tie--but not because I'd be afraid of gettin' beat
up."

He looked her up and down with mocking significance, "Say, but you'll
make a great squaw for some feller. Been thinkin' I'd make a deal with
your mother to take you back to the mountings with me when I go. I'll
learn you how to tan hides, and a lot of things you don't know."

The girl's lip curled.

"Yes, I'd _like_ to tan hides for _you_, Pete Mullendore! When I get
frost bit in August I'll go, but not before."

He replied easily:

"You ain't of age yet, Katie, and you have to mind your maw. I've got an
idee that she'll tell you to go if I say so."

"A whole lot my mother would mind what you say!" Yet in spite of her
defiance a look of fear crossed the girl's face.

She slipped her arm through the harness and started towards the shed,
Mullendore following with his slouching walk, an unprepossessing figure
in his faded overalls, black and white mackinaw coat and woolen cap.

The trapper was tall and lank, with a pair of curious, unforgettable
eyes looking out from a swarthy face that told of Indian blood. They
were round rather than the oblong shape to be expected in his type, and
the iris a muddy blue-gray. The effect was indescribably queer, and was
accentuated by the coal-black lashes and straight black brows which met
above a rather thick nose. He had a low forehead, and when he grinned
his teeth gleamed like ivory in his dark face. He boasted of
Apache-Mexican blood "with a streak of white."

While Kate hung the harness on its peg, Mullendore, waited for her
outside. "My! My! Katie," he leered at her as she came back, "but you're
gettin' to be a big girl! Them legs looked like a couple of pitchfork
handles when I went away, and now the shape they've got!"

He laughed in malicious enjoyment as he saw the color rise to the roots
of her hair; and when she would have passed, reached out and grasped her
arm.

"Let me be, Pete Mullendore!" She tried to pull loose.

"When you've give me a kiss." There was a flame in the muddy eyes.

With a twist she freed herself and cried with fury vibrating in her
voice, "I hate you--I hate you! You--" she sought for a sufficiently
opprobrious word--"nigger!"

Mullendore's face took on a peculiar ashiness. Then with an oath and a
choking snarl of rage he jumped for her. Kate's long braid just escaped
his finger tips.

"Mother! Mother! Make him quit!" There was terror in the shrill cry as
the girl ran towards the