een threats, in
louder tones. It was very discouraging. So at last they returned to
their own tent, to the yarn-spinning threshers and the silent old
cowpuncher.

Whitey soon gave up this form of effort, but Injun did not; possibly
because Dorgan was in the other tent. Friday night came, almost the last
of the threshing. Injun was absent on his eavesdropping quest, which so
far had yielded nothing. The men in Whitey's tent were merrier than
usual and, it must be admitted, more profane. Then along came bad luck,
in the person of Mrs. Gilbert Steele.

Mrs. Steele, you must know, was one of these motherly women who didn't
have anything to mother. She was stout, round-faced, good-natured, and
industrious; quite the opposite to her rather cold-blooded husband. And
this matter of her not having anything to mother was responsible for
many things, as you shall learn. Threshing-time was rush time with her.
She had few chances to think of anything except food, but this night she
happened to have a little leisure, and had devoted it to consideration
of Whitey. "That poor boy out in that tent with all those rough men. Why
didn't I think of him before?"

So Mrs. Steele had waddled out to the tent, and had arrived at a moment
when there was a particularly strong outburst of profanity on the part
of one of the rough men. Though this was nipped in the bud as Mrs.
Steele entered the tent, it caused her to reproach herself more bitterly
than before. She promptly took Whitey under her wing and told him that,
crowded as the ranch house was, a place there should be found for him to
sleep.

Whitey was greatly taken aback. Of course he didn't want to go. He
thought it made him look foolish in the eyes of the men, and it did. He
thought he might get out of it by explaining to Mrs. Steele, and he
didn't. Perhaps that lady believed that Injun's morals were swear-proof,
or that he didn't have any, for she didn't mention him. And to crown
Whitey's annoyance and chagrin, just as he was being led away to the
darned old house Injun appeared. And his face was lighted up--for
Injun's. And his eyes were shining with an unholy light. For he had
heard something!

There would have been another story to tell if Injun had acted
differently. But in the first place he was an Indian, and it was not in
his blood to follow any fat white woman and rescue a boy from her
clutches. In the next place he was Injun; he had his own personality. We
Caucasians are a