le. I know what the baste's up to annyhow."

"Well, what is it?" I queried eagerly.

"He's bein' a good Injun he is, an' he's got a crude sort o' notion he's
protectin' that dear little bird. She may be scared o' him, an' he knows
it; but bedad, I'd not want to be the border ruffian that went prowlin'
in there uninvited; would you?"

"Well, he's a dear trusty old Fido of a watchdog, O'mie. We will take
Father Le Claire's word, and keep an eye on him though. He will sleep
where he will sleep, but we'll see if the sight of water affects him
any. A dog of his breed may be subject to rabies. You can't always trust
even a 'good Injun.'"

After that I watched for Jean's coming and followed him to his lilac
bed, a half-savage, half-educated Indian brave, foolishly hoping to win
a white girl for his own.

All that Fall Jean never missed a night from the lilac bush. As long as
he persisted in passing the dark hours so near to the Whately home my
burden of anxiety and responsibility was doubled. In silent faithfulness
he kept sentinel watch. I dared not tell Marjie, for I knew it would
fill her nights with terror, and yet I feared her accidental discovery
of his presence. Jean was doing more than this, however. His promise to
be good seemed to belie Father Le Claire's warning. In and out of the
village all that winter he went, orderly, at times even affable, quietly
refusing every temptation to drunkenness. "A good Indian" he was, even
to the point where O'mie and I wondered if we might not have been wrong
in our judgment of him. He was growing handsomer too. He stood six feet
in his moccasins, stalwart as a giant, with grace in every motion.
Somehow he seemed more like a picturesque Gipsy, a sort of
semi-civilized grandee, than an Indian of the Plains. There was a
dominant courtliness in his manner and his bearing was kingly. People
spoke kindly of him. Regularly he took communion in the little Catholic
chapel at the south edge of town on the Kaw trail. Quietly but
persistently he was winning his way to universal favor. Only the Irish
lad and I kept our counsel and, waited.

After the bitterly cold New Year's Day of '63 the Indian forsook the
lilac bush for a time. But I knew he never lost track of Marjie's coming
and going. Every hour of the day or night he could have told just where
she was. We followed him down the river sometimes at night, and lost him
in the brush this side the Hermit's Cave. We did not know that this