He drove on through the half-obliterated road, responding to the conventional salutations of those on the right and on the left. Near the further side of the little clearing, a tiny copper-colored boy rose from the grass and scurried across in front of the horses, so near that Lafond had to pull up sharply to keep from running over him. An old woman, evidently its nurse, hurried to catch him. When she came to the road, however, she stopped short, and stared at Black Mike wildly, and began to scream out in the language of the Brulé Sioux. "'Tis he, the Defiler! 'Tis he!" She was an unkempt, wild old hag, and Lafond thought her mad. Her face was lined deeply, as only an Indian's face ever is; a few ragged wisps of gray hair fell over her eyes; and her skinny arm showed that she was thin almost to emaciation. At her scream a warrior arose before the chief's lodge and approached. From all directions the other warriors gathered. Two of the younger men had already taken the horses by the bits. Lafond did not understand it, and was about to expostulate vigorously against what he thought was intended robbery until he saw the face of the chieftain, who now drew near. Then he turned cold to the marrow. The chief looked him in the face for almost a minute. "It is not so," he said quietly. The hag had ceased her cries when the two young men had grasped the horses' bits. "It is so, O Lone Wolf," she replied with respect. "The form is changed by the hand of Manitou, but the spirit is the same, and I know it in his eyes. It is the Defiler." "Let Rippling Water be sought," responded the savage, still without excitement. About him the old-time dignity clung as a mantle. To any one in a less desperate situation than Michaïl Lafond there would have been something strangely incongruous and a little pathetic in this contrast between the manner of the old wild plains savage and the habit of the modern ward of the government. Even he was cool enough to see that the once powerful tribe had sadly shrunk in numbers and in wealth. After a moment the woman called by the name of Rippling Water appeared from a distance, where she had been cutting birch bark. In the syllables of the beautiful name Lafond had recognized that of the second of his Indian wives; in the prematurely aged withered squaw who now approached he recognized nothing. "My daughter," said Lone Wolf, "look upon this man. Have you seen him ever?" She peered at him a moment through short-sighted eyes. "I have lain on his bosom," she answered simply. "It is----?" "It is the Defiler," she replied. XXXVI UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS