Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man; but Mitiahwe said
it was her Medicine, the horseshoe, which brought one of Dingan's own
people to the lodge--a little girl with Mitiahwe's eyes and form and her
father's face. Truth has many mysteries, and the faith of the woman was
great; and so it was that, to the long end, Mitiahwe kept her man. But
truly she was altogether a woman, and had good-fortune.

ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER

"It's got to be settled to-night, Nance, This game is up here, up forever.
The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they'll soon be roostin' in
this post, the Injuns are goin', the buffaloes are most gone, and the fur
trade's dead in these parts. D'ye see?"

The woman did not answer the big, broad-shouldered man bending over her,
but remained looking into the fire with wide, abstracted eyes, and a face
somewhat set.

"You and your brother Bantry's got to go. This store ain't worth a cent
now. The Hudson's Bay Company'll come along with the redcoats, and they'll
set up a nice little Sunday-school business here for what they call
'agricultural settlers.' There'll be a railway, and the Yankees'll send up
their marshals to work with the redcoats on the border, and--"

"And the days of smuggling will be over," put in the girl, in a low voice.
"No more bull-whackers and mule-skinners 'whooping-it up'; no more
Blackfeet and Piegans drinking alcohol and water, and cutting one
anothers' throats. A nice, quiet time coming on the border Abe, eh?"

The man looked at her queerly. She was not prone to sarcasm, she had not
been given to sentimentalism in the past; she had taken the border-life as
it was, had looked it straight between the eyes. She had lived up to it,
or down to it, without any fuss, as good as any man in any phase of the
life, and the only white woman in this whole West country. It was not in
the words, but in the tone, that Abe Hawley found something unusual and
defamatory.

"Why, gol darn it, Nance, what's got into you? You bin a man out West, as
good a pioneer as ever was on the border. But now you don't sound friendly
to what's been the game out here, and to all of us that've been risking
our lives to get a livin'."

"What did I say?" asked the girl, unmoved.

"It ain't what you said, it's the sound o' your voice."

"You don't know my voice, Abe. It ain't always the same. You ain't always
about; you don't always hear it."

He caught her arm suddenly. "