As they came in sight of the flag-pole, Elsie cried out: "Just think! This is the third time I have driven up this road in this way. Twice with you." "I know it is wonderful. I don't intend you to go away without me." She was ignoring every one of his suggestions now, but the flush of her cheek and a certain softness in her eyes encouraged him to go on. As they alighted at the door, Jennie remained to look after her bundles, and Curtis and Elsie entered the library together. He who had waited so eagerly for this moment turned and folded her close in his arms. "I need you, sweetest! I'll never let you go again. Never!" This was her moment to protest; but she was silent, with her face against his shoulder. Jennie bounced into the hall with a great deal of premonitory clatter and hurried Elsie to her room to rest. "And now you're to be my really truly sister," she said, closing the door behind her. "I think--George," she hesitated a little, and blushed before speaking his name, "expects it--rather confidently." "Then give me a good hug, you glorious thing!" XXXVII THE MINGLING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW Early on the morning of the great day--before the dawn, in truth--the Tetongs came riding in over the hills from every quarter of the earth, bringing their finest clothing, their newest blankets, and their whitest tepees, all lashed on long poles between which the patient ponies walked as in the olden time. Every man, woman, and child able to sit a horse was mounted. No one wore a white man's hat or shoes or vest; all were in leggings and moccasins, fringed and painted, and they carried their summer blankets as they once carried their robes of the buffalo-skin. Even the boys of six and seven wore suits cunningly fashioned and decorated like those of their elders. The young warriors, painted, and with fluttering feathers, rode their fleetest ponies, with shoulders bare and gleaming like bronze in the sun. With all due form, without hurry or jostling, the whole tribe camped in a wide ellipse, each clan in its place, each family having a fixed position in the circle. The tepees rose like magic, and their threads of smoke began to creep up into the clear sky like mysterious plants, slender and wavering. Greetings passed from camp to camp, the head men met in council, and, as the sun rose higher, swarms of the young men galloped to and fro, laying out a racing-course and making up for a procession under Wilson's direction. Curtis said: "I am not interdicting any of their customs merely because they belong to their old life, but because some of them are coarse or hurtful. Their dance is not harmful unless protracted to the point of interfering with their work. That they are all living somewhat in the past, to-day, is true; but they will put away this finery and go to work with me to-morrow. To cut them off from all amusement is cruel fanaticism. No people can endure without amusement."