The rôle he was playing gave him no concern. Though the Indian woman's spells of sullenness irritated him, he conciliated her with endearing words, caresses, and the promise of a speedy marriage. He appeased her jealousy of Dora by telling her that he studied the foolish book-words only that he might the better work for her interests; that he was fitting himself to cope with the shrewd cattlemen with whom there were constant dealings, and that when they were married, the Schoolmarm should live elsewhere. Like others of her sex, regardless of race or color, the Indian woman believed because she wanted to believe. Just where his actions were leading him, Smith did not stop to consider. He had no fear of results. With an overweening confidence arising from past successes, he believed that matters would adjust themselves as they always had. Smith wanted a home, and the MacDonald cattle, horses, and hay; but more than any of them he wanted Dora Marshall. How he was going to obtain them all was not then clear to him, but that when the time came he could make a way, he never for a moment doubted. Smith's confidence in himself was supreme. If he could have expressed his belief in words, he might have said that he could control Destiny, shape events and his own life as he liked. He had been shot at, pursued by posses, all but lynched upon an occasion, and always he had escaped in some unlooked-for manner little short of miraculous. As a result, he had come to cherish a superstitious belief that he bore a charmed life, that no real harm could come to him. So he courted each woman according to her nature as he read it, and waited blindly for success. IX SPEAKING OF GRASSHOPPERS---- It was Saturday, and, there being no school, both Susie and Dora were at home. Ralston was considering in which direction he should ride that day when Susie came to him and after saying to Smith with elaborate politeness, "Excuse me, Mr. Smith, for whispering, but I have something very private and confidential to say to Mr. Ralston," she shielded her mouth with her hand and said: "Teacher and I are going fishing. We are going up on the side-hill now to catch grasshoppers for bait, and I thought maybe you'd like to help, and to fish with us this afternoon." She tittered in his ear. Susie's action conveyed two things to Ralston's mind: first, that he had not been so clever as he had supposed in dissembling his feelings; and second, that Susie, recognizing them, was disposed to render him friendly aid. Smith noted Ralston's brightening eye with suspicion, jumping to the very natural conclusion that only some pleasing information concerning the Schoolmarm would account for it. When, a few minutes later, he saw the three starting away together, each with a tin or pasteboard box, he realized that his surmise was correct.