ing to
forgive me even my unintentional faults," he decided, meekly. "I'm very
sorry, I'm sure, and hope you will bear no malice. Of course I--nobody
would want you to be different from what you are; so you must not think I
meant that. I had hoped you would let me buy that clay bust as a memento
of this morning, but I'm afraid to ask favors now. I can only hope that
you will speak to me again to-morrow. Until then, good-by."

She raised her eyes sullenly at first, but they dropped, ashamed, before
the kindness of his own. She felt coarse and clumsy, and wished she had
not been so quick to quarrel. And he was turning away! Maybe he would
never speak nicely to her again, and she loved to hear him speak.

Then her hand was thrust out to him, and in it was the little clay model.

"You can have it. I'll give it to you," she said, quite humbly. "It ain't
very pretty, but if you like it--"

Thus ended the first of many differences between Dan's ward and Dan's
friend.

When Daniel Overton himself came stalking down among the Indian children,
looking right and left from under his great slouch hat, he halted
suddenly, and with his lips closed somewhat grimly, stood there watching
the rather pretty picture before him.

But the prettiness of it did not seem to appeal to him strongly. He looked
on the girl's half smiling, drooped face, on Lyster, who held the model
and his hat in one hand and, with his handsome blonde head bared, held out
his other hand to her, saying something in those low, deferential tones
Dan knew so well.

Her hand was given after a little hesitation. When they beheld Dan so near
them, the hands were unclasped and each looked confused.

Mr. Lyster was the first to recover, and adjusting his head covering once
more, he held up the clay model to view.

"Thought you'd be around before long," he remarked, with a provoking gleam
in his eyes. "I really had no hope of meeting Miss Rivers before you this
morning; but fortune favors the brave, you know, and fortune sent me
right along these sands for my morning walk--a most indulgent fortune,
for, look at this! Did you know your ward is an embryo sculptress?"

The older man looked indifferently enough at the exalted bit of clay.

"I leave discoveries of that sort to you. They seem to run in your line
more than mine," he answered, briefly. Then he turned to the girl. "Akkomi
told me you were here with the children, 'Tana. If you had other company,
Akkomi woul