er before her. "I could take more risks, I was only
nineteen!"

"I don't catch on," he rejoined. "If it's sixteen or--"

"Or fifty," she interposed.

"What difference does it make? If you're done for, it's the same at
nineteen as fifty, and _vicey-versey_."

"No, it's not the same," she answered. "You leave so much more that you
want to keep, when you go at fifty."

"Well, I dunno. I never thought of that."

"There's all that has belonged to you. You've been married, and have
children, haven't you?"

He started, frowned, then straightened himself. "I got one girl--she's
East with her grandmother," he said, jerkily.

"That's what I said; there's more to leave behind at fifty," she replied,
a red spot on each cheek. She was not looking at him, but at the face of a
man on the paper before her--a young man with abundant hair, a strong
chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she had drawn the
face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both she was writing
_Manette and Julien_.

The water was getting too deep for John Alloway. He floundered toward the
shore. "I'm no good at words," he said--"no good at argyment; but I've got
a gift for stories--round the fire of a night, with a pipe and tin basin
of tea; so I'm not going to try and match you. You've had a good education
down at Winnipeg. Took every prize, they say, and led the school, though
there was plenty of fuss because they let you do it, and let you stay
there, being half-Indian. You never heard what was going on outside, I
s'pose. It didn't matter, for you won out. Blamed foolishness, trying to
draw the line between red and white that way. Of course, it's the women
always, always the women, striking out for all-white or nothing. Down
there at Portage they've treated you mean, mean as dirt. The Reeve's
wife--well, we'll fix that up all right. I guess John Alloway ain't to be
bluffed. He knows too much, and they all know he knows enough. When John
Alloway, 32 Main Street, with a ranch on the Katanay, says, 'We're coming,
Mr. and Mrs. John Alloway is coming,' they'll get out their cards
_visite_, I guess."

Pauline's head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into
the faces before her--Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and there
came into her eyes the youth and light and gayety of the days when Julien
came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter--the dearest,
lightest days she had ever spent.

The man