rd
says to some of us, 'So far shalt thou see, and no farther,' he may give
to that same brother the power to scatter sunshine far and wide. Oh, we
need you, Brother Gentry, to make us laugh if for nothing else."

Uncle Cam chuckled. He was built for chuckling, and we all laughed with
him, except Mr. Dodd. I caught a sneer on his face in the moment.

Presently Father Le Claire and Jean Pahusca joined the group. I had not
seen the latter since the day of O'mie's warning. Indian as he was, I
could see a change in his impassive face. It made me turn cold, me, to
whom fear was a stranger. Father Le Claire, too, was not like himself.
Self-possessed always, with his native French grace and his inward
spiritual calm, this evening he seemed to be holding himself by a
mighty grip, rather than by that habitual self-mastery that kept his
life in poise.

I tell these impressions as a man, and I analyze them as a man, but, boy
as I was, I felt them then with keenest power. Again the likeness of
Indian and priest possessed me, but raised no query within me. In form,
in gait and especially in the shape of the head and the black hair about
their square foreheads they were as like as father and son. Just once I
caught Jean's eye. The eye of a rattlesnake would have been more
friendly. O'mie was right. The "good Indian" had vanished. What had come
in his stead I was soon to know. But withal I could but admire the fine
physique of this giant.

While the men were still full of the Union disaster, two horsemen came
riding up to the tavern oak. Their horses were dripping wet. They had
come up the trail from the southwest, where the draws were barely
fordable. Strangers excited no comment in a town on the frontier. The
trail was always full of them coming and going. We hardly noted that for
ten days Springvale had not been without them.

"Come in, gentlemen," called Cam. "Here, Dollie, take care of these
friends. O'mie, take their horses."

They passed inside and the talk outside went eagerly on.

"Father Le Claire, how do the Injuns feel about this fracas now?"
inquired Tell Mapleson.

The priest spoke carefully.

"We always counsel peace. You know we do not belong to either faction."

His smile was irresistible, and the most partisan of us could not
dislike him that he spoke for neither North nor South.

"But," Tell persisted, "how do the Injuns themselves feel?"

Tell seemed to have lost his usual insight, else he could have