own--and on the edge of the Indian reservation!
Matters were being brought close home.

"Is there anything to tell who he is?"

"I didn't look around much," said Plenty Buffalo. "There's an auto in
the road. That's what I saw first."

"Where is the body?"

"A few yards from the auto, on the prairie."

The agent called the sheriff's office at White Lodge, the adjoining
county seat. The sheriff was out, but Lowell left the necessary
information as to the location of the automobile and the body. Then he
put on his hat, and, gathering up his gloves, motioned to Plenty Buffalo
and the interpreter to follow him to his automobile which was standing
in front of the agency office. Plenty Buffalo's pony was left at the
hitching-rack, to recover from the hard run it had just been given. The
wooden-handled quirt at the saddle had not been spared by the Indian.

Flooded with June sunshine the agency had never looked more attractive,
from the white man's standpoint. The main street was wide, with a
parkway in the center, shaded with cottonwoods. The school buildings,
dormitories, dining-hall, auditorium, and several of the employees'
residences faced this street. The agent's house nestled among trees and
shrubbery on the most attractive corner. The sidewalks were wide, and
made of cement. There was a good water system, as the faithfully
irrigated lawns testified. Arc lights swung from the street
intersections, and there were incandescents in every house. A sewer
system had just been completed. Indian boys and girls were looking after
gardens in vacant lots. There were experimental ranches surrounding the
agency. In the stables and enclosures were pure-bred cattle and sheep,
the nucleus of tribal flocks and herds of better standards.

In less than four years Walter Lowell had made the agency a model of its
kind. He had done much to interest even the older Indians in
agriculture. The school-children, owing to a more liberal educational
system, had lost the customary look of apathy. The agent's work had been
commended in annual reports from Washington. The agency had been
featured in newspaper and magazine articles, and yet Lowell had felt
that he was far from accomplishing anything permanent. Ancient customs
and superstitions had to be reckoned with. Smouldering fires
occasionally broke out in most alarming fashion. Only recently there had
been a serious impairment of reservation morale, owing to the
spectacular rise of a young