r from failure or weakness they took this sordid line of least
resistance. From thence on they did not struggle down the trap line in
the bitter winter days. They laid comfortably in their cabins and their
squaws tended to such small matters. It was true that the squaws wore
out quickly; sometimes they needed beating, and at about forty they
withered and died, or else the blizzard caught them unprotected in the
forest,--and then it became necessary to select another. This was an
annoyance, but not a tragedy. One was usually as faithful and as
industrious as another.

It was perfectly evident that Sindy had been at work setting out traps.
Bill stared at the woman and for the moment he did not see the little
sparks growing to flame in Harold's eyes.

"What did you say?" he asked, menacing. He had caught a word that has
come to be an epithet in the North.

But by taking it up Harold made a severe strategical error. Bill had
never hesitated, by the light of an ancient idiom, to call a spade a
spade. Also he always had good reasons before he took back his words.
"I said," he repeated clearly, "that I'd found--a squaw man."

Harold's muscles set but immediately relaxed again. He shrugged once.
"And is it anybody's business but my own?" he asked.

"It hadn't ought to be, but it is," was the answer. "It's my business,
and somebody else's too." he turned to the woman. "Listen, Sindy, and
give me a polite answer. You're Joe Robinson's sister, aren't you?"

The Indian looked up, nodded, then went back to her work.

"Then you left Buckshot Dan--to come here and live with this white
man?"

Harold turned to her with a snarl. "Don't answer him, Sindy. It's none
of his business." Then his smoldering eyes met Bill's. "Now we've
talked enough. You can go."

"Wait!" Something in the grave face and set features silenced the squaw
man. "But it's true--we have talked just about enough. I've got one
question. Lounsbury--do you think, by any chance--you've got any
manhood left? Do you think you're rotten clear through?"

Harold leaped then, savage as a wolf, and his rifle swung in his arms.
Instantly Bill's form, impassive before, seemed simply to waken with
life. There was no rage in his face, only determination; but his arm
drove out fast as a serpent's head. Seemingly with one motion he
wrenched the gun from the man's hand and sent him spinning against the
wall.

Before even his body crashed against the