ie winds," Uncle Esmond replied.

"And after that?" I insisted.

"We will wait for 'after that' till it gets here," my uncle smiled as he
spoke. "There are more serious things on hand than where out Little Lees
will eat her meals. She seems able to take care of herself anywhere.
Wonderfully beautiful and charming young woman she is, and her troubles
have strengthened her character without robbing her of her youth and
happy spirits."

Esmond Clarenden spoke reminiscently, and I stared at him in surprise
until suddenly I remembered that Jondo had said, "We were all in love
with Mary Marchland." Eloise must seem to him and Jondo like the Mary
Marchland they had known in their young manhood. But my uncle's mood
passed quickly, and his face was very grave as he said:

"The conditions out on the frontier are serious in every way right now.
The Indians are on the war-path, leaving destruction wherever they set
foot. Something must be done to protect the wagon-trains on the Santa Fe
Trail. I have already lost part of two valuable loads this season, and
Narveo has lost three. But the appalling loss of property is nothing
compared to the terror and torture to human life. The settlers on the
frontier claims are being massacred daily. The Governor of Kansas is
doing all he can to get some action from the army leaders at Washington.
But you haven't been in military service for six years without finding
out that some army leaders are flesh and blood, and some are only
wood--plain wooden wood. Meantime, the story of one butchery doesn't get
to the Missouri River before the story of another catches up with it.
It's bad enough when it's ruinous to just my own commercial
business--but in cases like this, humanity is my business."

What a man he was--that Esmond Clarenden! They still say of him in
Kansas City that no sounder financier and no bigger-hearted humanitarian
ever walked the streets of that "Gateway to the Southwest" than the
brave little merchant-plainsman who builded for the generations that
should follow him.

"What will be the outcome, Uncle Esmond? Are we to lose all we have
gained out here?" I asked.

"Not if we are real Westerners. It's got to be stopped. The question
is, how soon," my uncle replied.

That night in a half-waking dream I remembered Aunty Boone's prophetic
greeting a few days before, and how her eyes had narrowed and grown dull
as she said, "One more stainin' of your hands 'fore you are through."