ised
me--she's my Indian mother woman. God help the swine that harms her
body!"

He turned and moved abruptly away. Keeko had come to him with her love.
She had faced everything the north country could show her to bring him
the warning. He had forgotten her. He had forgotten everything, but the
gentle creature whose dark-eyed terror haunted him.

Keeko understood. She had no feeling other than a great, unvoiced joy in
the splendid manhood of it all. She stood up. She moved after the man as
he made towards his camp. She overtook him.

"They're all down there, Marcel dear. They're down there on the river,"
she said, as she came to his side and her two hands clasped themselves
about his swinging arm. "There's Little One Man, Snake Foot, and
Med'cine Charlie. They're good boys, and the dogs are fresh, and ready.
I saw to that. We can start right away, and I guess you can't just set
the gait too hot."

CHAPTER XIX

THE STORE-HOUSE

Steve pushed back from the table in An-ina's kitchen. The woman was
standing ready to minister to his lightest demands. She had waited on
him throughout the meal, and remained standing the whole time. It was a
habit, which, throughout their years of life together, Steve had been
powerless to break her of. It was her pride thus to wait upon him.

Her soft, watchful eyes were observing him closely as he filled and lit
his pipe. There was something approaching anxiety in their depths. It
may have been the dull yellow lamplight that robbed the man's face of
its usual look of robust health. But if the shadows wrought upon it and
the curious pasty yellow tint of the skin were due to the lamplight,
certainly the hollows about the eyes, the cheeks, which had become
almost alarmingly drawn, and the sunken lines about the firm mouth could
not have been attributed to a similar cause.

An-ina understood this. She understood more. She had realized, during
the weeks that had elapsed since Steve's return from the heart of Unaga,
a curious growing bodily lassitude in the man. It was something
approaching inertia, and she knew its cause. Fear had grown up in her
simple Indian mind and heart. She wanted to speak. She wanted to offer
her warning. But somehow Steve's will was her law, and she knew that
will was driving him now in a fashion that would only leave her words
wasted. So, while her lips remained silent, her feelings were clearly
enough expressed in her eyes.

"Just a draw or two at the