"I don't care if you are," said Charlie, grimly. "If you're going to keep on being his friend, you've got to be it with your eyes open. And you might as well decide right now whether you're going to take him or me for your friend. You can't have us both."
"I wouldn't give up Mr. Levine for any one on earth." Lydia's voice shook with her earnestness. "And I don't see why I have to be dragged into this business. I've nothing to do with it."
"You have too! You're white and it's every white's business to judge in this. You'll be taking some of the profits of the reservation if it's thrown open, yourself."
"I will not!" cried Lydia. "I wouldn't want an inch of that land." Then she caught her breath. Something within her said, "Wouldn't, eh—not the vast acres of cathedral pines, you thought of as yours, at camp?" She flushed and repeated vehemently, "Not an inch!"
Charlie smiled cynically. "Listen, Lydia, I'll tell you how Levine pays for his Indian lands."
CHAPTER XII
THE HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR
"Where the pine forest is destroyed, pines never come again."—The
Murmuring Pine.
Lydia sighed helplessly and began to stitch again on the fringe, thrusting her needle in and out viciously.
"Years ago," began Charlie, grimly, "my father foresaw what the whites were trying to do. None of the other full bloods believed him. He had nothing to do with half-breeds."