an as high as a man. With vivid gestures they
illustrated what would happen to the dug-out in the rapids. If he
escaped the rapids he would surely be carried over the Falls; and if he
wasn't, how did he expect to get back up the rapids? And so on.

Old Ahcunazie stood through it all uncomprehending and indifferent. He
was too old even to betray any interest in the phenomenon of the white
woman.

One thing new the whites marked: "White Medicine Man don' like white
men. He say if white men come he goin' away." This suggested a possible
reason for the Indian's opposition.

Stonor still remaining unmoved, Ahteeah brought out as a clincher:
"White Medicine Man not home now."

Stonor and Clare looked at each other startled. This would be a calamity
after having travelled all that way. "Where is he?" Stonor demanded.

The young Indian, delighted at his apparent success, answered glibly:
"He say he goin' down to Great Buffalo Lake this summer."

An instant's reflection satisfied Stonor that if this were true it would
have been brought out first instead of last. "Oh, well, since we've come
as far as this we'll go the rest of the way to make sure," he said
calmly.

Ahteeah looked disappointed. They pushed off. The Indians watched them
go in sullen silence.

"Certainly we are not popular in this neighbourhood," said Stonor
lightly. "One can't get rid of the feeling that their minds have been
poisoned against us. Mary, can't you tell me why they give me such black
looks?"

She shook her head. "I think there is something," she said. "But they
not tell me because I with you."

"Maybe it has something to do with me?" said Clare.

"How could that be? They never heard of you."

"I think it is Stonor," said Mary.

Clare was harder to rouse out of herself to-day. Stonor did his best not
to show that he perceived anything amiss, and strove to cheer her with
chaff and foolishness--likewise to keep his own heart up, but not
altogether with success.

On one occasion Clare sought to reassure him by saying, _a propos_ of
nothing that had gone before: "The worst of having an imagination is,
that when you have anything to go through with, it keeps presenting the
most horrible alternatives in advance until you are almost incapable of
facing the thing. And after all it is never so bad as your imagination
pictures."

"I understand that," said Stonor, "though I don't suppose anybody would
accuse me of being imaginative."

"'Some