said, aloud to himself, just as
though the girl had not been present.

"Will you leave my daughter oot o' your talk, man?" warned the
Scotchman.

"What's ailin' you?" West's sulky, insolent eyes turned on the
buffalo-hunter. "A nitchie's a nitchie. Me, I talk straight. But I aim
to be reasonable too. I don't like a woman less because she's got the
devil in her. Bully West knows how to tame 'em so they'll eat outa his
hand. I've took a fancy to yore girl. Tha's right, McRae."

"You may go to the tent, Jessie," the girl's father told her. He was
holding his temper in leash with difficulty.

"Wait a mo." The big trader held out his arm to bar the way. "Don't
push on yore reins, McRae. I'm makin' you a proposition. Me, I'm
lookin' for a wife, an' this here breed girl of yours suits me. Give
her to me an' I'll call the whole thing square. Couldn't say fairer
than that, could I?"

The rugged hunter looked at the big malformed border ruffian with
repulsion. "Man, you gi'e me a scunner," he said. "Have done wi' this
foolishness an' be gone. The lass is no' for you or the like o' you."

"Hell's hinges, you ain't standin' there tellin' me that a Cree breed
is too good for Bully West, are you?" roared the big whiskey-runner.

"A hundred times too good for you. I'd rather see the lass dead in
her coffin than have her life ruined by you," McRae answered in dead
earnest.

"You don't get me right, Mac," answered the smuggler, swallowing his
rage. "I know yore religious notions. We'll stand up before a sky
pilot and have this done right. I aim to treat this girl handsome."

Jessie had turned away at her father's command. Now she turned swiftly
upon the trader, eyes flashing. "I'd rather Father would drive a
knife in my heart than let me be married to a wolfer!" she cried
passionately.

His eyes, untrammeled by decency, narrowed to feast on the brown
immature beauty of her youth.

"Tha' so?" he jeered. "Well, the time's comin' when you'll go down on
yore pretty knees an' beg me not to leave you. It'll be me 'n' you one
o' these days. Make up yore mind to that."

"Never! Never! I'd die first!" she exploded.

Bully West showed his broken, tobacco-stained teeth in a mirthless
grin. "We'll see about that, dearie."

"March, lass. Your mother'll be needin' you," McRae said sharply.

The girl looked at West, then at Morse. From the scorn of that glance
she might have been a queen and they the riffraff of the land. She
walke