“It’s not easy for me to see her working here.”

“I could bind her to you for whatever time you say would pay her debt,” the priest went on eagerly.

“And if she runs away?”

“Not Claire,” he promised. “She has never run away.”

Captain Stanton hesitated. He indicated Otter Boy.

“And this child, who is he?”

“It’s her child with an Indian father,” the priest explained virtuously. “They were duly man and wife in the Indian custom. He is an unusually good child, monsieur, very quiet, and duly baptized in our Christian tradition. He made no trouble either for Madame Corbusier or for me on the way down. He’s another reason why as your property she will never run away.”

The assemblyman continued to regard the boy with distaste.

“Indians are far from popular around here,” he said. “Besides, I could pay you nothing in advance—not until I see how she works out.” He considered. “On the other hand, it’s true that I can use another girl in the kitchen if you want me to try her.”

“You will give her a bed in the inn to sleep in and look after her?” the priest asked. “Madame Corbusier treated her with much kindness.”

“She will be treated with due merit.” The Captain raised his voice. “Mrs. Karricher!” After a moment a blond woman in a dress with glittering black buttons appeared. “Mrs. Karricher, I have a girl here to help out in the kitchen. She has both cooked and waited on table. You will see that she and the boy have a place to sleep on the third floor.”

The woman gazed on Stone Girl and Otter Boy with ill-concealed aversion. From that and something in her pale-blue eyes the girl had the feeling that the woman had overheard the talk in here or had been told by others who had heard it.

IT WAS a rainy evening in June and Captain Peter Stanton sat alone in his private business room. He would have another pipeful before going to bed. The roof dripped audibly on the ground outside, not heavily, just enough to indicate a gentle downpour. None would run off. All would go into the ground. He had seldom seen a more hopeful spring and early summer. Sun and rain this year had come aplenty. Hay would be heavy. Already wheat stood stout throughout the cleared land of the valley. Rye would be high as a man’s head. Not a stalk had been knocked down by showers. Already corn flourished and potatoes would soon be in flower.

Oh, the valley could expect bumper crops and today he would feel gratified had he not done what he had. It was, you might say, a blunder of the heart but it remained a blunder. It was true that every man was entitled to make a mistake once in a while and he had fallen into this mostly to oblige one of the clergy. But he should have stood hard and firm and refused to involve himself with a fraudulent girl who claimed to be of his own blood, particularly when she was the mother of an Indian child. Both were undoubtedly Indians and Indians were not in favor here these days of savage outrages. Twice the last month news had come down the river from remote valleys where settlers and their families had been killed and scalped, their buildings burned and crops destroyed. No one around here complained directly to him about the girl. But he saw them scowl at the Indian boy, and Mrs. Karricher reported that she and others had become uneasy. They didn’t like the presence of a savage among them. The girl had lied about being his missing daughter and nothing she said could be believed after that. For all they knew, she could be in league with the Indians and reporting to them when to strike.