t," replied the agent. "It's only that there's a girl
here--his stepdaughter, it seems--and she's going to make her home with
him."

"Good Lord!" ejaculated the chief clerk.

"She's over at the club table now having lunch," went on Lowell. "I'm
going to drive her over to the ranch. She seems to think this stepfather
of hers is all kinds of a nice fellow, and I can't tell her that she'd
better take her little suitcase and go right back where she came from.
Besides, who knows that she may be right and we've been misjudging
Morgan all these years?"

"Well, if Willis Morgan's been misjudged, then I'm really an angel all
ready to sprout wings," observed the clerk. "But maybe he's braced up,
or, if he hasn't, this stepdaughter has tackled the job of reforming
him. If she does it, it'll be the supreme test of what woman can do
along that line."

"What business have bachelors such as you and I to be talking about any
reformations wrought by woman?" asked Lowell smilingly.

"Not much," agreed Rogers. "Outside of the school-teachers and other
agency employees I haven't seen a dozen white women since I went to
Denver three years ago. And you--why, you haven't been away from here
except on one trip to Washington in the last four years."

Each man looked out of the window, absorbed in his own dreams. Lowell
had forsaken an active career to take up the routine of an Indian
agent's life. After leaving college he had done some newspaper work,
which he abandoned because a position as land investigator for a
corporation with oil interests in view had given him a chance to travel
in the West. There had been a chance journey across an Indian
reservation, with a sojourn at an agency. Lowell had decided that his
work had been spread before him. By persistent personal effort and the
use of some political influence, he secured an appointment as Indian
agent. The monetary reward was small, but he had not regretted his
choice. Only there were memories such as this girl brought to
him--memories of college days when there were certain other girls in
white dresses, and when there was music far removed from weird Indian
chants, and the thud-thud of moccasins was not always in his ears....

Lowell rose hastily.

"They must be through eating over there," he said. "But I positively
hate to start the trip that will land the girl at that ranch."

The agent drove his car over to the dining-hall. When Helen came out,
the agency blacksmith was ca