In a flash, Willock comprehended all. The Indian had dropped the pin in Kimball's path, and Kimball, finding it, had carried it to Gledware as if Red Feather were dead. The Indian had led his braves against the stage-coach--Kimball had fallen under his knife. Yonder man in the corner, bound and gagged, was doubtless the old deaf boatman engaged by Gledware. Red Feather had taken his place that he might row Gledware far out on the lake.... But Annabel was in the boat. If the Indian... Far away toward the east, Edgerton Compton was rowing, not near enough to intervene in case the Indian attempted violence, but better able than himself to lend assistance if the boat were overturned. Willock could, in truth, do nothing, except shout a warning, and this he forebore lest it hasten the impending catastrophe. He remained, therefore, half-hidden, crouching at the doorway, his eyes glued to the rapidly gliding boat, with its three figures clear-cut against the first faint sun-glow. CHAPTER XXV GLEDWARE'S POSSESSIONS Red Feather's mind was not constituted to entertain more than one leading thought at a time. Ever since the desertion and death of his daughter, revenge had been his dominant passion. It was in order to find Gledware that he had haunted the trail during the years of lahoma's youth, always hoping to discover him in the new country--gliding behind herds of cattle, listening to scraps of talks among the cattlemen, earning from Mizzoo the uneasy designation, "the ghost." Thanks to the reading aloud of Lahoma's letter, he had learned of Gledware's presence in the city which he had known years before as Westport Landing. He went thither unbewildered by its marvelous changes, undistracted by its tumultuous flood of life--for his mind was full of his mission; he could see only the blood following the blade of his knife, heard nothing but a groan, a death-rattle. Gledware's presence in the boat this morning had been made possible only by the interposition of Lahoma; but for the Indian's deep-seated affection for her whom he regarded as a child, the man now smiling into Annabel's pale face would long ago have found his final resting-place. It was due to the Indian's singleness of thought that Lahoma's plan had struck him as good. Gledware, stripped of all his possessions, slinking as a beggar from door to door, no roof, no bed, but sky and earth--that is what Red Feather had meant.