red much among the Kaws. He was a kindly-spirited man,
reserved, but gentle and courteous ever, and he was very fond of
children. He was always in town on annuity days, when the tribes came up
for their quarterly stipend from the Government. Mapleson was the Indian
agent. The "Last Chance," unable to compete with its commercial rival,
the Whately house, had now a drug store in the front, a harness shop in
the rear and a saloon in the cellar. It was to this "Last Chance" that
the Indians came for their money; and it was Father Le Claire who
piloted many of them out to the trails leading southward and started
them on the way to their villages, sober and possessed of their
Government allowance or its equivalent in honest merchandise.

From the first visit the good priest took to Jean Pahusca, and he helped
to save the young brave from many a murdering spell.

To O'mie and myself, however, remained the resolve to drive him from
Springvale; for, boylike, we watched him more closely than the men did,
and we knew him better. He was not the only one of our town who drank
too freely. Four decades ago the law was not the righteous force it is
to-day, and we looked upon many sights which our children, thank Heaven,
never see in Kansas.

"Keep out of that Redskin's way when he's drunk," was Cam Gentry's
advice to us. "You know he'd scalp his grandmother if he could get hold
of her then."

We kept out of his way, but we bided our time.

Father Le Claire had another favorite in Springvale, and that was O'mie.
He said little to the Irish orphan lad, but there sprang up a sort of
understanding between the two. Whenever he was in town, O'mie was not
far away from him; and the boy, frank and confidential in everything
else, grew strangely silent when we talked of the priest. I spoke of
this to my father one day. He looked keenly at me and said quietly:

"You would make a good lawyer, Phil, you seem to know what a lawyer must
know; that is, what people think as well as what they say."

"I don't quite understand, father," I replied.

"Then you won't make a good lawyer. It's the understanding that makes
the lawyer," and he changed the subject.

My mind was not greatly disturbed over O'mie, however. I was young and
neither I nor my companions were troubled by anything but the realities
of the day. Limited as we were by circumstances in this new West, we
made the most of our surroundings and of one another. How much the
prairies mea