ever realized it before.
That hill behind us, and the wolf--and see those willows by the brook.
They might be savages creeping upon us, or great birds resting, or any
silent, threatening creature of the darkness. If I were alone my heart
would stand still with awe and fear of them."

"They are not mysterious to me," he made answer. "Only in the sense that
space and dusk are inexplicable. After all, the wonder of the universe
is in our brains, like love, rather than in the object to which we
attribute mystery or majesty. To the Tetong, the simplest thing
belonging to the white race is mysterious--a button, a cartridge, a
tin-plate. 'How are they made? What are they built for?' he asks. So,
deeply considered, all nature is inexplicable to us also. We white
children of the Great Ruler push the mystery a little further back, that
is all. Once I tried to understand the universe; now I am content to
enjoy it."

"Tell me, how did you first become interested in these people?"

He hesitated a little before he replied. "Well, I was always interested
in them, and when I got out among the Payonnay I tried to get at their
notions of life; but they are a strange people--a secretive people--and
I couldn't win their confidence for a long time. One day while on a
hunting expedition I came suddenly upon a crew of wood-choppers who had
an old man tied to a tree and were about to burn him alive--"

"Horrible! Why?"

"No reason at all, so far as I could learn. His wife sat on the ground
not far away, wailing in deep despair. What treatment she had suffered I
do not know. Naturally, I ordered the men to release the old man, and
when they refused I cut his bands. The ruffians were furious with rage,
and threatened to tie me up and burn me, too. By this time I was too
angry to fear anything. 'If you do, you better pulverize the buttons on
my uniform, for the United States government will demand a head for
every one of them.' Had I been a civilian they would have killed me."

"They wouldn't have dared!" Elsie shuddered.

"Such men dare do anything when they are safe from discovery--and there
is always the Indian to whom a deed of that sort can be laid."

"Did they release the old man?"

"Yes; and he and his wife camped along with me for several days, and
their devotion to me was pathetic. Finally I came to understand that he
considered himself dead, so far as his tribe was concerned. 'My life
belongs to you,' he said. I was just begin