after
lives, which were but images of her own in all that concerned their
father.

* * * * *

The first great shadow that fell on this united little circle was
when George Mansion's mother quietly folded her "broadcloth" about
her shoulders for the last time, when the little old tobacco pipe
lay unfilled and unlighted, when the finely-beaded moccasins were
empty of the dear feet that had wandered so gently, so silently
into the Happy Hunting Grounds. George Mansion was bowed with woe.
His mother had been to him the queen of all women, and her death
left a desolation in his heart that even his wife could not assuage.
It was a grief he really never overcame. Fortunately his mother had
grown so attached to Lydia that his one disobedience--that of his
marriage--never reproached him. Had the gentle little old Indian
woman died before the episode of the moccasin which brought complete
reconciliation, it is doubtful if her son would ever have been quite
the same again. As it was, with the silence and stoicism of his race
he buried his grief in his own heart, without allowing it to cast a
gloom over his immediate household.

But after that the ancient chief, his father, came more frequently
to George's home, and was always an honored guest. The children
loved him, Lydia had the greatest respect and affection for him,
the greatest sympathy for his loneliness, and she ever made him
welcome and her constant companion when he visited them. He used
to talk to her much of George, and once or twice gave her grave
warnings as to his recklessness and lack of caution in dealing with
the ever-growing menace of the whisky traffic among the Indians.
The white men who supplied and traded this liquor were desperadoes,
a lawless set of ruffians who for some time had determined to rid
their stamping-ground of George Mansion, as he was the chief
opponent to their business, and with the way well cleared of him
and his unceasing resistance, their scoundrelly trade would be an
easy matter.

"Use all your influence, Lydia," the old father would say, "to urge
him never to seize the ill-gotten timber or destroy their whisky,
unless he has other Indian wardens with him. They'll kill him if
they can, those white men. They have been heard to threaten."

For some time this very thing had been crowding its truth about his
wife's daily life. Threatening and anonymous letters had more than
once been received by her husb