Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/24

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The young lady advanced but instead of sitting down immediately, stood with a certain something of the wild in the intentness of her scrutiny. "I am Miss Marceau," she vouchsafed; "teacher of the Indian School at Shell Point."

"Yes?" encouraged Henry. "Won't you please be seated?"

Miss Marceau decided that she would, and the big velvety black eyes rested upon the lawyer's face concernedly while she announced surprisingly: "I have come to you because you are the one man in this community who is not afraid of John Boland."

This was a compliment in an absurdity—for who that was honest would be afraid of John Boland?

"How did you guess it?" the lawyer bantered, frankly amused.

But the young woman was not amused at all. "Because I know that you are not afraid of anything," she returned with simple seriousness. "Some of the Indians who were in your company in the war are in my school now—Adam John and others, grown men struggling among the youngsters for more of the white man's knowledge—and they call you Hellfire Harrington."

Henry laughed blushingly.

"You do not look like Hellfire now," observed the young lady almost disappointedly.

"I guess I'm not, any more," chuckled Harrington. "I guess I never was," he deprecated. "Besides, let me assure you that it requires no special brand of courage not to be afraid of Mr. Boland."

The pretty little woman in the chair looked stubbornly doubtful. "Oh, I don't know," she almost