flashed back and forth, both men
watched, not too obviously, the profile shadowed by the dark,
abundant, shining hair. The picture of her was an intimate one, but
Tom's tricky imagination tormented him with one of still nearer
personal association. He saw her in his own house, before his own
fireside, a baby clinging to her skirt. Then, resolutely, he put the
mental etching behind him. She loved his friend Beresford, a man out
of a thousand, and of course he loved her. Had he not seen her go
straight to his arms after her horrible experience with West?

Matapi-Koma presently waddled out of the room and they could hear the
clatter of dishes.

"I told her I'd help her wash them if she'd wait," explained Jessie.
"But she'd rather do them now and go to bed. My conscience is clear,
anyhow." She added with a little bubble of laughter, "And I don't have
to do the work. Is that the kind of a conscience you have, Mr. Morse?"

"If I were you my conscience would tell me that I couldn't go and
leave my guests," he answered.

She raked him with a glance of merry derision. "Oh, I know how yours
works. I wouldn't have it for anything. It's an awf'lly bossy one.
It's sending you out to the Barrens with Win Beresford just because
he's your friend."

"Not quite. I have another reason too," he replied.

"Yes, I know. You don't like West. Nobody does. My father doesn't--or
Fergus--or Mr. Whaley--but they're not taking the long trail after him
as you are. You can't get out of it that way."

She had not, of course, hit on the real reason for going that
supplemented his friendship for the constable and he did not intend
that she should.

"It doesn't matter much why I'm going. Anyhow, it'll be good for me.
I'm gettin' soft and fat. After I've been out in the deep snows a
month or so, I'll have taken up my belt a notch or two. It's time I
wrestled with a blizzard an' tried livin' on lean rabbit.[7]"

[Footnote 7: Rabbit is about the poorest meat in the North. It is lean
and stringy, furnishes very little nourishment and not much fat,
and is not a muscle-builder. In a country where, oil and grease
are essentials, such food is not desirable. The Indians ate great
quantities of them. (W.M.R.)]

Her gaze swept his lean, hard, compact body. "Yes, you look soft," she
mocked. "Father said something of that sort when he looked at that
door there you came through."

Tom had been watching her stitching. He offered a comment now,
perhaps, t