red against a life of self-sacrifice, such as that suggested by
this man, whose eyes sought her in worship!

Could there be any greater happiness than to stand by his side, helping
to render a dying, captive race happier--healthier? Could her great
wealth be put to better use than this of teaching two hundred thousand
red people how to meet and adjust themselves to the white man's way of
life? Their rags, their squalor, their ignorance were more deeply
depressing to her lover than the poverty of the slums, for the Tetongs
had been free and joyous hunters. Their condition was a tragic
debasement. She began to feel the arguments of the Indian helpers. Their
words were no longer dead things; they had become electric nodes; they
moved her, set her blood aflame, and she clinched her hands and said: "I
will help him do this great work!"

XXIX

ELSIE WARNS CURTIS

Brisbane was early awake, abrupt and harsh in command. "Come! we must
get out o' here," he said. "I don't want to be under the slightest
obligation to this young crank. I intend to break him."

She flamed into wrath--a white radiance. "When you break him you break
me," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I've changed my mind. I think he's right and you are wrong."

The entrance of the sheriff prevented a full accounting at the moment,
but it was merely deferred. Once in the carriage, Brisbane began to
discredit her lover. "Don't tell me Curtis is disinterested; he is
scheming for some fat job. His altruistic plea is too thin."

"You are ill-fitted to understand the motives of a man like Captain
Curtis," Elsie replied, and every word cut. "What have you--or I--ever
done that was not selfish?"

"I've given a thousand dollars to charity for every cent of his."

"Yes, and that's the spirit in which you gave--never to help, only to
exalt yourself, just as I have done. Captain Curtis is giving himself.
He and his sister have made me see myself as I am, and I am not happy
over it. But I wish you would not talk to me any more about them; they
are my friends, and I will not listen to your abuse of them."

It was a most fatiguing ride. Brisbane complained of the heat and the
dust, and of a mysterious pain in his head; and Elsie, alarmed by his
flushed face, softened. "Poor papa, I'm so sorry you had to come on this
long ride!" Lawson was also genuinely concerned over the Senator's
growing incoherency, and privately told the driver to push hard on the