"But," said Rachel, with a slight hesitation, "Talapa was not afraid to live here."
"An' did ye not know, then, that she was not o' Kootenai stock?" asked the old man. "Well, she was not a bit o' it; Genesee bought her of a beast of a Blackfoot."
"Bought her?" asked Stuart, and even Rachel opened her eyes in attention—perhaps, after all, not knowing so much as the younger man had angrily given her credit for.
"Just that; an' dear she would ha' been at most any price. But she was a braw thing to look at, an' young enough to be sorry o'er. An' so when he come across her takin' a beating like a mule he could na stand it; an' the only way he could be sure o' putting an end to it was by maken' a bargain; an' that's just what he did, an' a'most afore he had time to take thought, the girl was his, an' he had to tek her with him. Well," and the old man laughed comically at the remembrance, "you should ha' seen him at the comin' home!—tried to get her off his hands by leavin' her an' a quitclaim at my cabin; but I'd have none o' that—no half-breed woman could stay under a roof o' mine; an' the finish o' it was he hed to bring her here to keep house for him, an' a rueful commencement it was. Then it was but a short while 'til he got hurt one day in the tunnel, an' took a deal o' care before he was on his feet again. Well, ye know womankind make natural nurses, an' by the time she had him on the right trail again he had got o' the mind that Talapa was a necessity o' the cabin; an' so ye may know she stayed."
"In what tunnel was he injured?" asked Stuart.
"Why, just—"
"There's your horse ranging calmly up toward the timber," observed Rachel, turning from the window to Stuart. "Do you want to walk to the ranch?"
"Well, not to-day;" and a moment later he was out of the door and running across the terraced meadow.
"Don't tell him too much about the tunnel," suggested the girl, when she and the old man were alone.
"Why, lass,"—he began; but she cut him short brusquely, keeping her eye on the form on the hill-side.