his friendly interchange delightful, but was it all?

She had no feeling of being a woman to him. She began to feel a great
dissatisfaction. An imperious instinct urged her to sting him out of
his comfortable disregard of her sex. Her opportunity came when Sam
said:

"You have never told me what it was you wanted to talk to me about."

"All those men want marry me," she said off-hand.

It was instantly effective. Sam sat up abruptly and stared at her in
astonishment. Was she, after all, the evil woman he had first thought?
Had he been deceitfully lulled into security? She repeated her
statement. His face hardened.

"So I gathered," he replied sarcastically.

Bela was secretly pleased by the effect. "What you think 'bout it?"
she asked.

"I don't think anything about it," he answered with an angry flash.

"I not know what to tell them," said Bela. It had a faint theatrical
ring, which might have suggested to a discriminating ear that she was
not being altogether candid.

Sam obstinately closed his mouth.

"Which you lak best?" she asked presently, "the big one, the black
one, the red one, yo'ng one?"

A great discomposure seized upon Sam. Anger pounded at his temples,
and insane words pressed to his tongue. He put on the clamps. "What I
think is neither here nor there," he said stiffly. "It's up to you to
make your own choice. Why drag me into it?"

"You say you want be friend," explained Bela. "So I think you help
me."

"Nobody can help you in a matter of this kind," said Sam. "Lord, you
talk like a wooden man!" Something whispered to him while he said it.

"Why?" she asked with one of her sidelong looks.

Again his eyes flashed on her in angry pain. God! Was the woman trying
to madden him?

"A girl must make her own choice," his tongue said primly.

"But you could tell me about them, which is the best man. How do I
know?"

This on the face of it seemed like a reasonable request, but his
breast still passionately rebelled.

"Well, I won't!" he snapped. "If that's all you want to talk about I'd
better go."

"Is Big Jack a good man?" she persisted.

Sam got up.

"No, don't go!" she cried quickly. "I'll be good. I don't know why you
always mad at me."

Neither did Sam himself know. He looked at her dumbly with eyes full
of pain and confusion. He sat down again.

For a while she made light conversation about muskrats and beavers,
but when she thought he was safely settled down, womanlike, sh