uddled lodges; to the venison stew and the snake
dance; to the feasts of the Medicine Men, and the long sleeps in the
summer days, and the winter's tales, and be at rest among her own
people; and Pauline would have revenge of the wife of the prancing
Reeve, and perhaps the people would forget who her mother was.

With these thoughts flying through her sluggish mind, she rose and moved
heavily from the room, with a parting look of encouragement at Alloway,
as though to say, a man that is bold is surest.

With her back to the man, Pauline watched her mother leave the room,
saw the look she gave Alloway. When the door was closed she turned and
looked Alloway in the eyes.

"How old are you?" she asked suddenly.

He stirred in his seat nervously. "Why, fifty, about," he answered with
confusion.

"Then you'll be wise not to go looking for anniversaries in blizzards,
when they're few at the best," she said with a gentle and dangerous
smile.

"Fifty-why, I'm as young as most men of thirty," he responded with
an uncertain laugh. "I'd have come here to-day if it had been snowing
pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my
life, that's dead sure; and I'd be down among the moles if it wasn't
for you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a
storm-seem to know their way by instinct. You, too--why, I bin on
the plains all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but
you--why, you had Piegan in you, why, yes--"

He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then
went blindly on: "And you've got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just
felt your way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a bird
reaching for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick
in a bunch of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was
doing on the prairie that terrible day. I've thought of it a hundred
times. What was you doing, if it ain't cheek to ask?"

"I was trying to lose a life," she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling
on his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony
which had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore.

He laughed. "Well, now, that's good," he said; "that's what they call
speaking sarcastic. You was out to save, and not to lose, a life; that
was proved to the satisfaction of the court." He paused and chuckled
to himself, thinking he had been witty, and continued: "And I was that
court, and m