ly. "Why don't you brace up?"

"We don't know how," said Jim.

"I wonder if that's true," murmured Pen, "and if it is true, why!"

Silence fell between the two. The night wind sighed softly over the
Elephant's broad back. The eagle, disturbed by the voices above his
nest, soared suddenly from the crater, dipped across the canyon, and
circled the flag that was seldom lowered before the office. The flag
fluttered remotely in the moonlight.

"Look, Jim," whispered Pen, "the eagle and the flag so young and the
Elephant so old and poor Iron Skull lying there dead! I wish I could
make a legend from it. The material is there.... Oh, Sara said such
horrible things tonight!"

Penelope shivered. Jim jumped up and held out his hand. "Come, little
Pen! I'm going to take you home. How cold your fingers are!"

Jim kept Pen's cold little hand warm within his own whenever the trail
permitted on the way back. But he scarcely spoke again.

The next day Iron Skull's funeral was held in the little adobe chapel
which was filled to overflowing. A great crowd of workmen, Americans,
Mexicans and Indians, gathered outside. At Suma-theek's earnest
petition, Jim allowed the Indians to carry the coffin on their shoulders
up the trail behind the lower town to the mesa crest where the little
graveyard lay. And Jim also gave Suma-theek permission to make a
farewell speech when the grave had been filled. The missionary had
protested but Jim was obdurate.

"Suma-theek owes his life to Iron Skull. I shall let him do his
uttermost to show his gratitude. He is a fine old man, as fine in the
eyes of God, no doubt, as you or I, Mr. Smiley."

So as the last of the sand and gravel was being shoveled into the grave,
the old Apache stepped forward and raised his lean brown hand.

"My blood brother," he said, "he lies in this grave. If he have squaw or
childs, old Suma-theek, he go give life for them. Iron Skull he no have
anyone left on this earth who carry his blood. He gone! He leave no mark
but in my heart. Injun and white they come like pile of sand desert wind
drifts up. They go like pile of sand desert wind blows down. Great
Spirit, He say, 'Only one strength for mens; that the strength of many
childs, Injuns, they no have many childs. They die. Mexicans they have
many childs, they live. Niggers, they have many. They live. Whites they
no have many childs. Come some day like Injuns, like Iron Skull, they
see on all of earth, no blood like theirs