Bud knew that Bill was conveying a threat which, he felt, as he watched his face, it were wiser not to disregard. He walked towards the barn, stopped, ground his teeth, and looked back at Bill; but the big fellow stood motionless and in supreme disgust watched the Sheriff. Bud uttered a low oath, then hurried down to the corral. Still, Bill did not move. He did not hear Diana as she opened the cabin door and, drinking in the fresh morning air, said, "I feel as though I should suffocate in there." Her looks told that something more than the close air of the cabin room was stifling her. As she came from under the porch she saw the immovable figure of the foreman leaning over the log with his head on his hands, watching several men down the road who were mounting horses and preparing to make a start. "Oh, Mr.—" She paused. Bill turned. He saw she had forgotten his name. "Bill, miss," he said. "Mr. Bill—" But Bill interrupted as he raised his hat. "Just plain Bill, if you don’t mind—and there ain’t anything too good for you at Red Butte ranch, lady." Impulsively Diana held out her hand to Bill, who took it. "Thank you, Bill. It’s good to feel that I’m among friends, because I feel so strange, so bewildered." She had learned of the foreman’s devotion to Jim and knew that she could trust him. "Bill," she asked, "what do they mean by ’squaw-man’?" There was so much she could not say to Jim, so much that had puzzled her, and she longed to unburden her heart to some one. This faithful soul would understand her, and would, perhaps, help her to learn more about Jim and the Indian woman, concerning whose fate she was now growing anxious. Bill seated himself. "Well, it’s the name some people give a white man who marries an Indian squaw." Then quickly he added: "But I want you to understand, miss, Jim’s respected in spite of the fact he’s a squaw man. He’s lived that down." "Of course it was a great surprise to us all at first." "Natural it would be, miss. Of course no ordinary white man would have done it. But you mustn’t think any the less of Jim for that, miss." Quickly Diana answered, in sympathetic accord with Bill’s loyalty to his master: "I think all the more of him, Bill. It’s only another of Jim’s glorious mistakes." Then again she thought of the woman. "I wish I could see her. What is she like?" Bill could not understand this interest in Nat-u-ritch. "Just a squaw," he said, indifferently. "She’s got two ideas, and I guess only two—Hal and Jim." He liked the little woman, but he could see where she had been a great disadvantage to Jim. But Diana’s voice as she said, "A mother and a wife—that’s a good deal, Bill," made him realize that perhaps he was not doing the Indian girl justice. He could see the tears in Diana’s eyes as she spoke. "And her boy goes back home with us."