told them. "Ah! we
are glad for the Tetongs. They have a good man. Tell the commissioner we
are anxious to council and go home--we are weary of this place."

Lawson, meanwhile, had entered the office and now reappeared. "Mr. Brown
will see you at once, Captain."

The acting commissioner wore the troubled look of a man sorely
overworked and badly badgered. He breathed a sigh of ostentatious relief
as he faced his two visitors, who came neither to complain nor to ask
favors. He studied Curtis contemplatively, his pale face set in sad
lines.

"I'm leaning on you in this Tetong business," he began. "I have so many
similar fights all over the West, I can't give you the attention you
deserve. It seems as though our settlers were insane over Indian lands.
I honestly believe, if we should lay out a reservation on the staked
plains there'd be a mad rush for it. 'The Injun has it--let's take it
away from him,' seems to be the universal cry. I am pestered to death
with schemes for cutting down reservations and removing tribes. It would
seem as if these poor, hunted devils might have a thumb-nail's breadth
of the continent they once entirely owned; but no, so long as an acre
exists they are liable to attack. I'm worn out with the attempt to
defend them. I'll have nervous prostration or something worse if this
pressure continues. Yesterday nearly finished me. What kind of pirates
do you raise out there, anyway?"

Curtis listened with amazement to this frank avowal, but Lawson only
laughed, saying, in explanation: "This is one of the commissioner's poor
days. He'll fight till the last ditch--"

"Irrigating ditch!" supplemented the commissioner. "Yes, there's another
nightmare. Beautiful complication! The government puts the Indian on a
reservation so dry that water won't run down hill, and then Lawson or
some other friend of the Indian comes in here and insists on irrigating
ditches being put in, and then I am besieged by civil engineers for
jobs, and wild-eyed contractors twist my door-knobs off. Captain Curtis,
keep out of the Indian service if you have any conscience."

"That's exactly why I recommended him," said Lawson--"because he _has_ a
conscience."

"It'll shorten his life ten years and do no material good. Well, now,
about this Tetong imbroglio."

Immediately he fell upon the problem with the most intense application,
and Curtis had a feeling that his little season of plain speaking had
refreshed him.

Lawson w