Here was a matter which lay very near her
heart. She had thought so much about it. She had even dared at other times
to speak to her husband on the subject, and advise him. Now he came to
her.

"Yes," the man went on, still with that look of perplexity in his shifty
eyes; "perhaps I have been wrong. You have told me that I was. But, you
see, I looked on your brother as a child almost. And if I let him talk of
Rosebud, it was, as I once told you, because he is headstrong. But now he
has gone far enough--too far. It must be stopped. The man is getting out
of hand. He means to have her."

Wanaha's eyes dilated. Here indeed was a terrible prospect. She knew her
brother as only a woman can know a man. She had not noted the melodramatic
manner in which her husband had broken off.

"You say well. It must be stop. Tell your Wana your thought. We will
pow-wow like great chiefs."

"Well, that's just it," Nevil went on, rising and drawing up to the table.
"I can't see my way clearly. We can't stop him in whatever he intends.
He's got some wild scheme in his head, I know; and I can't persuade him.
He's obstinate as a mule."

"It is so. Little Black Fox is fierce. He never listen. No. But you think
much. You, who are clever more than all the wise men of my race."

Wanaha served her husband with his food. Whatever might be toward, her
duty by him came first. Nevil sat eating in what appeared to be a moody
silence. The velvety eyes watched his every expression, and, in sympathy,
the woman's face became troubled too.

"Well, of course we must warn--some one," Nevil went on at last. "But the
question is, who? If I go to the Agent, it'll raise trouble. Parker is
bullheaded, and sure to upset Black Fox. Likely he'll stop his going
hunting. If I warn old Rube Sampson it'll amount to the same thing. He'll
go to the Agent. It must be either Seth or Rosebud."

"Good, good," assented the Indian woman eagerly. "You say it to Seth."

Nevil ate silently for some minutes, while the woman looked on from her
seat beside the stove. Whatever was troubling the man it did not interfere
with his appetite. He ate coarsely, but his Indian wife only saw that he
was healthily hungry.

"Yes, you're right again, my Wana," Nevil exclaimed, with apparent
appreciation. "I'd prefer to tell Seth, but if I did he'd interfere in a
manner that would be sure to rouse your brother's suspicions. And you know
what he is. He'd suspect me or you. He'd throw caut