ver there in the Bad Lands, to warm
her when she was cold. She buried her face in her mother's lap and sobbed
aloud.

The woman had not seen Susie cry since she was a tiny child, save when her
father and White Antelope died, and the numbed maternal instinct stirred
in her breast. She laid her dark, ringed fingers upon Susie's hair and
stroked it gently.

"Don't cry," she said slowly. "If he make fool of me, if he lie when he
say he tie up to me right, if he like de white woman better den me, I kill
him. I kill him, Susie." She pointed to a bunch of roots and short dried
stalks which hung from the rafters in one corner of the room. "See--that
is the love-charm of the Sioux. It was gifted to me by Little Coyote's
woman--a Mandan. It bring de love, and too much--it kill. If he make fool
of me, if he not like me better den de white woman, I give him de
love-charm of de Sioux. I fix him! _I fix him right!_"

Out on the cottonwood log Smith and the Schoolmarm had been speaking of
many things; for the man could talk fluently in his peculiar vernacular,
upon any subject which interested him or with which he was familiar.

The best of his nature, whatever of good there was in him, was uppermost
when with Dora. He really believed at such times that he was what she
thought him, and he condemned the shortcomings of others like one speaking
from the lofty pinnacle of unimpeachable virtue.

In her presence, new ambitions, new desires, awakened, and sentiments
which he never had suspected he possessed revealed themselves. He was
happy in being near her; content when he felt the touch of her loose cape
on his arm.

It never before had occurred to Smith that the world through which he had
gone his tumultuous way was a beautiful place, or that there was joy in
the simple fact of being strongly alive. When the sage-brush commenced to
turn green and the many brilliant flowers of the desert bloomed, when the
air was stimulating like wine and fragrant with the scents of spring, it
had meant little to Smith beyond the facts that horse-feed would soon be
plentiful and that he could lay aside his Mackinaw coat. The mountains
suggested nothing but that they held big game and were awkward places to
get through on horseback, while the deserts brought no thoughts save of
thirst and loneliness and choking alkali dust. Upon a time a stranger had
mentioned the scenery, and Smith had replied ironically that there was
plenty of it and for him to h