"Yes," she said, her tone flashing into sudden scorn, "they marry squaws."
At this the man threw back his head and burst into a laugh, so deep, so rich, so exuberantly joyous, that it fell upon the plain's grim silence with the incongruous contrast of sunshine on the dust of a dungeon. She sat upright with her anger boiling toward expression. Before she realized it he had leaned forward and laid his hand on the pommel of her saddle, his face still red and wrinkled with laughter.
"That's all right, little lady, but you don't know quite all about us."
"I know enough," she answered.
"Before you get to California you'll know more. There's a mountain man and a voyageur now in the train. Do you think Zavier and I have squaw wives?"
With the knowledge that Zavier was just then so far from contemplating union with a squaw, she could not say the contemptuous "yes" that was on her tongue. As for the strange man—she shot a glance at him and met the gray eyes still twinkling with amusement. "Savage!" she thought, "I've no doubt he has"—and she secretly felt a great desire to know. What she said was, "I've never thought of it, and I haven't the least curiosity about it."
They rode on in silence, then he said,
"What's made you mad?"
"Mad? I'm not mad."
"Not at all?"