n.

It was evident that Pierre was vastly taken with his
partner. He rolled his eyes about in a languishing and
alarming fashion; he twisted and wriggled like a
contortionist, and occasionally varied the lightning-like
shuffle of his own feet by kicking a good deal higher
than his own head. He called upon his partner to "stay
with it" in almost inarticulate gasps. "Whoop her up!"
he yelled. "Git thar, Jean! Bravo, ma belle! Whoo-sh!"

It was a very nightmare of grotesqueness to Dorothy. The
moonlight night, the black houses and pines looming up
against the snowy landscape, the red glare in the immediate
foreground caused by the burning buildings, the
gesticulating figure of her half-breed partner, the
excited, picturesque onlookers, the vagaries of the
fiddler and the never-ceasing sound of the Indian drum,
all tinged with an air of unreality and a sense of the
danger that menaced, made up a situation that could not
easily be eclipsed. And she was dancing and trying to
make herself believe she was enjoying it, opposite a
crazy half-breed rebel! She recognised him now as the
dandy Pierre, the admiration of the fair sex in his own
particular world on the Saskatchewan. If only any of her
people could see her now, what would they think of her?

But was this wild dance to go on for ever? Already she
was becoming warm in her fur coat, despite the lowness
of the temperature. There was a limit to her powers of
endurance, albeit she was stronger than the average girl.
The onlookers, charmed with the grace of this unknown
dancer, were noisy in their applause. She must feign
fatigue and drop out, letting some one else take her
place.

With an inclination of her head to her partner she did
so, but he, doubtless captivated by the dark, laughing
eyes he saw gazing at him above the deep fur collar, did
not care to continue the dance with some one whose eyes
might not be so bewitching, and dropped out also. The
half-breed girl, his former partner, who up till now had
contented herself by gazing sulkily from lowering brows
upon this strange rival, was at last stirred by still
deeper feeling. She came close up to Dorothy, and gazed
searchingly into her face. At the same moment they
recognised each other, for often had Dorothy admired the
full, wildflower beauty, the delicate olive skin, and
the dark, soulful eyes of this part descendant of a noble
Gallic race and a barbaric people, and spoken kindly to
her. The half-savage K