Rawley did not think it was funny. She had lifted his heart to his throat with her flattering analysis and had dropped it as a child drops a toy for some fresher interest. He was all this and all that,--and she had seen other men return with the same look. Right there Rawley silently indulged himself in his strongest exclamatory phrase in his vocabulary. Nevada had turned her head to call something in Indian, replying to her grandmother’s shrill voice. She did not see what lay back of Rawley’s eyes at that moment,--worse luck. “Well, I wanted to get in and help. Gladys and Grandmother knitted sweaters and socks, and so did I. I wanted to be a Red Cross nurse--was there a girl in America who didn’t?--but Uncle Peter wouldn’t let me go. He said I was needed here, to help hold things together. But I’ll tell you what I did do. I went into the old diggings and mined. I found a stringer or two they hadn’t bothered with, and I mined for dear life and sent every last color to the Red Cross. Uncle Peter was helping, too--I mean giving all he could--but I wanted to do something my own self. And do you know, Cousin Rawley, Grandmother got right in with me and shoveled gravel to beat the cars! I didn’t write you about it--it seemed so little to do. And besides, I didn’t realize then the importance of living up to you. But with that--that Sphinxlike strength you’ve acquired, I’ll just inform you that your Injuns were on the job.” “I knew it, anyway. And you did more good than your personal service in hospital could have done. It took money to keep the nurses going that were on the job, remember.” “Two years ago,” mused Nevada, “you’d have called me on that Sphinx remark and for calling myself Injun. Yes, you have grown. You can keep to the essential point much better than before. Well, and how is Johnny Buffalo? I haven’t seen him for a week.” “Nor I for over two years. I left a note on his table. Nevada, how long has he had that wheel chair of Grandfather’s standing across the table from his own?” Nevada looked at him studyingly until Rawley, for all his vaunted strength, found his eyes sliding away from the directness of her gaze. “Cousin Rawley, if you have grown hard, you won’t sympathize with Johnny Buffalo, or understand. For more than a year, now, he has believed that his sergeant comes and sits in that chair to keep him company. He really believes it. You mustn’t laugh at him, will you?” Rawley was staring down at the always hurrying river. He said nothing. “Just don’t laugh at Johnny,” Nevada urged. “And don’t argue with him. It’s a _comfort_ to him to believe that. He doesn’t always keep the chair at the table. Sometimes it is by the window, or close to the fire when I go there. I think he moves it just as he would if your grandfather were living there with him.” “That’s nonsense!” Rawley spoke sharply.