The prosperity and happy fortune of Sleeman and his family, in contrast to the tragic death of his father and his family, constituted an insoluble problem for Paul. Had the Indian woman’s knife found its intended vital spot and had Sleeman in consequence “gone to his own place,” as was the case both in the Old Testament and in Shakespeare, the demands of righteous government would have been met. But his father slept on the hillside, done to death practically by Sleeman; his Indian wife, balked of her just vengeance, lay in her far North land grave, leaving her children homeless among strangers; while, prosperous and happy, Sleeman and his family still lived, untouched by the vengeance of man or God. Here upon the scene of this tragedy and in the atmosphere in which it had been consummated, the pain of the insoluble problem became almost unbearably acute. Paul thrust it from him in the meantime and turned to matters more immediately pressing. Indian Tom had evidently been making his abode in the kitchen, which reproduced in its condition of general disorder and dirt the Indian mode of housekeeping. From the kitchen Paul passed into the living room, and went through the rest of the house, followed by Tom, whose face exhibited every sign of anxiety. Paul was amazed and delighted at what he saw. The rooms were in a condition of perfect order and cleanliness. “Why, Tom, this is wonderful! You are a splendid housekeeper.” He ran his hand over the face of the piano. “Not a speck of dust anywhere! Did you have a housecleaning today?” “Huh!” grunted Tom, in a state of high delight. “Every day! Every day! Clean! clean! sweep! sweep! Every day! Every day! Colonel’s Pelham’s woman she say clean him up every day. Look!” He caught down a shot gun from the wall and threw open the breach. Paul looked through the barrels. They glistened like silver. “Good! Fine! Father himself never had it better. You have kept everything in the very best shape.” “De beeg chief, he good man to Tom,” said the Indian in a husky voice, his face set in an unmistakable mould of grief. The emotion manifested by the stoical and simple-hearted savage released the flood of grief and loneliness that, without his knowledge, had been gathering within Paul’s heart ever since he had turned in at the Pine Croft drive. He threw himself into a chair, put his face in his hands, while great sobs shook his body. On the floor beside him the Indian sat, silent, his face rigid, immovable, as if cut in stone, his eyes unseeing, staring straight into space. Thus they sat, master and man, separated far as the poles asunder by race, breeding and convention, but finding a meeting point in the great and profound emotions of love and sorrow, in which all men, red, black, brown and white, are one.