"Well, my good woman, you hear a great deal, I expect, that isn't true;" and the doctor laughed coarsely but not ill-naturedly, Alessandro all the time studying his face with the scrutiny of one awaiting life and death; "I am the Agency physician, and I suppose all the Indians will sooner or later come in and report themselves to the Agent; you'd better take this man over there. What does he want now?"
Aunt Ri began to explain the baby's case. Cutting her short, the doctor said, "Yes, yes, I understand. I'll give him something that will help her;" and going into an inner room, he brought out a bottle of dark-colored liquid, wrote a few lines of prescription, and handed it to Alessandro, saying, "That will do her good, I guess."
"Thanks, Senor, thanks," said Alessandro.
The doctor stared. "That's the first Indian's said 'Thank you' in this office," he said. "You tell the Agent you've brought him a rara avis."
"What's that, Jos?" said Aunt Ri, as they went out.
"Donno!" said Jos. "I don't like thet man, anyhow, mammy. He's no good."
Alessandro looked at the bottle of medicine like one in a dream.
Would it make the baby well? Had it indeed been given to him by that great Government in Washington? Was he to be protected now? Could this man, who had been sent out to take care of Indians, get back his San Pasquale farm for him? Alessandro's brain was in a whirl.
From the doctor's office they went to the Agent's house. Here, Aunt Ri felt herself more at home.
"I've brought ye thet Injun I wuz tellin' ye uv," she said, with a wave of her hand toward Alessandro. "We've ben ter ther doctor's to git some metcen fur his baby. She's reel sick, I'm afeerd."
The Agent sat down at his desk, opened a large ledger, saying as he did so, "The man's never been here before, has he?"
"No," said Aunt Ri.
"What is his name?"
Jos gave it, and the Agent began to write it in the book. "Stop him." cried Alessandro, agitatedly to Jos. "Don't let him write, till I know what he puts my name in his book for!"
"Wait," said Jos. "He doesn't want you to write his name in that book. He wants to know what it's put there for."
Wheeling his chair with a look of suppressed impatience, yet trying to speak kindly, the Agent said: "There's no making these Indians understand anything. They seem to think if I have their names in my book, it gives me some power over them."
"Wall, don't it?" said the direct-minded Aunt Ri. "Hain't yer got any power over 'em? If yer hain't got it over them, who have yer got it over? What yer goin' to do for 'em?"
The Agent laughed in spite of himself. "Well, Aunt Ri," -- she was already "Aunt Ri" to the Agent's boys,-- "that's just the trouble with this Agency. It is very different from what it would be if I had all my Indians on a reservation."
Alessandro understood the words "my Indians." He had heard them before.
"What does he mean by his Indians, Jos?" he asked fiercely. "I will not have my name in his book if it makes me his."
When Jos reluctantly interpreted this, the Agent lost his temper.
"That's all the use there is trying to do anything with them! Let him go, then, if he doesn't want any help from the Government!"
"Oh, no, no." cried Aunt Ri. "Yeow jest explain it to Jos, an' he'll make him understand."
Alessandro's face had darkened. All this seemed to him exceedingly suspicious. Could it be possible that Aunt Ri and Jos, the first whites except Mr. Hartsel he had ever trusted, were deceiving him? No; that was impossible. But they themselves might be deceived. That they were simple and ignorant, Alessandro well knew. "Let us go!" he said. "I do not wish to sign any paper."
"Naow don't be a fool, will yeow? Yeow ain't signin' a thing!" said Aunt Ri. "Jos, yeow tell him I say there ain't anythin' a bindin' him, hevin' his name 'n' thet book, It's only so the Agent kin know what Injuns wants help, 'n' where they air. Ain't thet so?" she added, turning to the Agent. "Tell him he can't hev the Agency doctor, ef he ain't on the Agency books."
Not have the doctor? Give up this precious medicine which might save his baby's life? No! he could not do that. Majella would say, let the name be written, rather than that.
"Let him write the name, then," said Alessandro, doggedly; but he went out of the room feeling as if he had put a chain around his neck.
