For once I thought I knew more than my father, but he replied quietly, "Yes, I knew he was there. His tether may be long, but its limit will be reached some day." "Who told you he was there, father?" I asked. "Le Claire said so," he answered. "Where was he at that time?" I was getting excited now. "He spent the week in the little stone cabin out by the big cottonwood. Took cold and had to go to St. Louis to a hospital for a week or two." "He was in the haunted cabin the third week in September," I repeated slowly; "then I don't know black from white any more." My father smiled at me. "They call that being 'locoed' out on the Plains, don't they?" he said with a twinkle in his eye. "You have a delusion mixed up in your gray matter somewhere. One thing more," he added as an unimportant afterthought, "I see Miss Melrose is still in Topeka." "Yes," I answered. "And Tillhurst, too," he went on. "Well, there has been quite a little story going around Conlow's shop and the post-office and Fingal's Creek and other social centres about you two; and now when Tillhurst gets back (he'll never make the cavalry), he's square, but a little vain and thin-skinned, and he may add something of color and interest to the story. Let it go. Just now it may be better so." I thought his words were indefinite, for one whose purposes were always definite, and in the wisdom of my youth I wondered whether he really wanted me to follow Rachel's leading, or whether he was, after all, inclined to believe Judson's assertion about his engagement, and family pride had a little part to play with him. It was unlike John Baronet to stoop to a thing like that. "Father," I said, "I'm going away, too. I may never come back, and for my own sake I want to assure you of one thing: no matter what Tillhurst may say, if Rachel Melrose were ten times more handsome, if she had in her own name a fortune such as I can never hope to acquire myself, she would mean nothing to me. I care nothing for the stories now"--a hopelessness would come into my voice--"but I do not care for her either. I never did, and I never could." My eyes were away on Burnett's Mound, and the sweet remembrance of Marjie's last affectionate look made a blur before them. We stood in silence for some time.