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 for he was liking the great business genius more and more.

"However"—with a lift in his voice the magnate switched back his thought—"I've been thinking up a scheme to protect those Indians."

"Yes?" inquired Henry, leaning forward eagerly, thinking with amusement of Miss Marceau's absurd fears, yet discovering that her appeal had somehow laid in his mind a foundation of very genuine interest in the welfare of these Indians.

"Of course, I'll manage to make the project pay somehow," Mr. Boland hastened to qualify, "—make it contribute its quota to the prosperity of us all at the same time we're doing the poor devils good."

Harrington found himself nodding instant acquiescence. He was a trifle suspicious of pure philanthropies.

"My idea is to buy the land myself—before somebody else does." Old Two Blades plumped this sentence out, his whole expression one of the modest consciousness of superior virtue, then elaborated: "My plan, in order to keep 'em from squandering their principal, is to pay for the land in Liberty bonds to be held in trust by the Government. There's a lot of the land and comparatively few of the Siwashes and just the interest would, according to my figures, allow seventy-five dollars a month per Indian, big or little, and with the Government re-investing for him, it would protect him and his children's children as long as they lived."

"Why, that would be fabulous luxury for most of those Siwashes," glowed Henry, enthusiasm kindling in part because of Miss Marceau, in part because of Billie Boland, and in part because of growing admiration for her father.