ten years!' I looked at the buck, but he hadn't
moved, and then I looked at the squaw, and she was still squatting and
sipping her tea, and then I said, very quietly, for I knew my nerves
were still ragged, 'Did any one speak?' and the buck turned slowly and
looked me up and down, and I saw the nose I was talking about--the nose
like a Norman king's. I was rattled, I admit; I forgot my manners.
'You're English!' I gasped out; and the buck said very sweetly: 'That's
none of your damned business.'"

Burnaby paused and looked about the circle of attentive faces. "That's
all. But it's enough, isn't it? To come out of nothing, going nowheres,
and run into a dirty Indian who says: 'By Jove, that's the first decent
cup of tea I've had in ten years!' And then along comes this Terhune
and says that he knows the man."

Mrs. Malcolm raised her chin from the hand that had been supporting it.
"I don't blame you," she said, "for being late."

"And this man," interrupted Sir John's sonorous voice, "this squaw-man,
did he tell you anything about himself?"

Burnaby shook his head. "Not likely," he answered. "I tried to draw him
out, but he wasn't drawable. Finally he said: 'If you'll shut your
damned mouth I'll give you two dirty blankets to sleep on. If you won't,
I'll kick you out of here.' The next morning I pulled out, leaving him
crouched over the little teepee fire nursing his knees. But I hadn't
gone twenty yards when he came to the flap and called out after me: 'I
say!' I turned about sullenly. His dirty face had a queer, cracked smile
on it. 'Look here! Do you--where did you get that tea from, anyway?
I--there's a lot of skins I've got; I don't suppose you'd care to trade,
would you?' I took the tea out of the air-tight box and put it on the
ground. Then I set off down river. Henderson, the factor at Lower Post,
told me a little about him: his name--it wasn't assumed, it seems; and
that he'd been in the country about fifteen years, going from bad to
worse. He was certainly at 'worse' when I saw him." Burnaby paused and
stared across the table again with his curious, far-away look. "Beastly,
isn't it?" he said, as if to himself. "Cold up there now, too! The snow
must be deep." He came back to the present. "And I suppose, you know,"
he said, smiling deprecatingly at Mrs. Selden, "he's just as fond of
flowers and lights and things as we are."

Mrs. Selden shivered.

"Fonder!" said Sir John. "Probably fonder. That sort is. It