moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his
lips! Everyt'ing!--Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the
lodge-curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than
Dingan had her blood run faster, and he had made her life blossom. She
had seen in many a half-breed's and in many an Indian's face the look
which was now in that of Lablache, and her fingers gripped softly the
thing in her belt that had flashed out on Breaking Rock such a short
while ago. As she looked, it seemed for a moment as though Dingan would
open the door and throw Lablache out, for in quick reflection his eyes
ran from the man to the wooden bar across the door.

"You'll talk of the shop, and the shop only, Lablache," Dingan said
grimly. "I'm not huckstering my home, and I'd choose the buyer if I was
selling. My lodge ain't to be bought, nor anything in it--not even
the broom to keep it clean of any half-breeds that'd enter it without
leave."

There was malice in the words, but there was greater malice in the tone,
and Lablache, who was bent on getting the business, swallowed his ugly
wrath, and determined that, if he got the business, he would get the
lodge also in due time; for Dingan, if he went, would not take the
lodge-or the woman with him; and Dingan was not fool enough to stay when
he could go to Groise to a sure fortune.

The captain of the Ste. Anne again spoke. "There's another thing the
Company said, Dingan. You needn't go to Groise, not at once. You can
take a month and visit your folks down East, and lay in a stock of
home-feelings before you settle down at Groise for good. They was
fair when I put it to them that you'd mebbe want to do that. 'You tell
Dingan,' they said, 'that he can have the month glad and grateful, and a
free ticket on the railway back and forth. He can have it at once,' they
said."

Watching, Mitiahwe could see her man's face brighten, and take on a look
of longing at this suggestion; and it seemed to her that the bird she
heard in the night was calling in his ears now. Her eyes went blind a
moment.

"The game is with you, Dingan. All the cards are in your hands; you'll
never get such another chance again; and you're only thirty," said the
captain.

"I wish they'd ask me," said Dingan's partner with a sigh, as he looked
at Lablache. "I want my chance bad, though we've done well here--good
gosh, yes, all through Dingan."

"The winters, they go queeck in Groise," said Lablache. "It is life