want an Indian wife?  But after all that had passed between them, and the silent, mutual confession of the afternoon, could he in honor do else than marry her?  Ever since he had come West he had held the firm conviction that an Indian can never be anything but an Indian, and that to attempt to make anything else out of him is not only a sheer waste of time, effort, and money, but is also an injury to the Indian himself, because it gives him desires and ambitions that can do nothing but make discord with his Indian nature.

But it seemed different with her.  In truth, he told himself, she seemed more akin to the white than to the Indian race.  That age-long heritage of religious belief and practice that has made a basis of character for the pueblo Indian did not seem to have found expression in her.  But if after years should bring it to the surface and she should prove to be Indian at heart, would it raise a wall between them or would it drag him down, because of his great love for her, to that same Indian level?  If that Indian nature was there now, patched over and hidden by present surroundings, would not happiness be impossible between them?  And if he believed that unhappiness would be the sure result of their marriage would it not be more dishonorable to marry her than to leave her at once?  But at the idea of leaving her a sharp pain pierced his heart.  He thrust at it the thought that in the long run she would probably be happier if she were never to see him again.  Then he ground his teeth together, whirled about and started for the town.

Presently he put his hand in his pocket and his fingers closed over Barbara’s yellow rose.  He raised it to his lips and something very like a sob trembled through his soldierly figure.  And then suddenly, in a great wave, came the remembrance of her graces of mind and heart and body, and of how frank and simple and sincere she was, how sweet and gentle and womanly and winning.  At the same moment his own faults rose up and upbraided him, and his heart cast away the arguments his brain had been weaving, and cried out with all its strength, “Indian or not, she is better than I!” All his white-man’s pride and prejudice of race fell from him as he pressed her rose to his lips and kissed it again and again.

On the morrow it happened that Lieutenant Wemple was officer of the day at the post and his duties kept him so closely confined in and about the fort that he had not time to see Barbara.  But in the latter part of the afternoon it became necessary for him to see the commanding officer.  The Colonel had gone, he knew, on a business errand to the farther end of the town, and the Lieutenant started out to find him.  His way back took him past the Coolidge residence.  He was walking hurriedly down the street, in haste to return to his duties, his blonde head erect, his cap at right-eyed angle, his uniform buttoned tightly across his broad shoulders and around his trim waist, his sword on hip, and his eyes straight in front of him.  But his thoughts were inside the adobe walls of the Governor’s home and he was calculating how long it would be until, released from duty, he could hasten back to pour into a little brown ear the words of love of which his heart was full.