-if the other wished;
but it was for the Indian to request, not him to proffer. With the
decision he aroused. In the interval his pipe had gone dead and he lit
it afresh suggestively.

"I lied to you a bit ago, How," he confessed abruptly. "It was not
Hawkins I came to see at all, but you."

The dark statue did not turn, showed no sign of surprise.

"I thought so," it said simply.

Puff, puff went the white man's pipe, until even though it was daylight,
the glow lit up his face.

"You did me a service once," he continued at last, "a big service--and
I've not forgotten. I'll go now, or stay, as you wish."

Still the Indian stood in the doorway looking out into the careless,
smiling infinite.

"I understand. You have something to tell me, something you think I
should know."

The old man thumbed the ashes in the pipe bowl absently.

"I repeat, it is for you to choose."

Silence fell; a lapse so long that, old man as he was, Manning felt his
heart beat more swiftly in anticipation. Then at last the Indian moved.
Deliberately, noiselessly he turned. Equally deliberately he drew a robe
opposite his visitor and, still very erect, sat down on the ground--his
long fingers locked across his knees.

"I choose to listen," he said. "Tell me, please."

For the second time, because he needs must be doing something, the white
man filled his pipe. The hand that held the tobacco pouch shook a bit
now involuntarily, and a tiny puff of the brown flakes fell scattering
outside the bowl onto his knee.

"About a month ago"--the speaker cleared his throat raspingly--"on
August 16th it was, to be exact, there was a funeral in town. It started
from the C-C ranch house and ended in the same lot with Mary Landor. It
wasn't much of a funeral, either. Besides myself and Mrs. Burton no one
was there." Again the voice halted; and following there came the sharp
crackling of a match, and the quick puff, puff of an habitual smoker.
"It was the funeral of a child: a child half Indian, half white."

Again the story paused; but the steady smoking continued.

"Go on, please," requested a voice.

"Early yesterday morning"--again the narrator halted perforce, to clear
his throat--"just before I left three men went through town on their way
to the same ranch. One was the owner, another a lawyer, the third a man
who wished to buy. They were in a hurry. They only stopped to water
their team and to visit Red Jennings's place. They are at the ra