He wheeled. "Who calls it eglantine?"
She laid a warning finger on her lip. "Mr. Stratton. But I never sensed what he was talkin' 'bout tell he showed me that ther sweetbrier growin' ther by the table."
"Was he meanin' you?"
She started back to the reflector, but paused to nod her head over her shoulder; a hundred imps danced in her eyes. "I'd love ter hear you call me that, Mill. My stars—eglantine!"
Her lips bubbled laughter; it followed him, teasing, taunting, as he rode on through the wood.
Mose, passing him, stalked into the open and towards the farther group. Kingsley waved his hand in careless recognition, and rising, threw back his tent-fly and drew out the blankets. "Well, Mose," he said, "what do you think of these?"
The boy bent to feel their texture gravely. "Dey ess plent' good 'nough blankets, monjee, ya-as, an Yelm Jim ees tell me—go. But Tyee Sahgalee ees goin' be hy-as mad. Sacré, it ees pos'ble he ees keel you. Den, merci, some more white man doan' lak go Rainier."
He turned with this and stalked swiftly back into the gloom. Alice rose in astonishment. Kingsley laughed. "If I should lose myself over a precipice," he said, "or drop into a crevasse, I suppose he would believe it was all the vengeance of his Indian God."
"But," she answered, "his father is a devout Catholic. The priest is making an acolyte of Mose." She sank back, helplessly, into her place. "I—I suppose it's impossible for him to grasp everything"—she was thinking of Laramie and the globe—"at once."
Her sister leaned towards Kingsley. A sudden apprehension rose in her great, dark eyes, and her voice, in emotion, dropped to contralto notes. "I wish you would give up that idea of trying for the summit," she said.