The news was not so very surprising to Malcolm Petrie. In his years of practice as a solicitor many similar cases had come to his notice. He had often remonstrated at the folly of sending the younger son of a great family to these lands, and at the unwisdom of parents who found the problem of guiding a wayward boy too hard, and so let him go to the West, to be left to the mercy of its desolation and to the temptation of such entanglements. But that it would be a new difficulty he foresaw, and as he took the child\'s out-stretched hand he remembered the proud woman waiting at Fort Duchesne. To him, as a man of the world, the affair was understandable, but to Diana! He began to regret that she had come. There was no suggestion of these thoughts in his manner as he kindly said:

"How do you do, my little man?"

"How do you do, Mr. Petrie?" the child answered, and then ran back to his father\'s side.

The dark head with its faint trace of the Indian blood was extremely beautiful, but Malcolm Petrie noticed a much stronger predominance of the Wynnegate features.

With his hand on the child\'s head, Jim said, "You see, Petrie, we have to-day and to-morrow—but never yesterday." In the man\'s voice was so much despair that Petrie found it impossible to understand it.

"I don\'t quite follow you," he said.

Turning in the direction in which the Indian girl had disappeared, Jim answered, "That was Hal\'s mother."

"Indeed!" And still Petrie was puzzled at Jim\'s attitude.

"There isn\'t any place in England for Nat-u-ritch." Then, as Jim bent over the boy, he held him close and said, "Kiss me, dear, and now run in and help your mother." Jim followed the boy to the cabin door.

Malcolm Petrie said, tentatively, "And that Indian squaw—woman, I mean—is your—"

But Jim stopped the word that he felt Petrie was about to speak.

"My wife," he said. Petrie dropped his glasses and turned sharply to Jim. "My wife," Jim said again. "You don\'t suppose I\'d let my boy come into the world branded with illegitimacy, do you?"

To this Petrie gave no answer. Under Jim almost defiant gaze he found it impossible to argue, but there must be a solution to this problem. He moved away as he almost lightly said, "An awkward situation, Mr. Carston—quite an awkward situation," but the words conveyed no idea that he felt there was a finality about the matter. His lawyer\'s brain would unravel the knot. Jim could still have his freedom. Then he said, "But these matters can be arranged. You will be in a position to settle an income on her which will make her comfortable for life, and some good man will eventually marry her."

Jim almost smiled. There was so much of the conventional standard in Petrie\'s speech.

"Wait a bit. You don\'t understand." He motioned Petrie to be seated again. He hesitated, then determined to tell his story. It might as well be done now; it would save further discussion.

"I first saw Nat-u-ritch at a bear-dance at the agency. The Indians reverse our custom, and the women ask the men to dance. Nat-u-ritch chose me for her partner. We met again at Maverick, where she killed a desperado to save my life." These words Jim almost whispered to Petrie, who leaned forward to catch every syllable. "The next time I saw her—Oh, well, why tell of the months that followed? One day I found myself lying in her wickyup. I had been at death\'s door fighting a fever. Searching for strayed cattle, I had tumbled into Jackson\'s Hole and had been abandoned for dead. Nat-u-ritch went in alone, on snow-shoes, and dragged me back to her village. It was a deed no man, red or white, would have attempted to do. When I grew well enough she brought me here to my own ranch, where I had a relapse. Again she nursed me back to life."

He paused. How should he tell this man of the days of blinding temptation the loneliness of his life had brought with it? Petrie waited. Jim moved a little closer to him as he went on:

"When I grew stronger, I tried my best to induce her to leave the ranch, but she would not go. She loved me with a devotion not to be reasoned with. I almost tried to ill-treat her. It made no difference." Again the despair that Petrie had noticed before crept into Jim\'s voice. "I was a man—a lonely man—and she loved me. The inevitable happened. You see, I cannot go back home."

No, this was not the usual case, Malcolm Petrie told himself. Even he had been impressed by Jim\'s recital of the story. It was this man\'s attitude towards the woman that gave him more cause for anxiety than the squaw\'s position in the case, so he said:

"Don\'t you think you take rather too serious a view of the case? You can explain the situation to her and she will be open to reason."

But Jim interrupted him. "I wouldn\'t desert a dog that had been faithful to me. That wouldn\'t be English, would it? The man who tries to sneak out of the consequences of his own folly—"

"Believe me," the lawyer protested, "I would advise nothing unbecoming a gentleman. But aren\'t you idealizing Nat-u-ritch a little?"

Jim\'s answer was not reassuring. "On the contrary, we never do these primitive races justice. I know the grief of the ordinary woman. It doesn\'t prevent her from looking into the mirror to see if her bonnet is on straight; but Nat-u-ritch would throw herself into the river out there, and I should be her murderer as much as if I pushed her in."

Then Petrie devised a new scheme to test Jim\'s resolution.

"Why not take her with you to England?" he asked.

"Impossible!" Jim answered. "We\'d both be much happier here. Even here I am a squaw man—that means socially ostracized." A bitter laugh broke from him. "You see, we have social distinctions out here."

"How absurd!"

"Social distinctions usually are," and Jim laid his arm on Petrie\'s. He was growing tired of the discussion. Petrie felt that Jim wished to dismiss it, so he determined to play his trump card. This sacrifice of a splendid fellow was madness. Years from now, Jim would thank him that he had urged him to abandon this life to which he clung with his mistaken sense of right.

"I think I am justified in violating my instructions," Petrie began. "You were not to know that Lady Kerhill accompanied me to this country."

Jim\'s hands tightened on Petrie. "Diana here?" Furtively he looked about him, as though fearful of seeing her. "In America?" He waited to be quickly reassured that there was no danger of her coming to the ranch.

"I left them at Fort Duch............