sm gleamed.

"Why is it wicked?" he said gently.

David answered heatedly, the words bursting out:

"Why, the treachery of it, the meanness. The chief carried the pipe of
peace. That's like our flag of truce. You never heard of any
civilized man shooting another under the flag of truce."

Zavier looked stolid. It was impossible to tell whether he
comprehended their point of view and pretended ignorance, or whether he
was so restricted to his own that he could see no other.

"The Blackfeet had killed his father," he answered. "They were
treacherous too. Should he wait to be murdered? It was his chance and
he took it."

Sounds of dissent broke out round the circle. All the eyes were
trained on him, some with a wide, expectant fixity, others bright with
combative fire. Even Glen sat up, scratching his head, and remarking
sotto voce to his wife:

"Ain't I always said he was an Indian?"

"But the Blackfeet chief wasn't the man who killed his father," said
the doctor.

"No, he was chief of the tribe who did."

"But why kill an innocent man who probably had nothing to do with it?"

"It was for vengeance," said Zavier with unmoved patience and careful
English. "Vengeance for his father's death."

Several pairs of eyes sought the ground giving up the problem. Others
continued to gaze at him either with wonder, or hopeful of extracting
from his face some clew to his involved and incomprehensible moral
attitude. They suddenly felt as if he had confessed himself of an
alien species, a creature as remote from them and their ideals as a
dweller in the moon.

"He had waited long for vengeance," Zavier further explained, moving
his glittering glance about the circle, "and if he could not find the
right man, he must take such man as he could. The chief is the biggest
man, and he comes where Godin has him. 'My father is avenged at last,'
he says, and bang!"--Zavier levelled an imaginary engine of destruction
at the shadows--"it is done and Godin gets the blanket."

The silence that greeted this was one of hopelessness; the blanket had
added the final complication. It was impossible to make Zavier see,
and this new development in what had seemed a boyish and light-hearted
being, full to the brim with the milk of human kindness, was a thing to
sink before in puzzled speechlessness. Courant tried to explain:

"You can't see it Zavier's way because it's a different way from yours.
It comes out of the past w