to Mr. T. J.
Haydon.

The sun had passed far to the west, and the shadows were growing longer
under the hills there by the river. Clear, red glints fell across the cool
ripples of the water, and slight chill breaths drifted down the ravines
and told that the death of summer was approaching.

Some sense of the beauty of the dying October day seemed to touch the
girl, for she walked a little apart and picked a spray of scarlet maple
leaves and looked from them to the hills and the beautiful valley, where
the red and the yellow were beginning to crowd out the greens. Yes, the
summer was dying--dying! Other summers would come in their turn, but none
quite the same. The girl showed all the feeling of its loss in her face.
In her eyes the quick tears came, as she looked at the mountains. The
summer was dying; it was autumn's colors she held in her hand, and she
shivered, though she stood in the sunshine.

As she turned toward the group again, she met the eyes of the stranger to
whom Max was talking. He seemed to have been watching her with a great
deal of interest, and her hand was raised to her eyes, lest a trace of
tears should prove food for curiosity.

"It was to one of Akkomi's relations I was talking," she remarked to Mr.
Haydon, when he questioned her. "His little grandson is sick, and I would
like to send him something. I haven't money enough in my pocket, and wish
you would get me some."

After taking some money out of his purse for her, he eyed the tall savage
with disfavor.

"He'll buy bad whisky with it," he grumbled.

"No, he will not," contradicted the girl. "If a person treats these
Indians square, he can trust them. But if a lie is told them, or a promise
broken--well, they get even by tricking you if they can, and I can't say
that I blame them. But they won't trick me, so don't worry; and I'm as
sure the things will go to that little fellow safely as though I took
them."

She was giving the money and some directions to the Indian, when a word
from a squaw drew her attention to the river.

A canoe had just turned the bend not a quarter of a mile away, and was
skimming the water with the swiftness of a swallow's dart. Only one man
was in it, and he was coming straight for the landing.

"Some miner rushing down to see the train go by," remarked Mr. Haydon; but
the girl did not answer. Her face grew even more pale, and her hands
clasped each other nervously.

"Yes," said the Indian beside her, and