oo young to go.
Next year we will keep our promise,' and next year she was dearer to us.
And now she is sixteen. She must go."

Pierre broke in fiercely:

"She shall not! Sixtin year? Sixtin year she know honly me, Pierre, her
daddy, and you, her mammy. What you tink, heh? Elise go school in one
beeg city, heh? She mek herself choke wiz ze brick house and ze stone
street. She get sick and lonesome for ze mountain, for her hol' daddy
and her hol' mammy, for ze grass and ze flower."

"That is for her to say. Send her away as you promised. Then"--Madame's
heavy eyes grew deep, almost beautiful--"then, if she comes back to us!"

Pierre turned sullenly.

"She is mine. Mine and yours. She shall stay."

Madame's tears ceased flowing.

"She shall go." Her temerity frightened her. "I will tell her all if you
don't send her away."

Pierre did not explode, as she expected. Instead, there was the calm of
invincible purpose. He held up one finger impressively.

"I settle hall zis. _Ecoutez!_ She shall marry. Right away. Queek. Da's
hall." He left the room before Madame had time to reply.

Madame was too terrified to think. The possibility conveyed in her
husband's declaration had never suggested itself to her. Elise was still
the little baby nestling in her arms, the little girl prattling and
playing indoors and out, on the wide ranch, and later, Madame shuddered,
when Pierre had abandoned the ranch for the Blue Goose, waiting at the
bar, keeping Pierre's books, redeeming checks at the desk, moving out
and in among the throng of coarse, uncouth men, but through it all the
same beautiful, wilful, loving little girl, so dear to Madame's heart,
so much of her life. What did it matter that profanity died on the lips
of the men in her presence, that at her bidding they ceased to drink to
intoxication, that hopeless wives came to her for counsel, that their
dull faces lighted at her words, that in sickness or death she was to
them a comfort and a refuge?

What if Pierre had fiercely protected her from the knowledge of the more
loathsome vices of a mining camp? It was no more than right. Pierre
loved her. She knew that. Pierre was hoarding every shining dollar that
came to his hand. Was he lavish in his garnishment of the Blue Goose? It
was only for the more effective luring of other gold from the pockets of
the careless, unthinking men who worked in mines or mills, or roamed
among the mountains or washed the sands of every st