Don't you believe in the man at all? Don't you trust him—at all?"
"Oh, I believe in him altogether," replied Billie, lofty again. "But all at once we find him wrong-headed and obstinate. Getting himself into this awful mess. Father could save him from the consequences of everything, if onlywhy,"—the girl's face became white and sober as if she recalled an appalling fact,—"he was threatening to fight father. He wants to stand up in open court and denounce him and intimate that he is accessory to a murder himself. My father! Why, father has loved Henry like a son."
Lahleet was plunged in thought. For the first time she saw clearly into Billie's mind and could experience an intellectual sympathy for some of her reactions. "Yes," she admitted, but with malicious bluntness, "that would seem rather unfilial, wouldn't it—your lover standing up in court to defend that Indian by telling the jury that your father aimed the gun and pulled the trigger. It's—it's an awful position he's in."
"Oh, it's a perfectly preposterous position for all of us," wailed Billie. "Father is such a great man and Henry was going to be just like him. If father had lived a long time ago he would have been a—a—a—Cæsar or a Crœsus or something. His course is always so right and he is so determined—so absolutely relentless that there is no opposing him. Why, Henry's crazy to do what he's doing."
"But after all this father stuff," Lahleet broke in impatiently, "Henry Harrington is your man. You love him! These men are ruining him—breaking him—and you let them!"
"Oh, no," protested Billie, sadly, sweetly patient with
