As she looked up into his blue eyes and saw the look of dismay and contempt there, her intuitions told her her words had sounded unseemly to him, and that he abhorred her for them; and in her keen distress and anger she turned and fled.
Had he loved no other woman, it might have been the stoicism of her race would have saved her from further humiliation, but when she saw him walking with Nellie Shuter, saw the love-light in his eyes when he looked at her, and noted how flippantly, in return, Nellie treated him, her love swept away all feelings of pride, and she seized every opportunity of speaking to him. Naturally such a course only added to his distaste for her.
Joe had guessed that she had contracted a liking for Harry, but never until her visit to their tent had he imagined her falling so helplessly in love with him. And as he stood and looked into her dark, passionate face, this new complication of Harry's affairs made him feel more ill at ease than ever. "Well, and if he has gone to Shuter's tent to see Nellie, what business is that of yours?" he asked sharply. He would have liked to answer her kindly, and would have done so, had he not feared fanning into a keener flame her hopeless passion.
The bronzed cheeks of the Indian girl flamed into a still deeper hue as she heard his words. But conquering her passion, she told him again how dearly she loved Harry, while she was sure the white girl did not; and she had come to ask him to tell Harry this.
Joe, who could not trust himself to reply, pointed—with a sorry attempt at dignity—to the opening in the tent.
For a few moments she stood and looked at him with clenched hands and compressed lips, and then, without another word, turned and left, as he had silently ordered.
As Joe trudged through the darkness and rain in the direction of Shuter's store, he repeated several times, "It was pretty small to treat her like that; I never felt such a mean cuss before; but what in the world was I to do?"
As he finally entered Shuter's tent, which bore the dignified title of store, a scene that would have appeared strangely fantastic to dwellers in cities, presented itself. Congregated together were about fifty sunburnt laborers, arrayed in coarse woollen shirts. To their despondent-looking trousers the blue tenacious prairie mud clung like glue. Several nationalities were represented in the motley assembly, for it was the time of the great North-West boom, and men had been drawn from far and near.
In one corner of the tent was a quaint table or counter, constructed of three old boards and two trestles, upon which were deposited a lot of rolled Canadian smoking and chewing tobacco, clay pipes, and several long-necked bottles. Pinned to the tent, behind the counter, was a card, on which was scrawled, in characters which scorned all laws of proportion, "Mild Drinks." It was owing to the abhorred fashion of the North-West Mounted Police, of confiscating drinks that were not mild, that Shuter was led to display this prevaricating sign.
Behind the counter stood Nellie Shuter, a dashing, good-looking young woman of about twenty-three, while seated at a number of rude tables were laborers throwing dice and playing poker. Leaning nonchalantly on the counter were two or three young men, who were making themselves agreeable to the fair attendant behind it.