what?" he jeered.

Her furious upheaval took him by surprise. She had unseated him and
was scrambling to her feet before he had her by the shoulders.

The girl ducked her head in an effort to wrench free. She could as
easily have escaped from steel cuffs as from the grip of his brown
fingers.

"You'd better let me go!" she cried. "You don't know who I am."

"Nor care," he flung back. "You're a nitchie, and you smashed our
kegs. That's enough for me."

"I'm no such thing a nitchie[1]," she denied indignantly.

[Footnote 1: In the vernacular of the Northwest Indians were
"nitchies." (W.M.R.)]

The instinct of self-preservation was moving in her. She had played
into the hands of this man and his companions. The traders made their
own laws and set their own standards. The value of a squaw of the
Blackfeet was no more than that of the liquor she had destroyed. It
would be in character for them to keep her as a chattel captured in
war.

"The daughter of a squaw-man then," he said, and there was in his
voice the contempt of the white man for the half-breed.

"I'm Jessie McRae," she said proudly.

Among the Indians she went by her tribal name of Sleeping Dawn, but
always with the whites she used the one her adopted father had given
her. It increased their respect for her. Just now she was in desperate
need of every ounce that would weigh in the scales.

"Daughter of Angus McRae?" he asked, astonished.

"Yes."

"His woman's a Cree?"

"His wife is," the girl corrected.

"What you doin' here?"

"Father's camp is near. He's hunting hides."

"Did he send you to smash our whiskey-barrels?"

"Angus McRae never hides behind a woman," she said, her chin up.

That was true. Morse knew it, though he had never met McRae. His
reputation had gone all over the Northland as a fearless fighting man
honest as daylight and stern as the Day of Judgment. If this girl was
a daughter of the old Scot, not even a whiskey-trader could safely lay
hands on her. For back of Angus was a group of buffalo-hunters related
to him by blood over whom he held half-patriarchal sway.

"Why did you do it?" Morse demanded.

The question struck a spark of spirit from her. "Because you're
ruining my people--destroying them with your fire-water."

He was taken wholly by surprise. "Do you mean you destroyed our
property for that reason?"

She nodded, sullenly.

"But we don't trade with the Crees," he persisted.

It was on the tip of her