dvanced toward it and tried to imprison it
between her hands, but the pigeon flapped along ahead of her just out
of reach. After some minutes' running back and forth over the short
grass she caught it, and with her back to the flagpole, sat down on a
piece of firewood to loosen the string about the creature's leg. So
intent was she on her work that she did not at once hear the sound of
approaching footsteps. When she did turn her head quickly it was to
look up into the anger-lighted eyes of her husband.

He reached roughly across her shoulder and with one hand grasped the
pigeon by the legs. With the other he thrust toward her two pieces of
thin writing paper.

"Now, perhaps, you will explain these!" he said in a voice that
fluctuated strangely from his intense effort to control himself.

Dazed by the unexpected turn of affairs Ellen rose and mechanically
took the sheets. They were two half completed notes to the White
Chief--notes she had discarded. She must have overlooked them when she
burned the others. What had she said in her anxiety to bring Kilbuck
immediately to Kon Klayu? What had she said to arouse Shane's sleeping
devil of jealousy which she had known often during the first years of
their married life? "Paul Kilbuck,"--the words stood out black in her
large handwriting. As she read the words she slipped the other paper
over them. "I want you now----"

"So you want him _now_, do you?" Mocking fury sounded in Shane's
voice. "You want him now, this fine, squaw-man lover of yours who left
you to starve! God, what a blind fool I've been--but I can see it all
now. I remember his whisperings to you that day we left Katleean--"
He snatched the papers from her hand and thrust them into his pocket
with a bitter laugh. "I'll deliver your loving message myself just
before I choke--him----"

"Stop, Shane!" Suddenly Ellen was herself again. She knew nothing
that had happened between her and the White Chief was one tenth as
dishonorable as the things Shane's jealous imagination pictured. She
stepped over to him and laid a hand on his trembling arm. "I _can_
explain these half written notes," she said quietly. "I can explain
everything, Shane."

She looked up into his tense, passionate face. He must have seen
something in her blue eyes that claimed him, for he asked more
reasonably:

"Tell me, then."

Beginning with her distrust of the trader she did tell him. She ended
with her attempt tha