ung man with abundant
hair, a strong chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she
had drawn the face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both
she was writing Manette and Julien.

The water was getting too deep for John Alloway.

He floundered towards the shore. "I'm no good at words," he said--"no
good at argyment; but I've got a gift for stories--round the fire of a
night, with a pipe and a tin basin of tea; so I'm not going to try and
match you. You've had a good education down at Winnipeg. Took every
prize, they say, and led the school, though there was plenty of fuss
because they let you do it, and let you stay there, being half-Indian.
You never heard what was going on outside, I s'pose. It didn't matter,
for you won out. Blamed foolishness, trying to draw the line between red
and white that way. Of course, it's the women always, always the women,
striking out for all-white or nothing. Down there at Portage they've
treated you mean, mean as dirt. The Reeve's wife--well, we'll fix that
up all right. I guess John Alloway ain't to be bluffed. He knows too
much and they all know he knows enough. When John Alloway, 32 Main
Street, with a ranch on the Katanay, says, 'We're coming--Mr. and Mrs.
John Alloway is coming,' they'll get out their cards visite, I guess."

Pauline's head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into
the faces before her--Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and there
came into her eyes the youth and light and gaiety of the days when
Julien came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter; the
dearest, lightest days she had ever spent.

The man of fifty went on, seeing nothing but a girl over whom he was
presently going to throw the lasso of his affection, and take her home
with him, yielding and glad, a white man, and his half-breed girl--but
such a half-breed!

"I seen enough of the way some of them women treated you," he continued,
"and I sez to myself, Her turn next. There's a way out, I sez, and John
Alloway pays his debts. When the anniversary comes round I'll put things
right, I sez to myself. She saved my life, and she shall have the rest
of it, if she'll take it, and will give a receipt in full, and open
a new account in the name of John and Pauline Alloway. Catch it?
See--Pauline?"

Slowly she got to her feet. There was a look in her eyes such as
had been in her mother's a little while before, but a hundred times
intensified: a look