t' other 'n on him goin'."

"I don't trust him, O'mie, but he has a voice that deceives. I don't
wonder, being a girl, Marjie is caught by it."

"An' you, bein' a boy," O'mie mimicked,--"Phil, you're enough to turn my
hair rid. But never mind, ye can't trust him. Fur why? He's not to be
trusted. If he was aven Injun clean through you could a little, maybe.
Some Osages has honor to shame a white man,--aven an Irishman,--but he's
not Osage. He's a Kiowa, the kind that stole that little chap years ago
up toward Rid Range. An' he ain't Kiowa altogether nather. The Injun
blood gives him cuteness, but half his cussedness is in that soft black
scalp an' that soft voice sayin', 'Good Injun.' There's some old Louis
XIV somewhere in his family tree. The roots av it may be in the Plains
out here, but some branch is a graft from a Orleans rose-bush. He's got
the blossoms an' the thorns av a Frenchman. An' besides," O'mie added,
"as if us two wise men av the West didn't know, comes Father Le Claire
to me to-day. He's Jean's guide an' counsellor. An' Phil, begorra, them
two looks alike. Same square-cut kind o' foreheads they've got. Annyhow,
I was waterin' the horses down to the ford, an' Father Le Claire comes
on me sudden, ridin' up on the Kaw trail from the south. He blessed me
wid his holy hand and then says quick:

"'O'mie, ye are a lad I can trust!'"

"I nodded, not knowin' why annybody can't be trusted who goes swimmin'
once a week, an' never tastes whiskey, an' don't practise lyin', nor
shirkin' his stunt at the Cambridge House."

"'O'mie,' says he, 'I want to tell you who you must not trust. It is
Jean Pahusca,' says he; 'I wish I didn't nade to say it, but it is me
duty to warn ye. Don't mistreat him, but O'mie, for Heaven's sake, kape
your eyes open, especially when he promises to be good.' It's our stunt,
Phil, to watch him close now he's took to reformin' to the girls."

"O'mie, we know, and Father Le Claire knows, but how can we make those
foolish girls understand? Mary believes everything that's said to her
anyhow, and you heard Marjie to-night. She thinks she should take Jean
at his word."

"Phil, you are all right, seemin'ly. You can lick any av us. You've got
the build av a giant, an' you've beautiful hair an' teeth. An' you are
son an' heir to John Bar'net, which is an asset some av us would love to
possess, bein' orphans, an' the lovely ladies av Springvale is all
bewitched by you; but you are a blind, bli