The man at her side was astounded at the entire change that had passed, like the devastating breath of the cyclone, over the girl. A plain, blunt man, and inartistic, he could not know that pure happiness is one of the principal factors of human beauty, that its dissolution should be attended by such startling alteration, both of face and form. Menotah was a different being, of new appearance and manners. The bright light had faded from the lustrous eyes, now forbidding and snake-like. The unrestrained laugh had left the mouth, which was now set in a hard line of purpose. From her sunken cheeks had departed the rich health colour, from her hanging head that haughty pose of conscious perfection. Within, the heart was dead—cold—unresponsive. No longer did it pulsate with mingled delicious emotions of devotion and trust. It was now controlled only by an unrelenting design—by the inexorable duty of the future.

There was no further use for the attributes of beauty. They had been once utilised for the purpose of attraction. They had succeeded—fatally so. Now their work was over, and they might well be laid aside.

She was calm now, and the voice was steady when she spoke. 'We will take each our own path,' she said. 'I have a husband to find, you an enemy. I shall be before you. He is mine. I have his word for it' (Her eyes flashed fiercely.) 'He shall be my victim!'

'Let it alone, girl,' said the other, in a voice meant to be kind. 'A man can best do a man's work.'

But she turned at him again, with the fury that was part of her new nature.

'What do you know of vengeance? I know a man's honour, a man's method. He will shoot from behind a tree, stab with a knife into his foe's back, then go away satisfied. No one but the wronged can punish the wronger. You call death the worse, but there are many things more bitter than the destruction of life. If you cannot believe that, look upon me and consider what I was. You men are weak after all when it comes to the point of vengeance. We women apply what we lack in muscular strength to the passion of the heart. We do not fail at the great moment.'

'It's no good crossing you—that's a sure thing,' said the figure. 'Still, I shall have the chances—'

'I can make mine,' she interrupted. 'A man may give up disheartened after first failure; a woman will return with fresh energy to the attack after a hundred reverses. Listen to what I say; judge me if I fall away from my oath. This man has betrayed me; he has broken my life, my happiness; he has abandoned me as the scorn of my people; he has cast me aside like a broken weapon. Mayhap he is now laughing at my broken heart.

'Therefore I swear by the Great Spirit, by the Light and the Darkness, by the River—even by the Great God of the white men—that I will have my vengeance, that he shall suffer for my sorrow!'

So they passed together, from the sullen gleaming of the Saskatchewan, to where the fires glowed red in the encampment.