story-books there were
Indian princesses, but in real life there were only squaws.

Not till they were out of the danger zone did he speak. "Where's your
father's camp?"

She pointed toward the northwest. "You don't need to be afraid. He'll
pay you for the damage I did."

He looked at her in the steady, appraising way she was to learn as a
peculiarity of his.

"I'm not afraid," he drawled. "I'll get my pay--and you'll get yours."

Color flamed into her dusky face. When she spoke there was the throb
of contemptuous anger in her voice. "It's a great thing to be a man."

"Like to crawfish, would you?"

She swung on him, eyes blazing. "No. I don't ask any favors of a
wolfer."

She spat the word at him as though it were a missile. The term was one
of scorn, used only in speaking of the worst of the whiskey-traders.
He took it coolly, his strong white teeth flashing in a derisive
smile.

"Then this wolfer won't offer any, Miss McRae."

It was the last word that passed between them till they reached the
buffalo-hunter's camp. If he felt any compunctions, she read nothing
of the kind in his brown face and the steady stride carrying her
straight to punishment. She wondered if he knew how mercilessly
twenty-year-old Fergus had been thrashed after his drunken spree among
the Indians, how sternly Angus dispensed justice in the clan over
which he ruled. Did he think she was an ordinary squaw, one to be
whipped as a matter of discipline by her owner?

They climbed a hill and looked down on a camp of many fires in the
hollow below.

"Is it you, lass?" a voice called.

Out of the shadows thrown by the tents a big bearded man came to meet
them. He stood six feet in his woolen socks. His chest was deep and
his shoulders tremendously broad. Few in the Lone Lands had the
physical strength of Angus McRae.

His big hand caught the girl by the shoulder with a grip that was
half a caress. He had been a little anxious about her and this found
expression in a reproach.

"You shouldna go out by your lane for so lang after dark, Jess. Weel
you ken that."

"I know, Father."

The blue eyes beneath the grizzled brows of the hunter turned upon
Morse. They asked what he was doing with his daughter at that time and
place.

The Montana trader answered the unspoken question, an edge of irony in
his voice. "I found Miss McRae wanderin' around, so I brought her home
where she would be safe and well taken care of."

There was some