must be a ship--in my father's house
last night."

His manner, as he looked down at his coffee cup, toying with it,
prevented her then from asking more; he seemed to know that she wished
to press it, and he looked up quickly.

"I met my servant--my father's servant--this morning," he said.

"Yes; he got back this morning. He came here early to report to father
that he had no news of Uncle Benny; and father told him you were at the
house and sent him over."

Alan was studying the coffee cup again, a queer expression on his face
which she could not read.

"He was there when I woke up this morning, Miss Sherrill. I hadn't
heard anybody in the house, but I saw a little table on wheels standing
in the hall outside my door and a spirit lamp and a little coffee pot
on it, and a man bending over it, warming the cup. His back was toward
me, and he had straight black hair, so that at first I thought he was a
Jap; but when he turned around, I saw he was an American Indian."

"Yes; that was Wassaquam."

"Is that his name? He told me it was Judah."

"Yes--Judah Wassaquam. He's a Chippewa from the north end of the lake.
They're very religious there, most of the Indians at the foot of the
lake; and many of them have a Biblical name which they use for a first
name and use their Indian name for a last one."

"He called me 'Alan' and my father 'Ben.'"

"The Indians almost always call people by their first names."

"He said that he had always served 'Ben' his coffee that way before he
got up, and so he had supposed he was to do the same by me; and also
that, long ago, he used to be a deck hand on one of my father's ships."

"Yes; when Uncle Benny began to operate ships of his own, many of the
ships on the lakes had Indians among the deck hands; some had all
Indians for crews and white men only for officers. Wassaquam was on
the first freighter Uncle Benny ever owned a share in; afterwards he
came here to Chicago with Uncle Benny. He's been looking after Uncle
Benny all alone now for more than ten years--and he's very much devoted
to him, and fully trustworthy; and besides that, he's a wonderful cook;
but I've wondered sometimes whether Uncle Benny wasn't the only city
man in the world who had an Indian body servant."

"You know a good deal about Indians."

"A little about the lake Indians, the Chippewas and Pottawatomies in
northern Michigan."

"Recollection's a funny thing," Alan said, after considering a moment.