t instinctively, and felt it slowly withdrawn until his
hand was pressed against the hide wall. Then soft fingers touched his
own, fluttered there timidly, and left in his palm a bit of paper,
tightly folded. Good Indian closed his hand upon it, and stood up.

"All right, I go," he said calmly to Peppajee, and mounted.

Peppajee looked at him stolidly, and said nothing.

"One thing I would like to know." Good Indian spoke again. "You don't
care any more about the men taking Peaceful's ranch. Before they came,
you watch all the time, you heap care. Why you no care any more? Why you
no help?"

Peppajee's mouth straightened in a grin of pure irony.

"All time Baumberga try for ketchum ranch, me try for stoppum," he
retorted. "Yo' no b'lievum, Peacefu' no b'lievum. Me tellum yo' cloud
sign, tellum yo' smoke sign, tellum yo' hear much bad talk for ketchum
ranch. Yo' all time think for ketchum 'Vadnah squaw. No think for
stoppum mens. Yo' all time let mens come, ketchum ranch. Yo' say fightum
in co't. Cloud sign say me do notting. Yo' lettum come. Yo' mebbyso
makum go. Me no care."

"I see. Well, maybe you're right." He tightened the reins, and rode
away, the tight little wad of paper still hidden in his palm. When he
was quite out of sight from the camp and jogging leisurely down the hot
trail, he unfolded it carefully and looked at it long.

His face was grave and thoughtful when at last he tore it into tiny bits
and gave it to the hot, desert wind. It was a pitiful little message,
printed laboriously upon a scrap of brown wrapping--paper. It said
simply:

"God by i lov yo."

CHAPTER XXIII. THE MALICE OF A SQUAW

Good Indian looked in the hammock, but Evadna was not there. He went to
the little stone bench at the head of the pond, and when he still did
not see her he followed the bank around to the milk-house, where was
a mumble of voices. And, standing in the doorway with her arm thrown
around her Aunt Phoebe's shoulders in a pretty protective manner, he saw
her, and his eyes gladdened. She did not see him at once. She was facing
courageously the three inseparables, Hagar, Viney, and Lucy, squatted at
the top of the steps, and she was speaking her mind rapidly and angrily.
Good Indian knew that tone of old, and he grinned. Also he stopped by
the corner of the house, and listened shamelessly.

"That is not true," she was saying very clearly. "You're a bad old squaw
and you tell lies. You ought to be put in