In his room, Rawley switched on the light and slid into the big chair by the table. Not to his mother could he confess how deeply those few minutes with Grandfather King had stirred him. In spite of her attitude toward the silent feud that had endured for nearly thirty years, he was conscious of the dull ache of remorse. Without meaning to judge his parents or to criticize their manner of handling a difficult situation, Rawley felt that night that he had been guilty of a great wrong toward his grandfather. He at least should have ignored the invisible wall that stood between the west wing and the rest of the house. He was a King; he should not have permitted that reasonless silence to endure through all these years. As a matter of fact, Rawley’s life since he was twelve had been spent mostly away from home. First, a military academy in the suburbs of St. Louis, with the long hiking trips featured by the school through the summer vacations; after that, college,--with a special course in mineralogy. Since then, field work had claimed most of his time. Home had therefore been merely a place pleasantly tucked away in his memory, with a visit to his mother now and then between jobs. The first twelve years of his life had thoroughly accustomed Rawley to the sight of the fierce old man with long hair and his legs cut off at his knees, who sometimes appeared in a wheel chair on a porch of the west wing, attended by an Indian who looked savage enough to scalp a little boy if he ventured too close; a ferocious Indian who scowled and wore his hair parted from forehead to neck and braided in two long braids over his shoulder, and who padded stealthily about the place in beautifully beaded moccasins and fringed buckskin leggings. Nevertheless, there had been times, as he grew older, when Rawley had been tempted to invade the west wing and find out for himself just how bitterly his grandfather clung to the feud. It hurt him to think now of the old man’s isolation and of the interesting companionship he had cheated himself out of enjoying. He pulled the two old books from his pocket, handling them as if they were the precious things his grandfather seemed to consider them. The Bible he opened first, undoing the old-fashioned clasp with his thumb and opening the book at the flyleaf. The inscription there was faded yet distinct on the yellowed paper. The sloping, careful handwriting of Rawley’s great-grandmother sending King, of the Mounted, forth upon his dangerous missions armed with the Word of God,--and hoping prayerfully, no doubt, that he would read and heed its precepts. To my beloved son, George Walter King, from his Affectionate Mother.