d die her heart would cease its tumultuous beating, that if he
lived she should forever have to keep her secret and stifle the emotions
which her love for him revealed.

A sudden thought surged within her. "No one would know; should she"-- "He
is not for me--I am a Ute's daughter, a degraded Indian. Can I live and
see him the husband of another and not betray my secret? Oh, Jack!
perhaps it had been better that Chiquita had never become a medicine
tepee queen! Were it not better that the sister of the forest should
never have been educated?

'A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.'

"I can not turn back. I will stifle my love for the one who lies there
helpless. I will consecrate my life to the customs of his people, that I
may leave a legacy to my people--the inheritance which civilization
brings."

Mechanically she performed the rest of her duties; nurses had taken the
unconscious form away in its swaths of bandages, while she remained to
administer to other patients and begin the long siege of love's
starvation, until her heart should capitulate and turn to stone.

The day following the operation, Chiquita's first duties were to take
Jack's temperature and respiration, and note other conditions. She
performed the latter with perfect composure, but when she essayed the
counting of those "little blood knocks upon the wrist," her own heart
beat so furiously that she was fearful of making an error, and was
obliged to ask another nurse to take that record. Afterward, however,
she was able to control her feelings, and take Jack's temperature with
composure.

Upon the fifth day, when the internes were dressing Jack's wound, it was
discovered that another operation would have to be performed. The
surgeon had overlooked a portion of the affected tract, and the wound
would again have to be reopened and rescarified with a burning white hot
electric wire. This discovery was made Saturday, and Jack was at once
informed.

Hazel tried to encourage him, but despondency seemed to take possession
of him, and all day Sunday, as the church bells clanged their discordant
soul-racking peals, he tossed restlessly upon his bed. The terrific
winds from the southwest blew their breath to the north in sweltering
blasts, and poor humanity had to endure it. Tuesday, Chiquita once more
was called upon t