grown up with the name, he
rather liked it when he was a little fellow, and with custom had come to
take it as a matter of course.

Because his paternal ancestry went back, and back to no one knows
where among the race of blue eyes and fair skin, the Indians repudiated
relationship with him, and called him white man--though they also spoke
of him unthinkingly as "Good Injun."

Because old Wolfbelly himself would grudgingly admit under pressure
that the mother of Grant had been the half-caste daughter of Wolfbelly's
sister, white men remembered the taint when they were angry, and called
him Injun. And because he stood thus between the two races of men, his
exact social status a subject always open to argument, not even the fact
that he was looked upon by the Harts as one of the family, with his own
bed always ready for him in a corner of the big room set apart for the
boys, and with a certain place at the table which was called his--not
even his assured position there could keep him from sometimes feeling
quite alone, and perhaps a trifle bitter over his loneliness.

Phoebe Hart had mothered him from the time when his father had sickened
and died in her house, leaving Grant there with twelve years behind him,
in his hands a dirty canvas bag of gold coin so heavy he could scarce
lift it, which stood for the mining claim the old man had just sold, and
the command to invest every one of the gold coins in schooling.

Old John Imsen was steeped in knowledge of the open; nothing of the
great outdoors had ever slipped past him and remained mysterious. Put
when he sold his last claim--others he had which promised little and so
did not count--he had signed his name with an X. Another had written the
word John before that X, and the word Imsen after; above, a word which
he explained was "his," and below the word "mark." John Imsen had stared
down suspiciously at the words, and he had not felt quite easy in his
mind until the bag of gold coins was actually in his keeping. Also, he
had been ashamed of that X. It was a simple thing to make with a pen,
and yet he had only succeeded in making it look like two crooked sticks
thrown down carelessly, one upon the other. His face had gone darkly red
with the shame of it, and he had stood scowling down at the paper.

"That boy uh mine's goin' to do better 'n that, by God!" he had sworn,
and the words had sounded like a vow.

When, two months after that, he had faced--incredulously, as