do just what I tell you. You just behave
yourself. It wasn't anybody's fault. That girl had nothing to do with
it. If you weren't a great big fool you'd know it. We both got to take
care of you. Now you treat her decent, and you treat me decent. It's
time you came off."

He said it as though he meant it. Nevertheless it was with the most
elaborate tenderness that he, assisted by May-may-gwan, carried Dick to
his new quarters. But in spite of the utmost care, the transportation
was painful. The young man was left with no strength. The rest of the
afternoon he dozed in a species of torpor.

Sam's energy toward permanent establishment did not relax. He took a
long tramp in search of canoe birches, from which at last he brought
back huge rolls of thick bark. These he and the girl sewed together in
overlapping seams, using white spruce-roots for the purpose. The result
was a water-tight covering for the wigwam. A pile of firewood was the
fruit of two hours' toil. In the meantime May-may-gwan had caught some
fish with the hook and line and had gathered some berries. She made
Dick a strong broth of dried meat. At evening the old man and the girl
ate their meal together at the edge of the bluff overlooking the broil
of the river. They said little, but somehow the meal was peaceful, with
a content unknown in the presence of the impatient and terrible young
man.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

During the days that ensued a certain intimacy sprang up between Sam
Bolton and the Indian girl. At first their talk was brief and confined
to the necessities. Then matters of opinion, disjointed, fragmentary,
began to creep in. Finally the two came to know each other, less by what
was actually said, than by the attitude of mind such confidences
presupposed. One topic they avoided. Sam, for all his shrewdness, could
not determine to what degree had persisted the young man's initial
attraction for the girl. Of her devotion there could be no question, but
in how much it depended on the necessity of the moment lay the puzzle.
Her demeanor was inscrutable. Yet Sam came gradually to trust to her
loyalty.

In the soft, sweet open-air life the days passed stately in the manner
of figures on an ancient tapestry. Certain things were each morning to
be done,--the dressing of Dick's cuts and contusions with the healing
balsam, the rebandaging and adjusting of the splints and steadying
buckskin strap; the necessary cooking and cleaning; the cutting o