"

"Perhaps that was because I saved his sister--well, to be charitable,
from the rather rude advances of a white man," said Shefford, and he
proceeded to tell of the incident that occurred at Red Lake.

"Willetts!" exclaimed Withers, with much the same expression that
Presbrey had used. "I never met him. But I know about him. He's--well,
the Indians don't like him much. Most of the missionaries are good
men--good for the Indians, in a way, but sometimes one drifts out here
who is bad. A bad missionary teaching religion to savages! Queer, isn't
it? The queerest part is the white people's blindness--the blindness of
those who send the missionaries. Well, I dare say Willetts isn't very
good. When Presbrey said that was Willetts's way of teaching religion he
meant just what he said. If Willetts drifts over here he'll be risking
much.... This you told me explains Nas Ta Bega's friendliness toward
you, and also his bringing his sister Glen Naspa to live with relatives
up in the pass. She had been living near Red Lake."

"Do you mean Nas Ta Bega wants to keep his sister far removed from
Willetts?" inquired Shefford.

"I mean that," replied Withers, "and I hope he's not too late."

Later Shefford went outdoors to walk and think. There was no moon, but
the stars made light enough to cast his shadow on the ground. The dark,
illimitable expanse of blue sky seemed to be glittering with numberless
points of fire. The air was cold and still. A dreaming silence lay over
the land. Shefford saw and felt all these things, and their effect was
continuous and remained with him and helped calm him. He was conscious
of a burden removed from his mind. Confession of his secret had been
like tearing a thorn from his flesh, but, once done, it afforded him
relief and a singular realization that out here it did not matter much.
In a crowd of men all looking at him and judging him by their standards
he had been made to suffer. Here, if he were judged at all, it would be
by what he could do, how he sustained himself and helped others.

He walked far across the valley toward the low bluffs, but they did
not seem to get any closer. And, finally, he stopped beside a stone and
looked around at the strange horizon and up at the heavens. He did not
feel utterly aloof from them, nor alone in a waste, nor a useless atom
amid incomprehensible forces. Something like a loosened mantle fell from
about him, dropping down at his feet; and all at once he was