“And it is known to civilization that the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man is not!”

Her meaning was plain enough now. What this young girl had seen and suffered and resented amid a world of men I did not know. Boyd’s late gallantry, idle, and even ignoble as it had appeared to me, had poisoned her against me also, confirming apparently all she ever had known of men.

If this young, lonely, ragged thing were what her attitude and words made plain, she had long endured her beauty as a punishment. What her business might be in lingering around barracks and soldiers’ camps I could not guess; but women who haunted such resorts seldom complained of the rough gallantries offered. And if their charms faded, they painted lip and cheek, and schooled the quivering mouth to smile again.