ribe before two
grass from now. It ain't no use, Drifting Crane; it's _got_ to be. You
an' I can't help n'r hinder it. I know just how you feel about it, but
I tell yeh it ain't no use to fight."

Drifting Crane turned his head and gazed out on the western sky, still
red with the light of the fallen sun. His face was rigid as bronze, but
there was a dreaming, prophetic look in his eyes. A lump came into the
settler's throat; for the first time in his life he got a glimpse of the
infinite despair of the Indian. He forgot that Drifting Crane was the
representative of a "vagabond race;" he saw in him, or rather _felt_ in
him, something almost magnetic. He was a _man_, and a man of sorrows.
The settler's voice was husky when he spoke again, and his lips
trembled.

"Chief, I'd go to-morrow if it 'ud do any good, but it won't--not a
particle. You know that, when you stop to think a minute. What good did
it do to massa_cree_ all them settlers at New Ulm? What good will it do
to murder me and a hundred others? Not a bit. A thousand others would
take our places. So I might just as well stay, and we might just as well
keep good friends. Killin' is out o' fashion; don't do any good."

There was a twitching about the stern mouth of the Indian chief. He
understood all too well the irresistible logic of the pioneer. He kept
his martial attitude, but his broad chest heaved painfully, and his eyes
grew dim. At last he said: "Good-by. Cattleman right; Drifting Crane
wrong. Shake hands. Good-by." He turned and strode away.

The rancher watched him till he mounted his pony, picketed down by the
river; watched him as, with drooping head and rein flung loose upon the
neck of his horse, he rode away into the dusk, hungry, weary and
despairing, to face his problem alone. Again, for the thousandth time,
the impotence of the Indian's arm and the hopelessness of his fate were
shown as perfectly as if two armies had met and soaked the beautiful
prairie sod with blood.

"This is all wrong," muttered the settler. "There's land enough for us
all, or ought to be. I don't understand---- Well, I'll leave it to Uncle
Sam anyway." He ended with a sigh.

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PART VIII.

OLD DADDY DEERING: THE COUNTRY FIDDLER

Like Scotland's harper,
Or Irish piper, with his droning lays,
Before the spread of modern life and light
The country fiddler slowly disappears.

D