g sort of scrap
for several thousand years."

She permitted him to lead her to the hammock, and pile three cushions
behind her head and shoulders--with the dark-blue one on top because her
hair looked well against it--and dispose himself comfortably where he
could look his fill at her while he swung the hammock gently with his
boot-heel, scraping a furrow in the sand. But she did not show any
dimples, though his eyes and his lips smiled together when she looked
at him, and when he took up her hand and kissed each finger-tip in turn,
she was as passive as a doll under the caresses of a child.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, when he found that her manner did not
soften. "Worrying still about what that old squaw said?"

"Not in the slightest." Evadna's tone was perfectly polite--which was a
bad sign.

Good Indian thought he saw the makings of a quarrel in her general
attitude, and he thought he might as well get at once to the real root
of her resentment.

"What are you thinking about? Tell me, Goldilocks," he coaxed, pushing
his own troubles to the back of his mind.

"Oh, nothing. I was just wondering--though it's a trivial matter which
is hardly worth mentioning--but I just happened to wonder how you came
to know that Georgie Howard is in the habit of giving candy to the
squaws--or anything else. I'm sure I never--" She bit her lips as if she
regretted having said so much.

Good Indian laughed. In truth, he was immensely relieved; he had been
afraid she might want him to explain something else--something which he
felt he must keep to himself even in the face of her anger. But this--he
laughed again.

"That's easy enough," he said lightly. "I've seen her do it a couple of
times. Maybe Hagar has been keeping an eye on me--I don't know; anyway,
when I've had occasion to go to the store or to the station, I've nearly
always seen her hanging around in the immediate vicinity. I went a
couple of times to see Miss Georgie about this land business. She's wise
to a lot of law--used to help her father before he died, it seems. And
she has some of his books, I discovered. I wanted to see if there wasn't
some means of kicking these fellows off the ranch without making a lot
more trouble for old Peaceful. But after I'd read up and talked the
thing over with her, we decided that there wasn't anything to be done
till Peaceful comes back, and we know what he's been doing about it.
That's what's keeping him, of course.

"I