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?"

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."