She looked about doubtfully and then over her shoulder.
"That Joe's ighloo," she said.
He pictured to himself the horror that must assail her blood at the sight. Yes, he was glad to have saved any woman from so dreadful a fate. Did it happen often? and did nobody interfere? Muckluck was coming down from the direction of the Kachime. The Boy went to meet her, throwing over his shoulder, "You'd better stick to me, Anna, as long as I'm here. I don't know, I'm sure, what'll happen to you when I'm gone." Anna followed a few paces, and then sat down on the snow to pull up and tie her disorganized leg-gear.
Muckluck was standing still, looking at the Boy with none of the kindness a woman ought to show to one who had just befriended her sex.
"Did you see that?"
She nodded. "See that any day."
The Boy stopped, appalled at the thought of woman in a perpetual state of siege.
"Brute! hound!" he flung out towards Joe's ighloo.
"No," says Muckluck firmly; "Joe all right."
"You say that, after what's happened this morning?" Muckluck declined to take the verdict back. "Did you see him strike her?"