ese Southerners are
the queerest of them all. They are so chivalrous that at times they get
tiresome. Breen is no better than the rest of them." This had ended it
with Miss Felicia. Nor would she ever mention his name to her again.
Jack was not tiresome; on the contrary, he was the soul of honor and
as brave as he could be--a conclusion quite as illogical as that of her
would-be adviser.

If she could only have seen Peter, the poor child thought,--Peter
understood--just as some women not as old as her aunt would have
understood. Dear Uncle Peter! He had told her once what Jack had said
about her--how beautiful he thought her and how he loved her devotion to
her father. Jack MUST have said it, for Uncle Peter never spoke anything
but the exact truth. Then why had Jack, and everything else, changed
so cruelly? she would say--talking to herself, sometimes aloud. For the
ring had gone from his voice and the tenderness from his touch. Not that
he ever was tender, not that she wanted him to be, for that matter; and
then she would shut her door and throw herself on her bed in an agony of
tears--pleading a headache or fatigue that she might escape her father's
inquiry, and often his anxious glance.

The only ray of light that had pierced her troubled heart--and this only
flashed for a brief moment--was the glimpse she had had of Jack's mind
when he and her father first met. The boy had called to inquire after
his Chief's health and for any instructions he might wish to give, when
MacFarlane, hearing the young hero's voice in the hall below, hurried
down to greet him. Ruth was leaning over the banister at the time and
saw all that passed. Once within reach MacFarlane strode up to Jack, and
with the look on his face of a man who had at last found the son he had
been hunting for all his life, laid his hand on the lad's shoulder.

"I think we understand each other, Breen,--don't we?" he said simply,
his voice breaking.

"I think so, sir," answered Jack, his own eyes aglow, as their hands
met.

Nothing else had followed. There was no outburst. Both were men; in the
broadest and strongest sense each had weighed the other. The eyes and
the quivering lips and the lingering hand-clasp told the rest. A sudden
light broke in on Ruth. Her father's quiet words, and his rescuer's
direct answer came as a revelation. Jack, then, did want to be thanked!
Yes, but not by her! Why was it? Why had he not understood? And why had
he made her su