LITMIR.BIZ

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told him. Ralph breathed more freely.

      "She's lying," said Staley coolly. "I traded at McIlwraith Lake six years off and on. I ought to know. She never come of Sikannis stock; they're an undersized people and narrow-eyed."

      "Well, she's half-white, maybe," said Joe.

      "She never showed her face on McIlwraith Lake when I was there," said Staley. "I knew them all. There's no hunter in the tribe called Scarface Jack Black. She was stringing you."

      "I don't care," said Joe. "It don't hurt her looks any."

      During the afternoon each one of the other three men made an occasion to sidle up to the girl; Matthews the sardonic Scotchman, Staley with his pale, sharp, storekeeper's face, and the lubberly old Wes' with his wandering pale eye, and his tobacco-stained chin. The girl's manner was the same to each; demure, receptive, simple-minded. Ralph could make nothing of her. All this was hard on his temper. He was divided between anger at the ill-concealed grossness of the men, and anger at Nahnya for not resenting it. He no longer took any pleasure in the beauty of the river.

      At dusk they tied up to a tree on the shore and ran out a plank. The boys built a rousing fire under the pines, and as the darkness increased it made a fantastic chiaroscuro in crimson and black; the fire leaping under the boughs, the silhouettes of the half-breeds moving about it preparing supper, and on the river side the quaint little steamboat sticking her nose into the red glow.

      When supper was ready the five white men sat down beside the fire, but the girl, notwithstanding the hearty and jocular invitations of four of them, carried her portion back on the boat.

      "Let her go," said Joe. "She's dainty about eating in company."

      His air of proprietorship was almost more than Ralph could brook. Joe, sitting cross-legged, with his stomach on his knees, was not a beautiful sight. He had divested himself of all unnecessary clothing. He ate and drank with a noisy gusto that was all his own, and his cheeks and the bald spot on his crown became purple with the effort. A mat of dank black hair hung over his forehead, and the long ends of his moustache dripped tea.

      Nahnya sat down on the deck to her supper in view of the men, for it was not yet perfectly dark. Ralph, watching her covertly, was filled with a heavy anxiety at the thought of her position alone on the boat during the night. If she felt apprehensive herself she showed nothing, and it did not affect her appetite.

      Joe, observing Ralph's glances toward the steamboat, laughed in his uproarious way. "The kid's askeered of a petticoat!" he cried. "Go ahead, boy; it won't bite you!"

      Ralph could cheerfully have brained Joe where he sat. He was obliged, however, to turn it off with the best smile he could muster. At the same time Joe's jibe gave him an idea. He took care to finish before the others, and went on the boat, muttering something about getting tobacco.

      "Be up and down with her, kid," cried Joe. "Half measures won't get you nowhere!"

      "Fine night," said Ralph to Nahnya, loud enough for those on shore to hear.

      "Yes," she said, with exactly the same manner she had adopted toward them all.

      It dashed him a little. He went on inside to get tobacco out of his dunnage bag. When he came out again, she pointedly looked away across the river.

      Ralph came close to her, and lowered his voice; anxiety made him rough. "How are you going to manage to-night?" he asked.

      "What do you want to know for?" she said coolly, without looking at him.

      The blood rushed to Ralph's face; his temper had already been put to a strain one way and another. "I was only thinking of your safety," he said hotly.

      "You don't have to," she said. "I can take care of myself."

      "Do you know Joe Mixer lets on that he has won you?" Ralph went on harshly. "That swine! What are you going to do about it?"

      "I don't care what he says," she said indifferently. "I know what to do."

      Ralph did not really suspect her, but it suited his sore and angry mood to make out that he did. "I trusted you!" he said bitterly.

      This pierced her inscrutability. Her eyes flashed a hurt and angry look at him. "What you want?" she said swiftly and softly. "If I slap Joe Mixer's ugly face he make Wes' Trickett stop the boat and put me on shore. I don't want any trouble. I fool them all the same."

      "Oh!" said Ralph, disconcerted and relieved.

      "Go ashore," she said. "I tell you not to talk to me on the steamboat."

      "They all make up to you," Ralph explained in justification. "It looks funny if I'm the only one that stays away. They've started to jolly me about it. You let them come around all they want. Why can't you be the same to me?"

      "Go!" she said. "You can't act the same like them to me. They see the difference. If I friendly with you right away there will be trouble. Go stay with them."

      This was unanswerable. "But I'm anxious about you," Ralph persisted in more humble tones. "What are you going to do?"

      She shrugged coolly. "Do not worry," she said. "I can take care of myself. These are not the first foolish white men I have to manage."

      Ralph turned over the gangplank more puzzled than ever by her, but on the whole easier in his mind. Her confidence in herself was infectious.

      As he resumed his place by the fire, Joe said with his fat laugh: "Nothing doing, eh, Kid?"

      "A man can't always cop the first prize," Ralph returned.

      "I was ahead of you on this," Joe said with another guffaw.

      Ralph still smiled. "We'll see," he thought.

      The night was drawing on clear and still. The black flies had ceased their malignant activity at sunset, and it was too cold for mosquitoes. Joe suggested that they sleep ashore, and it was voted a good idea. The pine needles offered a softer bed than the planks of the steamboat's deck. Nevertheless Ralph divined an ulterior motive behind the suggestion, and Joe's transparent efforts to break up the talk around the fire heightened his suspicions.

      "They ain't no rush," said Wes' Trickett comfortably. "They's all day to-morrow to make the rapids."

      "'Ain't no rush' is your motter, Wes'," remarked Pete Staley.

      "I do' want no better motter," returned the captain. "That's why I come North, I guess. Outside men fret theirselves to death tryin' to do each other. What do they get for it?—a gold-plated casket, maybe, and a marble mouse-olium with a angel pointing to the skies. Pretty cold comfort, if you ast me. I'd a sight ruther take my ease sleepin' warm under a blanket, and wake up to good bacon and cawfee. There was Tinker Beasley now, he was always in a sweat. I mind how Tinker——"

      "Oh, for God's sake, Wes', I heard that story twenty times!" cried Joe Mixer. "It's near twelve o'clock. Get your blankets off the boat, men."

      Joe finally prevailed. As soon as the men had taken their blankets ashore, Nahnya disappeared inside the deckhouse, closing the front door after her, and likewise closing the door on the side that faced the shore. There were no locks on these doors for her protection.

      One by one each white man knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and crawling between his blankets, feet to the fire, added a trumpet to the chorus of snores. The breed boys were already quiet beside their dying fire. Ralph lay down with the others, privately resolving not to give way to sleep. He filled his pipe afresh, and propping his head on his elbow, stared at the blushing embers, and assorted the impressions of the day in his mind. Looking over his shoulder he could see through the chinks of the boards that Nahnya had made a light within her rude cabin.

      In spite of him, the still night began to have its way, and peace descended on his spirit. The slow, ruby progress of the fire, the spicy scent of the pines, and the pleasant murmur of the current against the forefoot of the moored steamboat all combined to undermine wakefulness. The very concert of snores irresistibly suggested sleep to his subconsciousness.

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