“You kill up these whitemen?” she cried. “These folks who’ve just come along up the river? No,” she said, suddenly sobering, and shaking her head. “If you kill them you kill me, too. They’re all my good friends, Usak. An’ if you hurt a hair of their heads I’ll just hate you to death for ever an’ ever.”
It was a tense moment. The man had come to a standstill, staring incredulously down at the fair-haired creature who was his whole earthly delight. For all her laugh there was fear in the Kid’s heart. The impulse had been irresistible. There could be no half measures. The situation had called for strong and definite challenge.
“You say him this?” The man’s tone was like the threatening growl of a wild beast. “This whitemans all your good friend? I tell you—No! Him mans your enemy. Him come steal all things what are yours. Him river. Him land. Him—gold. Usak know plenty much. Him no damfool Injun man. Oh, no. Him wise plenty. Him say this whitemans no good friend. Only big thief come steal all thing. So I kill ’em up, sure.”
The Kid breathed a deep sigh. The joy of this wild man’s return had lost its glamour. Deepening fear gripped her heart. And it was for the whiteman with the grey eyes that smiled so gently, and reflected so clearly the big, honest soul behind them.
“You just got to listen, Usak,” she cried urgently, stifling the fear which was striving to display itself in eye and voice. “An’ when I’ve done my talk you’ll need to quit that wicked spirit that’s always wanting to kill when folks offend you. I didn’t know you’d had time to locate these folks. But it don’t matter a thing. I tell you they’re friends—of mine. I’ve known Bill Wilder since two summers back. I found him in trouble with his outfit on the river below the rapids, and passed him right up through the channel on his way north. And I asked him right then, when he got along down, to come up the Caribou an’ make a friendly visit. He’s come along because I asked him. He’s my friend an’—”
“You lak him, this man? Him your man? You marry him same lak Pri-loo was my woman?”
The man’s tone had changed to one of simple wonder and almost of incredulity. His understanding had only one interpretation for a man and woman’s friendship, and perhaps he was the wiser for it. But his savage, untutored directness of expression sent the hot blood of shame to the simple girl’s cheeks. The yellow lamp-light revealed the flushed cheeks and the half closed eyelids that sought to defend the woman’s secret from the man’s searching gaze.
The Kid shook her head, and denial cost her an effort. “It’s not that way with white-folk,” she said endeavouring to evade direct denial. “Maybe I just like him. He’s big, an’ strong, an’ good. I like his talk. So I think Mum an’ the children like him, too.”
“So you say this man to come by Caribou—that you see him some more? Oh, yes. So white mother Hesther may lak him, too? An’ those others?”
The man’s eyes were no longer fierce. They were smiling derisively out of his savage wisdom.