rein I had built a wall around
my longing love, all my manly loyalty to my cousin's claims, were swept
away, as I have seen the big Missouri floods, joined by the lesser Kaw,
sweep out bridges, snapping like sticks before their power.

"Eloise, it seems a hundred years since I saw you and Little Blue Flower
ride away up the San Christobal River trail out of my sight," I said.

"It has been a long time, but we are not yet old. You seem the same. And
as for me, I feel as if the clock had stopped awhile and had suddenly
started to ticking anew."

It was wonderful to sit beside her and hear her voice again. I did not
dare to ask about her mother, but I am sure she read my thoughts, for
she went on:

"My mother is gone now. She was as happy as a child and never had a
sorrow on her mind after her dreadful fever, although the doctors say
she might have been restored if I had only been with her then. But it is
all ended now."

Eloise paused with saddened face, and looked out toward the Missouri
River, boiling with June rains and melted snows.

"It is all right now," she went on, bravely. "Sister Gloria--you know
who she was--stayed with me to the last. And I have a real mound of
earth in the cemetery beside my father." The last two words were spoken
softly. "Sister Gloria is in the convent now. Marcos is a common
gambler. His father disappeared and left him penniless. Esmond Clarenden
says that his father died out on the plains somewhere."

"And Father Josef?" I inquired.

"Is still the same strong friend to everybody. He spends much time
among the Hopi people. I don't know why, for they are hopelessly
heathen. Their own religion has so many beautiful things to offset our
faith that they are hard to convert."

"And Little Blue Flower--what became of her?" I asked. "Is she a squaw
in some hogan or pueblo, after all that the Sisterhood of St. Ann's did
for her?"

A shadow fell on the bright face beside me.

"Let's not talk of her to-day." There was a pleading note in Eloise's
voice. "Life has its tragedies everywhere, but I sometimes think that
none of them--American, English, Spanish, French, Mexican, nor any
others of our pale-faced people, have quite such bitter acts as the
Indian tragedy among a gentle race like the people of Hopi-land."

"I hope you will stay with us now."

I didn't know what I really did hope for. I was no longer a boy, but a
young man in the very best of young manhood's years. I had seen th