"Till I can demonstrate my theory that, properly led, these people can be made happy." "I am afraid you will live here until you are old," she said, and there was a note of undefinable regret in her voice. "I begin to feel that you really have a problem to solve." "It lies with us, the dominant race," he said, slowly, "whether the red race shall die or become a strand in the woof of our national life. It is a question of saving our own souls, not of making them grotesque caricatures of American farmers. I am not of those who believe in teaching creeds that are dying out of our own life; to be clean, to be peaceful, to be happy--these are the precepts I would teach them." "I don't understand you, and I think I would better go to bed," she said, with a return to her ordinary manner. "Good-night." "Good-night," he replied, and in the utterance of those words was something that stirred her unaccountably. "He makes life too serious, and too full of responsibility," she thought. "I don't like to feel responsible. All the same, he is fine," she added, in conclusion. XV ELSIE ENTERS HER STUDIO Elsie, being young and of flamelike vitality, was up and ready for a walk while Two Horns was building the fire, and was trying to make him understand her wish to paint him, when Curtis emerged from his tent. "Good-morning, Captain," she called. "I'm glad you've come. Please tell Two Horns I want to have him sit for me." Curtis, with a few swift gestures, conveyed her wishes to Two Horns, who replied in a way which made Curtis smile. Elsie asked, "What does he say?" "He says, 'Yes, how much?'" "Oh, the mercenary thing!" "Not at all," replied Curtis. "His time is worth something. You artists think the redmen ought to sit for nothing." Two Horns ran through a swift and very graceful series of signs, which Curtis translated rapidly. "He says: 'I have heard of you. You painted Elk's daughter. I hear you sell these pictures and catch a great pile of money. I think it is right you pay us something when we stand before you for long hours, while you make pictures to sell to rich men in Washington. Now, I drive a team; I earn some days two dollars driving team. If I stop driving team, and come and sit for you, then I lose my two dollars.'" As he finished, Two Horns smiled at Elsie with a sly twinkle in his eyes which disconcerted her. "You sabbe?" he ended, speaking directly to her. "I sabbe," she said, in reply. "Good!" He held out his hand and she took it, and the bargain was sealed. He then returned to his work about the camp. "Isn't it glorious!" the girl cried, as she looked about her. "It's enough to do an artist all over new." The grass and the willows sparkled with dew-drops. The sky, cloudless save for one long, low, orange-and-purple cape of glory just above the sunrise, canopied a limitless spread of plain to the north and east, while the high butte to the back was like the wall of a temple.