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“You got its beauty and its freshness, and you got its heat and cold–“

She saw the tobacco-juice stain at the corners of his mouth, she became conscious of the slight odor of spirits in the air, and the light in her face lowered in intensity.

“You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o’ the birds in your voice; and you’re going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin’ to you stiddy four years. It’s a long time to wait on the chance, for there’s always women to be got, same as others have done–men like Dingan with Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I ain’t bin lookin’ that way. I bin lookin’ only toward you.” He laughed eagerly, and lifted a tin cup of whiskey standing on a table near. “I’m lookin’ toward you now, Nance. Your health and mine together. It’s got to be settled now. You got to go to the ‘Cific Coast with Bantry, or North with me.”

The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sure of himself.

“Or South with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else,” she said, quizzically. “There’s always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I’m not going West with Bantry, but there’s three other points that’s open.”

With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to face him. He was swelling with anger. “You–Nick Pringle, that trading cheat, that gambler! After four years, I–“

“Let go my shoulders,” she said, quietly. “I’m not your property. Go and get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I’m not a bronco for you to bit and bridle. You’ve got no rights. You–” Suddenly she relented, seeing the look in his face, and realizing that, after all, it was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years and rouse him to such fury. “But yes, Abe,” she added, “you have some rights. We’ve been good friends all these years, and you’ve been all right out here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I liked it, even if it was as if you’d learned it out of a book. I’ve got no po’try in me; I’m plain homespun. I’m a sapling, I’m not any prairie-flower, but I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like. I’m a bit of hickory, I’m not a prairie-flower–“

“Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who’s talking about prairie-flowers–“

He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him, and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who was digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but well-made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden by his rough clothes.

“Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?” he said, blinking at the two beside the fire. “How long?” he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his tone.

“I said I’d wake you,” said the girl, coming forward. “You needn’t have worried.”

“I don’t worry,” answered the young man. “I dreamed myself awake, I suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush in the Barfleur Coulee, and–” He saw a secret, warning gesture from the girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. “Oh, I know him! Abe Hawley’s all O.K.–I’ve seen him over at Dingan’s Drive. Honor among rogues. We’re all in it. How goes it–all right?” he added, carelessly, to Hawley, and took a step forward, as though to shake hands. Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he turned to the girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not hear.

“What time is it?” he asked.