I'll tell you. Your partner has killed one of my people.
That sniveling shrimp, McCan, deserted at the first shot. He'll never
run away again. But my hunters have got your partner in the mountains,
and they'll get him. He'll never make the Yukon basin. As for you, from
now on you sleep at my fire. And there'll be no more scouting with the
young men. I shall have my eye on you."

Smoke's new situation at Snass's fire was embarrassing. He saw more of
Labiskwee than ever. In its sweetness and innocence, the frankness of
her love was terrible. Her glances were love glances; every look was a
caress. A score of times he nerved himself to tell her of Joy Gastell,
and a score of times he discovered that he was a coward. The damnable
part of it was that Labiskwee was so delightful. She was good to look
upon. Despite the hurt to his self-esteem of every moment spent with
her, he pleasured in every such moment. For the first time in his life
he was really learning woman, and so clear was Labiskwee's soul, so
appalling in its innocence and ignorance, that he could not misread a
line of it. All the pristine goodness of her sex was in her, uncultured
by the conventionality of knowledge or the deceit of self-protection. In
memory he reread his Schopenhauer and knew beyond all cavil that the sad
philosopher was wrong. To know woman, as Smoke came to know Labiskwee,
was to know that all woman-haters were sick men.

Labiskwee was wonderful, and yet, beside her face in the flesh burned
the vision of the face of Joy Gastell. Joy had control, restraint, all
the feminine inhibitions of civilization, yet, by the trick of his
fancy and the living preachment of the woman before him, Joy Gastell was
stripped to a goodness at par with Labiskwee's. The one but appreciated
the other, and all women of all the world appreciated by what Smoke saw
in the soul of Labiskwee at Snass's fire in the snow-land.

And Smoke learned about himself. He remembered back to all he knew
of Joy Gastell, and he knew that he loved her. Yet he delighted in
Labiskwee. And what was this feeling of delight but love? He could
demean it by no less a name. Love it was. Love it must be. And he was
shocked to the roots of his soul by the discovery of this polygamous
strain in his nature. He had heard it argued, in the San Francisco
studios, that it was possible for a man to love two women, or even three
women, at a time. But he had not believed it. How could he believe it
whe