“Did I not say he dream?” demanded Miranda triumphantly. “And the police say he drink. But that is not so—he never drink. I know. I am there.”
“I am very sorry, Sir; I know it sounds ridiculous,” protested the distressed Andrew. “But I am certain that I was not asleep—or anything else that these well-meaning gentlemen say. I am only telling you what I really saw.”
“Well, tell us the whole story. Setting aside this person’s remarkable costume, what was he like, what did he say?”
“I don’t think he said anything. He was an Indian. That is, he was not a white man. I never saw any one just like him, so I may not be right about the race to which he belongs.”
Andrew’s confused statement brought protests from Leighton as well as Miranda.
“In this country,” remarked Leighton dogmatically, “a man is either an Indian, a white, or a half-breed. There are no negroes up here, you know. The negroes all stayed on the coast. As for your inability to tell us whether he spoke or not—well, the whole thing begins to sound absurd.”
But the rebuke failed to bring out anything more clear in the way of explanation from Andrew.
“Pray, Sir, remember,” he expostulated, “that at the time of this stranger’s appearance evening was setting in. The growing darkness prevented anything like a reliable estimate that I could have made of his features. In the twilight he seemed dark to me, although not so dark as the average Indian. And yet, allowing for the twilight, he certainly was not a white man.”
“But what happened?” urged Leighton.