e bunch grass and turn

ed it, the others too

e of sniffs, and dipped down into a dry watercourse.

Once or twice he thought he made out the vague outline of a flyin

a Marathon runner. His was the perfect physical fitness of one who lives a clean, hard life in the dry air of the high

nter. Morse caught the gleam of a knife thrust as he plunged. It was too late to check his dive. A flame

ed by the feel of the flesh he was handling so rou

his hesitation to sh

live coals, flashing at him hatred and defiance. Beneath the skin smock she wore, her breath came rag

se was upon her instantly. She tried to trip him,

with a barbaric fury. Her hard little fist beat up

. Too late the flash of white teeth warned him.

il!" he cried b

. The slim, muscular body still writhed in vain contortions till he clamped

ed defiance, but back of it he read fear, a horrified and paralyzing terror. To the white traders al

English. Her voice came bell-clear

s an imperative, u

he vice, his face clos

devil," he

peated wildly. "Let

ng me for one night." He had tasted no liquor all da

r grew. "If you

o what?"

She had unseated him and was scrambling to

free. She could as easily have escaped from st

go!" she cried. "You

're a nitchie, and you smashed

a nitchie[1]," she

lar of the Northwest Indian

The traders made their own laws and set their own standards. The value of a squaw of the Blackfeet was no more th

aid, and there was in his voice the cont

McRae," she

ites she used the one her adopted father had given her. It increased their respect for

us McRae?" he as

es

man's a

s," the gir

ou doin

is near. He's

u to smash our

des behind a woman,"

honest as daylight and stern as the Day of Judgment. If this girl was a daughter of the old Scot, not even a whiskey-trader could saf

do it?" Mor

om her. "Because you're ruining my peopl

e. "Do you mean you destroyed

ded, su

ade with the Cre

icy she was less than candid. Till she was safely out of the woods, it was better this man should not know she was only an adopted

rave who did not know what he was doing. Fergus is good. He minds his own business. But you steal away his brains. Then he runs wild. It was you,

and personal, from his

charges did not happe

tfit. It was Jackson's, maybe. Anyhow, nobody mad

ed meat in a trap, but it eats and die

the defensive. Her words h

talking o

out of character in an Indian woman or the daughter of one. "D'you think I don't know how you Americans ta

Crows, and the Cheyennes, with all their blood brothers, were menaces to civilization. The case for the natives he had never studied. How great a part broken p

o foot. The short skirt and smock of buckskin, the moccasins of buffalo hide, all dusty and

ciated. She bloomed like a desert rose, had some quality

sbrulés had much of the heaviness and stolidity of their native mothers. Jessie McRae was graceful as a fawn. Every turn of the dark head, every lift of the hand, expressed s

t a tribesman. And he's no child. He can

e known as "métis." The word mea

s unfortunate. It appli

it was used

oded, vital youth. "You can ride over him as though you're lords of the barren lands. You can ruin him for the m

rushed aside discussion. "We

rayed the fear she wou

! I wo

of his lean jaw left no room for

by the hair of the head. Because she was in such

'll horsewhip me. I'll have him do it for you

ertain. All sorts of complications would rise. There would be trouble with McRae. The trade with the Indians of his uncle's firm, of which he wa

rsewhip you for that fool trick you played on u

a stone-throw a heavy

, Mo

o the girl, his lips s

gone back and is brin

o meet

brawler and a libertine. Who in all the North did no

e valley," she said in a wh

imly. "You m

es

the t

led the way int