Believe me, it was not part of my plan that you should have had to go through the disagreeable experience that befell you this morning, which, for reasons I hope to be able to explain later, I was unable to prevent without endangering your interests. Circumstances promoted by others over whom I had no control did that.
If there is any detail for your comfort or convenience which may have been overlooked, please advise me. The bearer of this note, Mr. Ogima Bush, is absolutely trustworthy so far as the affairs of my friends are concerned. Mr. Bush will therefore safely convey any message you may have for me before I leave this afternoon for the east. Yours to command,
“You wait here.” Josephine Stone addressed the Indian, who stood with eyes averted to the gravel walk.
“Un-n-n-n ugh,” he gutturalled. “Ogima wait.”
She hurried back to the château and returned with a pencil and some sheets of paper. Seating herself on a little rustic bench, she three times started a reply to Acey Smith’s note, but each time failed to find words coldly expressive of her contempt for the man who could knowingly allow her to suffer the indignities she had met with that morning.
Finally she tore all the sheets into little shreds and flung them angrily to the ground. Into the sinister face of the Indian there came a look of actual apprehension as she arose from the bench.
“Tell Mr. Smith I have no answer for him!”
The Medicine Man pointed to the torn bits of paper on the walk. “Maybe Ogima tell Big Boss white lady make words many times and throw away.”
Miss Stone’s eyes were blazing as she stamped her little foot on the gravel. “You tell him what I told you to tell him—nothing more!”
The Medicine Man quailed before the white wrath of the girl, a ridiculous, crestfallen creature for the moment in his savage trappings. “Un-n-n-n, Ogima tell him what white lady say—no more,” he answered supinely with a hand above his head as though to ward off an expected blow. “Big Boss maybe get heap mad; tell poor Ogima he lie.”
“I hope he beats you within an inch of your life!”
The Indian drew himself up to his full height at that.
“No hit Ogima Bush,” he declared pompously. “Mister Smid Big Boss of camp; no boss of Ogima. Un-n-n-n, Smid no boss Ogima!”