and tottered back into Washington to resume operations.

"For six months I hung around headquarters, busied on department
matters. I had lost all track of things out here, meanwhile, for the
agent had been changed shortly after I left, and no one had taken
the trouble to keep me posted; but eventually I showed up on the
reservation again, reaching here on the first of July, three days
before the annual celebration of the people.

"Many changes had occurred in my two years' absence, and there was no
one to bring me gossip, hence I heard little during the first day or
two while I was picking up the loose ends of my work. One thing I did
find out, however--namely, that Running Elk had come straight home
from college, and was still on the reserve. I determined to look him
up during the festival.

"But on the morning of the Fourth I got the surprise of my life. The
stage from the railroad brought two women, two strange women, who came
straight to my office--Alicia Harman and her French maid.

"Well, I was fairly knocked endwise; but Alicia was as well-poised and
as self-contained as on that Thanksgiving morning in New York when
she and old Henry had picked me up in their automobile--a trifle more
stunning and a bit more determined, perhaps. Oh, she was a splendid
creature in the first glory of her womanhood, a perfectly groomed and
an utterly spoiled young goddess. She greeted me graciously, with that
queenly air of all great ladies.

"'Where is your father?' I asked, as she laid off her dust-coat.