door
at the word.

But Marjie caught my arm, and held it.

"Let O'mie go. Don't go, Phil, please don't."

I can see her yet, her brown eyes full of pleading, her soft brown hair
in rippling waves about her white temples. Did my love for her spring
into being at that instant? I cannot tell. But I do know that it was a
crucial moment for me. Sixty years have I seen, and my life has grown
practical and barren of sentiment. But I know that the boy, Phil
Baronet, who stood that evening with Marjie and the firelight and safety
on one side, and darkness and uncertainty on the other, had come to one
of those turning-points in a life, unrecognized for the time, whose
decision controls all the years that follow. For suddenly came the query
"How can I best take care of her? Shall I stay with her in the light, or
go into the dark and strike the danger out of it?" I didn't frame all
this into words. It was all only an intense feeling, but the mental
judgment was very real. I turned from her and cleared the doorstep at a
leap, and in a moment was by O'mie's side, chasing down the hill-slope
toward town.

We never thought to run to the bluff's edge and clamber down the
shelving, precipitous sides. Here was the only natural hiding-place, but
like children we all ran the other way. When we had come in again with
the report of "No enemy in sight," and had shut the door against the
rain, I happened to glance out of the east window. Climbing up to the
street from the cliff I saw the lithe form of a young Indian. He came
straight to the house and stood by the east window where he could see
inside. Then with quick, springing step he walked down the slope. I
crossed to the west window and watched him shutting out that red bar of
light now and then, till he melted into the shadows.

Meanwhile the children were chattering like sparrows and had not noticed
me.

"Would you know it, Marjie, if you thaw it again?" lisped Bud Anderson.

"Oh, yes! His hair was straight across like this." Marjie drew one hand
across her curl-shaded forehead, to show how square the black hair grew
about the face she had seen.

"That's nothin'," said Bill Mead. "They change scalps every time they
catch a white man,--just take their own off an' put his on, an' it
grows. There's lots of men in Kansas look like white men's just Injuns
growed a white scalp on 'em."

"Really, is there?" asked Mary Gentry credulously.

"Sure, I've seen 'em," went on Bill with a