." His eyes lowered to the ground; then they looked
beyond her, and he gazed upon the disordered condition of the room
without observing it. "Nick don't need me here. He can have the shack
an' everything, 'cep' my haf share o' the money. Guess we'll trail north
an' pitch our camp on the Peace River. What say?"

Aim-sa's eyes were still smiling. Every word Nick had spoken was vivid
in her memory. She looked as though she would laugh aloud, but she held
herself in check, and the man took her smile for one of acquiescence and
became bolder. He stretched out his hand and caught hers in his shaking
grasp.

"The white man loves--Aim-sa," the woman said, softly, while she yielded
her two hands to him.

"Love? Ay, love. Say, ther' ain't nothin' in the world so beautiful as
you, Aim-sa, an' that's a fac'. I ain't never seen nothin' o' wimmin
before, 'cep' my mother, but I guess now I've got you I can't do wi'out
you, you're that soft an' pictur'-like. Ye've jest got to say right here
that you're my squaw, an' everything I've got is yours, on'y they things
I leave behind to Nick."

"Ah," sighed the woman, "Nick--poor Nick. He loves--Aim-sa, too. Nick is
great man."

"Nick loves you? Did he get tellin' ye so?"

There was a wild, passionate ring in Ralph's question.

The squaw nodded, and the man's expression suddenly changed. The
passionate look merged into one of fiery anger, and his eyes burned with
a low, dark fire. Aim-sa saw the sudden change, but she still smiled in
her soft way.

"An' you?"

The voice of the man was choking with suppressed passion. His whole body
trembled with the chaos of feeling which moved him.

The woman shook her head.

"An' what did ye say?" he went on, as she remained silent.

"Nick is great. No, Aim-sa not loves Nick."

Ralph sighed with relief, and again the fiery blood swept through his
veins. He stepped up close to her and she remained quite still. The blue
eyes were raised to his face and Aim-sa's lips parted in a smile. The
effect was instantaneous. Ralph seized her in a forceful embrace, and
held her to him whilst he gasped out the passionate torrent of his love
amidst an avalanche of kisses. And they stood thus for long, until the
man calmed and spoke with more practical meaning.

"An' we go together?" he asked.

Aim-sa nodded.

"Now?"

The woman shook her head.

"No--sunrise. I wait here."

Again they stood; he clasping her unresisting form, while the touch of
her