rank.

"You ought to see the one he did for mother," said Bill. "Small enough
for a bracelet almost, and the little ball smaller than a pea. The links
are all carved on the outside, and there is a sort of rose on the end of
this cage thing, and Lee painted it all up pink and green where it ought
to be like that.

"He knows all about a car too. This week he has been going over dad's
car and the Swallow, and they run like grease."

Frank fiddled with the chain. He had nothing to say. On account of his
Indian blood, his silent ways and mischievous nature, Lee had always
filled him with interest. He could tell wonderful stories too of his own
times and the times that lay long behind him, as he heard of them from
his father and grandfather.

Lee's grandfather knew a great many things that he never did tell, but
once in awhile he was willing to open his close-set old mouth and talk.
He wore black broadcloth clothes, a long coat, and a white shirt, but
never a collar. A wide black, soft-brimmed hat was set squarely on his
coal black hair. Under the hat, smooth as a piece of satin, his hair
hung in two tight braids close to each ear. They were always wound with
bright colored worsted. Grandfather Lee, the old chieftain, liked
bright colors, so he usually had red and yellow on his braids. They hung
nearly to his waist, down in front, over each coat lapel. Small gold
rings hung in his ears, and under his eyes and across each cheek bone
was a faint streak of yellow paint.

His Indian name was Bird that Flies by Night, and he lived about a
hundred miles away, on a farm given him by the Government. He had lived
there quite contentedly for many years, tilling the ground when he had
to. But now everything was changed. Oklahoma had given up her treasure,
the hidden millions that lay under her sandy stretches. Oil derricks
rose thickly everywhere, and Bird that Flies by Night found that all he
had to do was to sit on his back porch and look at the derrick that had
been raised over the well dug where his three pigs used to root. Two
hundred dollars a day that well was bringing to the old Bird and, as Lee
said, was "still going strong."

"And here _I_ am," said Lee grimly, "enlisted for three years!"

Lee's father was an Indian of a later day. He had gone through an
eastern college and had been in business in a small town when the oil
excitement broke out. He went into oil at once, and was far down in the
oil fields, Lee did not k