"poverty wouldn't
have had anything to do with it--not if we had--cared----"

"I care," said Randy, "and I think the first time I knew how much I
cared was when I kissed that other girl. Somehow you came to me that
night, a little white thing, so fine and different, and I loathed her."

He was standing now--tall and lean and black-haired, but with the look
of race on his thin face, a rather princely chap in spite of his shabby
clothes. "Of course you don't care," he said; "I think if I had money I
should try to make you. But I haven't the right. I had thought that,
perhaps, if no other man came that some time I might----"

Becky picked up her riding crop, and as she talked she tapped her boot
in a sort of staccato accompaniment.

"That other man has come," _tap-tap_, "he kissed me," _tap-tap_, "and
made me love him," _tap-tap_, "and he has gone away--and he hasn't asked
me to marry him."

One saw the Indian in Randy now, in the lifted head, the square-set jaw,
the almost cruel keenness of the eyes.

"Of course it is George Dalton," he said.

"Yes."

"I could kill him, Becky."

She laughed, ruefully. "For what? Perhaps he thinks I'm not a nice sort
of girl--like the one you kissed----"

"For God's sake, Becky."

He sat down on a flat rock. He was white, and shaking a little. He
wanted more than anything else in the wide world to kill George Dalton.
Of course in these days such things were preposterous. But he had murder
in his heart.

"I blame myself," Becky said, _tap-tap_, "I should have known that a man
doesn't respect," _tap-tap_, "a woman he can kiss."

He took the riding crop forcibly out of her hands. "Look at me, look at
me, Becky, do you love him?"

She whispered, "Yes."

"Then he's got to marry you."

But her pride was up. "Do you think I want him if he doesn't want--me?"

"He shall want you," said Randy Paine; "the day shall come when he shall
beg on his knees."

Randy had studied law. But there are laws back of the laws of the white
man. The Indian knows no rest until his enemy is in his hands. Randy lay
awake late that night thinking it out. But he was not thinking only of
Georgie. He was thinking of Becky and her self-respect. "She will never
get it back," he said, "until that dog asks her to marry him."

He had faith enough in her to believe that she would not marry Dalton
now if he asked her. But she must be given the chance.

CHAPTER VIII

ANCESTORS

I

The Judge a