tres. It is
no hardship, my rounds, not at all, with the ground like a white
tablecloth, and this good sun, to me like to my dogs, it is but play."
He rose from the table, glad of the excuse to hasten his going, and
with scant courtesy Jakapa sped his guest's departure.

As the sled disappeared among the trees, bearing the queerly bundled
figure of the Priest, the Boss unhooked his snowshoes from the wall.
He seemed to have forgotten Crossman's presence, but as he turned, his
smouldering eyes lighted on him. He straightened with a jerk. "What
did he mean when he say, _she_ have bewitch _you_?" As always, when
excited, his somewhat precise English slipped back into the idiom of
the habitant. "By Gar! Boss or no Boss, I pack you out if I catch you.
We make no jealousies for any one, not where I am. You come here for
your health--_hein?_ Well, better you keep this place healthy for
you."

As if further to complicate the situation, the door opened to admit
the woman herself. She closed it, leaned against the wall, looking
from one to the other with mocking eyes.

"Well, do I leave? Am I to pack? Have you wash the hand of me to
please the Cure, yes?"

Jakapa turned on her brutally. "Get to the cook-house! Wash your dish!
Did I give orders to Antoine to leave hees work? By Gar! I feel like I
take you and break you in two!" He moved his knotted hands with a
gesture of destruction. There was something so sinister in the action
that, involuntarily, Crossman cried out a startled warning. Her laugh
tinkled across it.

"Bah!" she shrugged. "If you wish to kill, why do you not kill those
who make the interferre? Are you a man? What is it, a cassock, that it
so protect a man? But me, because I do not wear a woman's skirt, you
will break me, hey? _Me!_ Nevair mind, I prefer this man. He at least
make no big talk." She slipped her arm through Crossman's, letting her
fingers play down from his wrist to his finger-tips--and the thrill of
it left him tongue-tied and helpless.

Jakapa cursed and crouched low. He seemed about to hurl himself upon
the pair before him. Again she laughed, and her tingling, searching
fingers stole slowly over his throbbing pulses.

She released Crossman's arm with a jerk, and snapped the fingers that
had just caressed him in the face of the furious lumberman. "_Allons!_
Must I forever have no better revenge but to knife one paper doll? Am
I to be hounded like a beast, and threatened wherever I go? I am