ou, Basdel?" demanded the girl sharply as she
turned and walked by my side toward the Davis cabin. "You act queer. Do
you begrudge giving my father his due? Aren't you thankful he was here to
stop the attack?"

"If he were here alone, yes. But I am terribly worried because you are
here, Patsy."

"But that's doubting my father's influence!" she rebuked, her eyes
lighting war-signals.

"When one has loved, one stops reasoning," I quickly defended. "I can not
bear to see even a shadow of a chance of harm come to you."

"That was said very pretty," she smiled, her gaze all softness.

Then with calm pride she unfastened several strings of white wampum from
around her slender waist and holding them up simply said:

"My father's belts."

Among the strings was a strip some seven or eight rows in width and two
hundred beads long. It was pictographic and showed a man leading a
pack-horse along a white road to a wigwam. The figures, like the road,
were worked in white beads, the background being dark for contrast.

Refastening them about her waist, she said:

"There is no danger for me here so long as I wear my father's belts. There
are none of the Ohio Indians who would refuse to accept them and respect
them. When they see the Pack-Horse-Man walking along the white road to
their villages they will lift that belt up very high."

"When one sees you, there should be no need of belts," I ventured.

She smiled graciously and lightly patted my fringed sleeve, and ignoring
my fervid declaration, she gently reminded:

"Even if I had no belts I am no better than any of the other women on the
creek. Don't think for a moment I would hide behind my father's trade
wampum. The belts must protect all of us, or none of us. But there is no
more danger for me than there is for them even if I threw the belts away.
Not so much; because I am Ericus Dale's daughter. Basdel, it makes me
unhappy to fear that when we leave here the danger may return to these
people. I carry my safety with me. I wish I could leave it for them. I
wish a general and lasting peace could be made."

"God knows I wish the same," I cried. "As for being no better than these
other women, I agree to that." And she became suddenly thoughtful. "In
judging from a Howard's Creek standpoint you are not so good in many ways.
Rather, I should say, not so valuable."

"You measure a woman's value as you do your guns and horses," she
murmured.

Her calmness was rather omino