.

"Your camp no place for girl child," she replied, looking directly
at him. "Your men they rough, they get whisky sometimes. They
fight. They speak bad words, what you call _swear_. I not want her
hear that. I not want her see whisky man."

"Oh, Brown!" said Wingate, turning to his companion. "What a
reproach! What a reproach! Here our gang is--the vanguard of the
highest civilization, but unfit for association with a little
Indian child!"

Brown stood speechless, although in his rough, honest mind he was
going over a list of those very "swears" she objected to, but
they were mentally directed at the whole outfit of his ruffianly
construction gang. He was silently swearing at them for their own
shortcomings in that very thing.

The child on the couch stirred again. This time the firelight fell
full across the little arm. Wingate stared at it, then his eyes
widened. He looked at the woman, then back at the bare arm. It was
the arm of a _white_ child.

"Catharine, was your husband _white_?" he asked, in a voice that
betrayed anxiety.

"I got no husban'," she replied, somewhat defiantly.

"Then--" he began, but his voice faltered.

She came and stood between him and the couch.

Something of the look of a she-panther came into her face, her
figure, her attitude. Her eyes lost their mournfulness and blazed a
black-red at him. Her whole body seemed ready to spring.

"You not touch the girl child!" she half snarled. "I not let you
touch her; she _mine_, though I have no husban'!"

"I don't want to touch her, Catharine," he said gently, trying to
pacify her. "Believe me, I don't want to touch her."

The woman's whole being changed. A thousand mother-lights gleamed
from her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at her
heart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her small
brown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: "Yes you
_do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no.' You
_do_ want to touch her!" With a rapid movement she flung back the
blankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his form
until he was looking straight into the child's face--a face the
living miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindly
mouth, his fair, perfect skin. He staggered erect.

"Catharine! what does it mean? What does it mean?" he cried
hoarsely.

"_Your child_--" she half questioned, half affirmed.

"Mine? Mine?" he called, without human understanding in h