"You ought to rest a little," said Elsie. "You must feel the strain."
"I am a little inert at the moment," he confessed, "but I'm Hamlet in the play, you know, and must be at my post. I'll meet you all at lunch. You need have no further worry."
The employés responded bravely to his orders. The cheerful clink of the anvil broke forth with tranquillizing effect. The school-bell called the children together, the tepees began to rise from the sod as before, and the sluggish life of the agency resumed its unhurried flow, though beneath the surface still lurked vague forms of fear. Parker returned to his studio, Lawson sought his den, and there stretched out to smoke and muse upon the leadings of the event, while Jennie planned a mid-day dinner for a round dozen. "It will be a sort of love-feast to Captain Maynard," she said, roguishly.
"Will he return so soon?" asked Elsie.
"Oh yes, he'll only go a little way. Jack Maynard can smell a good dinner across a range of foot-hills. Didn't he look beautiful as he smiled? I used to think he grinned, but to-day—well, he looked like a heavenly cherub in the helmet of an archangel as he rode up."
Elsie was genuinely amused. "What is the meaning of this fervor. Has there been something between you and Captain Maynard in the past?"
"Not a thing! Oh, I always liked him—he's so good-natured—and so comical. Can you peel potatoes?"
"I never did such a thing in my life, but I'll try."
About one o'clock Maynard came jogging back, accompanied by a sergeant and a squad of men, dusty, tired, and hungry.
Curtis met him at the gate. "Send your horses down to the corral, Captain. You're to take pot-luck with us."