"

All this the priest told to the eager crowd on the veranda of the
Cambridge House that morning. But regarding the light and his thought of
it, he did not tell us then, nor how, through all and all, his great
fear for Springvale was on account of Jean Pahusca's presence there. He
knew the Indian's power; and now that the fierce passion of love for a
girl and hatred of a rival, were at fever pitch, he dared not think what
might follow, neither did he tell us how bitterly he was upbraiding
himself for having charged O'mie with secrecy.

He had not yet caught sight of the Irish boy; and Jean, who had himself
kept clear of the evil intent against Springvale the night before, had
studiously kept the crowd between the priest and himself. We did not
note this then, for we were spell-bound by the story of the Confederate
conspiracy and of Father Le Claire's efforts for our safety.

"The Kiowas, who were on the war-path, have been cut off by the
Verdigris," he concluded. "The waters, that kept me away from Springvale
on this side, kept them off in the southwest. The Osages did us God's
service in our peril, albeit their means were cruel after the manner of
the savage."

A silence fell upon the group on the veranda, as the enormity of what we
had escaped dawned upon us.

"Let us thank God that in his ways, past finding out, He has not
forsaken his children." Dr. Hemingway spoke fervently.

I looked out on the broad street and down toward the river shining in
the May sunlight. The air was very fresh and sweet. The oak trees, were
in their heaviest green, and in the glorious light of day the commonest
things in this little frontier town looked good to me. Across my vision
there swept the picture of that wide, swift-flowing Verdigris River, and
of the dead whose blood stained darkly that fatal sand-bar, their naked
bodies hacked by savage fury, waiting the coming of pitiful hands to
give them shelter in the bosom of the earth. And then I thought of all
these beautiful prairies which the plough was beginning to subdue, of
the homesteads whose chimney smoke I had seen many a morning from my
windows up on Cliff Street. I thought of the little towns and
unprotected villages, and of what an Indian raid would mean to
these,--of murdered men and burning houses, and women dragged away into
a slavery too awful to picture. I thought of Marjie and of what she had
escaped. And then clear, as if he were beside me, I heard O'mie's voice: