on others.

"Then each Indian gives a portion of what he earns for the relief of
the needy, sick, and the aged, besides contributing something every
year to our Missionary Society. They are delighted with the whole
plan, and, while I oversee the business, I get nothing. Any one who
cares to do so may examine our system, and learn how straight it is. I
know very well that Perdue longs to get control of this trade, and in
fact did induce a number to buy from him. But that has been all
stopped since my return, and so he is very spiteful. You may tell any
one you like the whole truth, and how the Indians have been helped by
the system."

"I shall," replied Joe, and the look upon his face revealed his
sincerity.

"As to the next," continued Keith, "I shall be brief. No greater lie
has ever been fabricated against a human being than that. Pritchen
himself is the guilty one, and tries to shuffle the blame on me. Years
ago he was a squaw-man, among a tribe away to the North of us. I
visited that band, and one day on a lonely trail found that brute who
had fatally injured his Indian wife, and her babe at the breast.
Before she died, however, she left that scar upon him with the point of
a keen knife. The woman told me all just before her death, and gave in
my charge her only living child, a bright-eyed girl, who is now at
Klassan, and remembers it all."

"What! the girl here?" asked Joe in surprise.

"Yes, and it is all that we can do to prevent her from avenging her
mother's death."

"Does Pritchen know she's here?"

"No, I think not. But the girl has been following him like a shadow,
and watching his every movement, without as yet doing anything more.
She is rather strange of late, and we cannot understand her moods."

"But why does Pritchen fear you?"

"He knows me of old, and hates me for a number of reasons. But it's
not me he fears, but the Indians. He's a bully and a coward, and has a
great fear of death, with good reason, too. He is very shrewd, and
knows if he lays hands on me the Indians will tear him to pieces."

"Do the Indians know about him, and the deed he committed?" asked Joe.

"Only the girl and Amos, the catechist. The former for some cause has
never spoken to the rest, and I told the latter, but he is silent for
the same reason that I am."

"What's that?"

"The Indians are very impulsive, and if they knew that this man had
committed such a deed upon a helpless woman, and one o