“Did he tell you about that terrible-looking Indian chief?”
“Who—the Medicine Man? What has he done now?”
“He’s dead, poor man.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. Killed in the storm last night. Something terrible must have happened, for the Indians all looked so broken up this morning that I asked Mary what was the matter with them. She said Ogima Bush, their great Medicine Man, was gone up to the sky and they’d never see him again. All I could get out of her was that he was ‘making some big medicine’ whatever that is, and he was carried away by the storm-devils. They’re so queer, those people, I never can quite understand them.”
“Poor Ogima,” breathed Josephine Stone. “I don’t think there was anything so terrible about him as he painted himself up to look. Sometimes there seemed to be something terribly tragic in those wicked eyes of his.”
“Come now, Josie,” admonished Mrs. Johnson, “don’t you go getting dressed. Mr. Smith said it would be all right if you were called an hour from now.”
But Miss Stone had no intention of going back to bed. She dressed and went downstairs. The Indians were busy getting baggage ready on the verandah for transportation down to the boat.
As breakfast wasn’t quite ready, Miss Stone strolled down to the lake. There she was a few minutes later joined by Acey Smith. He was garbed in his bush clothes and the personality of the man had undergone one of those undefinable changes so characteristic of him. Where he had been buoyant, care-free and boyish the night before he was now politely formal, inscrutable—a self-contained Big Boss of the timberlands.
“I was sorry to have had to decide on an early start without having let you know last night, Miss Stone,” he opened. “But about four o’clock this morning I was awakened by a wireless call from the city, notifying me that some busy-body was having an airman sent over the Cup to-day, so I decided, if possible, we’d leave the Cup before the air-scout arrived.”