solve this racial question--it's
too big and too complicated. Men are simply a kind of ferocious beast.
They go to work killing each other the way chickens eat grasshoppers."

"Your figure is wrong. If our Christian settlers only killed Indians to
fill their stomachs they'd stop some time; but they kill them because
they're like the boy about his mother--tired of seeing 'em 'round."

There was a time when Elsie's jests were frankly on the side of the
strong against the weak, but she was becoming oppressed with the
suffering involved in the march of civilization. "What a fine face
Grayman has; I couldn't help thinking how much more refined it was than
Winters! As for the cowboys, they were hulking school-boys; I was not a
bit afraid of them after they were dismounted."

"Unfortunately they are a kind of six-footed beast, always mounted;
there isn't a true frontiersman among them. It angered me that they had
the opportunity to even look at you."

His intensity of gaze and the bitterness of his voice took away her
breath for an instant, and before she could reply Jennie and Lawson came
in.

Lawson was smiling. "Parker is righteously incensed. He tried to enter
the council an hour ago and your dusky minions stopped him. He is
genuinely alarmed now, and only waiting for daylight to take flight."

"Jerome is a goose," said Elsie.

"He's a jackass at times. A man of talent, but a bore when his yellow
streak comes out." Turning to Curtis he said, very seriously, "Is there
anything I can do for you, Captain?"

"You might wire your version of the disturbance to the Secretary along
with mine. We can safely look for an avalanche of newspaper criticism,
and I would like to anticipate their outbreak."

"Our telegrams will be at once made public--"

"Undoubtedly, and for that reason we must use great care in their
composition. I have mine written; please look it over."

Jennie, who had dropped into a chair, checked a yawn. "Oh, dear; I wish
it were morning."

Curtis looked at her and laughed. "I think you girls would better go to
bed. Your eyes are heavy-lidded with weariness."

"Aren't you going to sleep?" asked Jennie, anxiously.

"I shall lie down here on the sofa--I must be where I can hear a tap on
the window. Good-night."

Both girls rose at his word, and Elsie said: "It seems cruel that you
cannot go properly to bed--after such a wearisome day."

"You forget that I am a soldier," he said, and saluted as they