in good style."

"What for?"

"Knockin' about her Indian Joe."

Joe was, as I came to learn, Ponka's son and Gwen's most devoted slave.

"Oh, she ain't no refrigerator."

"Yes," assented Bill. "She's a leetle swift." Then, as if fearing he
had been apologizing for her, he added, with the air of one settling the
question: "But she's good stock! She suits me!"

The Duke helped me to another side of her character.

"She is a remarkable child," he said, one day. "Wild and shy as
a coyote, but fearless, quite; and with a heart full of passions.
Meredith, the Old Timer, you know, has kept her up there among the
hills. She sees no one but himself and Ponka's Blackfeet relations, who
treat her like a goddess and help to spoil her utterly. She knows their
lingo and their ways--goes off with them for a week at a time."

"What! With the Blackfeet?"

"Ponka and Joe, of course, go along; but even without them she is as
safe as if surrounded by the Coldstream Guards, but she has given them
up for some time now."

"And at home?" I asked. "Has she any education? Can she read or write?"

"Not she. She can make her own dresses, moccasins and leggings. She can
cook and wash--that is, when she feels in the mood. And she knows
all about the birds and beasts and flowers and that sort of thing,
but--education! Why, she is hardly civilized!"

"What a shame!" I said. "How old is she?"

"Oh, a mere child; fourteen or fifteen, I imagine; but a woman in many
things."

"And what does her father say to all this? Can he control her?"

"Control!" said The Duke, in utter astonishment. "Why, bless your soul,
nothing in heaven or earth could control HER. Wait till you see her
stand with her proud little head thrown back, giving orders to Joe, and
you will never again connect the idea of control with Gwen. She might
be a princess for the pride of her. I've seen some, too, in my day, but
none to touch her for sheer, imperial pride, little Lucifer that she
is."

"And how does her father stand her nonsense?" I asked, for I confess I
was not much taken with the picture The Duke had drawn.

"Her father simply follows behind her and adores, as do all things that
come near her, down, or up, perhaps, to her two dogs--Wolf and Loo--for
either of which she would readily die if need be. Still," he added,
after a pause, "it IS a shame, as you say. She ought to know something
of the refinements of civilization, to which, after all, she belongs,
a