Part 26 (1/2)
”Look here, Necia, you're a irl I've had my eye on you ever since I landed, and the more I see of you the better I like you”
”It isn't necessary to tell ar will be just the saht, too,” he declared ”That's what I like in a woand et her That'slove to me?” she inquired, curiously
”It's a little bit sudden, I know, but a in some time I think you'd just about suit ood to you”
The girl laughed derisively in his face
”Now don't get sore I mean business I don't wear a blue coat and use a lot of fancy words, and then throw you dohen I've hadaround and spoil your chances with other men either”
”What do you old buttons and highfalutin' ways I don't care if you are a squaw, I'll take you--”
”Don't talk to er and resent: ”Now, cut out these airs and get down to cases Isheep's eyes at Burrell, but, Lord! he wouldn't have you, no et
Of course, you acted careless in going off alone with hi around caet along--”
”I'll have you killed!” she hissed, through her clinched teeth, while her whole body vibrated with passion ”I'll call Poleon and have him shoot you!” She pointed to the river-bank a hundred yards ahere the Canadian was busy assorting skins
But he only laughed at her show of tehly:
”Understand o up in the air like a sky-rocket”
She cried out at hi, as he stepped out slowly:
”All right! But I' back, and you'll have to listen tocalled a squaw-h for ht--why, I'll even marry you if you're dead set on it Sure!”
She could scarcely breathe, but checked her first inclination to call Poleon, knowing that it needed only a word froe at Runnion's throat Other thoughts began to crowd her brain and to stifle her The felloords had stabbed her consciousness, and done soentler means would not have acco that she had forgotten--a hideous thing that had reared its fangs once before to strike, but which her dreams of happiness had driven out of her Eden
All at once she saw the wrong that had been done her, and realized frorounded It suddenly occurred to her that in all the hours she had spent with her lover, in all those unspeakably sweet and intie He had looked into her eyes and vowed he could not live without her, and yet he had never said the words he should have said, the words that would bind her to him His arms and his lips had comforted her and stilled her fears, but after all he had irl She recalled the old Corporal's words of a feeeks ago, and her conversation with Stark came back to her What if it were true--that which Runnion implied?
What if he did not intend to ask her, after all? What if he had only been a hiered in beneath a great load of skins he found her in a strange excite with the Indian and disitated face to the Frenchman
”Poleon,” she said, ”I'm in trouble Oh, I'm in such awful trouble!”
”It's dat Runnion! I seen 'im pass on de store w'ile I'm down below”
His brows knit in a black scowl, and his voice slid off a pitch in tone ”Wat he say, eh?”
”No, no, it's not that He paid hed harshly ”Why, he asked me to marry him” The man beside her cursed at this, but she continued: ”Don't bla me--I'm the only woman for five hundred miles around--or I was until this crowd came--so how could he help himself? No, he uess you better tell ravely
”You know I'm all taot bust your finger you run to me queeck, an' I feex it”
”Yes, I know, dear Poleon,” she assented, gratefully ”You've been a brother to me, and I need you now o to father; he wouldn't understand, or else he would understand too much, and spoil it all, his teoin' mese'f,” the Canadian said, darkly, and it was plain that he was deeply agitated, which added to the girl's distress; but she began to speak rapidly, incoherently, her inificance to her words, so that the ht he caught her , and punctuated her broken sentences with a series of grave nods, assuring her that he knew and understood He had always known, he had always understood, it seemed