served now that the old man had given up questioning her because of his presence. Accordingly Sam now volunteered:
"I tell 'em 'bout Bagley come. They want to know."
He made the statement casually and quite without taking sides in the opposition which had sprung up between the girl and the old man. Sam was concerned simply in developing more facts.
"Loutrelle asked about Bagley?" Lucas challenged Ethel.
"I did," Ethel returned. "When Sam said some one had come to the Rock, I asked who."
Lucas glanced at Sam who was ready for more conversation; but immediately the old man remembered himself and looked down the road. "Drive on, Sam," he commanded again. He would not question an Indian about affairs of his granddaughter.
Sam started the horses and gazed away to the distant Rock. "Damn funny business," he repeated his comment cheerfully; and except for the breathing of the mares, the scrape and slap of harness straps and the creak of the wood runners in the snow, there was silence. Over the hillock, the sound of singing had died away.
Ethel sat silent beside her grandfather who soon offered talk about uncontentious family matters: how his son Lucas was feeling this winter and what he said about bolshevism.
"Feed the fools? Feed the fools?" the old man mocked, when Ethel related what her uncle thought. "Machine-gun them, I say. What's the matter with Lucas and his rotten soft generation? That boy Bennet back from Camp Taylor yet?"
