satisfied with their lot, and send many of them
to the land of the white man to engage in a feeble and hopeless
struggle after that which is, for them, unattainable?"

"But it is _not_ unattainable! They----"

"I know your sophisms; your fabrication of theory!" MacNair
interrupted her almost fiercely. "The _facts_! I have seen the
rum-sodden wrecks, the debauched and soul-warped men and women who hang
about your frontier towns, diseased in body and mind, and whose
greatest misfortune is that they live. These, Miss Chloe Elliston, are
the real monuments to your education. Do you dare to drive one hundred
to certain degradation that is worse than fiery hell, that you may
point with pride to one who shall attain to the white man's standard of
success?"

"That is not the truth! I do not believe it! I _will_ not believe it!"

The steel-grey eyes of the man bored deep into the shining eyes of
brown. "I know that you do not believe it. But you are wrong when you
say that you _will_ not believe it. You are honest and unafraid, and,
therefore, you will learn, and now, one thing further.

"We will say that you succeed in keeping your school, or post, or
mission, from this condition of debauchery--which you will not. What
then? Suppose you educate your Indians? There are no employers in the
North. None who buy education. The men who pay out money in the waste
places pay it for bone and brawn, not for brains; they have brains--or
something that answers the purpose--therefore, your educated Indian
must do one of two things--he must go where he can use his education or
he must remain where he is. In either event he will be the loser. If
he seeks the land of the white man, he must compete with the white man
on the white man's terms. He cannot do it. If he stays here in the
North he must continue to hunt, or trap, or work on the river, or in
the mines, or the timber, and he is ever afterward dissatisfied with
his lot. More, he has wasted the time he spent in filling his brain
with useless knowledge."

MacNair spoke rapidly and earnestly, and Chloe realized that he spoke
from his heart and also that he spoke from a certain knowledge of his
subject. She was at a loss for a reply. She could not dispute him,
for he had told her not to believe him; to go see for herself. She did
not believe MacNair, but in spite of herself she was impressed.

"The missionaries _are_ doing good! Their reports show----"

"The