guilty," and one of the first to congratulate him was Jim McFann,
who had been acquitted when he came up for trial for slaying Talpers.
The half-breed told Sargent of Talpers's plan to kill Helen.

"I'm just telling you," said the half-breed, "to ease your mind in case
you're feeling any responsibility for Talpers's death."

Soon after his acquittal Sargent departed for California, where he
married Miss Scovill--the outcome of an early romance. Helen was soon to
leave to join her foster parents, and she and Lowell had come for a last
ride.

"I cannot realize the glorious truth of it all--that I am to come soon
and claim you and bring you back here as my wife," said Lowell. "Say it
all over again for me."

He was standing with both arms about her and with her face uptilted to
his. No doubt other men and women had stood thus on this glacier-wrought
promontory--lovers from cave and tepee.

"It is all true," Helen answered, "but I must admit that the
responsibilities of being an Indian agent's wife seem alarming. The
thought of there being so much to do among these people makes me afraid
that I shall not be able to meet the responsibilities."

"You'll be bothered every day with Indians--men, women, and babies.
You'll hear the thumping of their moccasined feet every hour of the day.
They'll overrun your front porch and seek you out in the sacred
precincts of your kitchen, mostly about things that are totally
inconsequential."

"But think of the work in its larger aspects--the good that there is to
be done."

Lowell smiled at her approvingly.

"That's the way you have to keep thinking all the time. You have to look
beyond the mass of detail in the foreground--past all the minor
annoyances and the red tape and the seeming ingratitude. You've got to
figure that you're there to supply the needed human note--to let these
people understand that this Government of ours is not a mere machine
with the motive power at Washington. You've got to feel that you've been
sent here to make up for the indifference of the outside world--that the
kiddies out in those ramshackle cabins and cold tepees are not going to
be lonely, and suffer and die, if you can help it. You've got to feel
that it's your help that's going to save the feeble and sick--sometimes
from their own superstitions. There's no reason why we can't in time get
a hospital here for Indians, like Fire Bear, who have tuberculosis.
We're going to save Fire Bear, and we