years after Carson’s round-up one of his soldiers guided some interested travelers in here.  When they left they took an Indian boy with them to educate.  From what I know of Navajos I’m inclined to think the boy was taken against his parents’ wish.  Anyway, he was taken.  That boy was Nas Ta Bega.  The story goes that he was educated somewhere.  Years afterward, and perhaps not long before I came in here, he returned to his people.  There have been missionaries and other interested fools who have given Indians a white man’s education.  In all the instances I know of, these educated Indians returned to their tribes, repudiating the white man’s knowledge, habits, life, and religion.  I have heard that Nas Ta Bega came back, laid down the white man’s clothes along with the education, and never again showed that he had known either.

“You have just seen how strangely he acted.  It’s almost certain he heard our conversation.  Well, it doesn’t matter.  He won’t tell.  He can hardly be made to use an English word.  Besides, he’s a noble red man, if there ever was one.  He has been a friend in need to me.  If you stay long out here you’ll learn something from the Indians.  Nas Ta Bega has befriended you, too, it seems.  I thought he showed unusual interest in you.”

“Perhaps that was because I saved his sister—­well, to be charitable, from the rather rude advances of a white man,” said Shefford, and he proceeded to tell of the incident that occurred at Red Lake.

“Willetts!” exclaimed Withers, with much the same expression that Presbrey had used.  “I never met him.  But I know about him.  He’s—­ well, the Indians don’t like him much.  Most of the missionaries are good men—­good for the Indians, in a way, but sometimes one drifts out here who is bad.  A bad missionary teaching religion to savages!  Queer, isn’t it?  The queerest part is the white people’s blindness—­ the blindness of those who send the missionaries.  Well, I dare say Willetts isn’t very good.  When Presbrey said that was Willetts’s way of teaching religion he meant just what he said.  If Willetts drifts over here he’ll be risking much. . . .  This you told me explains Nas Ta Bega’s friendliness toward you, and also his bringing his sister Glen Naspa to live with relatives up in the pass.  She had been living near Red Lake.”

“Do you mean Nas Ta Bega wants to keep his sister far removed from Willetts?” inquired Shefford.

“I mean that,” replied Withers, “and I hope he’s not too late.”

Later Shefford went outdoors to walk and think.  There was no moon, but the stars made light enough to cast his shadow on the ground.  The dark, illimitable expanse of blue sky seemed to be glittering with numberless points of fire.  The air was cold and still.  A dreaming silence lay over the land.  Shefford saw and felt all these things, and their effect was continuous and remained with him and helped calm him.