s
widened, growing a little hard as they watched the end of the fight,
passed from Drennen and Kootanie George to Ernestine Dumont, came
slowly back to George, rested finally upon Drennen as though their
chief interest lay with him. She did not show fear as a woman of her
appearance might be looked upon to show it; there were interest and
curiosity in her look and, finally, when after a long time she looked
again from Drennen to Ernestine, a high contempt.

In spite of the heavy white sweater whose collar was drawn high about
her throat, in spite of the white hood concealing all but one stray
wisp of brown hair, her loveliness was unhidden, looking out in all of
the splendid glory of youthful health and vigour. Her eyes were as
grey as Drennen's own, but with little golden flecks seeming to float
upon sea-grey, unsounded depths. She might have been seventeen, she
could not have been more than twenty, and yet her air was one of
confidence and in it was an indefinable something which was neither
arrogance nor yet hauteur, and which in its subtle way hinted that the
blood pulsing through her perfect body was the blood of those who had
known how to command since babyhood and who had never learned to obey.
When later men learned that that blood was drawn in riotous, converging
currents from unconquerable fighting Scotch highlanders and from a long
line of French nobility there came no surprise in the discovery. Men
and women together, Kootanie George and Ernestine, Garcia and Drennen,
Pere Marquette and Mere Marquette, felt the difference between her and
themselves.

"We seem to interrupt," she said coolly, her voice deeply musical, as
she turned to Pere Marquette. He, looking a little dazed and stupid
from all that had taken place, but never forgetful of his duties as
host, had come toward her hesitantly, his lips seeking to form a new
phrase of greeting. "We are tired and need food. Everything seemed
closed but your place. So we came in."

"You are welcome, mam'selle," he said hurriedly. "Mos' welcome. It is
unfortunate . . ."

"Captain Sefton," went on the girl quite calmly, "will you see what you
can do for that man? He is losing a great deal of blood."

Captain Sefton, a thin, hawk-eyed man with a coppery Vandyke beard,
shrugged his shoulders distastefully but passed her, drawing near Dave
Drennen. The girl turned toward the second of her companions, a
younger man by half a dozen years, who brought the