“Tell me,” she said simply, “you who are clever—maybe I help.”
“That’s just it, my Wana. I believe you can. You have a keen brain. You always help me.”
Nevil relapsed into silence, and bit nervously at his thumb nail. The woman waited with the stoical patience of her race. But she was all interest, for had not the man appealed to her for help?
“It’s your brother,” Nevil said at last. “Your brother, and the white girl at the farm, Rosebud.”
The dark eyes suddenly lit. Here was a matter which lay very near her heart. She had thought so much about it. She had even dared at other times to speak to her husband on the subject, and advise him. Now he came to her.
“Yes,” the man went on, still with that look of perplexity in his shifty eyes; “perhaps I have been wrong. You have told me that I was. But, you see, I looked on your brother as a child almost. And if I let him talk of Rosebud, it was, as I once told you, because he is headstrong. But now he has gone far enough—too far. It must be stopped. The man is getting out of hand. He means to have her.”
Wanaha’s eyes dilated. Here indeed was a terrible prospect. She knew her brother as only a woman can know a man. She had not noted the melodramatic manner in which her husband had broken off.
“You say well. It must be stop. Tell your Wana your thought. We will pow-wow like great chiefs.”
“Well, that’s just it,” Nevil went on, rising and drawing up to the table. “I can’t see my way clearly. We can’t stop him in whatever he intends. He’s got some wild scheme in his head, I know; and I can’t persuade him. He’s obstinate as a mule.”