ed with the heavy pack of
knotted sinews they carried. His legs were bowed from much riding. It
was his boast that he could bend a silver dollar double in the palm of
his hand. Men had seen him twist the tail rod of a wagon into a knot.
Sober, he was a sulky, domineering brute with the instincts of a
bully. In liquor, the least difference of opinion became for him a
cause of quarrel.

Most men gave him a wide berth, and for the sake of peace accepted
sneers and insults that made the blood boil.

"Where you been all this time?" he growled.

"Ploughin' around over the plains."

"Didn't you hear me callin'?"

"D'you call? I've been quite a ways from camp. Bumped into Angus
McRae's buffalo-hunting outfit. He wants to see us to-morrow."

"What for?"

"Something about to-night's business. Seems he knows who did it.
Offers to settle for what we lost."

Bully West stopped in his stride, feet straddled, head thrust forward.
"What's that?"

"Like I say. We're to call on him to-morrow for a settlement, you 'n'
me."

"Did McRae bust our barrels?"

"He knows something about it. Didn't have time to talk long with him.
I hustled right back to tell you."

"He can come here if he wants to see me," West announced.

This called for no answer and Tom gave it none. He moved across to the
spot where the oxen were picketed and made sure the pins were still
fast. Presently he rolled his blanket round him and looked up into a
sky all stars. Usually he dropped asleep as soon as his head touched
the seat of the saddle he used as a pillow. But to-night he lay awake
for hours. He could not get out of his mind the girl he had met and
taken to punishment. A dozen pictures of her rose before him, all of
them mental snapshots snatched from his experience of the night. Now
he was struggling to hold her down, his knees clamped to her writhing,
muscular torso. Again he held her by the strong, velvet-smooth arms
while her eyes blazed fury and defiance at him. Or her stinging words
pelted him as she breasted the hill slopes with supple ease. Most
vivid of all were the ones at her father's camp, especially those when
she was under the torture of the whip.

No wonder she hated him for what he had done to her.

He shook himself into a more comfortable position and began to count
stars.... Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven.... What was the use
of stressing the affair, anyhow? She was only a half-breed. In
ten years she would be fat, sha