"Understand me, I'm on the square. So think it over, and don't go up in the air like a sky-rocket."
She cried out at him to "Go—go—go!" and finally he took up his bundle, saying, as he stepped out slowly:
"All right! But I'm coming back, and you'll have to listen to me. I don't mind being called a squaw-man. You're pretty near white, and you're good enough for me. I'll treat you right—why, I'll even marry you if you're dead set on it. Sure!"
She could scarcely breathe, but checked her first inclination to call Poleon, knowing that it needed only a word from her to set that nut-brown savage at Runnion's throat. Other thoughts began to crowd her brain and to stifle her. The fellow's words had stabbed her consciousness, and done something for her that gentler means would not have accomplished; they had opened her eyes to a thing that she had forgotten—a hideous thing that had reared its fangs once before to strike, but which her dreams of happiness had driven out of her Eden. All at once she saw the wrong that had been done her, and realized from this brute's insult that those early fears had been well grounded. It suddenly occurred to her that in all the hours she had spent with her lover, in all those unspeakably sweet and intimate hours, there had never been one word of marriage. He had looked into her eyes and vowed he could not live without her, and yet he had never said the words he should have said, the words that would bind her to him. His arms and his lips had comforted her and stilled her fears, but after all he had merely made love. A cold fear crept over the girl. She recalled the old Corporal's words of a few weeks ago, and her conversation with Stark came back to her. What if it were true—that which Runnion implied? What if he did not intend to ask her, after all? What if he had only been amusing himself? She cried out sharply at this, and when Doret staggered in beneath a great load of skins he found her in a strange excitement. When he had finished his accounting with the Indian and dismissed him, she turned an agitated face to the Frenchman.
"Poleon," she said, "I'm in trouble. Oh, I'm in such awful trouble!"
"It's dat Runnion! I seen 'im pass on de store w'ile I'm down below." His brows knit in a black scowl, and his voice slid off a pitch in tone. "Wat he say, eh?"
"No, no, it's not that. He paid me a great compliment." She laughed harshly. "Why, he asked me to marry him." The man beside her cursed at this, but she continued: "Don't blame him for liking me—I'm the only woman for five hundred miles around—or I was until this crowd came—so how could he help himself? No, he merely showed me what a fool I've been."
"I guess you better tell me all 'bout dis t'ing," said Poleon, gravely. "You know I'm all tam' ready for help you, Necia. Wen you was little feller an' got bust your finger you run to me queeck, an' I feex it."
"Yes, I know, dear Poleon," she assented, gratefully. "You've been a brother to me, and I need you now more than I ever needed you before. I can't go to father; he wouldn't understand, or else he would understand too much, and spoil it all, his temper is so quick."
"I'm not w'at you call easy-goin' mese'f," the Canadian said, darkly, and it was plain that he was deeply agitated, which added to the girl's distress; but she began to speak rapidly, incoherently, her impulsiveness giving significance to her words, so that the man had no difficulty in following her drift. With quick insight he caught her meaning, and punctuated her broken sentences with a series of grave nods, assuring her that he knew and understood. He had always known, he had always understood, it seemed.