Mastiff! That epithet stung to the quick. I flung her wrist from me as if it had been hot coals. Now, a woman may tread upon a man—also stamp upon him if she has a mind to—but she must trip it daintily. Otherwise even a worm may turn against its tormentor. To have idolized that marble creature by day and night, to have laid our votive offerings on its shrine, to have hungered for the sound of a woman's lips for weeks, and to hear those lips cuttingly call me a dog—were more than I could stand.
"Ten thousand pardons, Mistress Sutherland!" I said with a pompous stiffness which I intended should be mighty crushing. "But when ladies deck themselves out as squaws and climb in and out of windows,"—that was brutal of me; she had done it for Miriam and me—"and announce themselves in unexpected ways, they need not hope to be recognized."
And did she flare back at me? Not at all.
"You waste time with your long speeches," she said, turning from me to Father Holland.
Thereupon I strode off angrily to the river bank.
"Oh, Father Holland," I heard her say as I walked away, "I must go to Pembina! I'm in such trouble! There's a Frenchman——"
Trouble, thought I; she is in trouble and I have been thinking only of my own dignity. And I stood above the river, torn between desire to rush back and wounded pride, that bade me stick it out. Over the plains came the shout of returning plunderers. I could hear the throb, throb of galloping hoofs beating nearer and nearer over the turf, and reflected that I might make the danger from returning Bois-Brulés the occasion of a reconciliation.
"Come here, lad!" called Father Holland. I needed no urging. "Ye must rig up in tam-o'-shanter and tartan, like a Highland settler, and take Mistress Sutherland back to Fort Douglas. She's going to Pembina to meet her father, lad, when I go south to the Missouri. And, lad," the priest hesitated, glancing doubtfully from Miss Sutherland to me, "I'm thinking there's a service ye might do her."
The Little Statue was looking straight at me now, and there were tear-marks about the heavy lashes. Now, I do not pretend to explain the power, or witchery, a gentle slip of a girl can wield with a pair of gray eyes; but when I met the furtive glance and saw the white, veined forehead, the arched brows, the tremulous lips, the rounded chin, and the whole face glorified by that wonderful mass of hair, I only know, without weapon or design, she dealt me a wound which I bear to this day. What a ruffian I had been! I was ashamed, and my eyes fell before hers. If a libation of blushes could appease an offended goddess, I was livid evidence of repentance. I felt myself flooded in a sudden heat of shame. She must have read my confusion, for she turned away her head to hide mantling forgiveness.
"There's a crafty Frenchman in the fort has been troubling the lassie. I'm thinking, if ye worked off some o' your anger on him, it moight be for the young man's edification. Be quick! I hear the breeds returning!"