own. "So I live. And you are glad.
That's it. So I live. It's always that way--with you and Uncle Steve.
It's for me. All the time for me. Not a thing for yourselves--ever."

The woman's eyes were suddenly filled with startled questioning and
solicitude.

"Oh, yes? That so," she said simply. "Why not? You all Uncle Steve got.
You all An-ina got. So."

"And aren't you both all--I've got?" The man's smile disarmed the sudden
passionate force which had taken possession of his voice and manner.
"Can't I act that way, too? Can't I sort of carry you and Uncle Steve on
my back? Can't I come along and say, 'Here, you've done all this for me
when I couldn't act for myself, now it's my turn? You sit around and
look on, and act foolish, like I've done all the time, while I get
busy.' Can't I say this, same as you've acted all these years? No. You
two great creatures won't let me. And sometimes it makes me mad. And
sometimes it makes me want to stretch out these fool arms of mine and
hug you for the kindest, bravest, and best in the world."

An-ina laughed in her silent Indian fashion, and the delight in her eyes
was a reflection of the joy in her soul.

"You say all those. It make no matter," she said.

"But it does make matter." The man's handsome face flushed, and his keen
blue eyes shone with a half angry, half impatient light. With a curious
gesture of suppressed feeling he passed a hand over his clean-shaven
mouth, as though to smooth the whiskers that had never been permitted to
disfigure it. "It makes me feel a darn selfish, useless hulk of a man.
And I'm not," he cried. "I'm neither those things. Say An-ina," he went
on, more calmly, and with a light of humour in his eyes, "Don't you dare
to laff at me. Don't you dare deny the things I'm saying. I won't stand
for it. For all you're my old nurse I'll just pick you up like nothing
and throw you to the dogs back in the yard there. And maybe that'll let
you see I can do the things I figure to. I'm a grown man, and Uncle
Steve says 'no' every time I ask to take on the work of locating where
the weed grows, which he hasn't found in fourteen years, and which my
father was yearning to find before he died. 'No,' he says. 'This is for
me. It's my work. It's the thing I set out to do--for you.' When I ask
to do the trade at Seal Bay, it's the same. He guesses the 'sharps'
would beat me. Me! who could break a dozen of their heads in as many
minutes. So I'm left to the trail--the