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“Did you ever save anybody’s life?” she asked, putting the bottle of cordial away, as he filled his glass for the third time.

“Twice certain, and once divided the honors,” he answered, pleased at the question.

“And did you expect to get any pay, with or without interest?” she added.

“Me! I never thought of it again. But yes–by gol, I did! One case was funny, as funny can be. It was Ricky Wharton over on the Muskwat River. I saved his life right enough, and he came to me a year after and said, ‘You saved my life, now what are you going to do with it? I’m stony broke. I owe a hundred dollars, and I wouldn’t be owing it if you hadn’t saved my life. When you saved it I was five hundred to the good, and I’d have left that much behind me. Now I’m on the rocks, because you insisted on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.’ I ‘insisted’! Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on–blame me, if I didn’t keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. Get pay?–why, I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, little gal.”

“You can’t save life without running some risk yourself, not as a rule, can you?” she said, shrinking from his familiarity.

“Not as a rule,” he replied. “You took on a bit of risk with me, you and your Piegan pony.”

“Oh, I was young,” she responded, leaning over the table and drawing faces on a piece of paper before her. “I could take more risks, I was only nineteen!”

“I don’t catch on,” he rejoined. “If it’s sixteen or–“

“Or fifty,” she interposed.

“What difference does it make? If you’re done for, it’s the same at nineteen as fifty, and vicey-versey.”

“No, it’s not the same,” she answered. “You leave so much more that you want to keep, when you go at fifty.”

“Well, I dunno. I never thought of that.”

“There’s all that has belonged to you. You’ve been married, and have children, haven’t you?”

He started, frowned, then straightened himself. “I got one girl–she’s East with her grandmother,” he said, jerkily.

“That’s what I said; there’s more to leave behind at fifty,” she replied, a red spot on each cheek. She was not looking at him, but at the face of a man on the paper before her–a young man with abundant hair, a strong chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she had drawn the face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both she was writing Manette and Julien.

The water was getting too deep for John Alloway. He floundered toward the shore. “I’m no good at words,” he said–“no good at argyment; but I’ve got a gift for stories–round the fire of a night, with a pipe and tin basin of tea; so I’m not going to try and match you. You’ve had a good education down at Winnipeg. Took every prize, they say, and led the school, though there was plenty of fuss because they let you do it, and let you stay there, being half-Indian. You never heard what was going on outside, I s’pose. It didn’t matter, for you won out. Blamed foolishness, trying to draw the line between red and white that way. Of course, it’s the women always, always the women, striking out for all-white or nothing. Down there at Portage they’ve treated you mean, mean as dirt. The Reeve’s wife–well, we’ll fix that up all right. I guess John Alloway ain’t to be bluffed. He knows too much, and they all know he knows enough. When John Alloway, 32 Main Street, with a ranch on the Katanay, says, ‘We’re coming, Mr. and Mrs. John Alloway is coming,’ they’ll get out their cards visite, I guess.”

Pauline’s head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into the faces before her–Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and there came into her eyes the youth and light and gayety of the days when Julien came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter–the dearest, lightest days she had ever spent.