tender anxiety in her voice as she said:

"What brought you out in this blizzard? It wasn't safe. It doesn't seem
possible you got here from the Portage."

The huge ranchman and auctioneer laughed cheerily. "Once lost, twice get
there," he exclaimed, with a quizzical toss of the head, thinking he had
said a good thing. "It's a year ago to the very day that I was lost out
back"--he jerked a thumb over his shoulder--"and you picked me up and
brought me in; and what was I to do but come out on the anniversary and
say thank you? I'd fixed up all year to come to you, and I wasn't to be
stopped, 'cause it was like the day we first met, old Coldmaker hitting
the world with his whips of frost, and shaking his ragged blankets of snow
over the wild West."

"Just such a day," said the Indian woman, after a pause. Pauline remained
silent, placing a little bottle of cordial before their visitor, with
which he presently regaled himself, raising his glass with an air.

"Many happy returns to us both!" he said, and threw the liqueur down his
throat, smacked his lips, and drew his hand down his great mustache and
beard, like some vast animal washing its face with its paw. Smiling, and
yet not at ease, he looked at the two women and nodded his head
encouragingly, but whether the encouragement was for himself or for them
he could not have told.

His last words, however, had altered the situation. The girl had caught at
a suggestion in them which startled her. This rough, white plainsman was
come to make love to her, and to say--what? He was at once awkward and
confident, afraid of her, of her refinement, grace, beauty, and education,
and yet confident in the advantage of his position, a white man bending to
a half-breed girl. He was not conscious of the condescension and majesty
of his demeanor, but it was there, and his untutored words and ways must
make it all too apparent to the girl. The revelation of the moment made
her at once triumphant and humiliated. This white man had come to make
love to her, that was apparent; but that he, ungrammatical, crude, and
rough, should think he had but to put out his hand, and she in whom every
subtle emotion and influence had delicate response, whose words and ways
were as far removed from his as day from night, would fly to him, brought
the flush of indignation to her cheek. She responded to his toast with a
pleasant nod, however, and said:

"But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, th